Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

'obscure Mysteries' - even 'the Mystery of Being' or 'the Mystery of Existence'. There can be no
mistaking that some of these same images are also being evoked in medieval Jewish mystical texts.
The famous philosophical treatise by the celebrated Avicebron (the eleventh-century Jewish mystic
poet Ibn Gabirol mentioned above) is, as we have seen, given this title. His poems are even more
redolent with this kind of imagery - the most famous of these, The Crown of the Kingdom, repeatedly
evokes 'Angels', 'the Throne', 'Secrets', 'Mysteries', 'Mighty Wonders', 'storehouses', 'Righteousness',
'the Kingdom', etc. The sense of the Mystery of Existence text also has overtones with the quasimagical
treatise of the early centuries AD, the Book of the Mysteries (Sefer Ha-Razim), though its
vocabulary is less magical.
We also encounter allusions to the 'Eternal Planting' (1.13), which one finds in crucial passages of the
Damascus Document, the Community Rule and Hymns. In this regard, one should see the key allusion
in CD,i.7 to 'the root of Planting from Aaron and Israel'. In 1QH,vi.15 and viii.6-10, this is combined
with 'Branch' and 'Fountain' imagery. In 1QS,xi, it is tied to the imagery of 'the Fountain of
Righteousness', 'Perfection of the Way', 'justification' and the Community Council joining 'the sons of
Heaven' as a 'Building of Holiness'. One should compare this 'building' imagery with Paul's description
of himself as the 'architect' in 1 Cor. 3:6-17. Using 'planting' and 'husbandry' imagery here too, he
describes his community as 'the building of God'.
In Line 1 of Fragment 1 of this text, as we have reconstructed it, the addressees are instructed, as per
Community Rule and Damascus Document parameters, 'to separate themselves'. They are compared to
'a Fountain' or 'an Eternal Fountain' (1. 13), and Paul's spiritualized 'Temple' imagery that the
Community Rule applies, as noted above, to the Community Council, is exemplified in the reference
to the hearer here as 'a Holy of Holies' (1.4). The addressees are also, it would appear, here and later,
given the power of intercession: 'He has given you authority' (1.15; also 10.13 'He has given you
authority over an inheritance of Glory').
Perhaps most interestingly, directly after the command in Line 8 to 'love Him', God's 'eternal Hesed'
('Piety') is called down upon all 'the Keepers' (1.8). We have elsewhere identified this 'Piety'
commandment - loving God - as the first of the two 'love' commandments. With regard to it, one
should also see James. 1:12 discussing to 'the Crown of Life which the Lord has promised those who
love him', directly followed in the next Chapter by citation of the 'Righteousness' commandment, 'love
your neighbour as yourself (2:8). This 'the Keeper' theme too - here 'the Keepers of His word' - should
by now be familiar. It is also, as we have seen, a theme in the early passages in the Letter of James,
where much of the language of this treatise can be paralleled, and in the definition in the Community
Rule of 'the sons of Zadok', i.e. 'the Keepers of the Covenant'. It is paralleled, too, in the Hymns of the
Poor above, by a variant related to the terminology 'Nazoraean' / 'Nazarene'.
The 'Fountain' imagery continues into Fragment 2, and after a reference to 'the Righteous' in Fragment
3, Fragment 4 launches into another splendid description of the Last Judgement. Using 'Light' imagery
and 'walking in Eternal Light' to describe the lot of the 'seekers after Truth' - also called 'the Elect of
Truth' paralleling similar descriptions of 'the sons of Zadok' in the Damascus Document - the most
splendid imagery of 'the Foundations of the Universe shouting out judgement' is used. This powerful
allusion is followed by reference to 'the Secret of the Pillars'. Imagery of this kind not only calls to
mind characterization of 'the Zaddik' in Zohar, 59b on Noah, as 'the Foundation of the universe', but
also Paul's reference to the central leadership triad, including James the just, as 'these Pillars' in Gal.