Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

was slowly moving in relation to the sun. This discovery indicated that over a period of some 2,100
years the sun would move from sign to sign across the zodiac. Thus it would not always rise in the
sign of Aries and, long ago, it had not. From about 4500 to 2100 BC, the sun had risen in Taurus. By
assigning Taurus the first place in the list of signs, this Qumrân work is advocating an astrological
system based on the Creation. According to the system of Biblical chronology to which the author of
this work adhered, God had created the world and the heavenlies some time during the period of
Taurus' prominence. Probably he believed that the Creation occurred in the fifth millennium BC.
Astrological texts that attempt to build up a sort of horoscope for the world itself are known by the
term thema mundi - perhaps an appropriate term for the work at hand.
We have used here the familiar Latin equivalents to the names of the months and signs in Aramaic.
The last lines of the preserved text from Fragment 2 Column 2 contain some interesting textual
information. Even in this genre of literature, the nationalistic and xenophobic sentiments so
characteristic of Qumran as a whole are discernible: 'If it thunders on a day when the moon is in
Gemini, it signifies fear and distress caused by foreigners', or the line preceding it 'nations will
plunder one another' (italics ours). Though Greek texts of this genre express themselves in a not
unsimilar manner, it is helpful to look at some of these allusions in a broader context.
The use of the word 'aural in Line 7 is an interesting one. Here and elsewhere we translate it as
'suffering'. It is an important concept at Qumran. It is also important in early Christianity, because it
occurs in the pivotal 'suffering servant' passage of Isa. 53 - referred to in relation to the Messianic
Leader Text in Chapter 1 and elsewhere - i.e. the 'aural of his soul (nephesh - see the use of this word
tied to Ebion in the Hymns of the Poor and elsewhere above) . . . and by his Knowledge will my
servant, the Righteous One, justify the Many and bear their sins.'
The term is also used in the Habakkuk Pesher, viii.2 in the eschatological exegesis of 'the Righteous
shall live by his faith' (Hab. 2:4), which is so important both to Qumran and in Pauline theology (cf.
Gal. 3:11 which also mentions Gen. 15:6). Since it is also used thereafter to describe the 'empty' effect
of the 'worthless service' and 'works of Lying' with which 'the Spouter of Lies' leads the Community
astray in x.12, we have tried to emphasize this eschatological dimension by translating it as 'suffering
works'.
The emphasis on thunder in this eschatological scheme is also of interest in view of the many notices
to 'rainmaking' connected in the literature. This includes the early Honi the Circle-Drawer, who
operated as a 'rainmaker' in the period of Aristobulus, the son of Alexander Jannaeus, just prior to
Pompey's storming of the Temple in 63 BC. This Honi, Josephus revealingly also calls Onias the Just.
As Josephus records it, Honi refused to condemn the partisans of Aristobulus, who, demonstrating
their zeal and opposition to foreign rule, were holding out against the Romans in the Temple; he rather
condemned the Phariseeizing collaborators of his brother Hyrcanus (Ant. 14.22-5). These, the reader
will recall, support both the coming of the Romans and by consequence, the rise of the Herodian
family that ensues.
As we have seen in our consideration of Priestly Courses III Aemilius Kills - this is an archetypical
moment for the definition of the Qumran mindset and ethos, and crucial historiographically for an
understanding of their development. The reference in 2.2.8 of the Brontologion to 'Arabs' is also