Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

this document, are also the backbone of the Letter of James (1:2 2- 27 and 2:9- 1 1). The same can be
said for allusions to 'stubbornness of heart" and 'Riches'.
In Line 11 of Fragment 1, a new expression is introduced, the Angels of Mastemoth. Based on imagery
in Hos. 9:7 -8, which, interestingly enough, is preceded by a reference to that 'visitation' mentioned in
the Messiah of Heaven and Earth text above and echoed in the Damascus Document, it is based on a
variation of the parallel 'Satan', meaning 'to hate', 'be hostile', or 'oppose'. These are obviously the same
fallen Angels or heavenly 'Watchers' prominent in Enoch and the Damascus Document. The mastema
usage moves into the Pseudo-clementine literature (Hellenistic novels ascribed to Peter's assistant
Clement, achieving their final form in the third to fourth century AD) as the 'hostile man', 'enemy', or
'adversary' terminology (apparently applying to Paul, i.e. 'the enemy of God'; cf. James 4:5 discussing
Abraham as 'the friend of God'). Here the allusion can be understood as the 'Angels of Darkness' or the
'Enemy Angels'.
The chronology of this apocalypse to a certain extent follows jubilees and brings us down to the same
period presaged in the Damascus Document. There is also direct reference to the 'seventy years' of
Dan. 9:2. The only question is whether the chronology followed by these literary practitioners is any
more exact than that encountered in Josephus or Talmudic traditions, which is often not reliable at all.
Do they have a clear idea of seven jubilees in absolute chronological terms?
There is also an anti-priestly thrust to the apocalypse, in the sense that as in Ezekiel the priests have
been 'warned', but their breaking of the Law and the Covenant, robbing of Riches, and violence goes
even as far as 'polluting the Temple'. Whether this relates to a pre-Maccabean, the Maccabean, or the
Herodian period is difficult to say, but the unbending, nationalist and anti-corruption stance is
constant. Nor is this stance particularly retiring or uninterested in the affairs of men.