Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive
Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive
Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive
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It will be recalled that the term 'Many' was also used to describe 'the Priest commanding the Many' in<br />
the last column of the Damascus Document. But the Mebakker or Bishop is clearly described in<br />
Columns xiii-xiv of the published Cairo Damascus Document as being in absolute charge of 'the<br />
camps'; therefore our problem concerning the identity of the two is solved. If the desert 'camps' are<br />
'the camps of the Many' alluded to in passing in this text, then the Priest Commanding the Many and<br />
the Mebakker / Bishop commanding the camps are the same. Again, the references in early Church<br />
literature to James as 'Bishop of the Jerusalem Community' and 'high priest' are not irrelevant.<br />
It is also vivid testimony of the fact of the existence of the 'camps'. Here are actually two people who<br />
lived in them the 'inhabitants of the camps' so vividly alluded to in the last column of 4QD, 'Hananiah<br />
Nitos' and 'Hananiah ben Shim' . . . (presumably Shim'on or Shemaiah). Moreover, the rank and file of<br />
these 'camps' were actually referred to as 'the Many'. This is extremely moving, absolutely immediate<br />
testimony.<br />
Again we have an allusion to 'the Spirit of Radiance' of the kind seen in more ecstatic texts like the<br />
Son of Righteousness (Proverbs), the Chariots of Glory, and the Mystery of Existence in Chapters 5<br />
and 7. <strong>The</strong> allusion in Line 6 of the second column to 'turning aside' is also common in documents<br />
like the Damascus Document or the Community Rule, particularly when it comes to 'turning aside'<br />
from the Law or 'wandering astray in a trackless waste without a Way'. Such references are<br />
omnipresent.<br />
<strong>The</strong> allusion to 'reproved' in Line 9 ('reprove' in Line 2 Column 1) is not the same as 'expel' in more<br />
serious excommunications pronounced in 4QD above, the Community Rule, ii and the Chariots of<br />
Glory. <strong>The</strong> offenses treated in this record are not capital or excommunicable ones, but rather more in<br />
the nature of those listed in 1QS, vii or CD, xii-xv, presumably preceding 4QD. <strong>The</strong> allusion<br />
recapitulates one already encountered in Jacob's 'reproving' Reuben in the Genesis Florilegium's<br />
presentation of Reuben's violation of his father's bedroom arrangements. This is a record of 'picayune'<br />
disciplinary 'acts' kept by the Mebakker in his role presumably as 'Priest commanding the camps' in<br />
the last days.<br />
In Latin usage, the word 'acts' related to real administrative records kept by officials like governors,<br />
procurators and the like. Eusebius, for instance, in Ecclesiastical History 1.9.3 reveals that he knows<br />
about 'acts' circulating under Pontius Pilate's name in his own time - the 300s - purporting to be the<br />
real administrative records of that individual's procuratorship. <strong>The</strong> 'acts' or records we have before us<br />
in this disciplinary text are real administrative proceedings in contradistinction to some others of this<br />
genre, hence their thoroughly pedestrian and mundane tone.<br />
Finally the allusion to loving one's 'bodily emissions' recapitulates material about mourning and<br />
sexual matters in Purity Laws Type A in Chapter 6. It is completely in accord with the Qumran ethos<br />
as we have been following it. Reuben's 'reproval' also had to do with sexual indiscretions. It is in<br />
accord with the Qumran concern not to 'mix' with such individuals, because 'the Holy Angels were<br />
with them in their camps' - again the reason for the camps themselves. <strong>The</strong> allusion to the 'Holy<br />
Angels being in the camps' is to be found, as we have noted, in both the War Scroll and the Damascus<br />
Document - the former particularly with regard to keeping such impurities from the camp 'from the<br />
time they (the Holy Ones of the Covenant) leave Jerusalem and march out to war until they return'.