Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Having become accustomed to the emphasis on free will in Jewish apocalyptic, it is natural to try to determine the attitude of the covenanters to such a doctrine; and here there are some surprises. At first glance the Dead Sea Scrolls seem to repeat the apocalyptic pattern. They hold that the patriarchs were blessed because of their choices. Abraham did not choose his own will (lit. he did not choose the will of his own spirit, CD 4.2), and, having kept God’s commandments, he handed them on to Isaac and Jacob, who also kept them and were recorded as friends of God (CD 4.3). Although God chooses the sons of Zadok (1QSb 3.23), they are credited with walking in the way God chose (3.24f.). Members of the community are exhorted to choose what God approves, shunning the evil ‘inclination’ (CD 3.1f.; cf. 1QS 1.3f.). The explicit purpose for the writing of 1QS is that the saints may seek God (1.1). Indeed, at the time of the affliction, the prince of the congregation will establish God’s holy law with those who seek him (1QSb 5.23). There is need for perseverance: only the ones who hold fast to God are (heading) for the life of eternity (CD 5.6; cf. 1QH 2.21f.; 14.25f.; 15.10). Conversely, the reason for the fall of the mighty men of old was that they did their own will and did not keep the commandments of their Maker (CD 3.7; 4.5, 7, 9f.; 4QF1 1.17). Each chose the stubbornness of his heart (CD 9.18), for sinners act high-handedly against revealed things (1QS 5.11f.).
Men within the community are chosen by other community members (often priests) for certain posts (1QSa 1.16, 20). In the eschatological war, the fighting men will be chosen (1QM 2.7); but on the other hand, only those who are freely willing of heart to fight are considered eligible (1QM 10.5f.). Indeed, this ‘willingness of heart’ is required of all who wish to join the community (e.g. 1QS 1.8, 11; 5.1, 6, 8; 6.13). To belong to the covenant community, the candidate ‘must not only be a member of the chosen people; a free act of choice is also necessary’. Provisions for the excommunication of backsliding members entail similar responsibilities (1QS 7.22–5).
But a closer inspection reveals that the DS lay no stress on free will in any formulated sense. Within that context, it is difficult to see how any of the above expressions differ very greatly from Old Testament parallels. Before too hastily assuming that merit theology is operating here, broader aspects of the sovereignty-responsibility tension must be examined.
Some of the community’s rigid code of law is a reiteration of Mosaic law; but some of it is more strict (especially in CD), and not a little flows from the fact that the community is, after all, a religious hermitage where asceticism and a rigid ranking system prevail (cf. 1QS 5–9). Perhaps the stringency of Qumran rules and the inherent difficulty in keeping them all enhance the theme of God’s judgment. God is seen to act as the sovereign Judge not only in history (CD 1.9–17; 2.4; 4QDibHam 5.3ff.) but especially in the eschatological judgment to come (e.g. CD 9.2f. ( & ); 1QS 2.4ff.; 1QH 4.18–21; and the very essence of 1QM). Indeed, divine judgment in the past is the paradigm of the final judgment (1QM 11.9f.) when the living God will render to each man his reward (1QS 10.18) and destroy from the earth all idolatrous and wicked men (1QpHab 12.2–4 (on 2:19f.)).
Yet, surprisingly, this rigid legal code produces little legalistic self-righteousness. Especially in Hodayoth there is constant emphasis on the fact that men are but creatures of clay (1QH 4.29ff.; 10.4–7; 11.3ff.; etc.). Sometimes this is explicitly related to the inability of such creatures to understand God’s ways (7.32f.; 15.21), sometimes as a starting point for sheer praise (11.3ff.; 12.27ff.), and not infrequently as a formula summing up human sinfulness (1QH 1.22f.; 3.23f.; 12.27–32). This acknowledgement of profound guilt is not restricted to the ‘creature of clay’ sayings. Within Hodayoth, ‘[it] is a view that is consistently maintained and that is more pessimistic than one usually encounters in Hebrew-Jewish writings’. Indeed, it may be argued that this perspective permeates all of the Qumran scrolls. The goodness of God and the sinfulness of man are contrasted more than once (1QS 10.23f.; 1QH 1.6, 26f.; 17.18ff.). Frequently the sinfulness of man, both generally and personally, is bemoaned, often in the richest language (e.g. CD 1.6; 1QS 11.9–11; 1QH 1.25f.; 4.33–6; 5.5f.; 12.19; 4QDibHam 2.15; 5.3ff.). Praise erupts from a Qumran psalmist because he has not been judged according to his guilt, nor been abandoned despite the intentions of his yṣr; rather, he has been saved from the pit (1QH 5.5f.). Those who enter the Qumran community begin by confessing their sins (1QS 1.24f.). Their God is the One wealthy in forgiveness to pardon those who repent (CD 1.6f.; 2.3; 9.50–54( ); 1QS 11.12ff.; 1QH 14.24). Generally, then, the exclusiveness of the sect and its belief in election (on which see infra) do not lead to pride, because ‘an acute sense of sinfulness’ contributes an important part to its total theological make-up.
Concomitant with this consciousness of sin is a remarkable awareness of the need for and sufficiency of the grace of God (e.g. 1QS 11.12; 1QH 4.30–32, 37–40; 7.16ff.; 12.11f.; 18.19f.; 1QM 11.4): the covenanters have not been treated according to their works but according to the divine mercies. Elsewhere God is praised for opening his servant’s heart to knowledge (1QS 11.15f.), for engraving the law on the heart (1QH 4.10). The Most High is addressed by the writer of 1QS 10.12 as ‘Author of my goodness’ as well as ‘Fountain of knowledge’ and ‘source of holiness’. God remembered his covenant and raised up from Aaron men of understanding and made them hearken (CD 8.3f.). Holy things are known only because God desires it (1QH 1.8, 21; 7.26; 11.9f.); and even then the covenanters have listened only by the spirit which God has given them (1QH 12.11f.). It is God who is the source of wisdom, righteousness, justification (1QS 11.7f.; 1QH 4; 16.11), enabling the Qumran psalmist, like his canonical counterpart, to acknowledge that God set his feet on a rock (1QH 4.3f.). The unknown psalmist praises God for not casting his ‘lot’ in the congregation of vanity, but instead giving him grace and forgiveness (1QH 7.34f.). After thus sparing his elect, it is still God who delivers them from sinning against him (4QDibHam 2.16). The same positive divine ultimacy is recognised in the testimonies of privilege (1QH 2.9, 13; 8.16) as in the invocations (1QS 2.2–4; 1QSb 4.27); and the war standards (1QM 3f.) show that the eschatological conflict is the Lord’s (1QM 11.1, 5) who teaches the hands of his people to war (1QM 14.6).
Qumran’s heavy stress on election simply completes this pattern. The covenanters are God’s elect, God’s chosen ones (1QS 11.7f.; 1QpHab 9.9–12 (on 2:8b)). In one place the Qumran exegetes manage to invest the Scriptures with the precise opposite of their original import in order to find a reference to the elect (4QpPs 37.3:4f. (on 37:20)). The purifying of the covenanters God has undertaken for himself (4QDibHam 6.2–4). Just as God chose the covenanters (1QSb 1.3), placing their lives in the bundle of life (1QS 2.20f.), in the branches of the holy community (1QH 7.10), so also he chose the priests, the sons of Zadok (CD 6.2; 1QSb 3.23). Like Jeremiah (1:4) the elect are known from conception (1QH 9.29f.); indeed they were created to hearken to God’s covenant. Who is like God, and who is like the people Israel whom he has chosen (1QM 10.8f.)?
Yet not all of racial Israel has really been elected. History has shown that in every period of apostasy God has left himself a remnant, raised up men to know his Holy Spirit (CD 2.9f.); and he will certainly do this again in the future, raising up survivors and establishing them in his community, made up of all who share this common ‘lot’ (1QH 6.8–13). As G. Schrenk points out, especially in the War Scroll is election specifically narrowed to the remnant (e.g. 1QM 12.1; 13.7–10; 14.8–10). There is thus both a clear individualising of election (out of Israel) and an integrating of it (into the community). The former phenomenon occurs in the Old Testament; the latter, only in an incipient way. Perhaps the Qumran view of election emerged in part out of historical necessity: the Qumran covenanters grew numerically, not by the birth of members into the community, but by personal commitment; and so election could not be restricted to a divine choice of the race, but necessarily became individualised. In any case, Hodayoth goes on to insist in personal terms that God’s elect are divinely preserved (1QH 2.31, 35f.; 5.5; 7.6f.; 9.32; cf. 1QM 14.8–11).
It appears, then, that despite some exceptions which do indeed betray merit theology (notably 1QS 3.6ff.; 9.3ff.; 1QpHab 5.4–6; 8.1–3; 4QDibHam 6.4–13), the trend in the DS is toward a firm belief in sovereign, gracious election, even if such belief brings the sovereignty-responsibility tension back into the soteriological arena.
Positive ultimacy and gracious election are not the only elements of predestinarian thought in the DS . Reprobation is likewise taught. Passively, God did not choose certain men from the beginning of the world (CD 2.6f.). Actively, just as God created Belial for the pit (1QM 13.11), so he created the wicked for wrath, to be a sign and a wonder for all eternity (1QH 15.17f.) It is within this framework that men choose wickedness and are responsible creatures (1QH 15.18f.). These wicked men were not only created for the [end-times of] God’s [wr]ath, but are sanctified for the day of slaughter (1QM 15.14–19). Small wonder that the Teacher is not even to instruct the men of the pit (1QS 9.14–17). If after the eschatological struggle any remnant of the nations remains, it is only to do homage to Israel and to Israel’s God (1QM 11.15). In fact, the War Scroll assures us that no remnant will be left to the Kittim (1QM 1.6), which comes as no surprise when God’s people wave standards on which are the words, ‘Annihilation by God of all nations of vanity’ (1QM 4.12). In the Temple, no gr (proselyte?) will enter, but only God’s holy ones (4QF1 1.4). The Qumran covenanters are not open to universalism.1
Implicit in such teaching is the recognition that God’s ultimacy is not merely positive, it embraces the negative as well. Just as God’s goodness is the source of his forgiveness, so his wrath stands behind all chastisement (1QH 11.8f.). Righteousness does not come from man; but more, every yṣr is in God’s hand (1QH 15.12–14). The Most High, the Great God, the King of all worlds and Ruler of the sons of heaven, is not only God of Israel, but Governor of the creation, the Lord of history, the incomparably Wise and Powerful (1QapGen 2.4f.; 1QM 10.8–15; 11.1–4; 1QS 11.17–19; 1QH 10.8ff.). Without God’s will, nothing exists (1QH 10.2), and he has done all for himself (1QH 18.21f.). God knows all things (CD 2.8), and therefore his prophets predict accurately (e.g. CD 6.9ff.—whether or not we think Isaiah’s words are well served by the Zadokite interpretation; and in 1QM, the progress of the eschatological war is completely determined). God is eternal and so his ways are determined (1QH7.31f.). There is repeated emphasis on the fact that the times and cycles of years are numbered, fixed, appointed by the sovereign God (1QH 1.24f.; 1QM 1.10; 14.4f.; 17.5; 1QpHab 7.13). An apparently astrological fragment from Cave 4 confirms the conclusion that predestination/determinism was profoundly believed by the Qumran covenanters.1 Yet, lest God’s activity behind good and evil be thought symmetrical, 1QH 4.12f. makes it clear the fixedness of his ways enables him to despise Belial’s schemes.
As in the case of apocalyptic, Qumran eschatology is significantly related to the way divine sovereignty is understood. Whatever other features make up the eschatology of the scrolls, the most unavoidable theme is the conviction that the end is near and the covenanters are living in the last days. The covenanters are still living under the dominion of Belial during the period of the mysteries of malevolence (1QM 14.8–10),—even if there are some elements of realised eschatology in the DS 1 —but God has preserved his elect and not permitted them to stray from his covenant. In other words, as in apocalyptic, God’s sovereignty, conceived as his ‘ultimacy’, is preserved so that the one true God always remains in control; but his sovereignty, conceived as the consummation of his saving activity on behalf of his people (cf. 1QS 4.25), is still to come.
It is within the context of a study like the preceding that the ‘Two Spirits’ doctrine of Qumran is best understood. Although echoes of this doctrine are scattered here and there in the scrolls (e.g. 1QS 9.14f.(?); 1QH 14.11f.; 4Q ʾAmram), the crucial passage is 1QS 3.13–4.26, and it remains very difficult to interpret. There are two not-uncommon interpretations which do justice neither to the passage itself, nor to the corpus of the DS :
(i) It is possible to oversimplify and render rigid the accent on predestination. This is accomplished by pointing out, correctly, that God is represented in 1QS 3.13–4.26 as the Creator of both sides of the dualistic structure, and then arguing that the two sides, light and darkness, are virtually mutually exclusive. Every man is either a son of light or a son of darkness. In this debate 1QS 3.19 is crucial. Vermes translates: ‘Those born of truth spring from a fountain of light, but those born of falsehood spring from a source of darkness.’1 Burrows: ‘In the abode of light are the origins of truth, and from the source of darkness are the origins of error.’1 Leaney: ‘In a dwelling of light are the generations of truth and from a well of darkness come the generations of perversity.’1 The problematical term is twlḏwṯ. If the translation offered by Vermes is correct, the cleavage between the sons of light and the sons of darkness is absolute, so much so as to allow no struggle within the individual (although Vermes does allow it). But if the operative word means something like family/class/division/generation, then there is no necessary contextual contradiction. (Burrows’s effort to make the meaning impersonal is not convincing.) The context informs us that even the sons of light suffer from some admixture of error to be purged out at the renewal (4.25; cf. 3.21f., where the angel of darkness leads even the children of righteousness astray). Although each man’s inheritance (sc. of the spirit) governs the way he walks, the two spirits struggle within him. That God should thus stand behind both good and evil entails some mystery (3.23; 4.18); but this representation of Deity does not make him aloof and transcendent, for, on the positive side, he actively takes the part of the angel of truth in succouring the sons of light, and negatively, he loathes evil ways (3.24–4.1; cf. 1QH 6.20f.; 7.3f., where God commands the evil men to turn from their ways). This pattern is much closer to Old Testament thought than is other contemporary Jewish literature. It appears, then, that 1QS 3.13–4.26 divides mankind into two lots by an eternal divine decree, and ‘the whole conception is a corollary of God’s absolute sovereignty and man’s complete dependence upon him.’1 However, there is no oversimplified division.1 The elect still struggle; and God is portrayed both as transcendent Creator over all and as the Sovereign who sides with his angels of truth and loathes evil. This twofold conception of God is very strong, and the final synthesis awaits the new creation (4.25).
(ii) Some scholars continue to argue that Qumran texts in general, and 1QS 3.13–4.26 in particular, are virtually devoid of predestinatory thought. This remarkable conclusion is arrived at by one of two methods. The first begins by outlining all the elements in the DS which support notions of human freedom and responsibility, and ends by concluding that no doctrine of predestination is really compatible with all this evidence—all without seriously wrestling with the passages which argue for predestination.1 This is methodologically unacceptable. The second procedure is more subtle. It argues persuasively that the word ‘spirit’ is used in the psychological sense of ‘impulse’, rather than with cosmological meaning.1 The two spirits of Qumran are then likened to the two ‘inclinations’ of the rabbis.2 The dualism of 1QS 3.13ff. is then dismissed as merely ethical, with some such twentieth-century generalisation as: ‘1Q Serek iii, 15–17 refers to the immutability of the laws of nature and not to the predestination of the individual to sin, righteousness, damnation or salvation.’2 But more recently, there have been two excellent defences of the majority position.2 The dualism of Qumran is cosmological, but not absolutely so since God is the creator of all. It is also ethical and predestinarian, even though the cosmic dimensions of the struggle intrude into the heart of man (4.23). The passage ‘presents a modified cosmic dualism, under which is a subordinate ethical dualism, and whose most conspicuous characteristic is the light-darkness paradigm, and most pervasive feature is the eschatological dimension.’2 The dualism is a relative, ethico-cosmic dualism:2 relative, because it is limited to history, while monism stands over all and is absolute before history and at the end; ethical, in the sense that it governs during the period of its regency.
Whether or not 1QS 3.13–4.26 ‘exerted a great influence’ upon other Qumran passages, as A. R. C. Leaney suggests,2 it is clear that this passage fits into the whole pattern of the sovereignty-responsibility tension which permeates this literature. G. Maier argues, with some plausibility, that 1QS 3.13ff. was an attempted theodicy to solve the problem of evil; but, as he rightly observes, ‘the introduction of the teaching about two opposed spirits does not explain God’s sovereignty (Allwirk-samkeit), but only confirms it.’2
The question of function is abused by A. Marx. He points out that the most predestinatory comments in the DS emerge either in a context which seeks to explain why the covenanters differ from others—it is by God’s sovereign grace—or in hymns of praise, where one is likely to find extravagant descriptions of God’s activity. This observation by itself is correct; but on this basis he wants to write off the predestination of the DS .2 His argument will not stand up. The apocalyptists thought they were different, too, but attributed the difference largely to their own merit. And hymns must not be divorced from doctrine, because they are often the most innocent expression of it (cf. Phil. 2:6ff.).
There is no doubt that the various DS reflect slightly different positions on the sovereignty-responsibility tension. CD, for example, attenuates both the predestination and the sola gratia of 1QS and 1QH. Yet when all is said and done, Qumran’s view of the tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility ‘testifies to the virtual impossibility of being wholly deterministic or wholly voluntaristic in both theory and practice.’2
What is more important for the present study is the fact that the hitherto unbroken trend of development from the Old Testament to the Fourth Gospel has now been broken. It would have been very convenient to find in the Qumran covenanters the same pattern as in Jewish apocalyptic, the more so since the covenanters are often thought to be a more or less apocalyptic group. However, in this area they stand quite apart from contemporary theological developments in Jewish faith. With few exceptions among the Scrolls, merit theology is decisively rejected in favour of a restored emphasis on divine grace. This brings the sovereignty-responsibility tension back into the arena of soteriological predestination. At the same time the exclusiveness of the sect tends to squeeze out all possibility of hope for those who reject its theology: extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
Yet on second thought, this pattern at Qumran should not be unexpected. Theological development is seldom simply linear, and ‘discoveries’ of linear progression are too easily manufactured by a selective handling of the evidence. The covenanters constituted a disciplined, monastic sect, the sort of group that very easily sloughs off more recent traditions and seeks to return to the pristine source of inspiration. Hence they clung fast to the written law and would have none of the oral.2 Even their asceticism might be considered a throwback to the prophetic spirit.3 ‘The Essenes’ (sic) teaching on God, the world, and Man do not differ substantially from the Old Testament doctrine; they merely develop it.’3 They are, perhaps, somewhat more predestinarian than much of the Old Testament, at least in so far as they have introduced quasi-ontological categories into their relative dualism; but if the result does not form an entirely consistent picture, it must be remembered that ‘the people at Qumran were neither philosophers nor systematicians, but practitioners of a practical asceticism.’3