STUDIES IN THE D E A D SEA SCROLLS AND RELATED LITERATURE Peter W. Flint and Martin G. Abegg Jr., General Editors The Dead Sea Scrolls have been the object of intense interest in recent years, not least because of the release of previously unpublished texts from Qumran Cave 4 since the fall of 1991. With the wealth of new documents that have come to light, the field of Qumran studies has undergone a renaissance. Scholars have begun to question the established conclusions of the last generation; some widely held be- liefs have withstood scrutiny, but others have required revision or even dismissal. New proposals and competing hypotheses, many of them of an uncritical and sensational nature, vie for attention. Idiosyncratic and misleading views of the Scrolls still abound, especially in the popular press, while the results of solid scholarship have yet to make their full impact. At the same time, the scholarly task of establishing reliable critical editions of the texts is nearing completion. The opportunity is ripe, therefore, for directing renewed attention to the task of analysis and interpretation. S T U D I E S I N T H E D E A D SEA S C R O L L S A N D R E L A T E D L I T E R A T U R E i s a n e w s e - ries designed to address this need. In particular, the series aims to make the latest and best Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship accessible to scholars, students, and the thinking public. The volumes that are projected — both monographs and col- lected essays — will seek to clarify how the Scrolls revise and help shape our un- derstanding of the formation of the Bible and the historical development of Juda- ism and Christianity. Various offerings in the series will explore the reciprocally illuminating relationships of several disciplines related to the Scrolls, including the canon and text of the Hebrew Bible, the richly varied forms of Second Temple Judaism, and the New Testament. While the Dead Sea Scrolls constitute the main focus, several of these studies will also include perspectives on the Old and New Testaments and other ancient writings — hence the title of the series. It is hoped that these volumes will contribute to a deeper appreciation of the world of early Judaism and Christianity and of their continuing legacy today. P E T E R W . F L I N T M A R T I N G . A B E G G J R . The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins JOSEPH A. FITZMYER, S.J. W I L L I A M B . E E R D M A N S P U B L I S H I N G C O M P A N Y G R A N D R A P I D S , M I C H I G A N / C A M B R I D G E , U . K . © 2000 Wm. Β. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503 / P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 05 04 03 02 01 00 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Dead Sea scrolls and Christian origins / Joseph A. Fitzmyer. p. cm. — (Studies in the Dead Sea scrolls and related literature) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN-10: 0-8028-4650-5 / ISBN-13: 978-0-8028-4650-1 paper 1. Dead Sea scrolls — Criticism, interpretation, etc. 2. Dead Sea scrolls — Relation to the New Testament. I. Title. II. Series. BM487.F545 2000 296.15 ׳ — dc21 9-059276 www.eerdma11s.com Contents Preface vi Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations General Abreviations xi Abreviations of the Dead Sea Scrols and Related Texts xvi 1. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins: General Methodological Considerations 1 2. The Dead Sea Scrols and Early Christianity 17 3. The Aramaic "Son of God" Text from Qumran Cave 4 (4Q246) 41 4. The Background of "Son of God" as a Title for Jesus 63 5. Qumran Mesianism 73 6. A Palestinian Jewish Colection of Beatitudes 1 7. Aramaic Evidence Affecting the Interpretation of Hosanna in the New Testament 19 8. The Significance of the Qumran Tobit Texts for the Study of Tobit 131 9. The Qumran Texts of Tobit 159 10. The Aramaic Levi Document 237 1. The Qumran Comunity: Esene or Saducean? 249 12. The Gathering In of the Teacher of the Comunity 261 Indexes Ancient Writings 267 Modern Authors 279 Subjects 286 Preface Over the years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were first published in the early 1950s, I have been studying them and have published a number of books and articles devoted to them. Already published are two books that pertain to the study of the Scrolls. The first was The Dead Sea Scrols: Major Publications and Tools for Study (SBLRBS 20; rev. ed.; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990). This was mainly a bibliographical work, which sought to guide students to the many scattered places where scrolls and fragments found in the eleven caves of Qumran and other places in the Judean Desert had been published. That book is out of date today, and almost out of print. The second was intended for a more general audience, Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York/Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1992). It sought to answer many of the questions that I have been asked about the Dead Sea Scrolls over the decades ever since they became newsworthy. Some of them deal with Qumran texts themselves, others with the impact that the discovery of these Scrolls have made on the study of the Bible or the New Testament and early Christianity. I have also written a number of articles on various aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a few of them for scholarly discussion, but many others for more general readers. Some of the articles were lectures that I have given, which have surveyed the impact of the Scrolls on different aspects of the Bible and especially on New Testament study. Twelve of these studies are now brought together here in one volume. Some of the articles have appeared in periodi- cals and books that are not easily accessible. For this reason I have tried to gather the more important of such publications into this volume. All of these articles have been published before except one (Chapter 5, "Qumran Messi- anism"), which now appears here for the first time. All of the others have been reworked or slightly revised. In two instances (Chapter 3, "The Aramaic "Son of God" Text from Qumran Cave 4 [4Q246]" and Chapter 8, "The Signifi- cance of the Qumran Tobit Texts for the Study of Tobit") two earlier articles 011 the given topic have been combined. Consequently, the presentation in these cases now takes a new form in this volume. In all the articles I have sought to update the matter, taking into account more recent discussions of it by others. All of the articles are timely, and it is to be hoped that some of them will contribute to the ongoing debate about the Scrolls. In some cases I have changed the title of the article slightly, and the reader will find in the following list of acknowledgments the title under which the study originally appeared and the place of earlier publication. I am grateful to the editors and publishers of the works in which they originally appeared for their permission to reproduce them here in a revised form. I am also grateful to Michael Thomson, Daniel Harlow, and their col- leagues at Eerdmans Publishing Co. for their generous cooperation and help in making my manuscript into a proper book. J O S E P H A . F I T Z M Y E R , S . J . Professor Emeritus, Biblical Studies The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. 20064 Resident at: Jesuit Community Georgetown University P.O. Box 571200 Washington, D.C. 20057-1200 Acknowledgments Th a n k s are h e r e b y expres sed to t h e ed i to r s a n d p u b l i s h e r s w h o h a v e g r a n t e d p e r m i s s i o n fo r t h e r e p r i n t i n g of t h e f o l l o w i n g art ic les : Chapter 1, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins: General Methodological Considerations," appeared under the same title originally in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Faith: In Celebration of the Jubilee Year of the Discovery of Qumran Cave I (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and W. P. Weaver; Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press International, 1998) 1-19 and is used with the permission of the publisher. Chapter 2, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity," appeared under the same ti- tie in Theology Digest 42/4 (1995) 303-19 (the 39th Annual Bellarmine Lecture, Saint Louis University), used with the permission of the editor. Chapter 3, "The Aramaic 'Son of God ' Text f rom Q u m r a n Cave 4 (4Q246)," is a com- bination of two articles, "4Q246: The 'Son of God ' Documen t f rom Qumran," Biblica 74 (1993) 153-74, used with permission of Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, and "The Aramaic 'Son of God ' Text f rom Q u m r a n Cave 4," in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Re- alities and Future Prospects (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722; ed. M. O. Wise et a l ; New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994) 163-78, used with the permission of the editor of the Annals. Chapter 4, "The Background of 'Son of God ' as a Title for Jesus," appeared under the title, "The Palestinian Background of 'Son of God ' as a Title for Jesus," in Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts: Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman (ed. T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm; Oslo/Boston: Scan- dinavian University Press, 1995) 567-77 and is used with the permission of the publisher.