Posted by PS on December 14, 2004 at 12:43:08:
In Reply to: Re: 4Q521 posted by cav on December 14, 2004 at 02:25:10:
: I'm sort of speaking out of ignorance here, as i don't know much about the dead sea scrolls, but the post springed something I often think about and I wondered if anyone had thoughts on it. Strict evangelicals among other relatively conservative denominations in the world of Christendom say that the Bible is the inspired word of God. (Some take this to the extreme, but I don't want to go there.) What I'm getting at is this: Is there any reason to think that there would not also be other inspired texts? (second caveat: I don't want to debate the validity of other religions here...sorry if it sounds harsh, I'm just being specific for sake of PS's and everyone else's time.) If the subject text from the Dead Sea Scrolls comes from an unknown source that was widely accepted as valid prophecy in it's day, and even refered to by Jesus in the scene with John's disciples, it seems this lends validity to the idea that this and other such texts might be inspired as well. This seems very reasonable to me, and I am unaware of any Biblical reason that would prohibit such things.
Nor am I, as long as it does not depart from the sacred traditions.
: The only problem would be to then determine which texts were inspired and which weren't, which I guess was what sprung the whole Catholic/ protestant Bible thing. But in my mind, careful discernment and connection with a community of consent should be sufficient to determine what is in line with what we know to be God's character.
Community of consent. You said a mouthful.
: My personal inclination is that "Inspiration" isn't so much of a factor when we approach text from a classic Contemplative direction. From this perspective we appraoch everything with the understanding that the Living God will reveal the truth in it through his Spirit. Therefore, even secular popular movies can become "inspired," in a way, when God reveals something about himself to us through it. But then this school of thought isn't exactly the one running the big theological institutions now is it.
I would agree that inspiration cannot be the foundational issue; it is hopelessly confused by the many sources of non-canonical inspiration and because of the various definitions of the term inspired, which range all the way from warmly encouraged to divinely possessed. Rather, authority and infallibility seem to be the real issues when we deal with such texts and seek to determine which are canonical and extracanonical. To start from a less confused vantage point, the real and definable issues here are sacredness and canon.
"Inspired" and "authoritative" and "infallible" are three different understandings (or degrees, for some) of how a text can be sacred. Infallibility as we define it does not come about till much later in disputes peculiar to Christianity, especially in the Enlightenment and Reformation eras, and more recently in the Fundamentalist reaction to the marginalization of religion in the last century. To anachronistically apply these ideas of infallibility to the situation in the intertestamental period would be to hopelessly confuse the issue.
My first suggestion is that we need to term the ancient texts in question as "sacred," and then try to define that in each situation. Sacredness, by definition, would imply some kind of divine inspiration and authority, but determining exactly what that meant and to whom is beyond us, unless some internal or external evidence illuminates what sacredness meant to those who produced, possessed, copied, or adhered to the texts. This can be a real mystery when you find a library like that at Qumran which clearly holds their own sectarian documents as well as texts that were used by other Jews of the period. To blur the hard and fast delineation here, the doctrines contained in less sectarian-looking texts could still be their own sectarian views, and doctrines in more sectarian-appearing texts could still represent views that were widely held. The process to make determinations regarding these issues is complex and much of the evidence ambiguous. Of course, the thing that will cut through this kind of confusion is the eventual declaration of canonicity. We do not have that kind of recorded declaration at this time, and it will not come for a few hundred years yet.
Canon means "reed." The town "Cana" in Galilee where the Gospel wedding was held was actually named "Reeds," presumably because there were reeds there. Reeds were also used as measuring rods, like we would use yardsticks. The word reed also acquired the meaning of the "measure" or the "standard" by which another thing would be judged. Thus, the "Canon" is the standard of what is authoritative for use in church doctrine. This does not necessarily restrict the sacredness or inspiration of other documents, just their universal acceptance as authoritative.
The early Christian church was not alone in dealing with the issue of rapidly multiplying sacred texts considered inspired by certain groups. There was a growing need to have a universal corpus of sacred, inspired texts that would be considered authoritative by all, and to close the canon (those writings that would be held authoritative as scripture) to any additional texts. The Jews also were faced with this challenge, and a little bit earlier than the Christians. Their canon was apparently being codified as early as 90 AD/CE, and the canon certainly was closed by 200. This was at least a couple hundred years before the Christians definitively stated their canon.
Now back to the intertestamental period. There were dozens of non-Biblical writings available that were considered sacred, as can be evidenced by their meticulous recopying and memorization, and their use as references in other texts (including many Biblical books). We see some even in the New Testament; the book of 1Enoch is a really interesting example. It is quoted by Jude and used by Peter, and is clearly known to John as well, having many of the same apocalyptics elements found in the Revelation. Here is the real kicker--the Essenes also held 1Enoch in high regard.
The Qumran community, like the Christians, were an apocalyptic community. They believed themselves to be in the last days, and their peshers (interpretations) of the Torah, Prophets, and David (Psalms) revolve around their own reality and their hope. They were the faithful few called out from among the many in the last days, and soon the end would come and they would be vindicated. It is no wonder that books like 1Enoch would be favorites with them. 1Enoch not only claims antediluvian authorship from a man chosen and separated by God for his righteousness, but presents the judgment of God in the flood as a foreshadow of the final judgment to come. Thus, the Essenes could connect the oldest traditions in Moses to their present state of being called out and separated by God, awaiting the imminent end-time battle and judgment.
Apparently 1 Enoch also held a similar attraction for the early church. The early Christian community was founded on the hope of the Parousia (reappearing of Christ) and, like the Essenes, believed the end was near. Like the Essenes, they interpreted the Torah, Prophets, and David apocalyptically, according to their present reality and their imminent hope, that is, according to the revelation of Jesus of Nazareth as the promised Messiah and the final judgment over which he would soon preside. Jude 14-15 quotes 1Enoch 1:9 as referring to the present intruders in the church that were destined soon to be destroyed in the coming judgment. In the spirit of 1Enoch, 2Peter 3:5-7 uses God's judgment in the Noachic Flood as a testimony of the upcoming final judgment (addressing doubts about the delayed Parousia). Of course, the many references to the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Ancient of Days, the opened book of judgment, disobedient spirits, etc., make much of 1Enoch read like The Revelation of John, or Daniel, for that matter. Clearly John had access to both.
So we have Peter, Jude, and John ascribing some kind of sacred authority to 1Enoch. The Essenses also did so. How much of the Judaism of the era also held this to be a sacred book? Or to use the scholarly terminology, how many of the Judaisms of the time held this to be sacred? (As a side note, I think it is the Egyptian Orthodox church that holds 1Enoch to be canonical.)
Now another important issue is that of interpretation. All apocalyptic groups ascribed hidden meanings to ancient prophecies, believing that the texts were speaking to them in their current time, which was, necessarily, the Last Days. This is a general rule you can bank on. Now, when you get to the issue of authority, it is not just the text that you are dealing with; it is the interpretation of it. The text is sacred and inspired, yes. But many who will agree on inspiration will disagree on the interpretation of it.
The eventual need for canon is more than determining the texts that will be included; it is the need to establish the standard intepretations of the texts. (And we immediately think of all the councils to iron out the tricky issues of Christology and Trinity, etc.)
The real problem in the intertestamental period is that we do not have any statement of what was considered canon. The issue was not articulated as such; clearly various groups adhered to different documents and beliefs, and to them, these sacred texts were their canon, or standard. We already know of the main groups existing at the time through the writings of Josephus, Pliny, and Philo, not to mention the Gospels and Acts. We know, for instance, that the Sadducess held to Torah only, and did not believe in resurrection or angels or coming apocalypse, for instance. No problem concluding that the Sadducees did NOT consider the 4Q521 Messianic Apocalypse at Qumran sacred or inspired. But here is the tricky part. Though the Essenses, the Pharisees, the Zealots, and the Nazarenes (Christians) strongly disagreed on interpretations of texts, they all believed in many of the same sacred texts (and this could be one of them). But what they considered authoritative is what they believed the texts were saying.
This applies to both the prophetic and the halakhic texts. Remember the various times in the Gospels where Jesus and the Pharisees differed about the interpretation of a law or a tradition? Well, add the Essenes and the Sadducees, who each had different views, to the equation. It gets complex. Now add the Zealots, who are ready to start a war for their interpretation. We are still left not knowing about the viewpoints of the LARGEST group of all -- the Am ha'Aretz, the common people ("people of the land"), who are not producing any documents.
This quick barrage of data may seem confusing, but it may suffice to make a few points. There was no uniform Judaism of the time; there were rather a number of distinct Judaisms. The same is true to a great degree regarding the diversity of early Christianity (though some church traditions will try to hide this fact at any cost lest the authority of their traditions be questioned). There were many texts considered sacred by various Judaisms and by various Christianities that were never canonized by Rabbinical Judaism in the period after Bar Kochba or by the Catholic Councils in the period after Constantine.
The best we can do to define what was sacred or authoritative is to use the evidence we have. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are clearly sectarian and apply only to the Qumran sect. Some are sectarian, but seem to more widely apply to the Essenes at large. Some are more widely utlized, as testified by their inclusion in other libraries or their use as references in other texts, though the Qumranites clearly had distinctive interpretations of them, many of which are recorded and preserved in documents called peshers (interpretive commentaries, as noted above). Some are correspondences that also evidence what they agreed with, and perhaps more often, what they did not, such as the letter 4QMMT that was apparently sent as a rebuke of the priesthood at Jerusalem.
I will force myself to quit here. My conclusion (though certainly not developed well in such a quick barrage of unedited typing) is that there were many sacred texts that we do not know of, and some that we know of but do not have available. 4Q521 is in harmony with the messianic hopes articulated in Isaiah (which all but the Sadducees accepted as authoritative), which Jesus announced in the Nazareth synagogue as defining his ministry. 4Q521 is also in harmony with the expected signs Jesus lists when conversing with the disciples of John Baptist, leaving no doubt that he expected John to recognize these signs, and that they were clearly well known. 4Q521 provides a connection between the words of Jesus and Isaiah that we never had before -- a source document proving that the messianic expectation included the sign of raising the dead. This is a major find. Where did this sacred teaching come from? Was 4Q521 the sacred document itself, or was it just quoting or restating another lost sacred document? We cannot tell. They forgot to leave notes for the scholars 2000 years later trying to figure it out.