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Jesus, the Sadducees and Qumran1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

E. Earle Ellis
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Type
Short Studies
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New Testament Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , January 1964 , pp. 274 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

page 274 note 2 Cf. Matt. xxii. 23–33; Luke xx. 27–40. The fourfold scheme also occurs in the rabbinical writings, and it is possible that the ‘debates’ already formed a thematic collection in the pre-canonical Gospel tradition; cf. Daube, D., The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1956), pp. 158–63.Google Scholar

page 274 note 3 Cf. Dibelius, M., From Tradition to Gospel (London, 1934), p. 56Google Scholar; Bultmann, R., Die Geschichte der Synoptischen Tradition (Goettingen, 1931), pp. 25, 51Google Scholar; Taylor, V., The Gospel according to St Mark (London, 1959), p. 480. Bultmann's suggestion that vv. 26 f. were later coupled to the original story is possible but gratuitous. His more sweeping assertion that the whole debate reflects ‘nur die theologische Arbeit der Gemeinde’ will appeal to those who, on other grounds, are convinced of Bultmann's reconstruction of the formation of the Gospel tradition. Taylor thinks ‘the story preserves genuine tradition of the most primitive kind’. Cf. T.W.N.T. 51. The account is substantially the same in all the Synoptic Gospels. However, Luke (xx. 34–35a, 36, 38b) omits the Lord's two rebukes (cf. Mark xii. 24–7) and adds several explanatory phrases, possibly from a non-Markan tradition.Google Scholar

page 274 note 4 Cf. Nid. 70b; Sanh. 90a, b.

page 274 note 5 Cf. Strack, H. L. and Billerbeck, P., Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrash (Muenchen, 1922), 1, 887 ff.; 1QS iv. 7.Google Scholar

page 274 note 6 Cf. I Cor. xv. 50; Heb. xi. 35. The present passage is at variance with Christ's view of marriage in Mark x. 6 ff. There the messianic age apparently is viewed in terms of a restored (or consummated) Eden in which marriage has a place (cf. T.W.N.T. v, 764 ff.). If so, the indissoluble marriage presumably is understood to apply to the messianic community only in its pre-resurrection stage.

page 275 note 1 Swete, H. B., The Gospel according to Mark (Grand Rapids, 1951) (1913), p. 282.Google ScholarCf., more recently, Geldenhuys, N., The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, 1956), pp. 511 f.Google Scholar; Cranfield, C. E. B., St Mark (Cambridge, 1959), p. 376Google Scholar; Conzelmann, H., The Theology of St Luke (London, 1960), p. 166 nGoogle Scholar. Strawson, W. (Jesus and the Future Life, Philadelphia, 1959, p. 210) modifies this slightly by the unlikely assertion that for ‘Jesus and his contemporaries…immortality and resurrection were synonymous’Google Scholar. Even those Jews who affirmed a continuing life in the intermediate state never, as far as I am aware, referred to this as resurrection. The idea of ‘resurrection at death’ is a later development which perhaps has its origin in a gnostic-type Christian heresy. Cf. II Tim. ii. 18; Schmithals, W., Die Gnosis in Korinth (Goettingen, 1951), p. 71 n.Google Scholar

page 275 note 2 Cf. Bultmann, R., The Theology of the New Testament (London, 1952), 1, 209Google Scholar; Pedersen, J., Israel (London, 1959) (1926), 1–11, 180, 460 ff.Google Scholar; Robinson, J. A. T., The Body (London, 1952), pp. 14, 17Google Scholar; Ellis, E. E., ‘II Cor. v. 1–10 in Pauline Eschatology’, N.T.S. vi (1959–1960), 211–24.Google Scholar

page 275 note 3 Cf. Schniewind, J., Das Evangelium nach Markus (Goettingen, 1960) (1936), p. 125. The rabbis had a similar argument, based on Deut. xi. 9 and Exod. vi. 4Google Scholar. Cf. S.-Billerbeck, , op. cit. 1, 893 ff.Google Scholar

page 275 note 4 T.W.N.T. iii, 191 f.

page 275 note 5 This term has been used to identify a targumizing procedure in some Qumran and New Testament citations of the Old Testament in which the Old Testament text-form undergoes (1) an interpretive moulding, (2) ad hoc or with reference to selected textual traditions, (3) in order to apply it to a present-time eschatological fulfilment. Stendahl, K., The School of St Matthew (Uppsala, 1954), pp. 183–206Google Scholar; Ellis, E. E., Paul's Use of the Old Testament (Edinburgh, 1957), pp. 139–47. I believe that the same type of hermeneutical procedure has been used on some of Jesus’ sayings to apply them to the post-resurrection ‘eschatological present’ although, of course, probably without a selection from variant textual traditions. It is not inappropriate or an excessive broadening of the term to identify this kind of interpretative alteration in Jesus' sayings as a midrash pesherGoogle Scholar. Cf. also my article on Luke xi. 49–51 in Expository Times, 74 (1962–1963), 157 f. Fr. Lindars has suggested that any interpretive text-form be labelled a pesher textGoogle Scholar. Cf. Lindars, B., New Testament Apologetic (London, 1961), p. 15 n. It might be more useful, however, to restrict the term to text-forms meeting the above qualifications.Google Scholar

page 276 note 1 Cf. IV Macc. vii. 19; xvi. 25: the Maccabean martyrs who die for God's cause, like the patriarchs, ‘live unto God’ (ʒῶσιν τῷ θεῷ). Abrahams, I. (The Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Singer, I., New York, 1904, viii, 244) thinks that the passages may be Christian interpolations. The phrase ʒῆν τῷ θεῷ appears frequently, invariably in the future, in the Shepherd of Hermas (e.g. Man. 4.2. 4; 6.2.10; Sim. 9.20.4; cf. 9.28.5, 8). See also Ber. 18a, b where it is argued from II Sam. xxiii. 20 that the righteous dead are ‘living’.Google Scholar

page 276 note 2 Rom, . vi. 10 f.Google Scholar; cf. xiv. 8. Rom, . vi. 10 f. is referring to the corporate έν χιστῷ lifeGoogle Scholar. Cf. vi. 8. In the light of this passage, as well as Col. iii. 3, one may question the contrast which has been drawn by Schweitzer between a ‘Christ mysticism’ and (against) a ‘God mysticism’ in Schweitzer, Paul. A., The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (New York, 1931), p. 5Google Scholar; cf. Deissmann, A., Paul (London, 1926), p. 146.Google Scholar

page 276 note 3 ‘…mit dem wir als die Gestorbenen verborgen in Gott leben.’ Schlier, H., Der Brief an die Galater (Goettingen, 1951), p. 63. Older commentators usually have taken this θεῷ and similar expressions as ‘datives of advantage’Google Scholar; cf. Burton, E. de W., Galatians (Edinburgh, 1921), p. 134Google Scholar; but cf. p. 138; Robertson, A. T., A Grammar of the Greek New Testament (London, 1914), p. 539. Compare the similar, though textually garbled, passage in II Cor. xiii. 4: ‘as he was crucified in (έκ) weakness but lives by (έκ) the power of God, so we are weak in him (έν αύτῷ?) but, regarding you, shall live in him (έν αύτῷ?) by the power of God.Google Scholar

page 276 note 4 Ellis, , Eschatology, pp. 212–16.Google Scholar

page 276 note 5 The dative case, which is so prominent in Paul's vocabulary, is in some instances very much like a locative of sphere. Cf. Robertson, op. cit. p. 521; Moule, C. F. D., An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek (Cambridge, 1959), p. 44.Google Scholar

page 276 note 6 Cf. Col. iii. 3; Ignatius, To the Ephesians vi. 2, where the Christian life is a life ‘in God’: ‘your orderly conduct in God (τήν έν θεῷ ευταξίαν), for that you all live according to truth (κατά άλήθειαν ῷῆτε)’.

page 276 note 7 Grundmann, W., Das Evangelium nach Lukas (Berlin, 1961).Google Scholar

page 277 note 1 It is usual to identify the Sadducean dogma, even in its denial of a resurrection (cf. Jos. War, 2, 8, 14; Ant. 18, 1, 4; Acts xxiii. 8), with the Old Testament, or early Jewish, orthodoxy. Cf. E. Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (New York, n.d.), 11, 38 ff.; T. W. N. T. vii, 48 f. But the Sadducees were characteristically open to hellenistic influence, and on this question they are regarded by Josephus and the Pharisees to be ‘Epicurean’ (cf. T. W. N. T. vii, 46 f.).

page 277 note 2 Paul also appears to argue that apart from resurrection death is the end (I Cor. xv. 18, 32). Jesus' teaching elsewhere cannot be considered here. But the above interpretation does not contradict the general Synoptic picture. The saying in Luke xxiii. 42 f. can be interpreted along the lines argued above; and Luke xvi, 19–31 is no longer considered, even by conservative commentators, to be a proper source to discover Christ's teaching on the intermediate state. Cf. Geldenhuys, op. cit. p. 428.

page 277 note 3 On the Sadducees see note i above. Usually more resistant to the inroads of Hellenistic culture, the Pharisees in this matter were considerably–and rather early–influenced by a Greek body/soul dualism. Meyer, R. (Hellenistisches in der rabbinischen Anthropologie, Stuttgart, 1937, pp. 11–15) detects remnants of an older view in which the ‘soul’ remains near the grave, e.g., in Hag. 15b, Ber. 18a, Shab. 13b. But even there the dualism already is presupposed. For the Pharisees the departure of the ‘soul’ to reward or punishment immediately at death was a wide-spread if not dominant doctrine. The Essenes (or some of them) shared this view, perhaps along with the Pharisees' doctrine of resurrectionGoogle Scholar. Cf. Jos. War, 2, 8, 11, Ant. 18, 1, 3–5; Black, M., The Scrolls and Christian Origins (London, 1961), pp. 173–91; Schürer, op. cit. 11, ii, 179 f.; T.W.N.T. v, 764 ff.Google Scholar

page 277 note 4 Laurin, R. B., ‘The Question of Immortality in the Qumran Hodayot’, J.S.S. III (1958), 344–55; R. Meyer in his Theologisches Woerterbuch article (T.W.N.T. vii, 49) traces the Sadducees and Qumran to a common old Jewish orthodoxy and relates them in much the same fashion as rabbinic and apocalyptic Pharisaism.Google Scholar

page 277 note 5 Mansoor, M., The Thanksgiving Hymns (Leiden, 1961), pp. 84 ffGoogle Scholar. and the literature cited there; Dupont-Sommer, A., The Essene Writings from Qumran (Oxford, 1961), p. 53. The evidence usually adduced is from the Hodayot; interestingly, only in the Hymns do the terms ‘sheol’ and (with one exception: 1QS xi. 7, 9, 12) ‘flesh’ in its ethical sense appear.Google Scholar Cf. Flusser, D., ‘The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity’, Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Rabin, C. and Yadin, Y. (Jerusalem, 1958), p. 253.Google Scholar

page 277 note 6 Cf. 1QH iii. 19–23; iv. 21 f.; vi. 13; 1QH frag. vii. 5.

page 277 note 7 Jos. Wars, 2, 8, 11: the Essenes believe ‘that the body is corruptible and its constituent matter impermanent, but that the soul is immortal and imperishable’. Hippolytus (Refut. Heresies ix. 22) credits them also with a belief in the resurrection of the body. Cf. Black, op. cit. pp. 190 f.

page 278 note 1 Cross, F. M., The Ancient Library of Qumran, rev. ed. (Garden City, 1961), p. 92; cf. T.W.N.T. 1, 370.Google Scholar

page 278 note 2 Whether one, with Davies, sees in this ethical dualism some hellenistic influence or not (with Kuhn) does not affect the essential point. Cf. Stendahl, op. cit. pp. 101–8, 165.

page 278 note 3 Flusser, , op. cit. p. 262; cf. pp. 254, 257.Google Scholar

page 278 note 4 Laurin takes this to mean, as often in the Old Testament, a present deliverance from death. But something more than this seems to be involved. Cf. Black's (op. cit. pp. 135–42) thorough and perceptive discussion.

page 278 note 5 IQH iii. 24, cf. 1QS xi. 20–2: ‘For what, indeed, is the son of man among Thy marvellous works?…From dust is he formed and the food of worms is his portion…‘ (1QS xi. 20–2, Black).

page 278 note 6 ; cf. Job. vii. 21; xx. 11; xxi. 26; Mansoor, op. cit. p. 87.

page 278 note 7 So Black, op. cit.; Mansoor, op. cit.

page 278 note 8 Davies, W. D. (in Stendahl, op. cit. p. 165) and Flusser (op. cit.) take the psalms to reflect a later stage in the history of the sect.Google Scholar