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Qumran Initiation and New Testament Baptism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

B. E. Thiering
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Extract

In a previous study, the present writer has made an analysis of aspects of the Qumran baptismal doctrine, pointing to a distinction between the washing with water and the purification by Spirit. When a further examination of the stages and conditions of initiation at Qumran is added, a relevance may be seen to certain aspects of the history of baptism in Acts, suggesting a means of dealing with some recognized difficulties.

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Articles
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New Testament Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 5 , October 1981 , pp. 615 - 631
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

[1] ‘Inner and Outer Cleansing at Qumran as a Background to New Testament Baptism’, N. T.S. 26 (1980), 266–77.Google Scholar

[2] ‘Heart’ () is used interchangeably with ‘soul’ and ‘(human) spirit’ in the scrolls (1QS 1. 6;4. 2; 11.5).

[3] This follows from the clear evidence that the Qumran community was expected to survive in material form in the era after the great conflagration. There was to be no abolition of the flesh. 1QSa, which concerns the the Future Time (1. 1) shows that members will age normally (1. 8), marry (1. 9–10), be capable of physical and mental infirmity (1. 19–20, 2. 5–7), eat and drink (2. 17). The description of the New Jerusalem (D.J.D. 3, pp. 184–93)Google Scholar contains exact measurements for a physical city, with details of the size of streets, gates, staircases, houses, rooms. There would, however, be a conflagration which would burn up the present natural state (1QH 3. 29–36). The elect would survive it, as shown by 1QH 17. 13–14 (after the conflagration) ‘their seed will be before thee for ever’. The flesh in itself is not held to be evil at Qumran (against Kuhn, K. G.), ‘New Light on Temptation, Sin and Flesh in the New Testament’, in Stendahl, K. (ed.), The Scrolls and the New Testament (London: S.C.M., 1957);Google Scholar W. D. Davies, ‘Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Flesh and Spirit’, in Stendahi, The Scrolls; and Brandenburger, E., Fleisch und Geist, Paulus und die dualistische Weisheit, W.M.A.N.T. 29 (Neukirchen, 1968).Google Scholar See Hübner, H. (‘Anthropologischer Dualismus in den Hodayoth?’, N.T.S. 18 (1972), 268–84)Google Scholar for the demonstration that there is no ontological difference between the flesh and spirit in 1QH. That the flesh alone is not the source of evil is shown by the many references to the polluted spirit of the sectarian, his own soul (IQS 2. 14, 1QH 1. 22; 3. 21, 1QS 7. 18, 23; 10. 18,Google Scholar1 QH 5. 36; 11. 12). The flesh and soul belong together as the inner and outer aspects of the person. The connection between flesh and spirit cannot be broken in a physical world that has been divinely declared to be good (Gen. 1. 12, 25, 31). Sin is an extrinsic pollution – the view implied in the O.T. sacrificial system – and can be washed away, leaving the flesh pure. The cause of sin is the positionGoogle Scholar of man in the divided universe. His soul is drawn upwards towards heaven and light, his flesh is drawn downwards towards the Pit (1QS 9. 16, 22; 10.29, CD 6. 15; 13. 14) and darkness. This means that he separation of heaven and earth is held to be a fallen condition, and will be overcome at the Visitation. Hanson, P. D. has recently shown (‘Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in I Enoch 6–11’, J.B.L. 96 (1977), 195–233) that the A.N.E. myth of the primeval separation of earth and heaven, once united but divided asunder by a giant cleaver, underlies 1 Enoch 6–11. The division will be healed in the new era. Heaven and earth will come together, and the sectarians will continue their community existence in a world in which there are no more occasions of sin, there being no longer any tension between flesh and soul.Google Scholar

[4] Wernberg-Møller, P. (The Manual of Discipline (Leiden: Brill, 1957), p. 107), following Kuhn, notes that пροστλθημι is used in a similar way in Acts 5. 14; 11. 24.Google Scholar

[5] Wernberg-Møller (The Manual, p. 107): ‘if he is amenable to ethics’. ‘The intellectualistic ring of the phrase… should not be overlooked.’Google Scholar

[6] . The whole community is referred to in the immediately preceding clauses. The plural is read by Lohse, E. (Die Texte aus Qumran, Munich: Kösel, 1964),Google ScholarVermes, G. (The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, London: Penguin, 1962),Google ScholarLeaney, A. R. C., (The Rule of Qumran and its Meaning, London: S.C.M., 1966),Google ScholarMilik, J. T. (‘Manuale Disciplinae’), Verbum Domini 29 (1951), 129–158;Google Scholar the singular by Wernberg-Møller (The Manual), van der Ploeg, J.. (‘Quelques traductions du “Manuel de Discipline” des manuscrits de la Mer Morte’, B.O. 9 (1952), 127–33.)Google Scholar

[7] Rabin, C. (‘Private Property in the Qumxan Community’, in Qumran Studies, Oxford: University Press, 1957)Google Scholar holds that ⊐ℸу here means ‘to transact business with’, as in lQS 9. 8–9. Fitzmyer, J. A. (Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament (London: Chapman, 1971), p. 286, note 25) finds Rabin's reasons ‘not very convincing’. ⊐⌝у refers to the mingling of the individual's property with that of the group, and corresponds to Josephus' expression άναμ Εμλγμèνων (War II, 122).Google Scholar

[8] ‘shall be asked about’, as also in 1QS 6.4. Wernberg-Møller, (The Manual, p. 102, note 13Google Scholar): ‘one person puts the questions to the members, probably the president of the session’. It may be tentatively suggested, in view of the argument of part II, that this practice may illuminate the suggestion of Culimann (Baptism in the New Testament, London: S.C.M., 1950, Appendix) that the question ‘does anyone forbid baptism?’ is part of a baptismal formula.Google Scholar

[9] Agreed by Vermes (DSSE, p. 19),Google ScholarWernberg-Møller, (Manual, p. 107),Google ScholarCothenet, E. (‘Document de Damas’, in Carmignac, J., Les Textes de Qumran Traduits et Annotés, I and II (Paris: Letouzey et Ané), (1961 and 1963), II, P. 201, note 18),Google ScholarBrownlee, W. (The Dead Sea Manual of Discipline), B.A.S.O.R. Supplementary Studies, 10–12 (1951), p. 25,Google ScholarDelcor, M. (‘Contribution a l'étude de la législation des sectaires de Damas et de Qumran’), R.B. (1954), 533–53, p. 541).Google ScholarRowley, H. H. (The Zadokite Fragments and the Dead Sea Scrolls) (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956), p. 37.Google ScholarLeaney, (Rule, p.196)Google Scholar thinks that the pāqîd is the same as the mebaqqēr of CD 13.7, 11, 15. 7–11, but not the same as the chief mebaqqēr of CD 14. 9. Priest, J. F. (‘Mebaqqer, Paqid and the Messiah’, J.B.L. 81 (1962), 55–61, p. 58)Google Scholar disagrees, holding that the pāqid is the head of the priests, on the basis of CD 14. 6. But the noun is not used in CD 14. 6, only the verb. Guilbert, P. (‘Règle de la Communauté’, in Carmignac, Textes de Qumran, note 86 on 1QS 6. 12) also distinguishes them. is frequently used in the sense of ‘to enrol, initiate’ (1QSa 1. 9, CD 10. 2; 14. 6; 15. 6, 8). The Priest who enrols the congregation (CD 14. 6) is at the head of the whole congregation, and represents it at final initiation. it is a representative role only, as the congregation itself takes responsibility at this stage (21), whereas the pāqîd at provi ional initiation is the only one who has been in contact with the member, so takes full responsibility.Google Scholar

[10] War 2. 137–139.Google Scholar

[11] Milik, J. T., Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (London: S.C.M., 1959), p. 117.Google Scholar See also Leaney, , The Rule, pp. 95–107.Google Scholar Milk (‘Milki-sedeq et Milki-reŝa”, J.J.S. xxiii (1972), 95–144)Google Scholar gives an addition to CD derived from two Cave 4 fragments concerning an assembly of members of the camps in the third month, for cursing those who depart from the Covenant; cf., IQS 2. 4–18.Google Scholar

[12] As Brownlee (The Dead Sea Manual) and Rabin (Qumran Studies, p. 7) agree.Google Scholar

[13] Wernberg-Mφller, , The Manual, p. 96;Google ScholarLieberman, S., ‘The Discipline in the so-called Dead Sea Manual of Discipline’, J.B.L. 71 (1952), 199–206, p. 203.Google Scholar

[14] Leaney, , The Rule, pp. 193–5.Google Scholar

[15] Vermes, DSSE. Rabin (‘The Novitiate’, Qumran Studies, pp. 7–8) holds that the Purity is ritually pure food, but sees the emphasis on the purity of the food, not the privilege of communality expressed through the daily Meal, a location of the purity of the community.Google Scholar

[16] Vermes, , DSSE, p. 27.Google Scholar

[17] Guilbert, (Textes de Qumran 1, p. 48, note 98)Google Scholar following Milik, agrees that the Drink refers to the community meal of 1QS 6. 5–6 and 1QSa 2. 17–22. Leaney (The Rule, pp. 194–5Google Scholar) with Sutcliffe (‘Sacred Meals at Qumran’, Heythrop Journal I (1960), 48 ff.) takes the Drink to be different from the Purity, and sees its confinement to the highest rank as due to the fact that ‘liquids were the most powerful conveyors of uncleanness at a remove’, so ‘the purity of the full members must be protected by prohibiting anyone other than a fellow full member to touch the drink which they shared’.Google Scholar

[18] Lohse, , Die Texte aus Qumran, p. 286, note 12.Google Scholar

[19] Jeremias, G., Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit, (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1963), 293 f.Google Scholar

[20] Cf. O. Cullmann, ‘The Significance of the Qumran Texts for Research into the Beginnings of Christianity’, in Stendahl, The Scrolls, p. 21.Google Scholar

[21] 1QS 7. 18–25 shows that a fully initiated member of less than ten years' standing who becomes rebellious is required to be reduced to provisional membership and to go through the two years again. This would both give him a second chance and also be a device for returning his property to him if he chose to leave altogether. The member of more than ten years' standing who rebels is expelled. Others are not permitted to share the Community property with him (25), i.e. his property is not returned.

[22] J. Murphy-O'Connor, in his analysis of the stages of development of 1QS (‘La Gen`se Littéraire de Ia Règle de Ia Communauté’, R.B. LXXVI (1969), 528–49)Google Scholar puts this section into a final stage, when it had become necessary to guard against the dangers of legalism (p. 540). He agrees that it sets out the ideal of the community, but would see the emphasis on the distinction between outer and inner, as not so much a basic doctrine as a response to a particular problem. This argument does not take into account the exact parallel in Josephus’ description of John's baptism: ‘They must not use it (baptismal ablution) to gain pardon for whatever sins they had committed, but as a sanctification of the body, the soul being already cleansed by righteousness’ (A.J. XVIII, 117)Google Scholar. In this case, it is a basic doctrine (as is the Christian distinction between inward and outward sin, Matt. 5. 21–22, 27–28, Mark 7. 20–23). The analysis into literary stages on which Murphy-O's Connor's view of this passage depends is open to question on the ground of its initial assumption that the fifteen men of 1QS 8. 1 are the founding members of the community, the small number around which it later developed. If they were, as the context suggests, an inner ruling nucleus at the top of the community's hierarchical structure, then the basis of his analysis, which largely depends on a theory of increasing numbers, would not stand. This would also be true of Pouilly's supporting study (La Règle de Ia Communauté de Qumran: Son Evolution Littédraire, Cahiers de la Revue Biblique, Paris: Gabalda, 1976),Google Scholar which makes the same assumption. See my ‘Once More the Wicked riest’, J.B.L. XCVII (1978)Google Scholar for a critique of Murphy-O'Connor's failure to take into account the meaning of sectarian terms in his analysis of CD; and Redating the Teacher of Righteousness (Sydney: Theological Explorations, 1979), pp. 111–12.Google Scholar

[23] Gärtner, B., The Temple end the Community in Qumran and the New Testament (Cambridge: University Press, 1965), p. 8.Google Scholar

[24] There is no information about the way the Spirit was given. It is to be noted, however, that Flusser, D. (‘Healing through the Laying-on of Hands in a Dead Sea Scroll’, I.E.J. 7 (1957), 107- 8) has pointed out that the only contemporary parallel to the N.T. practice of laying on of hands for healing of illness is found in the scrolls, in lQapGen 20. 21–22, where Abraham lays his hands on the head of Pharaoh and drives out the evil spirit which afflicted him. 1Q22 4. 9 quotes Lev. 16. 21 on laying hands on the scapegoat.Google Scholar

[25] See notes 14, 15 in ‘Inner and Outer Cleansing’.

[26] In Baillet, M. et al. , ‘Le travail ďédition des fragments manuscrits de Qumran’, R.B. 63 (1956), 49–67, p. 67.Google Scholar

[27] Leaney, (The Rule, pp. 192-3)Google Scholar, in his analysis of the passage, identifies step (a) with step (b), contrary to lines 14–16, which show a separation in time for a period of instruction. He consequently identifies step (b) with step (c) and is left with only one more year before full admission, whereas Josephus gives two years. Rabin, (Qumran Studies, pp. 10–11) takes the ‘purer kind of holy water’ to be a ritual bath preceding the taking of the Purity (pp. 7–8), so that steps (b) and (c) are out of order in Josephus. He makes further distinctions (11), which all depend on the silence of one or another source.Google Scholar

[28] Leaney, , The Rule, p. 192.Google Scholar

[29] Rabin, , Qumran Studies, p. 10.Google Scholar

[30] Vermes, DSSE.

[31] In 4QDb, filling out the lacuna in the Cairo MS. As the passage is not yet published, most of the Hebrew is not known. See, Milk, Ten Years, p. 114.Google Scholar N.B. In ‘Fragment 'une Source du Psautier (4Q Ps 89)’ (R.B. LXXIII (1966), 94–106, p. 103, note 4), Milik has changed the siglum of 4QDb to 4QDa.Google Scholar

[32] In CD 3. 16; 14. 11; 9. 1 (a) (on the latter, see Rabinowitz, I., ‘The Meaning and Date of ‘Damascus’ Document IX, 1’, R. de Q. 6 (1968), 433–5), 1QH 17. 27, 4QFlor 1. 6, the word ‘man’ is used for members of the sect as opposed to outsiders. The sectarian, before he receives the divine Spirit which illuminates him, is a ‘creature of clay, dust’, as throughout 1QH, i.e. he becomes an Adam when he receives the Spirit (Gen. 2. 7). The implication is that the common interpretation of initiation as the reception of full manhood was also held at Qumran. Cf. Eph. 4. 13.Google Scholar

[33] Murphy-O'Connor, J., ‘The Essenes and their History’, R.B. 81 (1974), 215–44, p. 233;Google ScholarIwry, S., ‘Was There a Migration to Damascus?’, Eretz Israel 9 (1969), 80–8.Google Scholar

[34] Jeremias, , Der Lehrer, pp. 3312.Google ScholarHuppenbauer, H. W., Der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten;Google Scholar der Dualismus der Texte von Qumran (Höhle 1) und der Damaskusfragmente. Ein Beitrag zur Vorgeschichte des Evangeliums, A.T.A.N.T. XXXIV (1959).Google Scholar

[35] War II, 158.Google Scholar

[36] Cullmann, , Baptism, pp. 10–11.Google Scholar

[37] At Qumran, the giving of the Spirit of holiness is the ceremonial aspect of the work of the spirits of various virtues operating in the heart of the member (p. 2). It is resident in the community, and is received only on membership into the community. As in Pauline Christian thought the Holy Spirit could exist independently of the community (pp. 32–3), a slight difference in translation is appropriate.

[38] Cullmann, , Baptism, p. 11.Google Scholar

[39] =βάπτεω is nor fouond in the scrolls. 1QS 3. 4–5 implies total immersion.

[40] Käsemann, E., ‘The Disciples of John the Baptist at Ephesus’, in Käsemann, Essays on New Testament Themes (London: S.C.M., 1964), p. 146.Google Scholar

[41] Cullmann, , Baptism, p. 12.Google Scholar

[42] Ibid.

[43] Käsemann, , ‘The Disciples’, p. 146.Google Scholar

[44] Peter ‘commanded them to be baptized’ (v. 48): it does not say that he baptized them himself. Yet cf. Matt, . 28. 19:Google Scholar ‘Go…to all nations…baptizing them.’ The water-washing at Qumran was a levitical duty (above), the giving of the Spirit priestly. Peter, in Acts 8. 17 had acted in a role corresponding to that of priests. As, according to the present argument, the meaning of ‘baptize’ was changed in the N.T., from provisional to final rite, the word ‘baptize’ may perhaps be used in both senses. This may be relevant to the apparent conflict in John 3. 22 and 4. 1–2.Google Scholar

[45] See note 3, and my Redating…, ch. 6.

[46] Kümmel, W. G., The Theology of the New Testament (London: S.C.M., 1974), p. 132.Google Scholar

[47] Kuhn, K. G., ‘The Lord's Supper and the Communal Meal at Qumran’, in Stendahl, The Scrolls;Google ScholarLeaney, , The Rule, pp. 182–4;Google ScholarBraun, H., Qumran und das Neue Testament, vol. 2, pp. 29–54;Google Scholar Sutcliffe, ‘Sacred Meals’; Black, M., ‘The Gospel and the Scrolls’, Studia Evangelica (Berlin, 1959), pp. 565–79; Daniélou, ‘Ľorganisation’, pp. 106–7;Google ScholarCross, , Ancient Library, pp. 177–9;Google ScholarJaubert, A., ‘La Date de la dernière Céne’, R.H.R. 146 (1954), 140–73;Google ScholarJohnson, S. E., ‘The Dead Sea Manual of Discipline and the Jrusalem Church of Acts’, in Stendahl, The Scrolls; Cull- mann, ‘The Significance’, pp. 21, 29.Google Scholar

[48] Leaney, , (The Rule, pp. 182–4) discusses Kuhn's view (‘The Lord's Supper’p) that the Qumran meal was a cult meal.Google Scholar

[49] Montefiore, C. G., The Synoptic Gospels 1 (1927), p. 332.Google Scholar Similarly Loewe, H., A Rabbinic Anthology (1938), p. 647;Google ScholarKlausner, J., Jesus of Nazareth (1925), p. 329.Google Scholar All are quoted by Higgins, A. J. B., The Lord's Supper in the New Testament (London: S.C.M., 1952).Google Scholar

[50] Milk, , Ten Years, p. 101.Google Scholar

[51] See Higgins (The Lord'Supper), for the evidence against the meal taken by Jesus and his disciples being a Passover meal.

[52] The literature on the baptism of John and that of the Essenes includes: Braun, H., Qumran und das Neue Testament 2, pp. 1–29;Google ScholarBrownlee, W. H., ‘John the Baptist in the New Light of Ancient Scrolls’, in Stendahi, The Scrolls; Scobie, C. H. H., ‘John the Baptist’, in Black, M. (ed.) The Scrolls and Christianity (London: S.P.C.K., 1969);Google ScholarRobinson, J. A. T., ‘The Baptism of John and the Qumran Community’, in Twelve New Testament Studies (London: S.C.M., 1962). For a fuller list, see ‘Inner and Outer Cleansing’, note 1.Google Scholar