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Traces of Gnosticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Bo Reicke
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Extract

The Hebrew scrolls newly discovered near Qumran at the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, which are attracting more and more the attention of New Testament students, are also very important for the evolution of Jewish Gnosticism. One may think especially of the fact that in some of these manuscripts the Hebrew word for ‘knowledge’ and related terms occur with a striking frequency, and that the dualistic cosmology of the new texts seems to be rather like certain fundamental ideas of Gnosticism. Since the archaeological evidence now proves that the Qumran manuscripts are pre-Christian, or were at least written in the first Christian century, one may very well state that new light can now be thrown upon the much debated question of a pre-Christian, Jewish Gnosticism.

Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , November 1954 , pp. 137 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1954

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References

1 This has especially been emphasized by Kuhn, K. G., ‘Die in Palästina gefundenen hebräischen Texte und das Neue Testament’: Zeitschr. f. Theol. u. Kirche, XLVII (1950), pp. 192–211.Google Scholar

2 de Vaux, R., ‘Fouille au Khirbet Qumran’, Rev. bibl. LX (1953), pp. 103ff.Google Scholar

1 Bultmann, R., ‘γινώσκω, etc.’, Theol. Wört. z. NT. 1 (1933), pp. 688–719.Google Scholar

2 Cf. the translation of Brownlee, W. H., The Dead Sea Manual of Discipline (1951), p. 8;Google ScholarReicke, B., Handskrifterna från Qumran (1952), pp. 61; 64f.Google Scholar

1 Brownlee, p. 44, has the translation ‘men of knowledge’ which, however, spoils the parallelismus membrorum.Google Scholar

2 As to the restrictive meaning of this phrase, see Reicke, Handskrifterna från Qumran, p. 96, n. 63.Google Scholar