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The Epistle of Barnabas and the Dead Sea Scrolls: some observations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Extract

The discovery of the Qumran texts, as is well known, has produced a whole spate of books and articles many of which deal inter alia with affinities between the doctrinal formularies of the sect and the NT and between its organisation and practice and that of the Apostolic Church in Jerusalem. However, in all this literature, which has now reached unmanageable proportions, it would seem that insufficient attention has been paid to affinities between the texts and Christian post- Apostolic literature. The purpose of this article is to examine the theology of the epistolary tract known as the Epistle of Barnabas in the light of the Qumran scrolls.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1960

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References

page 45 note 1 The only writer known to me who has discussed this question is Audet, J. P., O.P., ‘Affinités littéraires et doctrinales du Manuel de Discipline’, Revue biblique (1952) pp. 219238Google Scholar; (1943) pp. 41–82. He has expanded his views in his important study, La Didaché: Instructions des Apδtres (Paris, 1958).Google Scholar

page 45 note 2 For Hadrian's policy towards the Jews see Thieme, K., Kirche und Synagoge (1944) pp. 2225.Google Scholar

page 45 note 3 Kidd 30a.

page 45 note 4 Chullin 60a.

page 45 note 5 Mishna Menach 11; Talmud Menach 100a; Yoma vi.1–6, 66b.

page 46 note 1 Beresh rabba 43, 44; Nedar 32a.

page 46 note 2 Succa 21b; Abod. Sar. 19b.

page 46 note 3 Mishna Rosh Hash iii.8. In the first two centuries A.D. Amalek, for the Jews, was the eternal enemy. Cf. Justin Dial. xlix.

page 46 note 4 cf. Berachoth 57b.

page 46 note 5 Zur Erklärung des Barnabasbriefes, p. 128. Muilenberg, J., The Literary Relations of the Epistle of Barnabas and the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Marburg, 1929), p. 99 seq.Google Scholar

page 47 note 1 Prov. 1.17.

page 47 note 2 Isa. 1.13.

page 47 note 3 Isa. 49.17.

page 47 note 4 I have used Gaster's translations.

page 48 note 1 Pesher is also used in the Aramaic part of the Book of Daniel e.g. Dan. 4.g. Stendahl, K., The School of St. Matthew (1954), pp. 181–202Google Scholar, connects the pesher type of citation with the ‘formula quotations’ of St. Matthew's Gospel.

page 48 note 2 Lev. 11.11.

page 50 note 1 The most detailed study of this is by Davies, W. D. in Harvard Theological Review, Vol. XLVI (1953), pp. 113139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 51 note 1 op. cit., p. 135.

page 52 note 1 The Origins of the Gospel according to St. Matthew (1946), pp. 105–6.Google Scholar

page 53 note 1 Anglican Theological Review, Vol. XXVII (1945), pp. 239247.Google Scholar

page 53 note 2 See the present writer's article in Church Quarterly Review, Vol. CLIX (1958), pp. 211230.Google Scholar

page 53 note 3 I.QS. iii.13–iv.26.

page 53 note 4 On the meaning of the title ‘for the Maskil’ see Gaster, T. H., The Scriptures of the Dead Sea Sect, p. 47.Google Scholar

page 54 note 1 Test. Levi, xix.i; Slav. Enoch xxx.15.

page 54 note 2 Eph; 5.8; Heb. 6.4; 1 Pet. 2.9; cf. Luke 16.8 and John 12.36.

page 54 note 3 Clem. Alex. Exh. to the Greeks xi. The metaphor is also prominent in the Enneads of Plotinus.

page 54 note 4 cf. Yasna xxx.3, 5. Michaud, H., ‘Un mythe zervanite dans un des manuscrits Qumran’, Vetus Test., V (1955), pp. 137147Google Scholar. thinks that Zervanism, a special branch of Zoroastrianism, was the determining influence on the Qumran theology.

page 57 note 1 There appears to have been some connexion between the beliefs of the sect and those of the Jerusalem Temple, where the Vidui originated. See further Kuhn, K. G. in The Scrolls and the N.T., ed. Stendahl, K. (1958), p. 69.Google Scholar

page 57 note 2 The Teaching of the Apostles (1887), pp. 82–86.Google Scholar

page 57 note 3 I.QS. v.1–7.

page 59 note 1 Yadin, Y., The Message of the Scrolls, p. 131Google Scholar, asserts that members of the sect lived in the diaspora on the basis of the reference in the War Scroll to the ‘wilderness of the peoples’. This, however, is quite uncertain.