Intertestamental, Apocrypha, NT Use: Qumran

Abstract

Intertestamental, Apocrypha, NT UseQumran William J. Urbrock, Christopher T. Begg, Eric F. Mason, John Thomas Willis, Isaac M. Alderman, and Rory K. Pitstick 1953. [DSS] Martin Abegg jr., “He Who Freed the Dead Sea Scrolls,” BARev 44 (2018) 24–28. A. reviews the pivotal role played by the then BARev editor Hershel Shanks in 1990–1991 in making the Dead Sea Scrolls available to the wider scholarly community for publication and ongoing research. Photo-illustrated.—W.J.U. 1954. [4Q386] Kenneth Atkinson, “Interpreting the Assassination of Pompey the Great in Light of Biblical Prophecy: The Use of Jeremiah 46, Ezekiel 30, and Hosea 9 in 4QPseudo-Ezekielb (4Q386),” QC 23 (2015) 81–100. The DSS show that the Jews of the Hasmonean period commonly interpreted political and historical events of their time as fulfillments of biblical prophecy. Although the Scrolls’ statements in this regard should be treated with caution for purposes of historical reconstruction, it should be recognized that the Scrolls’ fulfillment notices are no less accurate than their extant classical parallels. For the author of 4Q386, prophecy was not something pertaining solely to the distant past. This manuscript’s contemporized interpretation of the prophecies of Jeremiah 46; Ezekiel 30; and Hosea 9 shows that Jews of the Second Temple period read Scripture as a living text whose predictions were being realized in their own lifetimes. For them, Pompey’s murder was both the fulfillment and verification of Scripture. The messages of Hosea, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel brought some measure of comfort to the readers of 4Q386, since these prophets had predicted that justice would be realized in this world. 4Q386’s warning to its Jewish readers—and to Pompey’s successors—was that God is in control of world events and continues to intervene in history to punish sinners. Because the writer of 4Q386 1 4 predicts that the children of Pompey will also perish, the text should be dated either sometime before Caesar’s Spanish campaign that extended from the autumn of 46 b.c.e. to the spring of 45 b.c.e. in which he defeated the last of the Pompeians led by Pompey’s sons Gnaeus and Sextus, or, alternatively, prior to 35 b.c.e., when the latter was killed. These dates match the paleographical dating of 4Q386 and suggest that it was composed shortly before Pompey’s assassination. If so, 4Q386 should be seen as the earliest extant document to mention this momentous historical event. [Adapted from published abstract—C.T.B.] 1955. [4Q175] Kenneth Atkinson, “John Hyrcanus as a Prophetic Messiah in 4QTestimonia (4Q175),” QC 24 (2016) 9–27. The Qumran document of A.’s title shows that prophetic messianism played a major—and hitherto unappreciated—role in Hasmonean history by providing the family [End Page 679] with a divine sanction to hold both religious and secular power. When read in light of all the available evidence, 4Q175 suggests that Hyrcanus claimed to be the “true prophet” with the sole right to do as he wished in religious as well as secular matters. His family continued to govern as hereditary monarchs until the Romans terminated the Hasmonean state. What made the Hasmoneans unique was their use of prophetic messianism and the tradition of the “true prophet” to bypass their lack of a Davidic pedigree and to enable them to transform their kingdom into a Hellenistic state that their ancestor Mattathias would hardly have recognized. Despite the best intentions of Simon to follow in his father Mattathais’s footsteps, the state he created was in many respects a Hellenistic kingdom like those of the surrounding nations, the one difference being that it emerged only a century after the neighboring kingdoms were formed. The family’s use of prophetic messianism was similar to the Davidic messianism in its combination of divinely sanctioned political and religious authority with the use of violence. It was the Hasmoneans’ astute use of religion and politics and their appeal to prophetic messianism that ultimately enabled them to transform their kingdom into a true state led by a monarch who, like those of the neighboring kingdoms, claimed divine sanction to rule. [Adapted from...