Intertestamental, Apocrypha, NT Use: Qumran

Abstract

Intertestamental, Apocrypha, NT UseQumran Christopher T. Begg and Fred W. Guyette Christopher T. Begg Catholic University of America Fred W. Guyette Erskine College and Seminary 2442. [Message of 4QInstruction] Jonathan Ben-Dov, "Family relations and the Economic-metaphysical message of Instruction," JSP 30 (2, 2020) 87-100. Much of the sapiential treatise Instruction (=4QInstruction) can be read as a systematic attempt to support one basic ideological principle: Each person has a divinely assigned share, and every interaction that requires mixing that share with other agents is a breach of the metaphysical order. This idea was first formulated with regard to Instruction by Menahem Kister. In the present article, I apply this notion to the prologue (preserved in 4Q416 1) and to the sections on family relations (parents, wife) in 4Q416. These latter cases explore the financial relations within a family and align them with the overall principle of Instruction. The various sections highlight the person's spirit as a commodity, intertwined with the life and capital of that person. The literary focus is on the phenomenology of the spirit, as it shifts during various transactions. The biblical allusions in these sections are explained along the same line of argument. [Published abstract—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 2443. [The Calendar and MMT] Jonathan Ben-Dov, "The Calendar and 4QMMT," Interpreting and Living God's Law at Qumran, 105-16 [see #2632]. 4Q394 3a-4 1-3 preserves the end of a calendrical list. The same kind of list is known from 4Q326, 4Q327, and 4Q324d as well. The fragments known as 4Q394 1-2 are not part of 4Q394. They should be designated by their earlier siglum 4Q327, in accordance with the original view of J. T. Milik and J. Strugnell. 4Q327 and 4Q394 were, however, apparently written by the same scribe. The scribe of 4Q394 decided to reproduce a calendrical list before the halakhic section of MMT in 4Q394. The list had been previously copied by the scribe in question [End Page 896] in the scroll 4Q327, but when he came to use the list as a preface to MMT, he adapted the list's graphic format in order to bring it into conformity with the prose layout of MMT. The scribe decided to copy the calendrical list as part of 4Q394 presumably because he considered the calendar to be a significant factor in defining the community's sectarian identity and a legitimation of its schism from the wider Judaism of the day—both topics that are central to the argument set out in MMT. In my view, the calendrical list was not, however, an integral part of MMT. [Adapted from author's conclusion, p. 116—C.T.B.] Google Scholar 2444. [Demons and the Divine Order in Jubilees and the DSS] Miryam T. Brand, "Demons and Dominion: Forcing Demons into the Divine Order in Jubilees and the Dead Sea Scrolls," From Scrolls to Traditions, 18-37 [see #2543]. K. van der Toorn has pointed out that ancient Mesopotamian religion presupposed the existence of both malevolent evil spirits and a beneficent divine realm. How though were these two realities thought to relate to each other? In a myth like Atrahasis, the evil spirit Lamaštu/Pašittu, the scourge of pregnant women and young children, is integrated into the divine cosmic order as an agent of the gods in keeping human population growth in check. By contrast, in Mesopotamian exorcistic texts, evil spirits are envisaged as anarchic free agents against which those afflicted can only appeal for a divine intervention on their behalf by means of prescribed prayers and rituals. In her article, B. notes that a similar bifurcation with regard to the understanding of the relationship between evil spirits and God's benevolence—both of which are accepted as existential givens—can be observed in Second Temple literature, the DSS corpus in particular. In such texts as the Book of Jubilees, the Damascus Document, and the Community Rule, the evil spirts, led by such figures as Mastema and Belial, can only act with God's leave and in accordance with the limits set by him. By contrast, in the apotropaic...