The Upper Register

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 11

Ultimately, for Paul, the debate with Judaism of all varieties – monergistic or synergistic – boils down to the need to submit to the righteousness of God revealed in Christ:

“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes” (Rom 10:1-4 ESV).

All varieties of non-Messianic Judaism affirm that the law is the God-appointed means for attaining the status of “righteous before God.” Christianity teaches that Christ has brought the Mosaic Law to an end, so that righteousness is now only attained by faith in Christ.

In conclusion, I cannot do better than to quote one recent scholar who has compared Paul’s and Qumran’s doctrines of justification in detail:

“[For the Qumran sect] God’s righteousness lies in his setting the member of the community free from sin and in making it possible for him to observe the law perfectly, so that he might stand righteous before God in the final judgment on the basis of his works in the law … It is God’s prevenient grace, in establishing the covenant, that first allows for righteousness in the law; in the end, however, it is perfect fulfillment of the works of the law that establishes one as righteous before God in the final judgment …. Within Qumran’s strictly covenantal framework a nomistic basis is the only possible ground for justification, no matter how deep a sense of God’s grace is involved. Therefore justification must also be sub lege” [under the law] (emphasis mine).

[Stephen Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant to the Covenant of the Community: Literary, Historical, and Theological Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ 66; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 448, 451, 459.]

Note that phrase that I have highlighted: for Qumran, the righteousness of the saved is still a righteousness under the Law, “no matter how deep a sense of God’s grace is involved.”  In the final analysis, the deepest choice in soteriology is not between monergism and synergism but between Christ and the Law (as a covenant of works, not as divine revelation), between the righteousness of faith and the righteousness of the Law. To have a doctrine of justification that is truly “by grace alone” (sola gratia) one must not only affirm that righteousness is a monergistic work of God but that righteousness is “by faith alone” (sola fide) “in Christ alone” (solo Christo) apart from the works of the Law.

Did Paul misrepresent Judaism? Not in the slightest. He accurately represented Judaism of all stripes when he said that the Jews refused to submit to the righteousness of God revealed in Christ and sought to establish their own righteousness through keeping the Law. Nor is there any need to resort to the Sanders/Dunn/Wright (New Perspective) theory that, since Judaism was a religion of grace, his target must have been something else like ethnocentrism or exclusivism. Those who take this option don’t want to accuse Paul of misrepresenting Judaism, so they misrepresent Paul instead. But Paul knew his target well – the Jewish attempt to attain righteousness before God by means of the Law – and he hit it.

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 10

Fourth, the question of the character of Judaism.

Did Paul misrepresent Judaism as a legalistic religion of salvation by works? Or have Protestants misunderstood Paul? What objections would Paul have had to the soteriology of the DSS?

In my fifth post, I pointed out the strongly predestinarian, monergistic soteriology of the Qumran sect. They believed that it is only by God’s grace that a person's heart can be turned from the wicked path and be kept from sinning in the ways of righteousness:

1QH IV, 21-22: “You determine the way of the one You have chosen, and in the insight of Your truth You keep him from sinning against You; restoring to him his humility by Your chastisements, and by Your trials.”

1QH VII, 12-15: “I know by Your understanding that it is not by human strength … a man’s way is not in himself, nor is a person able to determine his step. But I know that in Your hand is the inclination of every spirit … and all his works You have determined before ever You created him ... You alone have created the righteous one, and from the womb You established him to give heed to Your covenant at the appointed time of grace.”

1QH XV, 13-20:  “You have established my heart in accordance with Your teaching and Your truth, setting my steps straight in the paths of righteousness, so that I may walk in Your presence in the domain of the righteous ones in paths of glory and life and peace without turning and never ceasing … For in Your righteousness You have stood me in Your covenant, and I have taken hold of Your truth.”

So was Paul in error when he charged the Jews of his day with legalism, with holding to a proud doctrine of justification by human effort and self-sufficient merit? Or are E. P. Sander, James D. G. Dunn, and N. T. Wright to be believed when they argue that it is precisely passages like this which show that Judaism was a religion of grace and that therefore Paul could not have charged his fellow Jews with legalism but must have been aiming his guns at a different error like ethnocentrism?

For starters, the Qumran sect was a sect of Judaism and is not representative of mainstream Pharisaic (proto-rabbinic) theology in the first century. The Pharisees did not emphasize God’s grace and predestination to the same degree that Qumran did. Although they did affirm a doctrine of divine providence and foreknowledge, they tended to place more weight on the freedom of the will than the Qumran covenanters. This is made clear in the Psalms of Solomon, a first century BC document widely believed to represent the theology of the Pharisees:

“Our works are in the choosing and power of our souls, to do righteousness and unrighteousness in the works of our hands … The one who does righteousness saves up life for himself with the Lord, and the one who does unrighteousness causes his own life to be destroyed” (Ps. Sol. 9:4-5).

This synergistic, even Pelagian (to use anachronistic labels), view that salvation is “in the choosing and power of our souls” is repeated in the famous saying of Rabbi Akiba (ca. 50--ca. 135 AD): “Everything is foreseen, yet free will is given. The world is judged with goodness, and all is according to the majority of deeds” (Abot 3:15). 

The point is that the Qumran sect is not representative of mainstream Judaism of this period. They held to a much stronger doctrine of divine grace than most of their contemporaries (whom, by the way, they regarded as apostate Jews). Thus, one should not turn (first) to the DSS for a description of the soteriological views that Paul is fighting against in Romans and Galatians.

But this leads to a useful thought experiment. Let’s hypothesize that Paul met some members of the Qumran sect.  Some scholars seem to imply that Paul would have said: "Oh, you guys are fine. You understand monergistic grace, so I have no beef with you. When I wrote Romans and Galatians, I wasn’t concerned about your group at all. I’ll see you brothers in heaven. I was only critiquing the Pharisees and their synergistic doctrine that salvation is in the power of our free will."

Somehow I can't imagine such ecumenical words from the lips of the apostle Paul! He would have had just as much of an issue with the monergistic/Qumran variety of Judaism as the Pelagian/Pharisaic/proto-rabbinic variety. He would have said that one's view of the relative weight of divine and human activity in salvation is surely important, but that one has not yet penetrated to the core issue -- the stone of stumbling and the rock of offence, that is, the necessity of throwing overboard one's own righteousness, whether monergistically or synergistically created, and receiving and resting in Christ and his righteousness alone. 

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 9

Third, the question of literary influence. 

Did Paul borrow his doctrine of justification from the DSS? Or, if direct literary influence is too strong, was he influenced by a Jewish tradition that happens to have been preserved here? If not, what is the explanation for the striking similarities in language between them? I have found two articles by experts on the DSS that are helpful on this question.

Pierre Benoit

Fifty years ago, Pierre Benoit in his reflections on “Qumran and the New Testament,” cautioned against “an imprudent tendency to accept as immediate contacts arising from direct influence what in fact may be no more than independent manifestations of a common trend of the time” (p. 1). It is “imprudent” to latch on to certain verbal similarities between Paul and Qumran and to conclude that Paul borrowed the language or the ideas from Qumran. There is another possibility that must be considered:  the similar words or phrases may be expressions of a linguistic pattern common throughout Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era.

Benoit makes another helpful point near the end of his essay (pp. 29-30) when he speaks of “an error of historical method.” The scholar’s historical distance from the events in question creates an optical illusion of sorts. This “occurs when an early stage of some movement is interpreted in the light of a later stage.” The classic example of this optical illusion is the error of reading the New Testament in light of Gnosticism, which was a second century phenomenon. Bultmann and a whole generation of NT scholars in the first half of the 20th century claimed that certain NT themes and ideas were “Gnostic” in their origin. But the reality is precisely the other way around:  John and Paul did not borrow from Gnosticism, but Gnosticism used and twisted the writings of John and Paul. The reason Gnosticism seems relevant is because the mind is so drawn by the striking verbal parallels, that it cannot help but read the earlier terms in light of ideas that developed later. 

With the DSS, the chronological order is the reverse – the DSS were prior to the writings of the NT. But a similar optical illusion can occur if we are not alert to it, since it is so hard for us to set aside our Christian influence and get into the mindset of the Qumran group. In reality, however, they were not Christian in any way; they were a rigorously Torah-observant Jewish sect that separated from mainstream Judaism and believed themselves to be the true remnant.

“Surely the same mistake is made in the study of the writings of Qumran, when a Christian mind discovers in them doctrines that had not yet come into being? Read in this false light, doctrines or expressions which are still purely Jewish are understood to possess a new meaning, which they received in fact only after the work of Christ had been completed. Led astray by an undeniable similarity of ‘mentality’ some have come to believe that the ‘spirit’ is also the same. Unconsciously (we believe) some have transferred the image of Jesus, the Messiah who was crucified and rose from the dead, to the Teacher of Righteousness, and then have stood amazed at the resemblance between the two” (pp. 29-30). 

To guard against this optical illusion, we must interpret the DSS in light of earlier or contemporary documents, not by later theological and religious developments, such as the New Testament or Christianity.

[Pierre Benoit, “Qumran and the New Testament,” in Paul and Qumran: Studies in New Testament Exegesis, ed. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968), 1-30; originally delivered at the closing session of the 1960 meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in Aarhus, Denmark, and published in NTS 7 (1960-61): 276-96.]

Timothy Lim

Timothy Lim makes the obvious point that “similarities do not prove influence” (p. 138). To make the case for influence, similarities are not sufficient, but one must be able to pinpoint some historical basis for contact or linkage between the two. One link that was suggested early on is John the Baptist, with the idea being that John may have been an Essene who later left that group and became part of the Jesus movement, bringing along some Qumranian baggage with him. But this theory has been examined and found wanting. At the end of the day, there is just no evidence of a direct or indirect historical link between the Qumran community and Paul.

In the absence of any evidence for a historical connection, the verbal or conceptual similarities between Paul and Qumran are best explained as both independently drawing upon OT themes. They did not know one another, but they can at times use similar language because they belong to “the same religious milieu” (p. 146). 

One striking example of this is that both Qumran and Paul use the language of the “new covenant” from Jeremiah and Ezekiel. The Essene community refers to itself as “the members of the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (CD VI, 19; VIII, 21). But for Qumran this “new covenant” is not set in contrast with the “old covenant.” It is merely a renewal/reenactment of the same Mosaic covenant; whereas for Paul it is a new, Christological dispensation. In Qumran, the members of the “renewed [Mosaic] covenant” are simply to redouble their efforts in keeping the law, binding themselves with a solemn oath to keep it perfectly: “Every initiant into the society of the Yahad is to enter the Covenant in full view of all the volunteers. He shall take upon himself a binding oath to return to the Law of Moses (according to all that He commanded) with all his heart and with all his mind” (1QS V, 7-13).

Lim writes: 

“True, both drew on the same source-text of Jeremiah 31:31-34; both interpreted the promise of ‘a new covenant’ eschatologically; and both redefined ‘the house of Israel’ and ‘the house of Judah’ in a sectarian manner. But the significance of the new covenant is very different: the Qumran community understood this new covenant as a renewal of the old. Reenacted in the ‘blessing and curses’ section of Serekh ha-yahad [The Rule of the Community], this communal ceremony takes place annually. For Paul, on the other hand, the new covenant is a new dispensation, christologically centered with hermeneutical consequences. The old covenant has been transformed into something quite different … While there are superficial similarities between them, there are profound differences between Paul and the Damascus Document” (pp. 141-2).

[Timothy Lim, “Studying the Qumran Scrolls and Paul in Their Historical Context,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers From an International Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (Ed. James Davila; STDJ 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 135-56.]

The application is obvious:  the language of “the righteousness of God” is found in both Qumran and Paul. But “similarities do not prove influence,” and given the lack of evidence of a historical link, it is better to conclude that they are both drawing upon the same language of the Old Testament, especially the Psalms. But even as they draw upon the same canonical material, they are putting that language to use in radically different ways. For Qumran, God’s righteousness is revealed in cleansing the individual member of the community from his sin, making him righteous, and placing him back on the path to perfect obedience to the law. For Paul, God’s righteousness is “apart from the law” and is revealed not in the creation of law-keepers but in the reckoning of law-breakers as righteous through the blood and righteousness of Another.

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 8

(3) No notion of justification by faith

The third point of difference between Paul and Qumran is that Qumran had nothing comparable to Paul's doctrine that one is righteous or justified by personal trust and faith in the Messiah who has already accomplished righteousness for his people. 

“The Christian attains to his new justice through faith in Christ (Rom 3:22ff.). There is nothing comparable to this in Qumran, where it is not even conceivable. The Teacher of the Hodayoth never proclaims belief in his own person which would bring salvation to his disciples. Certain scholars have made much of the appeals for belief in his teaching found in 1QpHab 2:6-8; 8:2ff.; CD 20:28, 32. But these are concerned with nothing more than the normal obedience of a disciple to the teaching of his master, and cannot be compared with that total commitment to the very person of Another as the source of salvation. The faith in Christ, which saves a Christian, is not merely faith in his teaching, but faith in his death and resurrection, or, more accurately, it is faith in the crucified and risen Christ (Rom 3:25; 4:25; 5:1, 9; Col 2:12). There is no possibility of such faith at Qumran.”

[Pierre Benoit, “Qumran and the New Testament,” in Paul and Qumran: Studies in New Testament Exegesis, ed. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968), 27.]

Related to this, the Qumran doctrine of righteousness is not associated with the liberating sense of assurance that is so central to Paul's message (cp. Rom 5:1-11). There is no notion at Qumran of the definitive nature of the revelation of God’s righteousness as something that has already occurred and to which we can look back upon in order to have assurance of our standing before God. 

“Nowhere … do we find in the Qumran texts anything like the statement, ‘You have been justified’ [1 Cor 6:11]. … It is not difficult to understand why this is the case. For the Qumran sectaries the revelation of God’s saving righteousness and his justification of sinners is never linked with any event in history comparable to the death and resurrection of Christ.”

[Nils A. Dahl, “The Doctrine of Justification: Its Social Function and Implications,” in Studies in Paul: Theology for the Early Christian Mission (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1977), 102-3.]

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 7

(2) Justification "under the law"

Another major difference between Paul and Qumran on justification is that for Qumran, righteousness is “under the law,” whereas for Paul it is “apart from the works of the law.” We may speak of the nomistic basis of righteousness according to the Qumran sect. 

The nomistic basis of righteousness at Qumran is made clear in the oath that prospective members of the community must take in order to join the group. 

1QS V, 7-13: “Every initiant into the society of the Yahad is to enter the Covenant in full view of all the volunteers. He shall take upon himself a binding oath to return to the Law of Moses (according to all that He commanded) with all his heart and with all his mind” (cp. CD XV, 7-12; XVI, 1-6; 1QH VI, 17-18; 1QS I, 7-8, 16-17).

The foundation of salvation is grace, but the basis of acceptance and eternal life is perfect obedience or works; repentance and the forgiveness of sins, for Qumran, merely set one back on the path of perfect obedience, but perfect obedience is the ultimate ground of acceptance before God, salvation from hell, and the obtaining of eternal life in the age to come. 

Perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law is required:  

CD II, 15-16 (“living perfectly in all His ways”); VII, 4-6 (“all who conduct their lives by these laws, in perfect holiness”); CD XX, 2, 5-7 (“the men of holy perfection”); 1QH VIII, 16, 26 (“a perfect heart”); XII, 30-32 (“walk in the perfect way … to perfect a way”); 1QS I, 8 (“all who volunteer to live by the laws of God … so as to … walk faultless before Him, according to all that has been revealed”), 13 (“according to the perfection of His ways”); II, 2, 9-11 (“to walk faultless in all the ways of God”); IV, 22 (“those following the perfect way”); V, 24 (annual promotion/demotion based on “perfection of walk”); VIII, 16–IX, 2 (“walk blamelessly,” distinction between intentional and unintentional sins); IX, 5-9 (“blameless behavior”), 18-19 (“the secret Way is perfected … walk blamelessly”); X, 20-21 (“until their walk be perfected”); XI, 2, 11, 17 (“the perfection of way … the way made perfect”).

Once "perfection of way" is achieved by living within the community, then one will be accepted by God:

1QS III, 8-10:  “Through an upright and humble attitude his sin may be covered, and by humbling himself before all God’s laws his flesh can be made clean .... Let him order his steps to walk faultless in all the ways of God, just as he commanded for the times appointed to him. Let him turn aside neither to the right nor to the left, nor yet deviate in the smallest detail from all of His words. Then indeed will he be accepted by God.”

1QH XII, 21-22: “Those who are in harmony with You shall stand before You for ever, and those who walk in the way of Your heart shall be secure for evermore.”

Not only acceptance before God, but escape from God's judgment at the last day is secured by obedience to the Law:

1QpHab VIII, 1-2: “This refers to all those who obey the Law among the Jews whom God will rescue from among those doomed to judgment.”

CD XII, 22: “If the seed of Israel lives according to this law, they shall never know condemnation.” 

CD XIV, 1-2: “As for all who live by these rules, God’s covenant stands firm for them, delivering them from all the traps of hell.”

And finally, even resurrection life is predicated upon one's works of righteousness under the Law, though one's attainment of such righteousness is not a human achievement but a result of God's sovereign electing will ("if it please you"): 

1QS XI, 16-17: “Establish all of his works in righteousness; raise up the son of Your handmaiden – if it please You – to be among those chosen of humankind, to stand before You forever.” 

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 6

DIFFERENCES

So we have seen the similarities. Now let us take a look at the significant differences between Paul and Qumran on the question of righteousness, that is, how sinful humans can be righteous in God’s sight in order to escape eternal perdition and inherit eternal life at the end of the age.

(1) Monergistic but inherent righteousness

Qumran may have a monergistic soteriology, but its monergism consists in God’s sovereign activity of changing the heart and causing one to become inherently and personally righteous. This contrasts with Paul, for whom justification is solely a forensic declaration, the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.  

1QH IV, 21-22: “You determine the way of the one You have chosen, and in the insight of Your truth You keep him from sinning against You; restoring to him his humility by Your chastisements, and by Your trials” (cp. 1QH XII, 30-32).

1QH VII, 12-15: “I know by Your understanding that it is not by human strength … a man’s way is not in himself, nor is a person able to determine his step [cp. 1QH XX, 34]. But I know that in Your hand is the inclination of every spirit … and all his works You have determined before ever You created him ... You alone have created the righteous one, and from the womb You established him to give heed to Your covenant at the appointed time of grace.”

1QH XV, 13-20:  “You have established my heart in accordance with Your teaching and Your truth, setting my steps straight in the paths of righteousness, so that I may walk in Your presence in the domain of the righteous ones in paths of glory and life and peace without turning and never ceasing … For in Your righteousness You have stood me in Your covenant, and I have taken hold of Your truth.”

See also 1QH XVIII, 22; XXI, 7-14; XXIII, 9; 1QS IV, 2-3 (“causing his heart to fear the laws of God”), 20-22.

The Qumran sect was totally monergistic and in that limited sense "Calvinistic" in their soteriology, but they knew nothing of the gospel. They would have rejected Paul's doctrine that God justifies the ungodly by imputing to them the righteousness of the Messiah who was obedient in their place. For them, God makes the elect inherently and actually righteous and on that basis declares them to be righteous.

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 5

Second, the question of the doctrine of justification.

Do Paul and Qumran hold to the same or similar doctrine of justification? What are the similarities and differences? 

In earlier posts, I criticized the rending of mishpati in 1QS XI as “my justification,” so one might think it would be incorrect or misleading to speak of Qumran as having a doctrine of justification at all. Yet there is a sense in which the Qumran sect did have a doctrine of justification. This can be seen from the fact that the sect employed the verb tsadaq (Qal: “to be righteous”), often when quoting or alluding to Psalm 143:2 which uses this verb, “Enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you” (ESV). Qumran’s reflection on and expansion of this text leads to a doctrine of justification of sorts. Perhaps it would be best to speak of Qumran’s doctrine of righteousness, that is, their view of how a person can be righteous in God’s sight. 

Note: In the quotes from the DSS that follow, I am using the Wise-Abegg-Cook (WAC) translation. However, I do not reproduce their use of brackets to indicate scholarly reconstructions of the text, since this would be tedious and distracting. In a few instances I modified WAC, changing "justified" to "be righteous" (a more accurate translation of the Qal of tsadaq).

SIMILARITIES

To begin with, let us consider the similarities:

(1) Human sinfulness and necessity of divine grace

Both Qumran and Paul have a deep recognition of the sinfulness of humans and the inability of humans to be righteous in God’s sight apart from his grace. For example, here is one sample of a common motif in the DSS – the use of various self-deprecating phrases to describe fallen humanity apart from God’s grace:

1QH IX, 21-23: “These things I know through Your understanding, for You have opened my ears to wonderful mysteries even though I am a vessel of clay and kneaded with water, a foundation of shame and a spring of filth, a melting pot of iniquity and a structure of sin, a spirit of error, perverted without understanding and terrified by righteous judgments.”

From this, it is a short step to the quotation of Psalm 143:2:

1QH VIII, 20: “I know that no one can be righteous apart from You.”

1QH XV, 28: “Who can be righteous before You, when he enters into judgment?”

However, it is not that the Qumran sect is denying the possibility that humans can be righteous before God. They are rather reflecting on the sinfulness of humans apart from God’s grace and outside of the community. God in his grace has provided a way of humans to be righteous, namely, by repenting of their sin, joining the community, and practicing the law within that community. Righteousness is thus possible by God’s grace. 

There is a sense in which we may say that both Qumran and Paul have what may be called a doctrine of righteousness sola gratia. The Qumran sect explicitly uses the term “only” (raq) to express this:

1QH V, 20-23: “What is one born of woman among all Your awesome works? He is but an edifice of dust, kneaded with water, … his foundation is obscene shame … and a perverted spirit ruled him … Only (raq) by Your goodness shall a man be righteous, and by the abundance of Your compassion.”

Now, it must be pointed out, that “to be righteous” in Qumran is not the same as in Paul. We will examine this in greater detail in future posts. But for now it is sufficient to say that “to be righteous” in the DSS means to be actually, inherently, and personally righteous in a moral sense, including the possession of both a righteous inclination and righteous behavior.

Cp. 1QH XI, 23-25; XII, 29-30; XV, 16-18; XVII, 14-15; XIX, 3; XX, 24-26, 32-25; XXII frag 4; XXIII, 11-13.

(2) Predestination

Both Qumran and Paul are predestinarians in both the comprehensive sense (God foreordains whatsoever comes to pass) and in the salvific sense (God foreordains who will be saved and who will not). 

In the comprehensive sense, both Qumran and Paul believe in God’s sovereign decree in respect to all that comes to pass:

1QH IX, 7-9, 19-20: “By Your wisdom You have established the successive generations and before You created them You knew all their works for ever and ever. For apart from You nothing is done, and without Your will nothing is known. You have formed every spirit and You determined their deeds and judgment for all their works … and in the wisdom of Your knowledge You determined their destiny before they came into existence and according to Your will everything comes to pass, and nothing happens apart from You.” 

In the salvific sense, both believe God is sovereign in salvation. Some are “foreordained to God” and others are “foreordained to Belial” (1QS II, 1-10). 

1QH VII, 15-17: “You alone have created the righteous one, and from the womb You established him to give heed to Your covenant at the appointed time of grace and to walk in all things … But the wicked You created for the time of Your wrath, and from the womb You set them apart for the day of slaughter” (cp. 1QH XII, 38).

In addition, there are several references to election:  1QH X, 13 (“the chosen of righteousness”); 1QH XVIII, 26: (“You chose them from the sons of men”); 1QS VIII, 6 (“chosen by God’s will”); 1QS XI, 7, 16 (“to them He has chosen … those chosen of humankind”).

The Qumranian doctrine of predestination is spelled out in great detail in “The Treatise of the Two Spirits” (1QS III, 13--IV, 26), which is too long to quote here.

(3) Atonement for sin

Both Qumran and Paul speak of the need for and possibility of forgiveness, cleansing, and atonement: 

1QH XII, 36-37: “I rested in Your mercies and the abundance of Your compassion. For You atone for iniquity and purify man from guilt by Your righteousness.”

Of course, it goes without saying that while both Qumran and Paul affirmed that God provides atonement for sin, they differ on the means of atonement. For Qumran, atonement is provided within the community and is obtained by means of repentance (turning from one’s sin) and pursuing obedience to the Torah by strictly following the community’s interpretation thereof. For Paul, of course, atonement for sin is only possible through the sacrificial death of Christ.

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 4

B. What is the meaning of the phrase “the righteousness of God” in the DSS? Is it a technical term?

So we have seen that “my justification” is a misleading translation of a Hebrew word that would better be translated “judgment.” But what about “the righteousness of God” or references to God’s righteousness using the second or third person pronoun, “His/Your righteousness”? Here we do not have a translation problem, but an interpretation problem. The translation itself is accurate. The question then becomes, is the phrase a technical term (or something close to it) with a highly specialized meaning that was picked up by Paul, as argued by Käsemann, Stuhlmacher, Dunn, and Wright? 

The fact is, it is not a technical term but is merely a continuation of OT usage and is used with the same variety as it is used in the OT. In some cases, it simply means “God’s justice.” In fact, in one instance it has a directly punitive meaning:  “All injustice [and ]wickedness You destroy for ever. Thus Your righteousness is revealed before all Your creatures” (1QH VI, 16). 

In other cases, “the righteousness of God” is used in a positive, salvific sense. In 1QS XI, it is used in reference to God’s activity of cleansing the suppliant from sin. “By His righteousness shall He cleanse me of human defilement and the sin of humankind” (1QS XI, 14-15). Similar salvific language occurs in other scrolls:  “I was in death’s thrall through my sins … but You saved me, O Lord, according to Your boundless compassion, Your myriad righteous acts” (11Q5 XIX, 11).

In these passages, and several others like them, we see a usage that is nothing more than a continuation of the usage in the canonical Psalms, e.g., “Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness” (Ps 51:14 ESV). See also Pss 22:31; 31:1; 35:28; 36:10; 40:10; 65:5; 71:2, 15, 16, 19, 24; 98:2; 103:17; 143:1, 11; 145:7.

There is no reason to take the Qumran usage as a technical term that is then picked up by Paul. It is best to interpret Qumran and Paul as both drawing on the language of the canonical Psalms, but developing that language in unique ways. 

One thing that stands out, though, is that for all three – the canonical Psalms, Qumran, and Paul – the phrase does not mean “God’s faithfulness to his covenant.” There is simply no evidence for that interpretation. 

Nor can the judicial component of the phrase be eliminated. Even when “the righteousness of God” is used in a salvific sense, the judicial component receives emphasis. God exercises his saving power judicially, because, as the righteous Judge of all the earth, he implements salvation by means of a judicial verdict in favor of his people and against their foes.

When the Qumran sect drew on this language from the Psalms, they took it and filled it with their own theological meaning. For Qumran, the saving righteousness of God is expressed by cleansing the suppliant from his former sins, placing him in the community, firming his steps in the path of Torah obedience as defined by the sect, and enabling him to achieve “perfection of way.” “Surely a man’s way is not his own; neither can any person firm his own steps. Surely mishpat is of God; by His power is the way made perfect” (1QS XI, 10-11).

Paul too was undoubtedly drawing on this salvific usage of “the righteousness of God” in the canonical Psalms, but the meaning of this phrase in Rom 1:17; 3:21; 10:3, etc. takes on a new meaning in light of the Christ event. For Paul, “the righteousness of God” is also “the righteousness of faith,” that is, a status of righteousness that is attained “apart from the law” (Rom 3:21, 28), through the death and resurrection of Christ. It is a righteousness, not “of the law,” but “of faith” (Rom 4:13; 9:30; 10:5-6). Hence it is not only the saving “righteousness of God” in the sense of God’s righteous judicial saving activity, but is also a “free gift” of righteousness “from” God (Rom 5:17; Phil 3:9). 

Both Qumran and Paul appropriated the language of the saving righteousness of God from the canonical Psalms, but the theological content associated with that terminology differs significantly.

[On “the righteousness of God” as a technical term in Jewish literature, especially the DSS, see Ernst Käsemann, “Gottesgerechtigkeit bei Paulus,” ZTK 58 (1961): 367-78; and Peter Stuhlmacher, Gerechtigkeit Gottes bei Paulus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966), 73, 80. Stuhlmacher later softened this claim but still said it was a fixed term with a synthetically comprehensive meaning; see his Reconciliation, Law, & Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 82, 91. In a similar vein, Dunn and Wright eschew the terminus technicus claim, but then go on to insist that it has a highly specialized meaning derived from Hebrew/Jewish literature, which amounts to the same thing in the end. See James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 340-44; N. T. Wright, Romans, in New Interpreter’s Bible (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 10.401-3 (“a coded way of saying that God would at last act within history to vindicate Israel”); ibid., Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 2009), 49, 99, 164, 178.]

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 3

First, the questions of translation and interpretation. 

A. Is “justification” a valid translation of the Hebrew word mishpat? 

In beginning our approach to dealing with our discomfort with 1QS XI, the first thing that needs to be addressed is the question of the validity of the translation. Our discomfort is not with the DSS but with the translation thereof. The rendering of mishpat in 1QS XI as “justification” (with the suffix, mishpati, “my justification”) goes back to one of the earliest translations of the DSS, that by Andre Dupont-Sommer, itself translated into English by Geza Vermes. Vermes retained “my justification” in his widely used Penguin edition, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (1962–1995), then The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (1997, rev. 2004). This tradition is continued by the Wise-Abegg-Cook translation that I quoted in my first post and which has now become another standard English translation rivaling and perhaps replacing Vermes. 

So in reality, our discomfort is with what Joseph Fitzmyer calls a “tendentious” translation rather than with 1QS XI itself. Although Fitzmyer is a Roman Catholic scholar, he is not far from the kingdom when it comes to his interpretation of Paul’s doctrine of justification; for example, he admits, against the teaching of his own church, that the verb “to justify” (dikaioo) is a forensic declaration not an infusion of righteousness. Fitzmyer is a trustworthy, objective, and respected scholar both of the New Testament and of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He further states: “I am not happy with the Vermes translation of 1QS 11 … it is a bit too ‘Christian’ for my understanding.” He thinks mishpat should be translated simply as “judgment.”

It should not be surprising that Fitzmyer (and he is not alone in this) would question this tendentious translation, because the rendering “judgment” is simply more in line with its usage in the Hebrew Old Testament and even in other parts of the DSS. 

In the OT, there are 12 cases where mishpat is used with the suffix “my” (mishpati) in reference to a human being. In these cases, it is never translated “my justification” but typically something along these lines: “my right” (Job 27:2; 34:5-6; Isa 40:27; 49:4), “my just cause” (Ps 9:5), or “my vindication” (Ps 17:2; 35:23) (ESV).

The usage of mishpat in the DSS is in fundamental continuity with the OT usage. The term basically refers to a judgment, decision or verdict. The suffix “my” implies that it is God’s decision/verdict with respect to the suppliant. But what, exactly, is the decision or verdict? Joachim Jeremias thinks mishpat in 1QS XI refers to God’s gracious decision to allow the suppliant to enter the community thereby making possible a life of perfect obedience to the Torah. 

Thus, the translation “my justification” is misleading and creates the illusion that 1QS XI is a stronger Pauline parallel than it really is.

[Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 127; ibid., “The Biblical Basis of Justification by Faith: Comments on the Essay by Professor Reumann,” in “Righteousness” in the New Testament: “Justification” in the United States Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue, by John Reumann (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 201; Joachim Jeremias, Jesus and the Message of the New Testament (ed. Kenneth Hanson; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002), 94.]

Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Pt. 2

Those of us who are committed to the Protestant Reformation’s understanding of the Pauline gospel should admit that this passage (1QS XI) makes us uncomfortable. 

One reason we are uncomfortable with this passage is its emphasis on grace, which sounds so Christian, even Protestant, and yet was written before Christ by Jews who knew nothing about the gospel of Christ and who could not have accepted that Jesus was the Messiah without renouncing their sect. The message of salvation by grace alone is not one that we normally associate with non-Messianic Jewish folks of this time period. We tend to think of them as people who had a rigorously nomistic view of salvation by works, by law-keeping. This is a picture we have developed from reading the New Testament, especially Jesus and Paul, both of whom locked horns with the Pharisees, who are depicted in the NT as judgmental, legalistic – though outwardly pious, they were inwardly far from God. So it is uncomfortable for us to read a passage that seems the opposite of legalism and breathes the spirit of true evangelical piety and humble dependence on God’s grace.

Another reason we might struggle with this passage is that seems to diminish the uniqueness of Paul’s theological insights regarding justification. If a Jewish sect before Paul taught something that sounds a lot like Paul, then perhaps Paul was not unique in his thought and was dependent either on the Qumran sect itself or on a Jewish tradition that happens to be preserved in these writings. In 1QS XI, 12 the Qumran psalmist says, “If through sin of the flesh I fall, my justification will be by the righteousness of God which endures for all time.” In a similar manner, Paul connects “the righteousness of God” with “justification” in Romans 3:21-24 and elsewhere. The linguistic similarities are so strong, they can scarcely be accidental. But if Paul’s doctrine of justification is in line with Jewish thought, or at least this strand of Jewish thought, this would seem not only to diminish Paul’s uniqueness but also to call into question his sharp polemic against his non-Christian Jewish contemporaries, whom he accuses of “being ignorant of the righteousness of God” due to their pride in asserting their own righteousness (Rom 10:3). If 1QS XI is any indication, the Qumran community does not seem to be guilty of this charge.

So these are some of the potential uncomfortable thoughts that may arise for Reformational evangelicals upon being confronted with this important and well-known passage from the DSS. In the posts that follow, I would like to provide some thoughts that may help to put to rest some of these anxieties. There are a number of questions that we need to wrestle with, but I think they can be grouped into four main ones:

First, the questions of translation and interpretation. Is “justification” a valid translation of the Hebrew word mishpat? What is the meaning of this term as used in 1QS XI? What is the meaning of “the righteousness of God” in the DSS? Is it a technical term? Are these terms being used in the same way that Paul uses them?

Second, the question of the doctrine of justification. Do Paul and Qumran hold to the same doctrine of justification? What are the similarities and differences? 

Third, the question of literary influence. Did Paul borrow his doctrine of justification from the DSS or was he at least inspired by it? Or, if direct literary influence is too strong, was he influenced by a Jewish tradition that happens to have been preserved here? If not, what is the explanation for the striking similarities in language between them?

Fourth, the question of the character of Judaism. Did Paul misrepresent Judaism as a legalistic religion of salvation by works? Or have Protestants misunderstood Paul? What objections would Paul have had to the soteriology of the DSS?

Follow me as I attempt to address these questions to the best of my ability over the next several posts.