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.]
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