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And the Levites shall curse all the men of the lot of Belial. They shall begin to speak and shall say: Accursed are you for all your wicked, blameworthy deeds. May God hand you over to terror by the hand of all those carrying out acts of vengeance. [...] Accursed are you, without mercy, according to the darkness of your deeds, and sentenced to the gloom of everlasting fire. May God not be merciful when you entreat Him. May He not forgive by purifying your iniquities. May He lift the countenance of His anger to avenge Himself on you, and may there be no peace for you by the mouth of those who intercede.
A reversal of the Priestly Blessing. The attitude is the opposite of that of modern Judaism, in which the sinner is encouraged to give up their sinful ways and return to the fold.
4Q252 Commentary on Genesis A (p. 503), Col. II:
On that day, Noah went out of the ark, at the end of a complete year of three hundred and sixty-four days.
At the time the DSS were written, the Jews were divided between those who believed the Jewish calendar was solar, and had always been solar, and that those who observed the lunisolar calendar were sinning by observing the festivals on the wrong days; and vice versa. Of course, the lunisolar camp ended up winning out, but the question is which was the original custom? The smoking gun, as far as I'm concerned, is in the Noah story, in which Noah goes into the ark on the seventeenth day of the second month (not February, as a Christian colleague once described it to me!), and the ark rested on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, after one hundred and fifty days: There is no way you can get that to work with a lunisolar calendar of months averaging twenty-nine and one half days! Though it also doesn't fit how the four non-month days are distributed in the solar calendar in use in the Qumran community, which is why the Book of Jubilees has Noah carry out calendrical reform after the Flood.
4Q179 Ages of Creation A (p. 371); the solidi enclose text inserted between the lines by the copyist:And this is engraved upon the [heavenly] tablets [for the sons of men, for] /[a]ll/ the ages of their dominion.
Having read A Walk Through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of its Creation, I now recognise the reference to the Heavenly Tablets as not only referencing a Mesopotamian concept, but also reflecting the worldview of the Interpolator of the Book of Jubilees, who introduced frequent references to these to counter any suggestion that the holy laws of the Torah originated in the actions of mere mortals (the Patriarchs, which was the theme of the original Book of Jubilees), rather than being of divine origin.
4Q504 Words of the Luminaries דברי המאורות, Col. V (p. 1015)and they served a foreign god in their land. And their land too became a wasteland [...] because your rage and your fiery anger [were po]ured out in your zealous fire [...]. But in spite of all this You did not reject the descendants of Jacob, nor despise Israel to destruction, annulling the covenant with them.
This also, according to the above book, ties in with a major theme of the Book of Jubilees, which is addressing the fear that with the Destruction of the (First) Temple, the covenant between God and the Jews established at Sinai was abrogated, as the תּוֹכָחָה (admonition) passages in the Torah might seem to suggest. This is why the (original) author of Jubilees sought to backdate the origin of the cultic practices to the Patriarchs, thus implying that they, and God's relationship with Israel, are still valid even if the specifically Sinaitic covenant has been abrogated.
The Dead Sea Scrolls (post #3): Blessings and Prayers
Sunday, August 21st, 2022 09:03 pmBlessings
1QS (Community Rule) Col. VI (p. 83):In every place were there are ten men of the Community council, there should not be missing amongst them a priest. [...] And when they prepare the table to dine or the new wine for drinking, the priest shall stretch out his hand as the first to bless the first fruits of the bread and the new wine.
Similarly in 1Q28a Col. II (p. 103).
Rabbinical Judaism is characterised by many blessings as part of daily life, including on eating and drinking, of which there is no sign in the Toraitical religion. Here we see that blessings on eating and drinking, and indeed commencing a meal with a blessing over bread, preceded rabbinical Judaism.
Another example is given in 1QA (Community Rule) Col. X (p. 95):
And before stretching out my hand to get fat on the tasty fruit of the earth (להדשן בעדני תנובת תבל) [...] I shall bless Him for (His) great marvels.
In rabbinical Judaism, all blessings begin with the fixed formula ברוך אתה ה׳ אלהינו מלך העולם "Blessed are You, Lord our God, Sovereign of the Universe". The first three words of this occur twice in the Bible; at some point they got picked up as the definitive way to start a prayer. In col. XI and elsewhere we see blessings beginning ברוך אתה אלי; in 1QHa V, ברוך אתה אדוני; in 4.Q414 and elsewhere, ברוך אתה אל ישראל.
War Scroll Col. XX (p. 191)
[For the Instructor למשכיל, pr]aises and prayer, to bow down and entreat always, from period to period: when the light comes to [its] domini[on] through the course of the day, according to its regulation, in accordance with the laws חוקות of the great luminary; at the return of the evening, at the departure of light, when the dominion of the darkness begins. [Etc]
Reminiscent of the forms of the first blessing before the שמע in the morning and the evening.
4Q428 4QHodayot.b = 1QHa XIXReminiscent of the blessing אשר נתן לשכוי בינה להבחין בן יום ולילה in the modern פסוקי דזימרא.
[Blessed are You, L]ord, Who have given [your servant] [the insight of knowledge to understand your works] [ברוך אתה א]דוני אשר נתתה[ לעבדכה] [שכל דעה להבין בנפלאותיכה]
Prayer(s)
1QA (Community Rule) Col IX (p. 93) (may be better preserved in 4Q256 XVIII, 4Q258 VII, VIII, 4Q259 III, IV, 4Q260 I):
He shall bless his Creator [... and with the offering of] his lips he shall bless Him. [ותרומת] שפתים יברכנו
(Similar phraseology in col. X, and also in 4Q256 (Community Rule), Col. XIX (p. 515).)
With the destruction of the Temple, ritual sacrifices ceased. Prayers became instituted as "the offering of our lips", based on Hoshea 14:3, but here we see this was also used to describe prayer whilst the Temple still stood. Possibly this description arose following the destruction of the First Temple; it's worth also remembering that the institution of the synagogue arose whilst the Second Temple stood.
Col. X (p. 95):When I start to stretch out my hands and feet I shall bless His name; when I start to go out and to come in, to sit and to stand up, and lying down in my bed I shall extol Him;Most of this is putting Deuteronomy 6:7 and 11:19 into practice; the first part is also reminiscent of the practice amongst some communities of saying באיאמ״ה מתיר אסורים (in ברכת השחר) whilst stretching in bed prior to getting up.
4Q504 Words of the Luminaries דברי המאורות Col. V (p. 1015) (following immediately upon the final quotation given from this work below):
For You are a living God, you alone, and there is no other apart from you. כיא אתה אל חי לבדכה ואין זולתכה
Reminiscent of אין אלהים זולתך in the first ברכה after the שמע, though a quick grep reveals similar wording (though in the third person) in Mark 12:32 and 1 Corinthians 8:4, though. As mentioned above, the Words of the Luminaries is Herodian, so antedates the NT.
4Q215a Time of Righteousness (p. 457)
The age of peace has arrived [...]. Every t[ongue] will bless Him, and every man will bow down before him, [and they will be] of on[e mi]nd.
Reminiscent of עָלֵנוּ, which the commentary in the Birnbaum Machzor says that the lack of reference to rebuilding the Temple or Jerusalem suggests antedates the Destruction of the Temple.
The Dead Sea Scrolls (post #1)
Sunday, August 14th, 2022 07:34 pmThere are certain texts which function almost as macguffins to the cultures which produced them: Everyone is aware of them and holds them to be a central text in the foundational period of their culture, but few have actually read them. "Beowulf" is an example for the English (is there something similar for the Germans?); I would say that the Dead Sea Scrolls constitute one for the Jews.
Having attended a number of Limmud sessions on the Dead Sea Scrolls, but not actually read any of the scroll contents myself apart from brief quotations, when an acquaintance gave away part of her library prior to emigrating, I took her copy of The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, ed. Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar (thanks, Shani!), which contains all of the non-Biblical material in the scrolls, presented along with English translation but no commentary.
( My insights from reading the docuiments )
