Qumran Scholarship and the Study of the Old Testament in the New Testament

Pluriform Biblical Texts

Post-Qumran textual criticism has shown that the biblical scrolls reflect the pluriformity of the biblical texts of ancient Judaism between approximately 200 BCE and 100 CE. The biblical scrolls are not the sectarian scrolls of one Jewish sect, the Qumran-Essene community; they are the authoritative scriptures of mainstream or common Judaism.

In the past, the biblical scrolls were seen by some scholars as sectarian and unrepresentative of the biblical texts in ancient Judaism as a whole. This assumption is no longer thought valid in the light of more recent studies on the biblical scrolls. What is striking, according to Eugene Ulrich, is the absence of ‘sectarian variants’ in the biblical scrolls (2000, 2002). There is no evidence that these biblical scrolls were sectarian biblical scrolls, and no reason to exclude them from a consideration of the biblical citations in the New Testament.

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible posited three text-types: the Masoretic Text, the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch. ¹ With the discovery of the biblical scrolls, it became evident that this tripartite scheme could no longer be maintained and should be abandoned in favour of a theory that accounts for the multiplicity of texts and literary traditions. ² The lesson that one draws from the text-critical work of Frank Cross, Shemaryahu Talmon, Emanuel Tov, Eugene Ulrich and others is the complexity of the task in assessing the biblical citations and allusions in the New Testament. ³

One always has to be mindful of the possibility that when a New Testament author cites a biblical word, phrase or clause that differs from the Septuagint, the Masoretic Text or the Samaritan Pentateuch, he or she may be citing a textual variant attested in the biblical scrolls. Not every variant is an exegetical variant created by the author. ⁴

For instance, scholars are hard pressed to identify the source of Matthew’s fulfilment quotation, ‘He shall be called a Nazarine’ (Ναζωραῖος κληθήσεται, Mt. 2.23). One possibility is to suggest that Matthew is alluding to the servant text in Isa. 49.6 that speaks of the ‘preserved of Israel’. The kethiv of the MT was only partially pointed by Ben Asher (נצירי ישראל), and the qere reads a passive participle, ‘the preserved (נצורי) of Israel’. It is supposed that Matthew revocalized the word to neser (נצר), meaning either a branch or Nazorean, given the messianic use of the word in Isa. 11.1. ⁵ But this would require the emendation of the consonantal text.

The evidence of the Qumran biblical scrolls offers an alternative solution. Matthew may have been citing a textual variant attested in 4QSam^a ‘[and I will de]dicate him as a Nazirite forever’ (ונת]תיהו נזיר עד עולם]), which is a textual plus of 1 Sam. 1.22. ⁶ Neither the MT nor the LXX attests to this clause. Post-Qumran textual criticism provides the theoretical framework of pluriform biblical texts in which one should study the textual and exegetical variants of biblical citations in the New Testament.

Differentiating Language and Textual Classification

Another lesson that one should draw from post-Qumran textual criticism is the conceptual distinction that is to be made between language and textual classification in assessing the biblical citations in the New Testament. The character of a text is not necessarily linked to the language in which it is written. Language and textual classification must be considered separately.

What I mean is this: the MT, LXX and SP text-types are written in Hebrew, Greek and Samaritan respectively. These serve as heuristic types used by scholars to classify texts. As already mentioned above, they are not the only text-types in the Second Temple period, but they will serve here to illustrate the point. Post-Qumran textual criticism has shown that a text written in one language could be aligned textually with a type that is usually associated with another language.

For instance, it has been shown that 4QJer^b, written in Hebrew, is to be classified as a septuagintal text-type. That is to say, the Hebrew text of 4QJer^b approximates the presumed Vorlage of the Greek translation of the prophecy of Jeremiah, and therefore belongs to its text-type. It is the content or textual character of 4QJer^b, rather than the language in which it is written, that determines a text’s classification as septuagintal. Of course, text-critics have long differentiated between language and textual classification in theory and practice. It is, however, the text-critical study of the biblical scrolls that has provided concrete examples of this differentiation in characterizing a Hebrew text, like 4QJer^{b, d}, 4QDeut^q, 4QLev^d, 4QExod^b and others, as septuagintal. ⁷

When applied to the study of the biblical citations in the New Testament, this principle of differentiation yields some new and surprising results. Take, for instance, Paul’s biblical citations in his Hauptbriefe. ⁸ It is commonly asserted on the basis of a casual comparison between his biblical citations and the LXX that ‘Paul’s Bible’ is the Septuagint. Yet, when one analyses the textual character of his verbatim citations, it is evident that the text that he most often quotes is the uniform text of the MT and LXX.

His quotations agree with both the MT and LXX 41 times out of 92 cases (45 per cent). Paul cites the LXX, when it differs from the MT, only on 17 occasions (18 per cent). Paul did use the Septuagint, and the language of the Greek translation shaped the expressions in his own writings, but the textual classification of his verbatim quotations shows that it is the uniform tradition of the MT and LXX that he most commonly cites. ⁹ Paul cited his scriptures in Greek, because that was the language of his letters, but it does not necessarily follow that the biblical citations are, then, to be textually classified as the septuagintal text-type.

The Implied Bible

The recognition that the Septuagint was not the text-type of the majority of his verbatim citations allows one to consider anew Paul’s bible. There is no need to suppose that he must have had the Alexandrian canon or a more extensive corpus of authoritative texts in mind based on the textual character of his citations.

Paul was not concerned to define his canon. He was a missionary faced with many pastoral and doctrinal issues that required his attention. However, his pedigree as a Hebrew of Hebrews gives us a clue to the collection of authoritative texts that may have been implied. He was a Pharisee as to the law (Phil. 3.2-6), and it is not unreasonable to suppose that the collection of authoritative scriptures of the Pharisees was his implied bible. What became the Pharisaic canon was itself still open and not finally closed in the middle of the first century CE, and Paul’s implied bible is consistent with it.

Paul cited or alluded to all the books of the traditional Jewish canon except for the Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther and Ezra–Nehemiah. He used introductory formulas exclusively for citing the texts that eventually ended up in the canon. He did not always use introductory formulas, but when he did so, it was to quote a biblical text and not a non-biblical passage. He described the biblical texts as γραφαί ἁγίαι (Rom. 1.2), a formulation that is unique in the New Testament, and an exact translation of the rabbinic expression of ‘holy scriptures’ (כתבי הקודש). ¹⁰

The description of Paul’s bible as ‘the Septuagint’ or ‘septuagintal’ should be distinguished between three senses: the reference to an Alexandrian canon, the textual classification of his biblical citations, and the influence of the language of the Greek translation on Paul’s own expressions.

Sectarian Hermeneutics

The study of the Old Testament in the New should also benefit from developments in Qumran scholarship on Jewish sectarianism. It is now widely recognized that the sectarian communities reflected in the scrolls and described by the classical authors of Philo, Josephus and Pliny are not to be identified with the earliest followers of Jesus. They were different groups that belonged to the matrix of sectarian Judaism. One of the characteristics of late Second Temple Judaism is the presence of Jewish sects or schools of philosophy. These sects held teachings (e.g., on resurrection, immortality, fate and free will) and practices (e.g., ritualized washings, initiation procedures, hierarchical order) that distinguished them both from ordinary Jews and from each other.

This historical perspective obviates the pitfalls associated with the practice of adducing literary parallels between the scrolls and the New Testament (e.g., the citation of Isa. 40.3 in Mk 1.1-8 and the Rule of the Community 8.1-16) to support the view of a direct link between the communities. ¹¹ Instead, terminological and exegetical parallels attest to the pool of authoritative texts and religious ideas from which both the authors of the scrolls and of the New Testament drew their material and inspiration. ¹²

The authors of the sectarian scrolls and New Testament shared similar hermeneutics: they often used the same biblical texts and interpreted them eschatologically; they considered the oracles of the prophets to have been fulfilled in their own time; and they used exegetical techniques and terminology that were similar or the same. But they drew different lessons from their biblical sources.

Consider, for instance, the use of the promise of ‘the new covenant’ in the scrolls, the Pauline letters and the letter to the Hebrews. The terminology and concept are drawn from the same biblical passage of Jer. 31.31-34. In the LXX this passage is found in Jer. 38. The NRSV translates the MT of Jer. 31 as follows:

³¹The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ³²It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. ³³But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. ³⁴No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the LORD’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

Both the scrolls and the New Testament drew their terminology from this text. The Damascus Document described the sectarian community as ‘those who entered the new covenant (הברית החדשה) in the land of Damascus’ (CD 6.19; 8.21, 29; 19.33). The location of ‘Damascus’ has been interpreted as a symbolic cipher referring to either Babylon or Khirbet Qumran. The community is made up of volunteers who entered the new covenant. Elsewhere, they are described as ‘the doers of the laws in the house of Judah whom God will deliver from the house of judgment’ (1QpHab 8.1) and ‘the blameless and true house of Israel’ (1QS 8.9 // 4Q259 2.18). 1QpHab 2.3 is plausibly reconstructed as a further reference to ‘[the] new [covenant]’ and the context suggests that among the covenanters there are some who were ‘traitors’.

For the sectarians of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the new covenant is contrasted with the covenant of the forefathers. CD 1.4-5 states that God judges Israel who spurned him, ‘but when He remembered the covenant of the forefathers (ברית ראשנים) He caused a remnant to remain’. It is evident that CD is interpreting Jer. 31.32 that describes the covenant that God cut with the ancestors and which they broke. The sectarian interpreters focused exclusively on the first two verses of Jer. 31. There is no accompanying comment on the internalization of the law in vv. 33 and 34, because the promise of restoration was understood to be the renewal of the old covenant, and not the expectation of something entirely new. The sectarians are admonished to return to careful observance of the law rather than to abandon the practice of teaching the law to each other.

By stark contrast, the New Testament understood Jer. 31.31-34 to be prophesying a new dispensation as inaugurated in the life and death of Jesus. Paul passed on to the Corinthians what he himself had received from the Lord Jesus, and the ritual of the wine is described as ‘the cup of the new covenant (ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη) in my blood’ (1 Cor. 11.25). The legal and ethical consequence of this belief is that Paul is now a minister of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit (2 Cor. 3.6). ¹³

The author of the letter to the Hebrews expresses a similar understanding of Jer. 31. All four verses of the prophecy are cited (from the LXX) in Heb. 8.8-12. The accompanying interpretation in v. 13 contrasts the new with the old covenant: ‘In speaking of “a new covenant” he has made the first one old (πεπαλαίωκεν).’ Jesus has obtained a better ministry and is the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted through better promises (v. 6). Hebrews makes it explicit that Jer. 31.31-34 is to be interpreted as the supersession of the old covenant by the new.

The citation and diverging interpretation of Jer. 31 in the scrolls and the New Testament highlight the theory of the sectarian matrix of late Second Temple Judaism that posits the same intellectual milieu, but not identity, of various groups of sectarians. The sectarians shared a hermeneutical approach that is distinguishable from common Judaism. They chose the same biblical passage of Jer. 31, which is passed over and ignored in rabbinic literature, to express their own sense of prophecy being fulfilled in their time. But they did not understand the promise of Jeremiah in the same way and therefore were intellectually incompatible with each other. They were sectarians who shared a common hermeneutics, but disagreed on how the fulfilment of scriptures is to be interpreted.

Diversity of Sectarian Thought

Another feature of Qumran scholarship on sectarianism is the deconstruction of the notion of a single Qumran-Essene community. It has long been noted that the Essenes according to Josephus had two different orders, a celibate one and another one that is family based. Moreover, the Yahad of the Rule of the Community was distinguished from the community of the Damascus Document. Some would find a correspondence between the celibate/Yahad and the marrying/D-community.

Recently, John J. Collins has posited a further deconstruction of the Yahad into multiple communities existing at the same time. Collins argued that 1QS 6.1-8 is not simply a relic of an older legislation; rather, it is reflective of the communities described in the scrolls. Collins’s multiple communities theory is based on the different recensions of the Rule of the Community (Serekh ha-yahad) from Cave 4. He understands the key passage of 1QS 6.8 (‘in every place where there are ten men of the council of the community’) in a partitive rather than a locative sense. Different communities of the Yahad were spread throughout Judaea, and in every place where there was a quorum of ten men there would be a priest and someone to interpret the law, day and night. The community was not simply situated at Khirbet Qumran, but different communities of the Yahad existed at the same time throughout Judaea, and different versions of the Serekh may have been operative in them. ¹⁴

If Collins is correct, then sectarianism in late Second Temple Judaism is more complex than has been previously recognized. The multiple communities theory accords with Philo and Josephus’s description of the Essenes living throughout Judaea. It explains why the more textually primitive form of 4QS^d (4Q258) continued to be copied and not superseded by the developed edition of 1QS. The former is dated to 30–1 BCE and the latter to 100–75 BCE.

Living by Faith or Faithfulness

The significance of this recent development in Qumran scholarship for the study of the Old Testament in the New is in the recognition that Jewish sectarianism is more complex than was once thought. Within subsets of sects one could find differences in interpretation of scripture.

This historical perspective can aid one to see the nuances in the interpretation of Hab. 2.4b in the Habakkuk Pesher, the Pauline letters, and the letter to the Hebrews. It has long been recognized that the Habakkuk Pesher differed from the New Testament in its interpretation of אמונה as faithfulness or loyalty over against faith in Jesus. A re-examination of the passages in the light of the diversity of sectarian thought shows that there are in fact three, and not two, different interpretations of Hab. 2.4.

In the MT, Hab. 2.4b forms part of Yhwh’s response to the prophet’s complaint. In 1.12-17 Habakkuk complains for a second time to Yhwh for allowing the wicked to flourish amidst the suffering of the righteous. The prophet wants vindication and Yhwh’s response is to exhort him to wait for another vision that will surely come and not delay. Habakkuk 2.4, then, contrasts the one who is puffed up or arrogant with the righteous who will live by his faith (באמונתו). Though the prophecy is characteristically vague in what it wants to say, it is reasonable to suppose that the arrogant man, whose spirit is not upright, is also the one who will not live according to his trust in the surety of the delayed vision.

In the LXX, the subject of Hab. 2.4a (‘if it recoils’) is not expressed and seems to follow the preceding clause ‘if it tarries …’ ¹⁵ The second half of the verse varies among the Greek manuscripts. According to codices S, B, Q and W*, the clause reads: ὁ δὲ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεώς μου ζήσεται. The corrector of W deletes μου. There is some uncertainty about the translation of ἐκ πίστεώς μου as ‘my faith’ or ‘my faithfulness’. The latter translation has the sense of loyalty and fidelity. This group of Greek manuscripts differs from the MT which has the third singular pronominal suffix, ‘his faith’ or ‘faithfulness’. It is possible, given that the vav and yod are often indistinguishable in the scribal hands, that the variant arose from a confusion of אמונתי and אמונתו, either in the Hebrew Vorlage of the Greek translator of the Minor Prophets or at a stage prior to it. According to A and C, the personal pronoun qualifies ‘righteous’ rather than ‘faith’: δίκαιος μου ἐκ πίστεώς. Thus, Hab. 2.4b would read: ‘but my righteous from faith (or faithfulness) will live’.

Habakkuk 2.4b is not preserved in the Habakkuk Pesher, but it is reasonable to suppose that it once belonged to the bottom of column 7, given the typically sequential way that the sense units are quoted and interpreted in the commentary. ¹⁶ Moreover, it is likely that the original, unmutilated text read as the MT and LXX ‘[But the righteous will live by his faithfulness]’ (7.17), since the comment seems to point in that direction. Now the comment does not always follow the lemma in the pesher, but in this case the interpretation of the passage indicates that it is the faithfulness of a third party that is in view. ¹⁷

The pesherist interpreted ‘the righteous’ of Hab. 2.4b as ‘the doers of the law in the house of Judah whom God will deliver from the house of judgment on account of their suffering and their faithfulness in the teacher of righteousness’ (col. 8.1-13). The identification of the singular biblical figure with the plural sectarians is typical of the pesherite method that follows the biblical style of Habakkuk. The ‘doers of the law’ are an identifiable group within Judaism as a whole or a subset of the sectarian community, ¹⁸ since ‘the house of Judah’ is an ambiguous designation in the scrolls.

The principle that those who do the law – that is, those who observe the commandments – will live is biblical (Lev. 18.5; Ezek. 20.13, 21). The pesher adds the important qualification that it is because of their suffering and faithfulness to the righteous Teacher that God will deliver them from judgment. The biblical language of Habakkuk is adapted to mean ‘their faithfulness or fidelity’ (אמונתם) in the Teacher, and this loyalty is evidenced in their suffering that they have experienced. ¹⁹ The association of faith with works is close to the sentiments of Jas 2.17: οὕτως καὶ ἡ πίστις, ἐὰν μὴ ἔχῃ ἔργα, νεκρά ἐστιν καθ᾿ ἑαυτήν (‘thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead’).

Habakkuk 2.4b has been interpreted as a key to understanding the Pauline theology of justification by faith and not works. In Gal. 3.11-14, Paul states that it is evident that no one is justified by God through the law and supports this assertion with the proof text of Hab. 2.4b (ὁ δίκαιος ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται), significantly leaving out the possessive pronoun. Faith, here, in its grammatically unqualified form is set against living by the law and aligned with the promise given to Abraham. In Rom. 1.16-17, Paul makes explicit his understanding that divine righteousness is ‘revealed through faith for faith’.

In the history of interpretation, Paul has been understood to characterize Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness or merit theology. Christianity is a faith based on salvation by grace, whereas Judaism is a religion of works of the Jews, which is in any case futile. In the late 1970s E.P. Sanders challenged the then prevalent interpretation of Paul and suggested that the description of Jewish religion as ‘legalism’ is based on a misunderstanding of the passage in Galatians and of Judaism. Rather, Jewish faith presupposes divine grace in the election of Israel and the Jewish people. Jews are commanded to maintain this covenant of grace by doing the works of the law, and this pattern of religion is better described as ‘covenantal nomism’. ²⁰

On Gal. 3, Sanders argued that the main proposition of the passage is to be found in v. 8 and Paul’s assertion that God ‘righteouses’ the Gentiles by faith. Galatians 3.10-13 contains subordinate assertions by Paul which are supported by proof texts. Righteousness and its cognates constitute transfer-terminology and not a description of how one is saved. In this understanding, Gal. 3.11 expresses the general notion that a man is not righteoused through the law as he stands before God. Habakkuk 2.4b is cited as proof text and must have meant that the one who is righteous or in a right relationship with God through faith will live. ²¹

In the letter to the Hebrews, Hab. 2.4 is cited at the end of an exhortation on endurance and the beginning of a description of faith. The author has just completed his homily on Jesus as high priest and on the efficacy of his blood in a figurative depiction of the Temple and its cultic ritual of sacrifice. In the second half of ch. 10, the author admonishes his readers to hold unswervingly to the confession of hope which leads to an exhortation to maintain confidence and endurance.

In Heb. 10.37-39, the author cites a conflated text of Isa. 26.20 and Hab. 2.3-4: ‘still’ (ἔτι) likely derives from Hab. 2.3; ‘a little while’ (μικρὸν ὅσον ὅσον) is taken from Isa. 26.20; ‘the coming one will come and will not tarry’ (ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἥξει καὶ οὐ χρονίσει) adapts the LXX of Hab. 2.3 to refer to Jesus as the one who will come; ‘but my righteous will live by faith’ (ὁ δὲ δίκαιός μου ἐκ πίστεως ζήσεται) of Hab. 2.4b is inverted with Hab. 2.4a and attests to the variant ‘my righteous’ that agrees with the LXX manuscripts A and C; ²² and the LXX of Hab. 2.4a is cited as a transitional proof text, ‘and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him’ (καὶ ἐὰν ὑποστείληται, οὐκ εὐδοκεῖ ἡ ψυχή μου ἐν αὐτῷ). The inversion of the two clauses in Hab. 2.4 is not textually attested elsewhere and is likely to be explained by the exegetical adaptation of the biblical text of the author of Hebrews. Changing their order paves the way to the assertion that ‘we are not of those who shrink back’ (Heb. 10.39).

Hebrews’ conflated citation of Isa. 26.20 and Hab. 2.3-4 provides a transition from the topic of endurance (ὑπομονή; Heb. 10.32-36) to faith (πίστις; Heb. 11). How he understood Hab. 2.4 is made clear, because he provides a definition of faith as ‘the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (11.1). Thus, the righteous of Hab. 2.4 must have been understood as a reference to those among the readers of Hebrews who have confidence that Jesus will come, despite the absence of evidence to support this belief. In this reuse of the prophecy, Hab. 2.4 is Christologically and eschatologically reinterpreted.

Habakkuk 2.4 was an important biblical text for the author of the Habakkuk Pesher, for Paul and for the author of the letter to the Hebrews. It is significant that they all cited the same verse (including v. 3 for Hebrews) when there are other passages that could have been used (e.g., Ps. 89.24). But they interpreted the passage in distinct ways. The diversity of sectarian thought is highlighted when it is recognized that ‘faith’ in Hebrews is not the same as in Paul. ²³

Conclusions

The study of the Old Testament in the New could benefit from advances in Qumran scholarship. Through post-Qumran textual criticism one has to consider the possibility that divergences in New Testament biblical citations are reflective of a fluid textual situation. The study of biblical citations could take on board the distinction between language and textual classification, which has implications for the implied bible of the New Testament authors. Finally, the recognition of a greater complexity in sectarianism provides a historical perspective on the way that the same biblical text is selected and variously interpreted by groups that shared a common hermeneutical approach.