Dr. Gary Gromacki
Associate Professor of Bible and Homiletics
Baptist Bible Seminary
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania
<ggromacki>at<bbc>dot<edu
A study of the doctrines of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) is a vast undertaking. First, a translation of the scrolls must be done. The majority of the scrolls were written in Hebrew and Aramaic with some fragments in Greek. Second, the scrolls must be interpreted in their historical context. Discerning the meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a difficult process. DSS scholars differ on their interpretations of the scrolls. The third step is the identification and critique of the doctrines of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The main purpose of this project is to identify and catalog some
of the major doctrines of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). A second purpose is to
compare these doctrines with the teachings of the New Testament and to critique
them from an evangelical perspective. This project was done for the class
NT4-New Testament Backgrounds, a PhD class at Baptist Bible Seminary taught by
Dr. Rodney Decker, Associate Professor of New Testament. Additional resources
for the study of the New Testament can be found at his web site: http://faculty.bbc.edu/rdecker/rd_rsrc.htm
Scholars differ regarding the origin and authorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Most scholars believe that the DSS were authored by Jews (probably
the Essenes) who lived
from 150 B.C. to A.D. 68 in the region on the northwest side of the Dead Sea
known as Qumran. None of the DSS were written or edited by Christians. The
Qumran community and the early church had roots in early Judaism. The
following discussions of the doctrines of the DSS show that the Essenes and the early
Christians held some common beliefs, but there were also some major
differences. The differences reveal that Christians were not members of
the Qumran community.
Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were probably brought to Qumran from outside the community. The Essenes made copies of these ancient texts. Charlesworth argues for a diversity of theologies in the Qumran literature: "... as early Jewish writings must not be interpreted as if they represent a normative system, so Qumran ideas must not be pressed into a unified system. The documents in this corpus demonstrate many competing ordinances regarding purification and cleansing, different types of calendars (all variations of the lunar-solar calendar), and contrasting rules (the Rule of the Community was clearly a late 'vulgate' text that incorporates different documents with various textual histories--a theory probably confirmed by the fragments of the document preserved in Cave IV). Most of these clashing concepts, explanations, exhortations and rules existed at Qumran, if not simultaneously, then at least during the extended history of its existence from 150 B.C.E. to 68 C.E. Therefore, it is prudent to speak not about Qumran theology, but about 'theologies' at Qumran." (James Charlesworth, "General Introduction," in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations. Edited by James Charlesworth. Volume 1. Rule of the Community and Related Texts. [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994], 2).
James VanderKam, author of The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, believes that the doctrines of the Dead Sea Scrolls reflect the teachings and beliefs of the Essenes of Qumran. "We have seen that there are different theories about how the manuscripts in the eleven caves around Khirbet Qumran came to be there, and the theory one follows affect to some extent how one reads their contents. The hypothesis accepted here is that a small group of Essenes occupied the area and was responsible for the scrolls, whether members copied or wrote them or the community simply possessed them. It is reasonable to think that the group hid the manuscripts in nearby caves to protect them when Roman attack seemed likely, perhaps in 68 CE. If all the texts were associated with this group, we may use all of them as indicators of its beliefs or theological convictions. Even the presence of scrolls neither written nor copied at Qumran says something about which texts were read by the group. We should also recognize that the theology that comes to expression in the texts found in the caves overlaps in some respects with what we know about the theology of other Jewish groups. This is only natural since all of them shared a tradition, even though not all groups may have agreed about which ancient writings possessed greatest authority. Despite the shared heritage, each of the groups seems to have had its distinctive emphases." (James VanderKam, "The Theology or Belief System of the Qumran Group" in The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002], 255).