The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

© 2000 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fitzmyer, Joseph A.

The Dead Sea scrolls and Christian origins / Joseph A. Fitzmyer.

p. cm.—(Studies in the Dead Sea scrolls and related literature)

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN-10: 0-8028-4650-5 / ISBN-13: 978-0-8028-4650-1 paper

1. Dead Sea scrolls—Criticism, interpretation, etc.

2. Dead Sea scrolls—Relation to the New Testament.

I. Title. II. Series.

BM487.F545 2000

296.1′ 55–dc21 99-059276

www.eerdmans.com

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

General Abbreviations

Abbreviations of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Texts

1. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins: General Methodological Considerations

2. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity

3. The Aramaic “Son of God” Text from Qumran Cave 4 (4Q246)

4. The Background of “Son of God” as a Title for Jesus

5. Qumran Messianism

6. A Palestinian Jewish Collection of Beatitudes

7. Aramaic Evidence Affecting the Interpretation of Hōsanna in the New Testament

8. The Significance of the Qumran Tobit Texts for the Study of Tobit

9. The Qumran Texts of Tobit

10. The Aramaic Levi Document

11. The Qumran Community: Essene or Sadducean?

12. The Gathering In of the Teacher of the Community

Indexes

Ancient Writings

Modern Authors

Subjects

Preface

Over the years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were first published in the early 1950s, I have been studying them and have published a number of books and articles devoted to them. Already published are two books that pertain to the study of the Scrolls. The first was The Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools for Study (SBLRBS 20; rev. ed.; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990). This was mainly a bibliographical work, which sought to guide students to the many scattered places where scrolls and fragments found in the eleven caves of Qumran and other places in the Judean Desert had been published. That book is out of date today, and almost out of print. The second was intended for a more general audience, Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York/Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1992). It sought to answer many of the questions that I have been asked about the Dead Sea Scrolls over the decades ever since they became newsworthy. Some of them deal with Qumran texts themselves, others with the impact that the discovery of these Scrolls have made on the study of the Bible or the New Testament and early Christianity.

I have also written a number of articles on various aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a few of them for scholarly discussion, but many others for more general readers. Some of the articles were lectures that I have given, which have surveyed the impact ...