All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah)

546 Pages·2001·3.07 MB·English

by  Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis

STUDIES ON THE TEXTS
OF THE DESERT OF JUDAH
EDITED BY
F. GARCIA MARTINEZ
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
P.W. FLINT
VOLUME XLII
' I 6 8 י '
ALL THE GLORY OF ADAM
Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls
CRISPIN H.T. FLETCHER-LOUIS
י י 6 8 י< '
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON · KÖLN
2002
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufhahme
Fletcher-Louis, Crispin H.T :
All the Glory of Adam / by Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis. - Leiden ; Boston ; Köln
: Brill, 2002
(Studies on the texts of the desert ofjudah ; Vol. 42)
ISBN 90-04-12326-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is also available
ISSN 0169-9962
ISBN 90 04 12326 1
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CONTENTS
Preface xi
I. Allelomorphism in Late Second Temple
Judaism 1
Jewish angelomorphism: An overview of texts, themes
and setting 5
Conclusion 32
II. The Divine and Pricsily Noah 33
Is Noah an angel? 37
Noah as angelomorphic priest: The life setting of his
wondrous birth 39
The birth of the priestly Noah in its wider
history-of-religions context 49
III. The Angelomorphic Priesthood in Conceptual
Perspective 56
The angelomorphic priesthood in the cosmic temple .... 61
The chief priesthood as the embodiment of God's
Glory 68
Sirach 50 and the praise of the high priest as the One
Jewish God 72
Conclusion 84
IV. A Divine and Angelic Humanity in the DSS 88
Humanity as the Glory of God in Qumran texts 91
Transformation in the Hodayot 104
IQ/4QInstruction 113
Josephus on Essene Theological Anthropology 123
Qumran angelomoiphism and sectarian ascetism 131
Conclusion 135
V. The Divine and Angelic Moses at Qumran 136
4Q374 Frag. 2 col. ii: The Deification of Moses at
Sinai 136
Vlll CONTENTS
4Q377 Frag. 1 recto col. ii
Moses and priesthood
VI. Priestly Allelomorphism in the DSS
The blessing of the high priest (lQSb 4:24-28)
The founding of an angelic priesthood among the
Holy (4Q511 35)
Israel are the Holy Ones and Aaron are the Holiest
of the Holy Ones
4Q418 (4QInstruction) Frag. 81
4QVisions of Amram(a+C' ar: Aaron as God and the
Angel of God
4QAaron A l'Vag. 9: A heavenly ami cosmogonie
high priest
4Q468b: The solar high priest and the light of his
garments
4Q513 (4Qprdinancesb): Angelic food for the
priesthood
4Q369 1 ii (Prayer of Enosh(?))
A throne in the heavens for the divine human
mediator
Melchizedek in 11 QMelchizedek
VII. The High Priest, the Breastpicce and the
Urim and Thummim at Qumran
The Light-giving stones and the Tongues of Fire
(1Q29 + 4Q376)
Levi's possession of the Urim and Thummim
(Deut 33:8-10 and 4Q175)
Twelve chief priests' illuminating judgement of the
UT (4QpIsa׳')
The UT and the perfect light of God's presence ...
... The perfect light of the UT in the Hodayot
The theophanic presence of the light giving
headdress (4Q408)
The UT, the high priest' breastpiece and the name
"Essenes"
VIII. The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice
Introduction
CONTENTS IX
Newsom's interpretation paradigm and its problems 253
Qumran theological anthropology and the Sabbath
Songs 277
IX. The First Song (4Q400 1 I): The Founding
of a Divine Community 280
Problems of the angel reading 281
4Q400 1 i and the founding of an angelic
priesthood in 4Q511 35 293
4Q400 1 i and the formation of the cultic community
in the 1QS 296
The sectarian elohim, the qerubim and the angelic
rhmibim (lino 6) 299
Conclusion and prospects for a new reading of the
Songs 301
X. The Second to the Twelfth of the Sabbath
Songs 306
The second song 306
The sixth song 309
The seventh song 325
The eighth song 335
The ninth song 338
The tenth song 341
The eleventh song 342
The twelfth song 345
XI. Song 13 356
Angelic humans wonderfully dressed for service 358
The identification of the "spirits" in 4Q405 23ii 365
The lightgiving stones of the breastplate 368
The Chief Priests' embodying the Glory of God 373
Embodiment of the Glory in wider Jewish
perspective 378
The chief priesthood as the recipients of worship 381
Cosmology and the climax of the cycle's ritualized
ascent 382
The vision of the breastpieces, the Essenes and the
Qumran community 388
Conclusion to the Sabbath Songs 391
χ CONTENTS
XII. The War Scroll
Humanity and the angels in battle together ..
Divine and human agency
Columns 10-19: The ideological heart of the
holy war
Conclusion
Bibliography
Indices
Index of Authors
Index of Sources
Index of Subjects
PREFACE
This book is the development of a footnote in my published doc-
toral dissertation (Luke-Acts: Angels, Chistology and Selenology) and an
attempt to answer a question which, doctorates being limited in
length as they are these days, I did not have space to address in
that work. The second part of that work was a survey of the late
Second Temple evidence for the belief in an ideal humanity which
is angelic (or "angelomorphic") or divine in nature or status. In a
footnote (o a brief discussion of the evidence of the I.)SS I suggested
that the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice had been misinterpreted and that
insufficient scope had hitherto been given to the possibility that this
angelic liturgy assumed a transformed, angelic humanity as the wor-
shipping community. As I began to work in detail on that liturgical
text it became clear to me that indeed a very different interpréta-
tive paradigm was needed if it was to be placed in its appropriate
tradition-historical and history-of-religions contexts. The rest of this
study then grew up around what eventually became the four chap-
ters (8-11) devoted to a revisionist reading of the Sabbath Songs.
Since others (most notably Charles Gieschen and William Hor-
bury) have, independently, undertaken similar surveys of the mate-
rial in the literature oflate Second Temple period a divine or angelic
humanity is now, I hope, reckoned to be widespread. Whilst I
attempted as thorough a survey as possible in my work on Luke-
Acts, I did not adequately address the social and religious life-set-
ting of an essentially literary pattern of belief. What was die experiential
context which lead (some) Jews to believe that they—or their heroes—
were divine? What were the wider, cosmological, co-ordinates of a
world-view which fostered an angelomorphic anthropology? Already,
in the latter stages of my doctoral work it became clear to me that
in large measure it is the experience of worship in Israel's temple
and a sophisticated, if decidedly un-modern, mythological under-
standing of temple time and space which answers these questions.
And so, the other impetus for writing this book has been an attempt
to demonstrate not only that Jews in antiquity had a much higher,
positive, anthropology than is normally assumed, but that they held
such an anthropology within the context of an understanding of the