Texts in Conversation
The Dead Sea Scroll 4Q405 uses liturgy that leads worshipers to join in the praise offered by angels around the heavenly throne. Colossians warns readers against this kind of angelic worship and visionary mysticism.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
4Q405
Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice
Dead Sea Scrolls
... his whole-offering. The ‘gods’ praise Him [when they take] up their station, and all the s[pirits of] the clear firm[am]ent rejoice in His glory. A sound of blessing (is heard) from all His divisions speaking of the firmaments of His glory, and His gates praise with a resounding voice. When the gods of knowledge enter by the doors of glory, and when the holy angels depart towards their realm, the entrance doors and the gates of exit proclaim the glory of the King, blessing and praising all the spirits of God when they depart and enter by the gates. None among them skips over a precept, nor do they ... against the saying of the King ... They run not away from the path, nor slip away from His domain. They are neither too high for His commission nor too lowly. For He shall be compassionate in the realm of His furious, destr[oying ange]r; He will not judge in the provinces of His glorious wrath. The fear of the King of ‘gods’ is awe-inspiring to [al]l the ‘gods’, [and they undertake] all His commissions by virtue of His true order, and they go ... ... At their marvellous stations are spirits, many-coloured like the work of a weaver, splendid engraved figures. In the midst of a glorious appearance of scarlet, colours of the most holy spiritual light, they hold to their holy station before [the K]ing, spirits of [pure] colours in the midst of an appearance of whiteness. The likeness of the glorious spirit is like a work (of art) of sparkling fine gold. All their pattern is clearly mingled like the work (of art) of a weaver. These are the Princes of those marvellously clothed for service, the Princes of the kingdom, the kingdom of the holy ones of the King of holiness in all the heights of the sanctuaries of His glorious kingdom. The Princes in charge of offerings have tongues of knowledge, [and] they bless the God of knowledge among all His glorious works ...
Date: 160 B.C.E. - 60 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Colossians 2:18
New Testament
17 these are only the shadow of the things to come, but the reality is Christ! 18 Let no one who delights in false humility and the worship of angels pass judgment on you. That person goes on at great lengths about what he has supposedly seen, but he is puffed up with empty notions by his fleshly mind. 19 He has not held fast to the head from whom the whole body, supported and knit together through its ligaments and sinews, grows with a growth that is from God.
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Notes and References
... a number of scholars have compared the pre-Christian (c. 100 BC) Qumran text Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (or the Angelic Liturgy) to the error which Paul addresses in Colossians 2. Whereas the majority of the texts from Qumran have either few or brief references to heaven, in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice there is a substantial amount of attention given to the heavenly Temple and the angelic praise in the heavenly Temple ... In her examination, Carol Newsom describes the function of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice "as the means for a communion with angels in the act of praise, in short, as a form of communal mysticism." Furthermore, it is possible that the thirteen Songs were utilized as liturgy during a time of festival whereby the members join in the angelic heavenly worship ...
Brannon, M. Jeff
The Heavenlies in Ephesians: A Lexical, Exegetical, and Conceptual Analysis
(pp. 149-150) T&T Clark, 2011
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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