Texts in Conversation
The Dead Sea Scroll 1QH builds on the end of Isaiah, where the aftermath of a battle is shown with burning bodies on the ground. In Isaiah, this image expresses the shame of those who defy God. At Qumran, it is reshaped into a picture of final judgment.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 66:24
Hebrew Bible
22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth I am about to make will remain standing before me,” says the Lord, “so your descendants and your name will remain. 23 From one month to the next and from one Sabbath to the next, all people will come to worship me,” says the Lord. 24 “They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, and the fire that consumes them will not die out. All people will find the sight abhorrent.”
1QHa 5:33
The Thanksgiving Hymns
Dead Sea Scrolls, Prayers, Hymns, and Liturgy
30 forever and ever. And in the mysteries of your insight you apportioned all these things, to make your glory known. [But what is] the spirit of flesh, that it should understand 31 all these things and have insight into … […] great? And what is one born of a woman among all your fearsome great works? He is 32 a structure of dust, kneaded with water. [Guilt and sin] are his foundation, shameful nakedness and a [source of] impurity, and a perverted spirit rules 33 over him. And if he acts wickedly he will be [a sign] forever, and a portent to far generations of flesh. Only by your goodness 34 is a man made righteous, and by your abundant [mercies …] With your majesty you adorn him, and you make him ruler over many delights, with eternal 35 peace and length of days. For [… and] your word does not turn back. And I, your servant, know
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Notes and References
"... there need not be any contradiction between resurrection and immortality; both forms of expectation were closely related for the Palestinian Jew. That the Essenes had some interest in the resurrection may be deduced from their special appreciation for the book of Daniel, and its fulminant end in chapter 12, the latest book of the Old Testament canon, written about 165-164. Surely they did not expect such a massive bodily form as we find later in pharisaic texts. Their expectation of the eschatological punishment of the wicked also has earlier Greek parallels. Martin P. Nilsson in his great History of Greek Religion emphasizes the fact that "hell is a Greek invention." Probably already in Isaiah 66:24, the last sentence of the book, and in Daniel 12:2b, which is shaped according to this model, we have a hint at the changed eschatological expectation of the new Hellenistic era. The Essenes were, as I said at the beginning, probably the sharpest enemies of the new Greek wisdom in Eretz Israel. But even they could not escape the penetrating Zeitgeist of the new era ..."
Hengel, Martin
"Qumran and Hellenism" in Collins, John J., and Robert A. Kugler (eds.) Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls
(pp. 46-56) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000
* 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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