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97 CHAPTER FIVE A STUDY IN SHARED SYMBOLISM AND LANGUAGE: THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY AND THE JOHANNINE COMMUNITY James H. Charlesworth The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise a Jewish library from the land and time of Jesus.1 The library was found in eleven caves on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea, one of the lowest places on the earth. Some of the caves form a semicircle to the south and west of an ancient ruin that was destroyed by Roman soldiers in 68 C.E. The ruin is known as “Khirbet Qumran.” The library contains about eight hundred scrolls. Among them are copies of virtually all the books in the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament), copies of some of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and much more. Most important, for the first time we learn about and can possess copies of formerly unknown works, like the collection of rules and lore in the Qumran Community (in the Rule of the Community), the hymnbook of the community (the Thanksgiving Hymns), and the lost portions of the Damascus Document. There is much more in this Jewish library. In it are compositions that reflect the ideas and hopes of non-Essenes and Jews not living at Qumran—some may have been Pharisees or the forerunners of this group in Second Temple Judaism. Clearly, scribes in Jerusalem placed the ink on many of the leather scrolls—especially those in Aramaic. Although most scholars rightly label the Qumran Community an Essene group (or sect), the library should not be labeled “an Essene library.” As in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. or in the British Library in London, so also in this library are compositions from many different authors. Some documents represent the thoughts of the Essenes, and other works the thoughts of other Jews, some of whom held quite different ideas from the Essenes.2 Thus, the library represents the 1. This chapter was completed in 2001 (but a publication of 2002 was added at proof stage). 2. The Prayer of Jonathan, for example, found in the Qumran caves, honors a person who was hated by the Qumranites. See James H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). 98 A STUDY IN SHARED SYMBOLISM AND LANGUAGE ideas, most likely, of some Sadducees and Pharisees (or their precursors), some traditions associated with the Samaritans, some books produced by the Enoch groups, and other types of Jews within Early Judaism. While the library raises the question of the nature of the Qumran Community, surely it was not merely a marginal group, as was once assumed.3 The result of the study of these once-lost compositions has caused a paradigm shift in the study of Second Temple Judaism (or Early Judaism). Before 1947 world-class scholars had formulated a notion of the typical features of Judaism during Jesus’ day, which in light of discoveries from 1947 to the present is simply false or misleading. The purpose of the present paper is to seek to discern how and in what ways, if at all, the newly revealed ideas preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls help us better to comprehend the origin and thought in the work known now as “the Gospel of John.” The central question becomes: How have the ideas found in the Dead Sea Scrolls helped improve the study of the origins of Christianity and, in particular, provided a better understanding of the Fourth Gospel? That is, how have the ideas in these ancient scrolls changed our understanding of Jewish thought during the time of Jesus? How have they shifted our perception of the origins of Christianity? These questions have caught the imaginations of many, including scholars who have devoted decades to seeking answers representative of the challenging discoveries. Such assessments have opened something like newly found windows through which we can gain a better glimpse of life and thought in and near Jerusalem before and during the time of Jesus of Nazareth. According to scholars—Jews, Roman Catholics, and Protestants—the Dead Sea Scrolls have revolutionized our perception of Judaism before the burning of the Temple in 70 C.E.4 The unique terms and concepts in these ancient scrolls have also dramatically altered our understanding of Christian origins.5 The scrolls have appreciably enriched and at times 3. The question, “How central or marginal was the Qumran Community?” is ostensibly the issue addressed in Timothy H. Lim et al., eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their...

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