Paul and Qumran. Studies in New Testament Exegesis. ed. by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O. P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 361 Paul and Qumran. Studies in New Testament Exegesis. Ed. by JEROME MuRPHY-O'CoNNOR, 0. P. Chicago: The Priory Press, 1968. Pp. ~30. $5.95. The volume under review is a collection of essays compiled (and translated , where necessary) from various scientific journals, under the editorship of the Irish Dominican exegete, Jerome Murphy-O'Connor. These essays (nine in all) concentrate on the institutions, words and ideas found both in the writings of Paul and of the Essences. In the opening essay the Director of the Ecole Biblique, Pierre Benoit, 0. P., lays down solid principles on which should be based any fair attempt to draw parallels or to conclude to real contact between the New Testament and the Qumran Scrolls. While Essenism had some direct influence on Christianity, this was not at the very beginning, but later. "The contacts with Qumran come less through John the Baptist and Jesus, than through Paul, John and the faithful of the second generation." Benoit also points out that, while the New Testament can share with Qumran certain themes and expressions, yet everything has been transformed from within and endowed with a new significance. Joseph Fitzmyer, S. J. shows that the Scrolls cast light on the obscure and seemingly incomprehensible mention of the angels in 1 Cor. 11 :10-Paul's admonition to the Christian women of Corinth that they should wear a veil during public worship "because of the angels." We learn from two Qumran texts that bodily defects offend the sight of the angels who are present at public worship. Paul argues that the unveiled head of a woman is like a bodily defect which should be excluded from the sacred assembly. The passage ~Cor. 6:14-7:1 has long been regarded as an interpolation; now it is seen to have a remarkable affinity with the Qumran literature. Joachim Gnilka concludes, however, that it cannot be an Essence document but a document penned by the hand of a Christian author. He holds the view that ~ Cor. represents a collection of Pauline letters or letter-fragments ; the editor of the collection believed the passage in question to be a fragment of a Pauline letter. The passage 1 Cor. 6 :1-4 leads one to presume that the church of Corinth had instituted courts for the benefit of the faithful. It has seemed to Mathias Delcor that a more adequate idea of the probable organization of the courts of the primitive Church can be obtained by studying those of the community at Qumran rather than those presented in the rabbinical writings. His conclusion is that, despite important differences, what is apparently the same judicial system existed in the courts of Corinth and at Qumran. The long article of Walter Grundmann studies the doctrine of justification by faith as proposed by the Teacher of Righteousness and by St. Paul. Both have a personal experience as their starting point, and both found the notion of salvific justice in the Old Testament. But the former made a connection between justice and 36~ BOOK REVIEWS grace and scrupulous fulfillment of the Law which was not open to Paul; for him the place of the Law is taken by Christ. The faith in Christ, which saves a Christian, is faith in the crucified and risen Christ. This study offers a striking case of the similarities and the very great differences between Christianity and Qumran. Both Karl Georg Kuhn and Franz Mussner consider the light thrown on Ephesians by Qumran. Kuhn first examines the language and style of Ephesians and concludes that the relationship of the language and style of the epistle to that of the Qumran texts can hardly be explained except on the basis of a continuity of tradition. Then he turns to the origin of the paraenetic tradition of Eph. 4 :1-62:20 and shows that a part of these admonitions comes specifically from the tradition of the Essence paraenesis as we find it in the Qumran writings and the late-Jewish texts that are closely connected with them. Mussner investigates various recurring themes, concepts and patterns of thought in the Epistle. He treats of " mystery "; the bond between the community...