Further evidence for the general validity of the Books of the New Testament

These days there are plenty of voices, both in the public arena where it seems anything goes, and even amongst some of the more extreme, sensationalist scholars, perhaps out to make a name for themselves, that try to argue that the NT is totally fake, or that the Apostle Paul was not Jewish and/or a fraud, etc.

However, the more that the Qumran or ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ (DSS) are researched, the more evidence that is provided that the NT theological arguments are seen to share many similarities, some of which are surprising and certainly were not generally understood as valid Jewish approaches to interpreting the Tanakh (OT).

I write about some of these in my book: ‘The New Testament: The Hebrew Behind the Greek’. I thought I would share here a few quotes from my book that illustrate this.
 

Firstly I think it helps to appreciate the general background of the DSS. For example, Prof. Gary Rendsburg of Rutgers University is a leading expert on the Qumran Scrolls and he states that:

“Of the 930 assorted documents from Qumran, 790, or about 85% of them are written in Hebrew (120 or about 13% are written in Aramaic, and 20 or about 2% are written in Greek). Of these 930, about 230 are biblical manuscripts, naturally are in Hebrew, so in actuality the percentage of Hebrew texts is 80%.

On the other hand, our Hebrew texts are the longest ones, such as the Temple Scroll, the Community Rule, the War Scroll, and the Hodayot—with only the Genesis Apocryphon as a lengthy Aramaic scroll.

This might, of course, be the accident of preservation—that is to say, the Aramaic documents are much more fragmentary than the Hebrew ones—but in general we may state that the language of choice for the Qumran community was Hebrew and that the percentage of Hebrew material among the Dead Sea Scrolls is actually higher than the aforementioned 80%, perhaps even approaching 90%.”[1]

1)   The writings of this community date from around 250 BCE up to 50 CE. The best represented of the biblical books among the Qumran manuscripts are Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah (with 34, 27, and 24 copies, respectively).

Intriguingly these are also the most cited books of the Tanakh in the New Testament.

2) The Qumran sectarians viewed the Temple Scroll as a book of revealed scripture, which means that they saw revelation continuing in their day.

 The same holds in the New Testament, where revelation is seen as an ongoing process.

3)    In Matthew 3 we read of Yochanan the Immerser (John the Baptist), speaking very critically towards some Pharisees and Sadducees that came to get a mikvah (a ritual immersion or baptism).

His strict attitude and approach is very reminiscent of the Qumran Yachad’s writings.While the vast majority of the DSS scrolls come from a period a century earlier than Yochanan the Immerser, Pliny wrote that the Essene community (assuming the Qumran Yachad were the Essenes) was still resident in the area (if not Qumran specifically) well into the 1st century C.E.

So again we see some NT links with Qumran.

4)    Quoting Rendsburg: “In 2007, a new inscription—not on parchment and not in a cave, but rather on a slab of stone—was made public. It is called the Vision of Gabriel, though the term Dead Sea Stone also has been used, and it dates to the 1st century B.C.E.

While the details of its discovery are not known, apparently it was discovered around the year 2000, found its way to a Jordanian antiquities dealer, and was sold to a private collector. The collector was unaware of the significance of the object until a visitor to his collection read the inscribed words, at least as best as possible.

The text is ink on stone, a rare medium, since usually one incises letters into the stone. The ink is very faded, so it is hard to read the entire inscription. The stone stands about one meter high, and the inscription comprises 87 lines in Hebrew.

The best paleographer of Hebrew in the world, Ada Yardeni, has authenticated the inscription. The text is known as the Vision of Gabriel because the angel Gabriel conveys an apocalyptic vision, or perhaps better a series of visions. The sense we get from the text is that an enemy nearly destroyed the “sons of the holy,” but now their leader, the “prince of princes,” will arise and overcome the adversary.

Much of this, of course, sounds like phraseology known from the New Testament.

In short, wherever one turns, one finds connections between the scrolls (and now the Dead Sea Stone) and the books of the New Testament. The Qumran sect and the Jesus movement were parallel streams, each with its own apocalyptic vision, against the backdrop of the Roman Empire and the panoply of Judaisms under the umbrella of common Judaism. The one group had little or no continuity, while the other group spawned the largest religious movement in the history of the world.”[2]

This information about the ‘Vision of Gabriel’ again illustrates the commonality in understanding between the Qumran Yachad and the NT authors.

5)    As an interesting aside, Rendsburg also notes with regard to the Qumran Yachad that:

“… The common theme here appears to be the end of days (Hebrew ’aharit ha-yamim), since we get references to the Temple that is to be built in the end of days, the end of the dominion of Belial, a figure known as the Shoot of David, and so forth.

The one passage to highlight is proof that the Yahad served as the replacement or surrogate for the Temple. The humans who comprise the community are called in themselves a miqdaš,[or mikdash] a holy place, a sanctuary, a temple.”

Where else have we heard that designation?

Perhaps in Matthew 26:61, 27:40; Mark 14:58, 15:29; John 2:19, and especially John 2:20 where we learn that Yeshua was speaking about the ‘temple of his body’ and especially in 1 Cor 3:16 where we read: “Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?”

6)       We can also see this indebtedness and commonality is the Apostle Paul’s approach to the use of the Minor Prophets like Habakkuk.

Hab 2:2 describes how God told Habakkuk, “Write down the vision and make it plain upon the tablets.”

For the writer of the Qumran ‘Pesher Habakkuk’, this prophecy of Habakkuk speaks to his present day: “And God told Habakkuk to write down that which would happen to the final generation, but He did not make known to him when time would come to an end” - 1QpHab 7:1–3.

The Qumran author clearly saw eschatological (end-times) message in Habukkuk, yet such a prophetic message is not at all clear in the original context.

Hab 2:2 continues with the phrase “ … that he who reads it may read speedily,” which for the Qumran pesher author “… concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of His servants the Prophets” - 1QpHab 7:4–5.

And then Habukkuk 2:4 states, “But the righteous shall live by his faith,”.

We would normally conclude, as I have certainly argued before, that the righteous person shall prosper by his own faith or trust in God. Yet the Qumran author sees this faith as directed to and through the Righteous Teacher:  “This concerns all those who observe the Torah in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver from the House of Judgment, because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness.” - 1QpHab 8:1–2

[Note: The Qumran’s ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ can not be Yeshua as these scrolls that speak of him have been carbon-dated to be no later than around 100 BCE.]
But this same passage of Habakkuk is quoted three times in the New Testament in  Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, and Hebrews 10:37–38 (possibly also authored by the Apostle Paul.

The Apostle Paul, just like the Qumran author before him, sees this passage as referring to the Age to Come (the Kingdom of God), and in the Apostle Paul’s case to Yeshua as well.

So I have just mentioned a few of the examples I give in my book where we see some very similar theological thinking to the DSS, both in the Gospels, as well as the Apostle Paul’s writings.

I would sugegst that this, certainly as a bare minimum, gives some validity to the original dating of the NT books to the first century CE and to a very Hebraic Jewish mindset and contextual setting.

I go into more detail in my book.

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[1] http://jewishstudies.rutgers.edu/docman/rendsburg/396-qumran-hebrew-studies-on-the-texts-of-the-desert-of-judah/file

[2] ‘The Book of Genesis’ by Prof. Gary Rendsburg