Sunday School Supplements #2
By Kerry A. Shirts
This lesson concerns John the Baptist the forerunner of Christ.
Backgrounds and ideas of John the Baptist.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are documents from the immediate pre-New Testament era, and in fact are dated approximately 350 B.C. – 68 A. D. The main understanding of the scrolls is they nowhere mention Jesus or John the Baptist or any New Testament personality by name. But this does not mean they cannot throw extra light on the Gospels and the New Testament.
The newest treatment on the scrolls indicate they do reveal a Jewish community and they way they lived and worked. The scrolls, in point of fact, do illuminate many Gospel passages.1 It is entirely possible that John the Baptist had contact with the Essenes. There are many parallels which indicate this possibility. The Catholic Dead Sea Scroll scholar, Joseph Fitzmyer, noted that John the Baptist is mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus, in his Antiquities, as a righteous preacher who was put to death. His death was thought by the Jews of the time to be the reason for the destruction of Herod’s army.2
Many reasons exist for the possibility that John the Baptist knew of the Essenes, and perhaps lived with them. The Essenes are considered the people of Qumran, and who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls according to the consensus of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship. Fitzmyer lists the ideas:
b) Josephus tells how he as a young boy spent some time with the Essenes. John’s time with the Essenes too, would have been for a limited time, until he was called of God for another mission.
c) In all four Gospels Isaiah 40:3 "the voice [lwq qol {can mean thunder, loud roar, audible cry, or message, tidings, proclamation} of one crying out in the wilderness" is used to explain John the Baptist is in the desert. (Mark 1:3; Matt 3:3; Luke 3:3-6; John 1:23). This is also the very text used by the Essenes to explain why this community is out in the desert as well. Their interpretation of the Isaiah text is to mean "the study of the Law" (1QS 8:12-16). Though the interpretations of this scripture was different in the Gospels from the Essenes, the fact that this text is used is significant when put together with the other factors for the Baptist.
d) The practice of the Essene "washings" is now seen in a new light for John’s baptismal practices of washing also. To enter the Covenant, is to turn from one’s sins, to enter into the water, and thus become a member. The miqwa’ot, "baths" for the ritual washings of the Essenes in the Manual of Discipline, are described also as the repenting of wickedness. This is precisely the practice of the Baptist.
e) John spoke of a baptism of water, but also referred to a baptism of "spirit and fire" (Luke 3:16 – pneumati hagio kai puri, the spirit and fire, of course, being an important element in the creation, hence, perhaps, being reborn in water, signified a new creation with the Godly elements of Spirit and Fire).
In the Essene Manual of Discipline, it tells of God "purging by His Truth all the deeds of human beings, refining [i.e., by fire] for Himself some of mankind to remove every spirit from their flesh, to cleanse them with a holy Spirit, and sprinkle them with a Spirit of Truth like purifying water, (1QS 4:20-21). Here are the common elements in both accounts of "water," "Holy Spirit," "Spirit of Truth" and the refining elements of God’s activity.
f) In the Essene book The Damascus Document, there is a sentence saying "He made known unto them his Holy Spirit through His Messiah(s)" (CD 2:12). This text provides the Palestinian background for John speaking of Jesus, the Messiah, as the bearer of the Spirit (especially in the Lucan Gospel).
g) John baptizing at the Jordan is within walking distance of the Qumran settlement.
The ensemble of these elements make it plausible that the Baptist could have been among the Essenes, though we lack solid definite proof of the thesis.3
James H. Charlesworth notes that both Philo and Josephus mentioned that 4000 Essenes lived in Palestine in the first century. At the most, approximately 300 Essenes actually lived at Qumran, hence the vast majority of them were throughout the Palestinian area. The archaeological discovery of the "Essene Gate" in the walls of Jerusalem demonstrate that the Essenes lived in the southwestern sector of Jerusalem. Jesus could easily have met the Essenes during his itineraries. It is in light of the archaeological excavations of the Qumran settlement that we realize the Essenes were living in the monastery during Jesus’ ministry.4
W. H. Brownlee has noted on the clearing of the wilderness for the Messiah:
This clearing or preparing, of the way of the Lord was the preparation of the Messianic Age. The idea was that if they were good enough God would honor them by sending them a Messiah (or Messiahs) who, like Moses (cf. Deut. 18:18), would make his appearance in the wilderness in order to lead his people into the promised land (Cf. Matt 24:26) of the Messianic Kingdom. This particular stretch of wilderness was chosen, rather than the Wilderness of Sinai, because Isaiah 40:3 used words for wilderness which sometimes designated the basin of the Dead Sea (arabah), or even more specifically a district west of this lake (midbar as in Joshua 15:61 and 2 Chronicles 26:10). Here would the Lord’s glory be revealed in the work of the Messiah(s). The study and practice of the Law and the Prophets would bring in this glad day.5
Finally, John J. Collins analysis6 of why Jesus was thought by the public folk as Elijah, or some other prophet is especially worth noting as it ties in with John the Baptist. In speaking of the Dead Sea Scroll fragment which says the Heavens and the earth will obey his Messiah, Collins has some very interesting suggestions. This is wonderful background to the ideas of why the public in Jesus’ day would equate him with Elijah, and which is why also John the Baptist would have asked people to go ask him plainly who he was. We have the figures of Elijah, John the Baptist, Jesus, and Messiah all conglomerated in a most fascinating situation, especially in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls now. I will intersperse my comments and clarification in [ ]’s:
I suggest, then, that the messiah, whom heaven and earth will obey, is an anointed eschatalogical [that which deals with the end times] prophet, either Elijah or a prophet like Elijah. Elijah’s command of the heavens was legendary. In the words of Sirach, "By the word of the Lord he shut up the heavens and also three times brought down fire" (Sir 48:3). The "two olive trees" in Revelation 11, who have authority to shut up the sky so that no rain may fall [a disastrous situation in the desert around Jerusalem! This is a serious power] and to turn the waters into blood, are usually identified as Elijah and Moses. The "two olive trees" of course, recall the "two sons of oil" or anointed ones of the prophet Zechariah.
Some support for the identification of the messiah of heaven and earth as Elijah may be found in another fragment of 4Q521 (fragment 2: iii). The fragment text reads:
and I will liberate them…
(2) for it is sure:
‘the fathers will return to the sons.’
The last line if a citation of Malachi 3:24, which says that God will send Elijah before the day of the Lord and "he will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers." The same phrase is cited in the praise of Elijah in Sirach 48:10. That verse begins with a statement that Elijah is "prepared for the time,"
Collins then begins his analysis of other Dead Sea Scroll fragments which brings in John the Baptist. I will paraphrase some of it, and will add ideas as I see parallels. (this is from p. 121 of Collins in footnote 5)
Isaiah 61is about the Elijah figure who is to return and by whose hand God will bring about liberation to Israel. Fragment 2 ii+4 can be interpreted in the same context. Elijah is the Messiah whom heaven and earth obey, in whose time the sick are healed and the dead are raised.
The most fascinating parallel to Dead Sea Scroll fragment 4Q521 is in the New Testament. In response to the Baptist’s question "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to look for another?" Jesus answers: "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them." (Matt 11:2-5; Luke 7:22). Both Gospel passages go on to identify John with the messenger sent to prepare the way in Malachi 3:1. Fitzmyer comments that "Jesus is depicted as rejecting the role of Elijah-redivivus. In which John originally cast him (Luke 3:15-18). Rather than understanding his mission as that of a fiery reformer of the eschaton, Jesus sees his role as the embodiment of the divine blessings promised to be shed on the unfortunate of human society by Isaiah. But the relevant passage in Isaiah 61 does not promise raising of the dead, a motif that precisely recalls Elijah and Elisha. The signs could easily be taken (Matt 11:5/ Luke 7:22) as to suggest that Jesus was Elijah-redivivus. The pericopes in Matt 11:7-15 and Luke 7:24-28 identifying John as the messenger are placed at this point to undo that impression and affirm that Jesus was greater than John the Baptist.
So it appears that the Gospels are authentically working within the parameters of their times, discussing a preparer in the wilderness, an Elijah figure, preparing for the great day of the Lord, etc. The Essenes had this same eschatalogical outlook. Eschatalogical meaning the ends of times. The last days. Jesus’ miraculous works pointed people’s minds to Elijah and Moses. He was greater than they though. He was the Messiah, as his works testified of, as the Gospel authors portrayed. The heavens and earth obeyed the Messiah as well in the Gospel accounts. This Messiah was prepared for, and was baptized, as was the requirement for cleansing, though he needed no cleansing. The Messiah was fulfilling the roles of John the Baptist, as he did those of Elijah and Moses, who incidentally were the visitors to Him on the Mount of Transfiguration, another story we will recount and analyze later.
Endnotes