A Quick Comment on Paul and Diversity of Scripture During the Second Temple Era

Prior to the late first century the Torah did not exist in a closed canon and instead there was great textual fluidity. This further blurs the jumped conclusion that there can be a straight line drawn from Judaism to Christianity. For example, Paul’s use of Deut. 21.23 demonstrates the fluidity of texts and the ways in which later writers used variants of those texts. “When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day.” As Brooke notes, in both MT and LXX the sequence of events in Deuteronomy does not match Paul’s sequence. In MT and LXX the hanging on a tree bit occurs after the execution and is not the means of execution as it was for Jesus. However, the Temple Scroll contains a different version of Deut. 21.23 in which the order of events is reversed such that the hanging on the tree is the method of capital punishment. Brooke concludes that it is likely that Paul knew of the version in TS and implemented it into his narrative. Again, that does not indicate that the scriptures were about Jesus, clearly not since the MT and LXX readings of the same verse contradict the order of events in TS. Rather it means that the early Christian writers incorporated the scriptures into their arguments for theological reasons.

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1QM: Implications for The Jesus Movement

Zoroastrian Dualism

Returning to Dualism, as has been previously stated, Collins (1975) assigns Canaanite roots to Daniel 7, however of 1QM, he offers that it has more Persian influences. For example, in Daniel, the four beasts that come out of the sea (Dan. 7.1-8) effectively replaces the sea monster from the Ugaritic text which describes Yam, a sea monster. Daniel also mentions the figures “one like a son of man” and “the ancient of days” which Collins says can be “most satisfactorily explained against a background of Canaanite imagery.” However, he notes that the War Scroll does not base its format from the Ancient Near Eastern chaos myths but rather it is derived from Persian influence. ( Even when it may seem as though themes in the DSS can be explained by an evolution of biblical ideas, Collins says it must be questioned whether or not Persian ideology has played a crucial role as well. In Zoroastrianism the conflict is between the Horomazes and the Areimanios. On one side, Ahuramazda lead the forces of good against Angra–Mainyu, the leader of the forces of evil. For three thousand years one side will prevail and be dominant, and then for another three thousand years the other side will prevail. After the six thousand years, Hades will die and whichever god killed him will rest. The similarities between the structure between the Persian final conflict and the one found in 1QM are too striking to be simply dismissed as mere coincidences. 

The Rise of Messianism

One of the key components to understanding Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Sect, and early Christianity is the concept of messianism. Schiffman briefly defines the messiah as referring to an “eventual coming redeemer, a descendant of David, who is expected to bring about major changes in the nature of life in this world […] (including) world peace, prosperity, and the elimination of evil and misfortune.” (Schiffman, 1) One of the essential functions of the messiah is to restore and reestablish the glories of the Davidic kingdom and the Land of Israel. The Biblical background for this concept is observable in 2 Samuel 7 in which God makes a promise to David that he and his descendants would rule Israel forever and ever until the end of time. (2 Sam. 7.8–16) In addition, God promised David that his house would reign of foreign nations as well (2 Sam. 22.44–51). 

Somewhat linked with this is the idea of the impeding “day of the Lord” which Schiffman describes as “a certain, though as yet unrevealed time, God is expected to punish the wicked and bring about the triumph of justice and righteousness.” (Schiffman, 2) Of this notion of the “day of the Lord” Collins (1997) notes that “end of days” and the expectation of a final battle between Israel and the Gentiles was common among the ancient Israel. The primary difference between the traditional conflict between ancient Israel and the Gentiles and the one between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness is that the former was nationalistic and defined in ethnic terms, whereas the latter was is more ambiguous in its relation to the ethnic Israel. Still, the sectarians of the Dead Sea Scrolls thought of themselves as the “true Israel” or an “elect group within Israel.” Further, Collins writes that “the ‘Sons of Darkness,’ also, were not simply the Gentiles but evil-doers, and from the perspective of the sect many ethnic Israelites fell into this category.” (Collins 1997, 91) The bad blood between Israel and the Gentiles stems from the repeated invasions of foreign powers such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, and Romans. Of these invasions, Collins finds that early on these experiences became generalized, allowing psalmists and prophets to identify the enemies of Israel as simply, “the nations.” Collins points to Psalm 2 as a reference point for this notion which states, “Why do the nations conspire, and the people plot in vain?” (Ps. 2.1) Verses 2-3 describe the kings of earth plotting against Israel and God’s anointed one. However, verses 4-7 describe “he who sits in the heavens” who mocks and scoffs at them. In his furry he will terrify them as he has established his own king who will conquer the opposing forces. In 2.8-9 God promises, “ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break with a rod of iron and dash them into pieces like a potter’s vessel.” Throughout the Hebrew Bible the theme of God liberating Israel from the grip of the enemy or “the nations.” (see Ezekiel 39.4, Daniel 11.45, Joel 3.9-16) Similar themes can be found elsewhere in 1 Enoch 90.19.

Implications for the Jesus Movement

The idea of a final war between the forces of good and evil may have trickled down to the theology of the early Christians. One of the unique feature of Psalm 2, is in verses 6– 8 where God establishes that he will raise his own king who will become his son and promises to his son that he will thwart the nations. In Collins (2008) he asserts that the anointed son of god was a messianic title, in many ways reflecting Egyptian and Canaanite ideologies and enthronement ceremonies. The Messiah in general terms was to be a someone who would destroy the enemies of Israel and reestablish the glories of Israel and the Davidic throne and thus the title Son of God in this context is an honorific one, appealing to the prospects of a future king.  From this view, following the development of the Yahweh wars argument posed by Garcia Martinez it is not hard to arrive at the conclusions of Martin who argues for the possibility that Jesus and his disciples held similar theological positions and like the Qumran community believed that they were living in the last days. From there they would expect an “inbreaking of apocalyptic events” in which an army of angels would break through the sky to fight the Romans, overthrow the Jewish leaders and their Roman overlords and establish God’s kingdom on earth, “all under the leadership [of] God’s anointed.” 

Applying this concept to of a war between good and evil leading to the end of time and God’s kingdom to Christianity, Martin suggests the possibility that “Jesus led his followers, armed, to Jerusalem to participate in a heavenly-earthly battle to overthrow the Romans and their high-priestly client rulers of Judea” like the one described in the War Scroll. (Martin, 3)  As VanderKam notes, in 4Q285, The War of the Messiah, which deals with Isa. 10.34–11.1, the messiah has more militaristic role and appears to be the one who will kill the human leader of Belial’s army “the bud of David will go into battle with […] and the Prince of the Congregation will kill him.” In the Damascus Document the Prince of the Congregation is identified as the scepter of Balaam who will completely destroy the sons of Seth when he comes. Reading Mark 14.43-47 in light of the Luke’s account of the same story (LK 27.47-51) it is tempting to conclude that only two of Jesus’ disciples were armed. However, when read in isolation there is no indication that only two were armed and it is likely that many were armed. The armament sent to the arrest of Jesus gives off the indication that the authorities anticipated armed resistance. Subscribing to a theology similar to that of the War Scroll, Jesus and his disciples would have then believed that they were living in the last days and would partake in a cosmic war that would usher in the kingdom of God. The fact that Jesus was arrested and executed by the Romans (the very force he was expected to overthrow) and the failure of the angelic army to show up caused early Christians to radically reinterpret Jesus and his messiahship.

Sources

see Satterfield, Bruce. “Ugaritic Mythology” Brigham Young University, 09 May 2016

In Collins and Collins (2008) he asserts that at least in the specific case of Daniel 7 that “one like a son of man, should be identified with the archangel Michael.” pp. 78

Schiffman, Lawrence H. The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls. (United States: SBL, 1989)

Collins (1997) pp. 92

Collins John J. and Adela Yarbro Collins. King and Messiah as Son of God: Divine Human and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature. (United States: Eerdman’s Publishing, 2008)

Collins and Collins, pp. 72–74

Martin, Dale B. “Jesus in Jerusalem: Armed and Not Dangerous” Journal for the Study of the New Testament vol. 37 no. 1 (2014): pp. 3–24; Fredriksen has written a response to Martin’s argument and the two had a small back and forth in the JSNT. However, while Fredriksen raises valid critiques of Martin’s arguments, none of them are detrimental to his central thesis.

VanderKam & Flint, pp. 264

For a more extensive discussion of Jesus being armed in Jerusalem expecting a revolutionary overthrow of the Romans, see Brandon (1967)

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1QM: Ancient Near Eastern Background

What Is 1QM?

One of the more fascinating and popular texts discovered at Qumran is The War Scroll from cave 1 ( Also known as the War Rule and the Rule of War). The text is preserved almost perfectly intact in 19 columns from cave 1 known as 1QM. In addition there are also multiple fragmentary copies from cave 4. (4Q491–4Q497). Column 1 describes the war as not just an earthly battle to fought among humans, but makes clear that the battle is one of cosmic portions having apocalyptic ramifications. The war described in the text lasts 40 years and occurs in three stages. Two different types of enemies have been identified during three different stages of battle. In the first two phases the attacks are targeted at local groups, whereas in the third phase of the war the enemy becomes universal. The idea of a final confrontation between the forces of good and the forces of evil is a recurring theme which can be found in various locations throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls (see 4Q161, 1QH 11.35, CD 7.20–1). In many ways, the cosmic battle of 1QM also resembles the apocalypses found in Daniel and Enoch. The result of the final battle is the triumph of God and his angelic army over the Son of Darkness as “righteousness is fully victorious and evil is forever destroyed.”

Relation to the Yahweh Wars

The concept of a warrior God who fights on behalf of his people, freeing them from their enemies if common throughout the Hebrew Bible. In Numbers 21.14 there is an explicit reference to a “Book of the Battles of Yahweh.” Exodus 15.2 outright identifies the god of Israel as a “warrior” and the point of climax in related types of literature was viewed as a battle between good and evil that would be succeeded by an “era of peace among the peoples.” Of this, Garcia Martinez argues that the general outline of a cosmic war in which the forces of good triumph over the forces of evil after the final battle which is found in apocalyptic literature, “can only be only understood as a development of some ideas already present in the Hebrew Bible and common with the culture of the Ancient Near East.” The idea of God acting decisively in favor of his chosen people over their enemies was expected in ancient Israel and is identified as the “day of Yahweh” in Amos 8.8. In Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 this day of intervention by God is elevated to a ‘final days’ period and it evolves into not just a victory over an earthly enemy but as an eschatological victory over cosmic enemies. Garcia Martinez notes that Daniel 12.1 describes a battle in which the “warrior god” will fight in opposition of his people’s adversaries. He argues that this framework in Daniel later goes on to “develop the representations of the final battle we find in later apocalyptic literature.” (Garcia Martinez, 304) Similarly, von Rad has written extensively about the prevailing theme of Yahweh’s great “saving action with Israel” in the context of a warrior god. He poses that after the conquest of Canaan, Israel began to experience what he calls a “protection in war” by Yahweh where Yahweh would fight and crush the enemy by means of “divine terror.” von Rad also makes note of stories that tell of the great acts of Yahweh demonstrated during ‘holy wars.’

Collins, building off the work of Gunkel argues for a more Canaanite influence on Jewish apocalyptic. Collins notes that while the discovery at Ugarit have shown Gunkel’s original theories to be viewed as overstated, he does maintain the historicity of the “conflict motif” in the literature which can be seen in Ugaritic texts such as the battle between Baal and Yam. In the text, Baal triumphs over Yam, a sea monster, and then proceeds to establish his temple and then celebrates at a banquet with the other gods. The influence of such stories on Jewish Theology can be observed throughout the Old Testament as the general sketch is thereby applied to Yahweh such as in Exodus 14. Of the Red Sea event of Ex. 14 and 15, Sa-Moon Kang affirms that “in Chapter V the only protagonist was God, not men, while in those of the war of the Israelites against the Amalekites (Ex 17.8–16) the protagonist Moses was depicted as a divine man.” Kang goes on to conclude that the “Chapter VII traditions and historical an annalistic records of the Davidic battles” begin to surface during the rising period of the Davidic kingdom and that it appears to be a part of the same phenomenon of divine war motifs that began to emerge in the rising period of every other kingdom in the ancient Near East. Cross has also shown that in Canaanite mythology that the god El was also characterized as a sort of divine warrior god.

Jewish Nationalism

Though the concept of Yahweh as a warrior god appeared to see a decline during he pre-exilic era, Collins argues that this theme reinvented intself during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. He attributes the chaotic state of Israel and the persecution of Jews as grounds for revival of the conception of Yahweh as a warrior deity who would stamp out the enemy. Collins reflects that “it is not surprsing then that the old mythology of the conflict between god and chaos should again be evoked.” He cites the Book of Daniel and the War Scroll from Qumran specifically as texts that exhibit holy war imagery. Further, Collins isolates two main features of the mythological holy wars that are present in the OT and related literature: 1) the chaos myth, of the war between the divine warrior and the monster of the sea and 2) the nationalistic mythology and the battle between patron deities of different states. According to Collins, because religious and national identity were inseparable, and because the earthly wars were seen as reflecting cosmic wars taking place in outer space between gods, “nationalism was given a mythological expression.” The implication from this for Israel then is that Yahweh fought on behalf of Israel for not any moral reasons or because they were ‘the good guys’ but because Yahweh was Israel’s god. Collins points to Deuteronomy 32 as the spelling out of the theology of holy wars both religiously and nationalistically. While Collins argues for Canaanite parallels for Daniel he also contends that there are many elements of Persian culture and religion blended with Jewish elements that went into the War Scroll.

Sources

VanderKam, James C. The Dead Sea Scrolls Today 2^nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2010). pp. 88

Bolotnikov, Alexander. “The Theme of Apocalyptic War in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Andrews University Seminary Studies vol. 42 no. 2 (2005): 261–266

Collins, John J. Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls. (New York, NY: Routledge Publishing, 1997). pp. 93–94; also see Whitney’s translation of Gunkel (2010) “Creation and Chaos in the Primeval Era and the Eschaton.”

Wise, Michael O. et al. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1996). pp. 150

García Martínez, Florentino. “The War Scroll and Related Literature: War and Peace in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook 2010: 303–334

von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology vol. 1: The Theology of Israel’s Historical Traditions. (London SCM Press, 1975). pp. 306–307

Kang, Sa-Moon. Divine War in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East. (Germany: Walter de Gruyter, 1989). pp. 223–224.

Cross, Frank M. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. (United State: Harvard University Press, 1997) pp. 40–41; also, see Robinson (2010) for an interesting discussion on the interconnectedness between the Canaanite El and the Israeli Yahweh in Studia Antiqua vol. 8 no. 1

–M

The Church of England During WWI

The following is a brief write up I did for my history project summarizing my research on the topic of The Church of England during the First World War:

When the first world war broke out in 1914, the Church of England found itself at a crossroads as many within the Church leadership viewed the war as an opportunity to revive the religiosity of Britain that had declined so drastically since the mid–Victorian era. With the ushering in of science and literature and other social changes brought about by the enlightenment, and industrialization the Church had seen its influence among the British people rapidly recede.

As urbanization moved people into the cities the Church of England found itself in competition with Sunday football, museums, family weekend holidays, and many other urban attractions. As a result of the mass migration to the city, the rural Churches suffered membership great losses. As more and more people moved to the city, the population of Church goers relative to the overall population grew smaller and smaller, lessening the Church of England’s influence over the population. As persistent cheerleaders of the war effort for its own personal gain as well as for nationalistic reasons, the Church was perceived as out of touch with the people and a parrot of the British government. Anglican chaplains were consistently unable to reach British soldiers as their ministry efforts fell of def ears.

As a result of the unpopularity of the Anglican leadership for promoting the war so vocally and framing it in such strong nationalistic contexts, the Church is generally considered to have had a ‘bad war.’ This forced the Anglican leadership to radically change their message and reconcile their attitudes toward war and their role in national affairs. This post-war reflection lead to a much better second world war for the Church of England.

Topic Statement and Questions

The primary topic of this research project is how the Church of England faired during the first world war. More specifically, how was the Church received by soldiers and the public during the war? What was the message of the Church during wartime? How did the war affect the theology of the Church before, during, and after the war? Was the Church supportive of the war effort throughout the duration of the war, or did they change positions? In what ways did they support or oppose? What justifications did they provide for either an affirmative or negative position. What was religious life like among British soldiers and the public during the war? Did the British people become more religious, less religious or stay roughly the same during the war?

Assessment of Literature

The variety of resources used throughout the project have a wide scope in in relation to the Church of England during the Great War. The primary sources used include letters from British soldiers from 1914–1918, diaries from British soldiers––as well as two from Anglican priests. These letters and diaries will be most helpful in terms gauging the exact emotions and reactions from British soldiers and priests who were right in the middle of the war. The diaries will be helpful in that they can provide insight into how the priests themselves saw their mission going. Did they have personal feelings toward the war, their theology, or the Church itself that they kept to themselves? Were they aware that in general most people were not receptive to their message? Other primary sources include articles from the war time and just after which deal with British Christian opinions of the war, as well as how the war experience was for the Anglican Church’s counterpart, the Roman Church. These are rich sources of information that can help shed light on the attitude of Christians living in Britain during the war and also how the Roman Church faired in comparison and sometimes in spite of the Anglican Church.

Concluding Thoughts

Additional research that would be worth doing more work on would likely be religious life among the British people. A lot can be made about the Church and how they were received, but much of that comes from the lens of the Church itself. More helpful in many ways would be accounts that focus more prominently on British life during the war economically, religiously, and politically and examine how the three intertwine. A closer look at the trends among religion across other denominations would also be a useful topic to look into as a means of comparison. Was it a problem with Anglicanism personally or was it religion as a whole? In general religiosity declined from the mid–Victorian era through the Edwardian era, but was the Church of England the worst? What possible reasons could explain why Anglican congregations especially suffered the largest decline in attendance? Public relations with the Anglican church would also be worth looking into.

–M