There is a Sound Series, Dead Sea Scrolls: The scrolls in context, P2

Shidonna Raven
1 hour ago
3 min read

ByPhilip R. Davies

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Last Updated: May 22, 2025

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The scrolls in context, continued

Indeed, because the scrolls reflect the beliefs and practices of Jewish groups during a highly volatile period of Judaean history, this unique collection of sectarian and nonsectarian writings is the most important archive for understanding late Second Temple Judaism. By contrast, the New Testament was written by and for both Diaspora Jews and non-Jews; and rabbinic literature was composed at a later period and under quite different circumstances.

Above all else, the contents of the scrolls show the remarkable flexibility and variety of Jewish thought and practice and demolish any notion of a uniform “Judaism” at that time.

They show that the notion of cultic holiness and sacrifice could be contemplated without the Temple, that different liturgical calendars (implying different times for festivals and different priestly rituals at the Temple) existed at the same time, that the distinction between Israel and the Gentiles could be displaced by a notion of two predestined groups of saved and damned individuals, that the worship of the celestial Temple could be witnessed and described (foreshadowing a tradition of Jewish mysticism), and that good works could replace sacrifice. They also show a variety of beliefs that may have been shared by some or all of the Judaisms of the period, including the imminent culmination of history, the advent of a messianic figure, and the absolute necessity of complete obedience to the Law of Moses (however interpreted).

The Dead Sea Scrolls also testify to a period of theological creativity, of social fissure, of intense expectation and passion within the wider perspective of Judaism and Christianity. The scrolls’ occasional contradictions betray tensions between the goals of personal holiness and national redemption; between human and heavenly redeemers; between faith and knowledge as the means of salvation; between free will and predestination; and between an anthropology of human holiness and an anthropology of human depravity. They also exhibit typical features of a sectarian mentality: traces of a persecution complex and a corporate identity fortified by official opposition. In this ferment can be seen, with hindsight, the matrix of the two great systems of rabbinic Judaism and Christianity, which, though each took centuries to form, drew in different ways on the heritage that the Dead Sea Scrolls dramatically document.

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