I’ve recently begun giving the Dead Sea Scrolls a closer examination, particularly in light of research I am doing on Jewish worship in the Second Temple Period. While researching this, I have read through a few different translations of the Melchizedek Scroll (11Q13), which is known by various titles.
There are several things that link this particular text to the New Testament, in that is paints Melchizedek in much the same light as the author of the Epistle of Hebrews. From this text I believe we can better understand and appreciate the Melchizedek imagery of the book of Hebrews. I believe the correlation in the Melchizedek Scroll also gives us solid evidence that the author of Hebrews’ interpretation of the Messiah’s role as a Divine High Priest was not limited to Christian interpretation or a late Christian-influenced theological development (I hope to share more on this later).
What I would like to share now is the scroll’s view of Melchizedek functioning as one who, in the year of Jubilee, proclaims not only a release from captivity, but from sin as well. Commenting on Deuteronomy 15:2 (which details the release of debts during the year of Jubilee), the Melchizedek Scroll states:
“[the interpretation] is that it applies [to the L]ast Days and concerns the captives, just as [Isaiah said: "To proclaim the jubilee to the captives" (Isa. 61:1) . . . . just] as [ . . . ] and from the inheritance of Melchizedek, f[or . . . Melchize]dek, who will return them to what is rightfully theirs. He will proclaim to them the jubilee, thereby releasing th[em from the debt of a]ll their sins.” (emphasis mine)
Wise, M. O., Abegg, J. M. G., & Cook, E. M. (1996). The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. HarperOne, p.456.
In Luke 4:16-21 we find Jesus saying almost the exact same thing:
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (ESV, emphasis mine)
In the Melchizedek Scroll, the author has done exactly what Jesus does when he reads the text of Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue. He links the text in Deuteronomy concerning the jubilee year and the release of debts to the passage in Isaiah where the speaker is “anointed” (Hebrew: mashach / מַשָׁח) in order to “proclaim liberty to the captives.” Many times Jesus couples his miracles of healing with the forgiveness of sin. In both the Melchizedek Scroll and in the thoughts of Jesus, bringing liberty to captives involved not only a physical release (and with Jesus, it began many times with healing and exorcism), but a spiritual release from the bondage of sin.
In the Melchizedek Scroll, however, it is not merely the Messiah who accomplishes this, but Melchizedek himself. We shall look at the scroll’s understanding of this Melchizedek figure more in subsequent articles.
For anyone interested, I recently posted the full text to the First Epistle of Clement on my (s-l-o-w-l-y progressing) eTexts site. It is an original translation from the Greek by Kevin P. Edgecomb which I have been given permission to post. It includes all 67 chapters and is searchable. If you’re not familiar with 1 Clement, it would behoove you to familiarize yourself with it. It’s a worthy study and contains some very valuable information. D. Thomas Lancaster frequently refers to it in FFOZ’s Torah Club commentary on the Apostolic Scriptures.
As a brief introduction, Eerdman’s Bible Dictionary says this about it:
Clement, Epistles of. Two writings, a letter and a homily, included among the works of the Apostolic Fathers and traditionally attributed to Clement of Rome, the third bishop of Rome and mistakenly identified by some early writers as a disciple of Peter. Both works were appended to the New Testament in Codex Alexandrinus, and 1 Clement was regarded by some Church Fathers as canonical.
1 Clement, written ca. A.D. 96, was sent by the bishop of Rome to the church at Corinth, where a bitter dispute had resulted from the removal of certain presbyters. An important document regarding the development of ecclesiastical hierarchy, the letter exhibits great familiarity with the LXX text of the Old Testament and with various sayings of Jesus as well as the Pauline Epistles and the Letter to the Hebrews.
As many of you know, one of my favorite daily studies (outside of Torah Club) is A Daily Dose of Torah from Artscroll. In the Torah Thought for the Day section this past Tuesday there was an interesting concept. It relates the story of when Jacob (although weary from his travels and lack of rest) met Rachel at the well, he was easily able to roll the stone off of the well single-handedly (where it was implied that it took many men to do this). This is interpreted midrashically as a portent of a future event in which the “great stone, symbolic of our sins, which prevents the exile from coming to an end, until Yaakov himself will come and remove it, like one removing a cork from a bottle.”
I can easily see this representation in the rolling away of the stone of Yeshua’s burial site. When the stone was rolled away, Yeshua’s resurrection & his work of redemption & triumph over sin and death are realized, as Paul speaks about in 1 Corinthians 15:50-58:
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Fellow blogger Derek Leman has a short post on his Yeshua in Context blog site about Yeshua’s teaching on the eye as the “lamp of the body” in Matthew 6:22-23. Although I commented on his post & gave some of this information, I thought it would be good to post a more complete version of my thoughts here.
Good Eye, Bad Eye, Lamp of the Body
Matthew 6:19-24 is one of the first passages I point out to people who want to know why it’s important to understand Yeshua’s teachings from its original context, particularly the Hebrew idioms & terminology behind his words. Let’s look at this entire passage. I’ve used the NKJV, and left the headers from the translators to show the misunderstanding even at the level of scholarly translation.
Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
The Lamp of the Body
22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
You Cannot Serve God and Riches
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
I begin by having the person read verses 19-21 and then interpret Yeshua’s message. Then I do the same with verses 22-23, which often results in a confession of not knowing what he is talking about. Then I have them read verse 24, and they are able to interpret this just as easily as verses 19-21. Then I point out the theme of the three sections of this passage as such:
Verses 19-21: Money, things & stuff
Verses 22-23: Unclear
Verse 24: Money, things & stuff
From there, they usually see a pattern, and that verses 22-23 “should” fit back into the context.
They are then able to realize why it is so important is that we know the intended meaning of his teachings. It is easy for them to see how we will totally miss the point of what he is trying to convey if we don’t understand the original sense of the message, which hinges upon a Hebraic . And without this information, we will invariably make up a meaning that has absolutely nothing to do with his original teaching. For generations, Yeshua’s teaching in Matthew 6:22-23 has been interpreted in ways that are completely unrelated to the context of his subject, and stripped of its context (even at the pashat level).
Often this text is used as a prooftext for moral purity and guarding the eyes. Although this is indeed a principle that Yeshua advocates (cf. Matthew 5:28), it is not at all what he is talking about here. However, this passage, if understood as being Hebraic in nature, fits completely within the context of the surrounding verses (19-24). And, unlike many instances of passages found within the Apostolic Scriptures, we do not have to turn to an outside source (such as non-canonical or rabbinic works), Scripture actually illuminates this passage itself.
Put it back in Hebrew
First, we need to put this passage back into Hebrew. From there we can begin comparing it to other Scriptures in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanach (or the “Old Testament”). The Bible Society in Israel translates the phrase “your eye is good” in Matthew 6:22 as “עֵינְךָ טוֹבָה”, (ein’ka tovah) literally corresponding to our English (some texts translated the eye as being “single” or “clear” verses “good”). When we focus on the phrase “your eye is good” and we come across a passage in Proverbs.
In Proverbs 22:9, we have almost this exact phrase in the form of, “טֹֽוב־עַיִן” (tov eiyn) or “good eye.” Since this passage is being translated by Hebrew linguists, all dynamic English translations understand the meaning of this quite easily. Why? Because it is obvious in the Hebrew. However, when we are presented with a Greek text, such as the Apostolic Scriptures (the “New Testament”), translators try to impose a Greek understanding of the text, since it has been delivered to us in the Greek language. But this approach fails, as we will clearly see in this passage. But back to our correlation in Proverbs. The NASB translates this verse as follows:
“He who is generous will be blessed, for he gives some of his food to the poor.” (Proverbs 22:9)
From here we can see it is obvious that the one with a “good eye” is a generous person. Now, let’s put this new terminology & understanding back into Yeshua’s teaching in Matthew and remove the last two inserted headers (modifications in bold italics):
Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The lamp of the body is generosity. If therefore you are generous, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if you are miserly, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
With our new understanding in place, it completely changes our understanding of the words of our Master. Rather than three separate teachings, we see a cohesive unit of teaching by which he warns against being attached to wealth and the “things” of this world and encourages us to create spiritual “wealth” in its place. This reading completely fits the context of verses Matthew 6:19-24, telling us this is indeed the intended meaning of Yeshua’s words.
Look for my upcoming post, “Yeshua’s Use of ‘Righteousness’” which will give another example of insights gained from looking at the Hebrew beneath the Greek skin of the NT. It will elucidate more of Yeshua’s teachings, and expound upon many of the things discussed in this post.
Upcoming Resource
Do you want a resource to help you see these things in the Apostolic Scriptures?
One is on its way. Have you heard of the new, DHE (Delitzsch Hebrew English) translation of the Apostolic Scriptures from Vine of David (First Fruits of Zion)? Vine of David is in the process of taking Delitzsch’s Hebrew text of the Apostolic Scriptures and putting them into English for the first time. Here is some brief info on the project. I will be posting more thoroughly on this project soon:
Franz Delitzsch (1813 – 1890) was known as a “Christian Hebraist” he was a pioneer in the area of Jewish studies of the New Testament. Delizsch was a prolific writer, translator, and biblical commentator. His greatest and most noted work was is his New Testament translation into Hebrew. Deliztzsch re-contextualized the Gospels back into their Hebraic foundations. He understood and revealed the Hebrew / Jewish underpinnings of the Gospels. He devoted his entire life to restoring Yeshua back his people. The primary goal of this translation was to create “an edition of the Gospels that is sensitive to and reveals the Jewish essence of the teachings of the New Testament is vital to helping God’s people connect with the Jewish foundations of the Christian faith.”
I came across a debate between Bart Ehrman (biblical skeptic & author of Misquoting Jesus) and Craig Evans (New Testament scholar & author of Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels) on YouTube. I’m not sure when this took place. It looks as if it were at the beginning of the year. They are debating over the authenticity of the Gospels, specifically addressing the question, “Does the New Testament Misquote Jesus?” And although I haven’t watched / listened to it all, I thought I would share it. It’s bound to contain some nuggets.
It’s interesting to see how vehemently opposed to the Gospels and the Gospel message Bart is, and how he seethes with anger as he speaks.
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