Body and Soul, Purity and Impurity: Sin the Dead Sea Scrolls

We have already observed that his view of the Dead Sea Scrolls sect, transgression is affected by both the body and the soul, designated by the terms “flesh” and “spirit.” We have also seen the imperfections in the “flesh,” that is, the body, are understood to be a sign of transgression. Further, we observe the close link between sin and impurity, repentance and purification. For this reason, it will be worthwhile to review the concept of sin found in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The concept of sin in the Dead Sea Scrolls seems to have proceeded beyond the definition of sin employed in the Hebrew Bible. In the Bible God is the source of holiness, and sin is antithetical to His nature. Therefore, sin is an obstruction to the relationship between God and man and very often incurs God’s wrath and punishment. Sin can be defined as ignoring or violating the commandments of God or failing to fulfill one’s obligations.

After the close of the Bible, sin became a more abstract concept. Rather than good and evil being construed as two types of people, they seem to assume the cloak of two powers reigning in the world. Sin is a power that opposes both people and God. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, sin becomes personified as an angel who controls forces that are at war with the Angels of God. Sometimes known as the Angel of Darkness or represented by the figure of Belial, this entity battles against The Prince of Light or the Angel Michael. Since sin is an inherent human condition, the resolution of this conflict will only come about in the eschatological age when the final battle occurs in the war of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness. In many texts we see the operation of the concept of predestination: a person is born to be in either the lot of sinners or of the righteous, those who will be victorious in the end of days. The Cave 4 horoscope text acknowledges that not everyone is totally good nor totally evil, but people are mixtures of the two in different proportions (4Q186 1-2).

The Dead Sea Scrolls use various terms for sin: hata’, psha`,` avon or `avar. Hata’ means to make a mistake, to be at fault. Pasha` is used when someone transgresses the law and can be translated as to rebel or to revolt.  `Avon  is iniquity and `avar means to cross over the limits of the law.

The Dead Sea Scrolls share with the Book of Enoch the origin of sin with the union of the angels and mortal women in the time of Noah (11 Q 11). 1Q Rule of the Community credits God with creating the Spirits of Light and Darkness (1QS iii.25). Other types of literature, such as the Testament of Amram, posit two angels that control good and evil or the Evil Inclination (yetzer ha-ra`) that constantly seeks to attempt humanity into sin (4Q417 2.12; CD 2:16).

According to the Qumran sectarians, sin is the source of ritual impurity. That impurity can only be removed by God himself, but the sinner must initiate his atonement through penitence, prayer, Torah study, and obedience to the leaders of the Qumran sect. While the scrolls make a distinction between those who sin through error and those who sin intentionally, the judges of the community have the power to punish those who transgress. Some of the punishments include being banished from certain communal activities, a reduction in one’s food rations, inability to touch the pure food or drink, and refraining from judging others. For certain grave offenses, a sectarian would be completely banished from the community: exposing the secret lore of the community, not following community regulations and eating meals in a state of impurity, disregarding a judgment of the community, acting lustfully with one’s wife (1QS vii.24-27; Damascus Document e, 4Q270 11. 11-14).

Atonement for sin may be secured through humble petition before God, confession, pleas for mercy, a resolve not to continue sinning, prayer for God’s help to overcome the desire to sin, immersion in the ritual bathl and Torah study. Only God in his mercy can forgive sin. In His goodness He established the sectarian community which in itself was an atoning act of God. God separated the sectarians from the majority of the people who continue to sin and thereby provided for them away of keeping themselves holy and retaining for themselves God’s presence. In fact, forgiveness can never be attained without the community itself which is why those outside the sect can never experience freedom from sin nor a true state of purity.

Similar to the New Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls believe that only God can release man from the bonds of sin that threaten to engulf him (acts 26:18, Romans 5:12-21, 8:22). For Christians salvation is obtained by faith in the power of Jesus to release mankind from sin through his crucifixion. For the sectarians, joining the sect and obedience to its principles enable the individual to receive atonement. Most prominently, both John the Baptist and the Qumran sectarians used immersion as a symbolic washing away of sin (Mt. 3:6; 1QS iii.4-9). Paul expresses a conflict between the body and soul which is also evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QS xi.9, xi.12; 1QHa vii.21 [xv.8]; Romans 8:13). While the New Testament declared that the sacrifice of Jesus rid the world of sin once and for all, the Dead Sea sect expected that in the messianic age the sacrificial cult of the Temple would be restored.

While the Dead Sea sectarians held many ideas that differed from those espoused by the later rabbis, they share many concepts about sin. Both bodies of literature discuss the difference between those who sin inadvertently and those who actually deliberately violate the law. The rabbis most often use the word `avar , “to cross,” for deliberate sin. Both the scrolls and the rabbis recognize man’s propensity to sin, God’s holding man responsible for his own deeds, and God’s ultimate mercy. Penitence, prayer, Torah study and obedience to the law are rabbinic principles that bring atonement, similar to those of the Qumran sect. the yetzer hara` is the tendency to disobey God according to the rabbis, and God created it, but the Torah is its antidote (BT Qid. 30b; BT Sot. 21a). For the most part, the sectarian scrolls saw sin has resulting from this spirit of evil’s overcoming the spirit of good in their cosmic competition. Because the rabbis believed in free will, they determined that a person could amass good deeds as a bulwark against his failings, but the Dead Sea Scrolls believed in predestination. Therefore, the feelings of being constantly mired in sin and unworthiness that we saw were so prominent in the Hodayot Scroll  could not be mitigated by any good deeds. Rabbinical literature does not elevate sin to such an abstraction as the Dead Sea Scrolls, but defines it as violating the laws of the Torah or its rabbinical statutes.