Canonicity and Qumran: Evidence from the Damascus Document -- By: Neal Cushman

Journal: Journal of Ministry and Theology
Volume: JMAT 10:2 (Fall 2006)
Article: Canonicity and Qumran: Evidence from the Damascus Document
Author: Neal Cushman


Canonicity and Qumran:
Evidence from the Damascus Document

Neal Cushman

Dean of Christian Ministries
Northland Baptist Bible College, Dunbar, Wisconsin

For nearly four hundred years Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions have included apocryphal writings in their Bibles, while Protestants have flatly refused to place any other writing alongside of the sixty-six books of the Bible. This is changing for some in the rising movement called the emerging church.1 In this

postmodern church paradigm believers are challenged to return to the ancient methods of worship, presumably the worship of the apostolic church, which means for some a return to the ancient documents: this would include readings from the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the church fathers, and from other ancient texts.

The matter of canonicity in bibliology is second in importance only to the doctrine of inspiration. If one believes that the books of the Bible were given not only by divine providence, but as the actual communication of God to man, then it follows that one should know which books are to be considered so. And although this task may have appeared to have been a “done deal” long before the twenty-first century, it is clear that the matter has been reopened today.

This article does not attempt so broad an objective as to argue against the validity of the apocryphal books as Scripture; others have done so admirably in numerous tomes.2 Nor does this essay deal with the complex matters of NT canonicity, or even broader Jewish concerns about the Jewish “Bible.” Rather, it is narrowly focused on the view of scriptural authority of one sect that organized during the Second Temple period: the Essenes.3 The Dead Sea

Scrolls4 of Qumran provide the “window” that allows the researcher to see what the Essenes believed in this regard. And although not necessarily representative of all Judaism, Essene beliefs demonstrate nonetheless that certain views were possible during the Second Temple period. Therefore, if it may be demonstrated that the Essenes at Qumran viewed certain texts as Scripture, thereby excluding the “non-canonical” writings, then one could see that the formative establishment of an OT canon could have preceded the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70. This assertion would militate against the view of such Dead Sea Scrolls s...

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