Andrew Perrin
I’d love to give an outline and invitation, to point folks forward to engage the whole thing. I want to say thanks for giving me the invite. Because I have unfinished business with this topic! A lot of unfinished business. I’ll tell a short story. I did an undergraduate degree in theology, and my first time ever giving an academic lecture or paper was after that degree. It was at a university in southern Alberta, and it was on this topic, resurrection and afterlife. I think it was between Malachi and Matthew, ancient Judaism. And I remember it was a good experience. What I remember most is I got a parking ticket on the campus. So, I do have unfinished business.
But it is interesting for me to think about the topic during that time span. What do I think about this now? And it is a very interesting exercise to realize this is something I’ve been scratching my head on for years. Now with what I know and keep learning about the scrolls, how do I think differently? So tonight, we’ll look at a few texts. I’ll intro the scrolls. What are they like? Then we’ll look at two texts in particular. One is called Pseudo-Ezekiel, and the other is called Messianic Apocalypse. The first one, Pseudo-Ezekiel is a text we didn’t know about. But as you can tell from the title, it’s related to a text we do know about, the book of Ezekiel. And readers of that book will know Ezekiel 37 and this vision of the valley of dry bones, which has inspired and confused generations of interpreters for ages. And this Pseudo-Ezekiel text is part of that tradition asking what is going on here. Is this metaphorical? Is this just hope for the exiles, or is it something more?
And the punchline is that this scribe, at least of this tradition, said, this is something more. And they interpreted that tradition, that text, to articulate a view that included some sort of future resurrection. So that’s a really interesting text that we’ll look at. And the other one is another writing among the scrolls. It’s a Hebrew text as well, called Messianic Apocalypse. That’s a modern title. There’s about a billion modern titles that can make it very confusing. But this one, as its name suggests, is trying to give an outline of the signs of the Messianic times. This is an ancient Jewish text that is trying to interpret different writings, like some sections of the Psalms, some sections of Isaiah, and trying to recombine
them and then interpret them. Asking what are the things that will happen when the Messiah shows up? Among those things, there’s reference to resurrection of the dead. Now that, in and of itself, is really interesting.
And the other piece we’ll pull apart tonight is, how do we think when we reread writings like Matthew or Luke, because of what John the Baptist asked Jesus? This is my paraphrase. Are you the guy? Are you the guy? And Jesus’ response is a classic first-century Rabbi response. It’s not a yes or no. He says, here are some things, if you’ve been paying attention, that you’ll know. And he talks about restoration of health and restoration of sight and releasing prisoners and the dead will rise. So, you have a similar combination of things there. And we’ll look at that tonight and ask ourselves, what’s going on there, and how do we then go look at writings in the New Testament, like Paul or the Gospels. We ask ourselves, have we heard them fully, or can we go back and listen again now with this new information and understand them in a new or different way?
So tonight, we’ll be looking at those two examples. And I picked those because they are ones that challenge my own thinking, that I’m still thinking about. But what I like about Pseudo-Ezekiel is it’s looking back on a Hebrew Scripture tradition. The scribe, you imagine, is asking, what was going on there, and how do I make sense of it. And the other example is also doing that to a degree. But for Christian readers of the New Testament, it’s a good example of how the scrolls can help us, then say let’s look ahead of the New Testament and see what else is going on here.
David Capes
Because they’re coming from roughly the same time. Historically, we’re looking at maybe plus or minus a hundred years between them, or maybe less than that.
Andrew Perrin
Yes. Now some of the earliest texts in the scrolls are from about the third century [BC], like first Enoch or Aramaic Levi document is quite old. And then we also have copies of books of we call now the Old Testament, that are also old, among the scrolls. But a lot of the writings I’m talking about, like Pseudo-Ezekiel, Messianic Apocalypse, are coming together in this period. Approximately the first century BCE to the first century CE or AD. That’s in and around the time that you have the early Jesus movement taking shape. And we have our earliest New Testament books. And by the time you get into the first or second century, that’s all happening. So, these are the questions asking what is the shared thought, practice and culture that we can recover and then see how it changes. Or whether it does it change? Does it change how we read the New Testament?
David Capes
There are people that look at the Old Testament and really don’t find the idea of resurrection in there. When and how they read Ezekiel 37 today some do and some don’t. Some say, yes this is at least an early hint of the idea that there is life beyond. It’s not just that we die and that’s it. There’s the big question about what happens next. There is this burgeoning hope. It seems to me, the Dead Sea Scrolls, being closer to the New Testament period, are going to reflect that hope in a different way than you might find in Ezekiel, Psalms or in those other texts.
Andrew Perrin
Yes, one of the things we’ll touch on tonight is as you look at a text like Ezekiel 1 in the scrolls, we look at them and say that’s a new text. And it is a new text. We didn’t have it before, so it’s new to us. But arguably, what’s even more important, is it’s a new context with which to look at these things which is what you were hinting at. A new context to see what the cultural conversations of the day are on this and what things do we have the volume turned up on that weren’t there as loud before. You see writings like these, or 1 Enoch or even Jubilees, Second Maccabees.
Around this period, there’s a lot of voices that are saying, we’ve been experiencing ongoing Imperial oppression. It’s a handful of exiles at this point, but some of us have come back. We have Hellenistic culture. Then we have this ancestral tradition about a covenant and promise. What is going on? How does it all fit together? And I think that’s where that volume knob starts to get turned up on voices that are saying maybe there’s something more than the present reality. That’s where you have again. Jubilees, Enoch, these scrolls texts, and also the New Testament texts. These are speaking to that huge issue of not just past tradition and present reality, but possibly a future hope. And that, to me, is very interesting.
David Capes
Interesting. What is God doing now, in our midst. They did speak of themselves as a kind of a New Covenant community, didn’t they? Similar to what we find in the New Testament.
Andrew Perrin
Yes, yes. I have a whole chapter in the book on, the question of Christian origins and the Dead Sea Scrolls. How do we make sense of that? And there’s a number of things that I touch on there. Some is community structures, like you. There’s the way they understand themselves. There are perhaps some interesting parallels there. Both communities also refer to themselves as ‘The Way’ from how they interpret Isaiah 40:3 and very ironically, in very different ways. But it’s interesting to see there are communities that are starting to organize themselves and understand themselves in some similar
terms.
David Capes
And they are reading some of the same texts. Saying, these are valuable. They’re guiding us, directing us into the future.
Andrew Perrin
That is a whole area that’s exciting as well. One of my professors, and really mentors in the scrolls, was Dr. Peter Flint, and I know you have his books here. We were chatting about that.
David Capes
We have his books as a special collection.
Andrew Perrin
Yes, it’s definitely worth hanging out in that book section.
David Capes
In fact you said you helped pack those books because you were around when he unfortunately passed away.
Andrew Perrin
Yes, almost 10 years ago now. It’s hard to believe. We’re good family friends, and I wanted to at least try to help preserve his legacy. Part of that was getting his books to places like this library where they’d be read and enjoyed. I remember very vividly in his lectures, Peter would say if you look at the books of the Old Testament that are most cited in the New Testament, it’s Psalms, Isaiah and Deuteronomy.
And when you look at Qumran generally, the ones that they’re trying to figure out the most, like that Messianic Apocalypse, are Psalms, Isaiah and Deuteronomy. So, what does that say? That a lot of energy and effort and questions are kicking around and people are trying to make sense of this period. And it’s exciting to see. What have the scrolls really confirmed for us? What have they challenged for us? And then, what can we change about how we think about Old Testament or New Testament in this world? And it’s really all three of those things, which is a great opportunity.
David Capes
Well, I’m looking forward to hearing your lecture tonight and sharing you with our students. Giving you an opportunity to encourage them into the study, not only just of the New Testament, but some of those writings around the New Testament that can help us. Or Old Testament writings that can shed light on these texts that we’re reading, because they are ancient. They are far removed from us, and we need just a little bit of help to read them, as Gordon Fee used to say, “read it for all it’s worth”.
Andrew Perrin
Yes I’m very much looking forward to it and can’t wait to connect with your students here and to see how the scrolls can be part of a bigger journey they’re on. I think it’s a really great thing to be part of, and I’m looking forward to it.
David Capes
Thanks so much. Dr. Andrew Perrin.
Andrew Perrin
Thank you. Thank you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
