The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

HENGEL The Scriptures in Second Temple Judaism 171
4Q Miqsat ma ' a seh hat-torah. Here we cannot go into details: the
Essene interpretation of the Torah focuses on the strict adherence to
the wording of the text, but also on its aggravating interpretation
through the teacher of righteousness. This means, that unlike the
Pharisees' interpretation, the Essene exegesis does not refer to an oral
tradition of interpretation which made the Torah more accessible to
the people. This does not exlude the fact that with regard to eschatology,
the sect, because of their common Chasidic origin, is more
closely connected with the Pharisees than with the Sadducees, though
they also have a priestly leadership. Thus an obvious high regard for
the book of Daniel is evident in both groups.
Through their rigorous application of the Torah, as, for example,
in the area of ritual purity and observance of the sabbath as well as
through harmonization and systematization, they created a radical
distance from the real world and especially from the cult in
Jerusalem, a distance which they intensified through their strict
dualism and determinism. Connected with this, and typical for
Hellenistic times, is a rational tendency which refers to an 'ideal system'
of divine law and history. The Temple Scroll as well as the book
of Jubilees show these systematizing and idealizing characteristics. The
traditional law text which had grown in a long history is newly
arranged, gaps are closed, contradictions adjusted, and the picture of
the Temple in Jerusalem is idealized in an unreal fashion.
This is also shown in the 364-day solar calendar which made it possible
to arrange sabbaths and feasts since the day of creation to a fixed
date. Thus the calendar established a frame which was ordained by
God so as to cover all events and happenings. Here, contrary to the
Greek philosophical systems, the course of history was included and,
through the weeks of years and Jubilee cycles, integrated into a universal
world order.
This Essene calendar demanded an additional substantiation through
God's revelatio specialissima, which meant that in Qumran the
number of 'revelation books' had to be significantly enlarged. To
these belong the writings of Henoch, the 'Temple Scroll', spoken by
God in the first person, the book of Jubilees which related to Genesis
as Chronicles does the book of Kings, and probably also books such as
the Rules of the Sect, the War Scroll, the songs for the sabbath
sacrifice and still others. In many of them the universal order as
expressed in the calendar plays an essential role: those who obeyed the