Flattery, Truth, and Freewill

March 3, 2009, 8:18 am by dc-agape.

Geniza Column 1:1 and 2:13

Finding places to start and stop in the Dead Sea Scroll and the Nag Hammadi is not as easy as more recent Holy Texts.  The authors just kinda switch from topic to topic without much warning.  For anyone who is reading along, I will attempt to start and stop at column breaks.  But that is completely arbitrary.  The actual document just flows from beginning to end.  If I stop in a column I will mark which line was the ending of that particular reading.

Comparing the copy of Damascus Document (CD) found in Egypt vs. the Qumran “original” is quite interesting.  The authors of the original document have such flowery speech; where as the later edition is quite dry.  It is almost like you can feel the original authors worry and agitation; where as the later edition is just a religious document with only historic value.  The additions and “errors” to the later edition also make it quite tedious.  As a result, most of my personal gay Atheist interpretation of the Document will be from the material found in Wadi Qumran.

The very first two rows give a strong religious conviction to the document.  You have to remember that these authors did not believe in the afterlife, they believed that YHWH punished in this life.  These two rows warn about how YHWH will punish “those who spurn Him”.  This concept is so much more effective than the “you’re going to hell” so common today.  The only problem is that YHWH (since the authors believe he exists) punishes the righteous with the unrighteous, indiscriminately. 

The next 10.5 rows attempt to justify that exact problem.  When Israel turned away from the covenant with YHWH, they were exiled to Babylon for 390 years.  But the CD authors claim that YHWH took care of small group of Israelites and when those survivors turned from their iniquities YHWH took notice.  It does not say that he acted swiftly, no; in fact, it says that it took twenty years for YHWH to consider their deeds.  At this point YHWH brings them a teacher of righteousness.  YHWH has still not delivered his chosen ones.  This lesson was to be taught to all future generations about how YHWH treated “the traitors”.  The authors also consider the people they feel responsible for the Babylon exile as rebellious cows and include a verse from Hosea 4:16 to emphasize the point.

Like all Holy Texts, this one has an addition, which some later reader edited in.  It might be something like a commentary because of the subject matter.  This additional commentary is about the “Man of Mockery” and is a theme that continues through a number of the different documents in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The New Model believes this man to be the leader of the Pharisees in the 1^st century BCE who just might have been a man named Shimeon ben Shetah. 

After the commentary, the author then describes something that looks very similar to the christians of today!  It talks of people looking for flattery and gaps in the law.  It describes people finding the innocent guilty and the guilty as innocent.  But then the warning against this type of action is repeated.  YHWH becomes angry and annihilates all the unclean.  But take a look at today’s christians, do they not look for flattery…they are on television, they use their “Christianity” to lure customers to their businesses, they are looking for gaps in the (US) law to end personal choice, force their morals on all the citizens of the US, and teach false science in our classrooms.

In Column 2 lines 3 and 4 a YHWH is described that does not exist in the OT.  This is a YHWH who loves knowledge, and “positions Wisdom and Cleverness in front of Him; Cunning and True Knowledge wait on Him”.  If YHWH loves knowledge, wisdom, and cleverness…what errors do today’s christians espouse?  Do they not attempt to block scientific research (both knowledge and cleverness); do they not attempt to keep the status quo (blocking the effects of wisdom)?  We must learn from the past, not stay stuck in its errors.  What is “True Knowledge” but the understanding of this world and how humankind functions in it?  What is “True Knowledge” but to understand the deepest secrets of the universe?  Yet scientists are blocked at every turn by those who believe that knowledge is not a physical property of the universe.

Oh, the next 7 rows are devoted to telling us how man does not have freewill.  It starts with how the wicked are responsible for the destruction that YHWH brings on his people.  But quickly changes to how YHWH had chosen a certain remnant to survive.  This remnant YHWH had chosen from “ancient eternity”.  This is followed with how YHWH knows the number, time, and place of everything that exists.  Then the CD talks about the people that YHWH has taught by the use of the holy spirit, calling these teachers “seers of truth”.  This section of rows ends with:

Col 2:13 truth.  He explicitly called them by name.  But whoever He had rejected He caused to stray.

Isn’t wonderful how YHWH makes humans stray?  We don’t have a choice; we are just puppets in YHWH little play time.

Even though this is not all the way to the beginning of Geniza Col 3, I think this is a good place to stop.  The next section does seem to have a theme on “the willful heart”.  It also happens to be about 30 rows of the document.

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