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A Qumran Parallel to Paul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Henry J. Cadbury
Henry J. Cadbury
Affiliation:
Haverford, Pennsylvania
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Extract

One of the most debated points in Paul's labored effort to explain why women should not pray or prophesy with their heads unveiled (1 Cor. 11:2–16) is the reason given in the phrase of verse 10 διὰ τοὺς ἀγγέλους. It is therefore obvious that attention ought to be called to a similar passage in the two column fragment from Cave 1 at Qumran. Whether 1 QSA is or is not part of the Manual of Discipline (1 QS) it is also a fragment of rules for the Community. It was published in Qumran Cave I. Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, I, edited by Barthélemy (Oxford, 1955). I give below the relevant passage Col. 2 lines 3–9 from the translation by H. Neil Richardson.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , January 1958, pp. 1 - 2
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1958

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References

1 Journal of Biblical Literature, LXXVI (1957), 108–122.Google Scholar

2 Richardson, loc. cit., p. 120 f.

3 Barthélemy p. 117 does note 1 Cor. 11.10 to illustrate 1 QSA but it is Paul who needs illumination from Qumran and not vice versa.

P.S. Since this article was written I have observed another parallel. Since the Qumran community like its pentateuchal prototype assimilated the worshipping and the fighting groups, one is not surprised to read in the War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness in much the same language that the various categories of cripples or of unclean persons were forbidden to go into camp and into battle “because holy angels are with their armies” (1 QM vii.6).

Finally, as was to be expected, while this note was in proof there has appeared in New Testament Studies, IV (1957–8), pp. 48–57, an extensive article by J. A. Fitzmyer in which, in connection with Paul's expression, these two passages are cited and two others more recently discovered in Cave 4 material, again one each in the context of community and of battle lines. But we need not follow Fitzmyer in supposing that therefore Paul was influenced by the Qumran sect. Both may have derived the idea from common Jewish background.