- there are 70 faces to 
Post by alon on Jun 25, 2015 12:44:17 GMT -8
This is condensed from my notes on a 2 hr.talk given by Rob Vanhoff at the UMJA conference. These notes were reviewed by Mr. Vanhoff, and are posted here with his permission:
Works of the Law in Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls (condensed from a talk by Rob Vanhoff)
There is a Jewish community called the Yachad (“unity”) at the time Paul wrote Galatians. They came into existence as a response to the Maccabeans assuming absolute power and then later the Roman conquest; sometime in the 1st or 2nd Cen BCE.The Pharisees and Sadducees, the two largest sects of the time, came out of the Maccabean revolt. Their quest for dominance was often brutal. Then Rome conquered Israel and appointed quislings from the Sadducees to the priesthood.
The Yachad did not like how the priesthood was being run, so they separated themselves, going to Qumran. Priests within the Yachad inflamed the passions of their adherents; and community and ideological commitment inspires people to action. The Yachad were just one of many sects vying for separatism during this time.
The term ma’aseh, or “works” (Gk ergon) as used in the Kethuvai Shelachim has a lot of flexibility. “Words don’t have meanings; meanings have words.” We need context to understand what is meant. That context includes not only how it is used, but chronology and the social/political landscape of the time as well. The term works in the Pauline discourses generally refers to the theologies of sects like the Yachad at Qumran.
The Yachad considered themselves true Israel, and they wanted others to get on board with them; they thought they’d eventually be vindicated. They had a serious eschatological orientation, thinking it would be reckoned to you as righteousness if you joined with them. They had a long (2 yr) process to join their community. 4QMMT (The Halachic Letter) was studied like we’d study “cannon.” The focus was on ritual purity.
The Essenes were closely associated with Qumran. They believed their camp to be the equivalent of the Mishkan and of Jerusalem. Angels dwelt amongst them. They took defilement very seriously; for example if you poured clean water into a defiled vessel, both vessels were tamei. That defilement traveled upstream agreed with the Sadducees, not the Pharisees. When they prayed to be kept from evil, they meant to be kept from other Jews who taught and did things differently.
There were many other loose fellowships with their own rules at the time. One example, the Chavurah, was a society founded to encourage people to obey halacha. Members kept the ritual laws of purity even in the company of those who did not. Biblically purity was required to visit the Temple, not as strict day to day observance. Impurity is not sin, it is simply ritual unavailability. However these groups had a tendency to take the instructions of ritual purity to extremes, practicing a form of “works” that was made by man, not by Elohim. Table fellowship became more and more along priestly form, meals being taken in ritual purity. These people wouldn’t even sit at the table with other observant Jews who didn’t practice their halacha. They wouldn’t go into the house of another Jew who they did not consider to be ritually pure. These are priestly stringencies the Bible doesn’t put on the average person, but which these adherents took upon themselves. So different social religious groups had different stringencies and customs so they could fellowship communally. They had specific regulations for association with other Jews.
Galatians, and indeed the entire B’rith Chadashah must be understood in the context of the myriad groups on the ground in Israel at the time. When Paul talks about “works of the law” he is talking about one or more of these groups who had their own extrabiblical interpretation. This knowledge puts a whole new light and a better understanding on the writings of Paul concerning the “works of the law.”
Romans 9:32 (ESV) Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
Galatians 2:16 (ESV) yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Galatians 3:2 (ESV) Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
Galatians 3:5 (ESV) Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—
Galatians 3:10 (ESV) For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
When Galations 3 is read in context with this understanding, it becomes apparent that it was one of these groups who had snuck in and were teaching the assemblies in Galatia heresies; placing burdens of the law which were never written nor intended on them.
Galatians 3 (ESV) By Faith, or by Works of the Law? 1. O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4. Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6. just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? 7. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. 10. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
There is a Jewish community called the Yachad (“unity”) at the time Paul wrote Galatians. They came into existence as a response to the Maccabeans assuming absolute power and then later the Roman conquest; sometime in the 1st or 2nd Cen BCE.The Pharisees and Sadducees, the two largest sects of the time, came out of the Maccabean revolt. Their quest for dominance was often brutal. Then Rome conquered Israel and appointed quislings from the Sadducees to the priesthood.
The Yachad did not like how the priesthood was being run, so they separated themselves, going to Qumran. Priests within the Yachad inflamed the passions of their adherents; and community and ideological commitment inspires people to action. The Yachad were just one of many sects vying for separatism during this time.
The term ma’aseh, or “works” (Gk ergon) as used in the Kethuvai Shelachim has a lot of flexibility. “Words don’t have meanings; meanings have words.” We need context to understand what is meant. That context includes not only how it is used, but chronology and the social/political landscape of the time as well. The term works in the Pauline discourses generally refers to the theologies of sects like the Yachad at Qumran.
The Yachad considered themselves true Israel, and they wanted others to get on board with them; they thought they’d eventually be vindicated. They had a serious eschatological orientation, thinking it would be reckoned to you as righteousness if you joined with them. They had a long (2 yr) process to join their community. 4QMMT (The Halachic Letter) was studied like we’d study “cannon.” The focus was on ritual purity.
The Essenes were closely associated with Qumran. They believed their camp to be the equivalent of the Mishkan and of Jerusalem. Angels dwelt amongst them. They took defilement very seriously; for example if you poured clean water into a defiled vessel, both vessels were tamei. That defilement traveled upstream agreed with the Sadducees, not the Pharisees. When they prayed to be kept from evil, they meant to be kept from other Jews who taught and did things differently.
There were many other loose fellowships with their own rules at the time. One example, the Chavurah, was a society founded to encourage people to obey halacha. Members kept the ritual laws of purity even in the company of those who did not. Biblically purity was required to visit the Temple, not as strict day to day observance. Impurity is not sin, it is simply ritual unavailability. However these groups had a tendency to take the instructions of ritual purity to extremes, practicing a form of “works” that was made by man, not by Elohim. Table fellowship became more and more along priestly form, meals being taken in ritual purity. These people wouldn’t even sit at the table with other observant Jews who didn’t practice their halacha. They wouldn’t go into the house of another Jew who they did not consider to be ritually pure. These are priestly stringencies the Bible doesn’t put on the average person, but which these adherents took upon themselves. So different social religious groups had different stringencies and customs so they could fellowship communally. They had specific regulations for association with other Jews.
Galatians, and indeed the entire B’rith Chadashah must be understood in the context of the myriad groups on the ground in Israel at the time. When Paul talks about “works of the law” he is talking about one or more of these groups who had their own extrabiblical interpretation. This knowledge puts a whole new light and a better understanding on the writings of Paul concerning the “works of the law.”
Romans 9:32 (ESV) Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,
Galatians 2:16 (ESV) yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
Galatians 3:2 (ESV) Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
Galatians 3:5 (ESV) Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—
Galatians 3:10 (ESV) For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
When Galations 3 is read in context with this understanding, it becomes apparent that it was one of these groups who had snuck in and were teaching the assemblies in Galatia heresies; placing burdens of the law which were never written nor intended on them.
Galatians 3 (ESV) By Faith, or by Works of the Law? 1. O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2. Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4. Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5. Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6. just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? 7. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9. So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. 10. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”
