Predestinarian Election In Second Temple Judaism And Its Relevance To Pauline Theology

By Robert J. Wiesner

[Robert J. Wiesner is the pastor of Kenmore Baptist Church in Kenmore, NY. He holds a ThM in New Testament studies from Dallas Theological Seminary.]

Abstract

In his 2015 book, The Chosen People, A. Chadwick Thornhill argues, based on his analysis of election discourse in Second Temple Jewish literature, that the apostle Paul never presents election as the divine determination of individuals for eschatological salvation. Thornhill suggests that election in Second Temple Judaism is primarily conditional, usually presented in corporate categories, and never in terms of divine predestination. Therefore, he judges it unlikely that Paul held to predestinarian election. In response, this article offers a careful examination of three Second Temple texts that do present election in predestinarian terms, which were not given due weight in Thornhill’s study. It is argued that Sirach, though less consistently than others, can be read in deterministic terms, especially 33:7–15. Less controversially, the divine predestination of individuals to either salvation or judgment is explicit at Qumran. This teaching is seen transparently in the Treatise on the Two Spirits (1QS 3:13–4:26) and the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QHa, esp. lines 7 and 9). These writings present election in terms of God’s determination before creation who will and who will not be a member of the covenant and an heir of eschatological life. Even the conditional actions of covenant membership (e.g., repentance) are presented as consequences of God’s prior determination and effectual enablement. In the analysis of these texts, Pauline passages are noted where the analysis of the Second Temple sources will prove relevant in exegesis.

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In his book comparing Paul’s theology of election to that in Second Temple Judaism, A. Chadwick Thornhill observes that our sources most often present election as “primarily conditional.”[1] By this he means election is usually viewed as conditioned on covenant obedience and membership in the elect community. Important to Thornhill’s case is his observation that rather than focusing on individuals when election is discussed, “More often the texts … concentrate on the ‘collective’ of the elect.”[2] This happens commonly using various corporate metaphors and “the remnant motif.” For example, Thornhill observes, rightly, that the sect at Qumran saw its community alone as the faithful remnant of Israel—the true Israel. They alone would be safe from future judgment, and all outsiders, including other Israelites, would be destroyed unless they repented and received atonement within their new covenant community.[3] Thus, election discourse usually focuses on God’s choice of Israel, making individuals elect only by participation in the chosen community or the faithful remnant. In another summary statement Thornhill writes: “When individuals were in view, their role, their character or their representation of a group was emphasized, never their being chosen for a particular soteriological standing.”[4] Thornhill denies that our sources ever describe election as the divine predetermination of individuals to covenant membership and eschatological salvation. This restrictive view is used to ground his reading of key Pauline texts to argue that interpreting them in terms of individual predestination is mistaken.

Of course, Thornhill is not the first to assert that the relevant Jewish materials altogether lack evidence of a belief in the divine election of individuals for salvation.[5] However, if Thornhill’s assessment of the Second Temple material is overstated, with some sources reflecting a belief in the divine predetermination of individuals for covenant membership and eschatological salvation, and even grounding covenant obedience in prior divine enablement, it raises serious questions about the validity of his argument and conclusions. Moreover, if it could be shown that Paul’s language in key texts is closest to Jewish sources reflecting predestinarian theology, then one should conclude Paul held a similar view.

In this article I am contending that although Thornhill’s findings account for most of the Jewish evidence, his study neglects crucial material that couches election in terms of the predestination of individuals for eschatological salvation. For example, his study includes no discussion of Sir 33:7–15, which speaks of the dual nature of God’s creation, including sanctified (i.e., elect) and non-elect individuals. This is an important oversight, since this passage is relevant background to the potter/clay imagery employed in Rom 9:20–23, a key Pauline text on election. Additionally, Thornhill’s treatment of the Treatise on the Two Spirits (1QS 3:13–4:26, hereafter, the Treatise), a substantial text that most scholars understand to present election in individual predestinarian terms, is too brief considering the passage’s importance and does not address some of the relevant material.[6] While Thornhill does treat the relevant passages in the Hodayot (1QHa, also known as the Thanksgiving Hymns), he does so only after making the questionable suggestion that the predestinarian language found in these hymns does not genuinely represent Qumran’s theology on the grounds of genre. In these depreciated sources, election is not only described in corporate terms, but also as God’s prior determination of individuals at creation for membership in or exclusion from the covenant community and the assignment of their eschatological destinies. Additionally, at times the aspects of election that Thornhill identifies as “conditional,” which humans are responsible to perform (e.g., repentance and obedience to the covenant), are predicated on God’s prior agency to effect them in the individual. In other words, repentance and obedience are not considered alternatives to predestination that preclude it. Rather, they are presented as consequences of predestination.

Therefore, in this study, I will highlight these deterministic themes as they arise in these key sources—Sirach, the Treatise, and the Hodayot. Throughout the study of the Jewish evidence I will note what appear to be parallels in the Pauline literature.[7] After reviewing this evidence, I will briefly summarize the relevance of this data for the topic of election in Pauline theology.

I. Election And Individual Predestination

Josephus is our most informative historiographic source for the theological landscape of first century Judaism.[8] He classifies the major Jewish groups based on their views of human freewill and divine determinism (Ant. 13.171–173).[9] Josephus’s choice of this topic demonstrates that this was the subject of theological dispute in his day and not the anachronistic imposition of modern Protestant debates. He says the Essenes believed that nothing takes place which is not the result of God’s providence (what Josephus means by “fate” [εἱμαρμένης]; cf. J.W. 18.18). The sources examined below will reveal that this determinism extends to the salvation of individuals. By contrast, the Sadducees placed heavy emphasis on human freewill, to the point of denying God’s determination through direct intervention. The Pharisees apparently held both human freedom and divine providence in a less resolved tension. Josephus’s spectrum calls into question Thornhill’s denial that any Jewish writers believed in absolute divine determinism that minimized human freedom and shaped their views of election. Moreover, as I will demonstrate below, Sirach, a source which is clearly not Essene, but appreciated by Essenes, demonstrates that divine determinism was held in diverse circles of early Judaism. With such diversity, the historian must critically examine the language and themes employed in such sources to decide whether they have explanatory value in examining the Pauline Epistles.

1. Sirach

As mentioned above, Sirach cannot be regarded as Essene. In addition to the predestinarian language employed, Sirach also contains overt affirmations of freewill (e.g., 15:11–20). Such material has led many scholars to connect Sirach’s theology with the Sadducees, and the apparent combination of both freewill and determinism sounds like Josephus’s description of the Pharisees.[10] Nevertheless, Ben Sira includes affirmations of determinism that look much like those we find later at Qumran. Therefore, being careful not to over systematize, my use of Sirach is to show that it contains ideas about divine sovereignty and election that make a deterministic reading possible (and I think probable). In fact, the apparently Essene interpolations in the Hebrew manuscripts of Sirach discovered at the Cairo Geniza indicate that such a reading was followed in some circles.[11] However, any determinism we identify was certainly held less consistently than at Qumran.

A deterministic reading of Sirach makes sense when it is considered as part of the broader sapiential tradition. Throughout Sirach wisdom is presented as the special possession of those within the law-covenant, as in the biblical literature (e.g., Deut 4:5–6). The Bible reveals some movement toward predestination in the wisdom literature.[12] Proverbs 16:4 says that Yahweh has a purpose for everything in creation, and even the wicked are created to endure the day of disaster. The chapter goes on to say that the most minute happenings in the world are under God’s control (cf. Prov 20:24). Thus, when a lot is cast the result is Yahweh’s decision (v. 33). Later we read that “the purpose of Yahweh” will stand rather than plans in human minds (Prov 19:21). Qoheleth declared that whatever happens in human experience was already named in advance according to God’s infallible knowledge (Eccl 6:10). In Job 23:13–14 we are told no one can stop Yahweh from fulfilling his desires. In concert with such expressions, Sir 11:14 affirms that “good things and bad, life and death … come from the Lord” (NRSV). This is made even more explicit in Hebrew MS A, which adds vv. 15–16 (an Essene expansion) affirming that God also created “sin,” “error,” “darkness,” and “evil.”[13] This same idea is attested again in ch. 39, which suggests that God invests all things, including “bad things for sinners” (τοῖς ἁμαρτωλοῖς κακά, v. 25), with purpose (cf. vv. 21, 34).[14] Sirach is an example of how sapiential literature could appeal to creational determinism to understand who is and is not in the covenant, and thereby who is a beneficiary of Yahweh’s life-giving wisdom. As Goering has put it, “Many Second Temple Jewish groups came to see God’s mastery over the world in increasingly absolute terms. Such strong notions of divine sovereignty led some Jews to posit that God had predetermined their election.”[15]

In Sir 1:9–10, part of the poem that opens the book, we read, “The Lord himself created her [wisdom]; he saw her and measured her; and he poured her out on all his works, with all flesh according to his gift; and he lavished her on those who love him.” Ben Sira’s claim that God chose at creation who would receive wisdom reveals a predestinarian understanding of election. Goering observes that Ben Sira describes a general and universal dispensing of wisdom expressed in v. 9, followed by a restricted outpouring of wisdom “on those who love him” in v. 10.[16] In v. 9 the verb ἐγχέω (with the basic sense of “pour out”) is used, while v. 10 uses the verb χορηγέω which means to “supply (in abundance),” hence the translation “lavished” (cf. Sir 1:26).[17] The former conveys an even-measured outpouring of wisdom on all, while the latter indicates that Ben Sira “had in view a more bountiful outpouring of wisdom upon a select group of persons.”[18] Thus Skehan and Di Lella say, “The theme of the poem … can be stated simply: all wisdom has its origin in God (v. 1) and is given as a gift to those whom God chooses (vv. 9–10).”[19] Therefore, the book begins on a note of God’s choosing at creation to dispense wisdom as he sees fit.

This creational emphasis is again in view at 16:26–28. That God’s creative activity was understood in Essene circles to include the determination of human fate is evidenced by the added reference in Hebrew MS A to God’s hardening of Pharaoh in the exodus story at Sir 16:15: “so that his [God’s] works would be known under heaven” (cf. 1QHa 7:32–34; Rom 9:22–23).[20] At creation God set in order all his works for eternity (vv. 26–27a). In speaking of the luminaries, we read, “They do not depart from their works” (οὐκ ἐξέλιπον ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων αὐτῶν, v. 27b). Further, “they will not disobey his word” (v. 28b; cf. 39:21). The switch from the aorist ἐξέλιπον to the future tense ἀπειθήσουσιν must not be overlooked. It suggests that the control exercised through the divine word will never cease. The order established through divine fiat can never be transgressed. Thus, in 39:18 we read, “When he commands, his every purpose is fulfilled, and none can limit his saving power” (NRSV). Nothing in the created order will ever violate the structure God established. This is because the cosmos was created according to God’s perfect knowledge (Sir 23:20).

The second major section of the book concludes with a lengthy hymn (42:15–43:33) that, along with the one that opens the book, serves to frame Ben Sira’s theology with the concept of God’s free works as creator, before the book concludes with the praises of the ancestors (44:1–50:24). This inclusio serves Ben Sira in communicating that God’s power at creation grounds a proper understanding of Israel’s election in relation to defectors and the nations.[21] Sirach 42:15 states that God creates by his powerful word “and all his creatures do his will.” Then in 42:19 we read, “[God] declares the things of the past and the things that will be brought to pass and reveals the traces of hidden things” (ἀπαγγέλων τὰ παρεληλυθότα καὶ τὰ ἐσόμενα καὶ ἀποκαλύπτων ἴχνη ἀποκρύφων). This means the creator’s “declaration brings the future into reality.”[22] God does not view the future from the outside, but it is his handiwork and will take the shape it does by his design. God’s meticulous control over all elements in his creation is strongly emphasized (43:9–26) and is the occasion for the final call to praise (43:27–33). Thus, “the central idea communicated through the hymn is Yhwh’s sovereignty over his creation.”[23] Or as Perdue says, “The imagery, then, is that of the divine sovereign whose edicts create and rule his kingdom”—which consists of the entire cosmos.[24]

The text which most emphatically stresses God’s predestining choice is Sir 33:7–15.[25] Argall suggests that we can best understand Sirach’s theology of creation by considering this passage along with the other creation hymns already discussed. He finds a “doctrine of opposites” wherein all that God has created “carries out the purpose for which it was designed, either good or bad.”[26] We see here a theology of design that presents God as the sovereign creator of humanity whose purposes are infallibly realized.[27] Moreover, Collins observes how “remarkably close” this section is “to the deterministic view of the Qumran Community Rule (1QS 3:15–6),” (to be considered below).[28]

Ben Sira presents an analogy between inanimate entities, special days and seasons (33:7–9), and human beings (vv. 10–15).[29] Both categories are treated in the same way as the work of God’s hand (v. 13). He has the right in both instances to fashion some to the exclusion of others for sanctified purposes, without needing justification. Thus, “Sirach argues that divine election is not random, but is part of a coherent system.”[30] Many have recognized that Ben Sira’s polemic is likely directed against early trends toward Jewish Hellenization.[31] The prayer at 36:1–22 evidences this purpose, saying that God would bring judgment against the nations and restore his people and sanctuary, while warning Jews who had forsaken the Torah in 41:8–10. This context suggests the working of human beings like clay pots (33:13) is about Yahweh’s creation of a remnant of faithful individual Israelites (i.e., “the sinner” and “the godly,” v. 14) and not the nation in general.[32]

Ben Sira is describing the molding of the destinies of “all human beings” (ἄνθρωποι πάντες, v. 10). Although the election of the faithful in Israel is in focus, as von Rad observed, “It is … only an example of something quite fundamental, namely the determination, the destiny … of all men.”[33] That God’s molding of individuals effects covenant membership is apparent beginning in v. 10.[34] All of humanity, we are told, has a shared origin. Alluding to Gen 2:7, the author says that God created all human beings “from the ground” and “out of the dust” (v. 10). Appealing to the “two ways” pattern so prominent in Jewish wisdom (e.g., Prov 4:11–19; Sir 15:17), Ben Sira says that at creation God distinguished human beings, and thereby he “appointed their different ways” (v. 11 NRSV).[35] This means that “he assigns to them different destinies.”[36] The background to this “two ways” tradition is Deut 30:15–20, where Israel is told of the ways of “life and death, blessings and curses” and admonished to choose life (v. 19). Ben Sira, however, indicates here that people find themselves on one of these paths by God’s appointment at creation. The first destiny is described in v. 12a—some are “blessed and exalted” and “made holy and brought near.” Being “blessed and exalted” (εὐλόγησεν καὶ ἀνύψωσεν) evokes Yahweh’s covenant promises to Abraham (Gen 12:1–3; cf. Deut 27–28). Being sanctified and brought near recalls the appointing of priests (e.g., Num 16:5–7)—that is, chosen individuals.[37] The second destiny is being “cursed and brought low” (v. 12b), which speaks at least of exclusion from the covenant, alluding to the curse of Canaan, which included banishment from Yahweh’s presence (Gen 9:25).[38]

The fate that each receives is the result of God acting like a potter who molds clay “as he pleases” (κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν αὐτοῦ, v. 13a; cf. Eph 1:5, 9). Their destiny rests “in the hand of their Maker” (ἐν χειρὶ τοῦ ποιήσαντος αὐτούς) so that each receives “whatever he decides” (NRSV; lit. “according to his judgment,” κατὰ τὴν κρίσιν αὐτοῦ, v. 13b). Perdue summarizes the theological point well: “The image of clay in the potter’s hand underscores Ben Sira’s contention that the radical sovereignty of God extends to the divine determination of human destiny.”[39] It does not appear that Ben Sira used the potter/clay imagery as the prophet Jeremiah did (Jer 18:1–11).[40] The imagery in Jeremiah is not intended to shape theological propositions about the nature of predestination. Rather, Jeremiah is encouraging Judah’s leadership to repent to avoid covenant judgment (see Jer 7:1–7). Ben Sira, on the other hand, uses the potter/clay analogy to describe God’s activity at creation in deterministic terms. Isaiah 29:16 and 45:9–11, where the clear theological point is the inscrutability of God’s actions, is more promising biblical background for Sir 33:13. For Ben Sira, election has become explicable under the broader category of creation, and this includes the divine determination of individual destinies.[41] God’s molding of two kinds of clay pots (v. 13) is explained as his creation of both the godly and sinners in vv. 14–15. It should be obvious that this passage is relevant background for the meaning of Rom 9:20–24, where Paul employs the same imagery.

2. The Treatise On The Two Spirits (1QS 3:13–4:26)

As in Sirach, the DSS evidence a theology of individual election “subsumed under the doctrine of creation.”[42] It has been demonstrated that the apocalyptic predestination characteristic of the DSS was influenced by wisdom traditions.[43] Harrington has even suggested that the duality in Sir 33:7–15 influenced the Qumran community in the development of the dualistic system we find in their sectarian writings.[44] Moreover, the apocalyptic influence upon the Qumran community should predispose us to expect predestinarian ideas since “Apocalypticism is predestinarian by definition.”[45] So I concur with Broshi, who says, “Essene theology was founded at the confluence of two currents—the Apocalyptic and Sapiential.”[46] This is evidenced in wisdom texts discovered among the DSS (esp. 4QInstruction and the Book of Mysteries).[47] Thus, the Treatise is framed as a “two ways” exposition in the sapiential tradition (like Sir 33:7–15), evidenced by the appeal to God’s “mysterious insight and glorious wisdom” (4:18) as the only apologetic for the uncompromising insistence that both good and evil have their ultimate cause in God.[48] Yet, while apocalyptic and wisdom theology show some precedent for predestination at Qumran, we must affirm that “this idea has probably never been presented elsewhere within Judaism as consistently as here.”[49] Most scholars recognize that the Treatise contains an overtly predestinarian theology of election.[50] Accepting the consensus that the community at Qumran was Essene, the DSS confirm Josephus’s claim that they attributed all that happens in history to divine providence.[51]

We encounter the Treatise as part of the Community Rule, which, in the form we have it, is the product of the group that inhabited Qumran.[52] The sectarian literature of the DSS is the best primary evidence we have for the beliefs of Essenes in the NT era, and it confirms Josephus’s description of broader Essene beliefs.[53] While there are remarkable similarities between Sir 33:7–15 and the Treatise, the latter is unique for it is the closest thing in the extant literature to a systematic expression of absolute divine predestination.[54] Yet, the Community Rule also reflects belief in corporate election, wherein one essentially becomes elect (in some sense) by joining the community (e.g., 1QS 1:16–2:10; 5:1; 9:17–20; cf. 1QpMic 10:7).[55] This suggests that election in terms of individual predestination and corporate election were not considered mutually exclusive.[56] For Qumran, one’s prior election was realized when one repented and joined the community (corporate election), but this happened because the individual was enlightened to repent according to God’s foreordination (predestination; e.g., 1QHa 9:23; cf. 1QS 11:15–17; CD 2:2–13).[57] As Schiffman has succinctly stated, “It is only possible for one to repent if one is predestined to be among those who turn away from iniquity and join the community.”[58] Moreover, Hengel has drawn attention to the observable shift toward individualism at Qumran.[59] Up to this point in Judaism, one’s membership in the covenant was considered a consequence of birth. However, at Qumran “entrance into the yaḥad was a personal decision based on an act of individual conversion.”[60] Since such “individual conversion” was considered the consequence of predestination, acknowledging that Qumran held to individual predestination to covenant membership is unavoidable.

The Treatise begins with an introduction that states its purpose: “to enlighten and teach all the Sons of Light about the character and fate of humankind” (3:13).[61] This indicates that the passage presents normative theology for initiates of the sect.[62] 1QS 3:15–16 constitutes the essential thesis of the Treatise:

From the God of knowledge comes all that is occurring and shall occur. Before they come into being he established all their designs; and when they come into existence in their fixed times they carry through their task according to his glorious design. Nothing can be changed. (Charlesworth)

“This succinct preamble encapsulates the gist of the whole treatise: the world is governed by the principle of dual predestination—the Lord has preordained everything in it.”[63] The community was to understand their identity and think about God and the world in terms of the meticulous providence described throughout. Later, in 1QS 11:17–20, we see a reiteration of such notions: nothing comes to pass unless it pleases the Lord and no one can contest his counsel or even comprehend his designs. The Treatise speaks of “two spirits”—“the spirits of truth and falsehood” (3:18–19) and “the spirits of light and darkness” (3:25). God created both these spirits; which spirit one possesses determines one’s fate (3:25–26)—“The character and fate of all humankind reside with these spirits” (4:15). The Treatise ends on a similar note, speaking of how “God has appointed” these things according to his “decree” (4:25), thereby “[de]ciding the fate [lit. “to cast the lots,” להפיל גורלות] of every living being” (4:26).[64] As in the Hodayot (1QHa 11:23; 15:37), the casting of lots here is a metaphor that “denotes … the predetermination of specific humans’ roles and their place among the righteous or wicked.”[65] Paul uses precisely this same imagery in Eph 1:11 when he writes, “In whom also we were appointed by lot (ἐκληρώθημεν[66]) since we were predestined according to the purpose of the one who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (my translation).

That this creational sovereignty determines membership in the covenant is apparent through several lines of evidence.[67] There is God’s “dominion over all the sons of justice” who “walk on the paths of light” (3:20, DSSSE), the identification of “the God of Israel” (3:22), that God loves one spirit but hates the other (3:26–4:1; cf. Mal 1:2–3), “His constant faithfulness” (ברוב חסדו), “the laws of righteousness” (4:4), and that this is “for those God has chosen for an everlasting covenant” (4:22, DSSSE). All this suggests that one’s place in the covenant is ultimately predetermined.

Moreover, 4:20–21 says, “Then God will purify by his truth all the works of man and purge for himself the sons of man. He will utterly destroy the spirit of deceit from the veins of his flesh. He will purify him by the Holy Spirit from all ungodly acts and sprinkle upon him the Spirit of Truth like waters of purification” (Charlesworth). In other words, as the OT anticipated, God’s covenant people are cleansed of their sin by receiving his Spirit.[68] When compared with 4:11–14, there can be no doubt that one’s salvation or damnation depends ultimately on divine choice. As cleansing and forgiveness are for those given the spirit of truth, those who receive the spirit of falsehood will experience “everlasting damnation in the wrath of God’s furious vengeance … for all eternity” (4:12–13). Bockmuehl summarizes the point well: “God’s dual predetermination of both the good and the evil governs Qumran’s soteriology: salvation is for his chosen ones and judgment for the others.”[69]

There can be no doubt that the author of the Treatise understood election in terms of individual divine determinism. In 2 Thess 2:11–14, Paul uses language that resembles what we read in the Treatise. He speaks of God sending “a strong delusion” to some “so that they will believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned” (vv. 11–12 ESV; cf. 2 Cor 4:4). However, believers are told that they ought to be thankful “because God chose you from the beginning to be saved by sanctification of [your] spirit” (v. 13, my translation; emphasis added).[70] To the evidence of the Treatise we will add the pronounced determinism in the Hodayot.

3. The Hodayot (1qha)

The Thanksgiving Hymns are a collection of prayer-songs that express the author’s gratitude to God for his acts of mercy on behalf of the community, hence the name Hodayot. The hymns open with “I give you thanks, O Lord” (אודכה אדוני) or “Blessed are you, O Lord” (ברוך אתה אדוני), making the context of worship obvious and creating an expected emphasis on divine agency. This observation reveals the importance of the Hodayot for understanding the community’s theology of God’s providence. The emphatic place of God’s sovereignty is summarized by Monsoor: “God’s foreknowledge and providence encompass everything that happens in the world.”[71] This is explicitly connected to the salvation of individuals, as Licht states: “Divine grace, or benevolence, is not granted to everyone, but only to those who have been predestined to belong to the ‘lot’ of the righteous.”[72]

Some have sought to minimize the weight of this overt determinism on the grounds of genre, suggesting that the extravagant focus on divine agency in worship material means the language is not genuinely representative of the community’s theology.[73] However, this approach cannot be accepted, for a community’s worship is an important repository of their theology. Merrill and others have pointed out that the Hodayot served “a kind of catechetic function.”[74] That is, one purpose of these hymns, which would likely have been recited in liturgical contexts (especially the community hymns), was to educate the community, especially new members.[75] In a society that was not widely literate, such hymns would have expressed the Yahad’s doctrinal standards in a comprehendible and memorable way.[76] So I agree with Carson that “hymns must not be divorced from doctrine, because they are often the most innocent expression of it.”[77] Therefore, a careful consideration of these hymns yields crucial information about the theology of the sect who produced and recited them.

To progress from broader formulations of predestination at creation to more specific expressions of predestination as the determination of individual salvation, the discussion begins with column 9 and proceeds to 7. In the treatment of these two passages I will supplement the data they provide with relevant material from elsewhere in the Hodayot.

In 1QHa 9:21–22, in a hymn which heavily emphasizes God’s acts at creation to determine history, the author writes, “And in the wisdom of your knowledge you determ[i]ned their des[t]iny before they existed. According to your wi[ll] everything [comes] to pass; and without you nothing is done.”[78] These words suggest that all reality has its ultimate origin in God’s creative acts. Here predestination is “not only the salvation or damnation of the individual, but everything that takes place is predestined.”[79]

God’s “knowledge” or “foreknowledge” (مٍْ) is closely tied to predestination here (e.g., 9:9, 10, 21, 25). This may tempt some interpreters to suggest that the author believed God predestines those he foresaw would be obedient, as we find explicitly in Jubilees (e.g., 2:19–24; 15:30–32) and the Rabbis.[80] However, in the Hodayot, God’s foreknowledge is not what God learns when peering into the future. Instead, God’s knowledge reflects his will, which effects what comes to pass. The future is created by God’s prior knowledge, not the reverse. This is the meaning of 9:10: “And [without you no]thing is done, and nothing is known without your will.” The future takes shape based on God’s creative knowledge, which is synonymous with his “will” (ِّهï, see below). Moreover, 1QS 11:10–11 makes this point explicitly by placing the deity’s foreknowledge (هلمٍْه) in a synonymous parallel relationship to his “intent” or “plan” (لîçùلْه), so that the latter elucidates the meaning of the former:

For to a man (does not belong) his path, nor can a human being steady his step; since the judgement belongs to God, and from his hand is the perfection of the path. By his knowledge everything shall come into being, and all that does exist he establishes with his calculations and nothing is done outside of him. (DSSSE, emphasis added)

Lines 17–18 go on to state in no uncertain terms that “without your will, nothing comes to be.… All knowledge and all that exists” (DSSSE) are the result of the divine will and there is no legitimate opposition to God’s counsel (עצה).[81] Additionally, 1QHa 9:25–26 declares that “Everything is engraved before you … for all everlasting seasons and … eternal years with all their appointed times.” Lange identifies the wisdom and apocalyptic traditions of a pre-existent history written on heavenly tablets before creation as the ideological background, suggesting that history is the outworking of what God authored in eternity past.[82]

In 1QHa 9:10–11 we read, “You formed every spirit, and [their] work [you determin]ed,” affirming that God’s predestination is on an individual basis (i.e., “every spirit”) and that it effects human deeds, as in the Treatise. Lines 11–18 indicate that this was understood as the outworking of the belief that creation takes its shape according to the divine will. In concert with this emphasis on God’s creational sovereignty, the hymnist employs the vivid imagery of God “forming” (יצר, 9:10–11, 17; cf. 7:35; 20:27–38) like a potter working with clay, similar to Sir 33:13.[83] The point of this metaphor is that God’s creative work extends to establishing the dispositions of all people and results in their being molded into vessels for his purposes.

Scholars have noticed that the Thanksgiving Hymns express a distinctively pessimistic anthropology.[84] Commenting on Qumran’s anthropology, Sanders says, “There is no doubt that … the theologians of the community reached a more profound … view of human sinfulness than one finds elsewhere in Palestinian Judaism.”[85] Sin at Qumran is viewed as unavoidable.[86] Building on similar observations, Maston demonstrates how in the Hodayot this anthropological pessimism is the basis for their belief in the priority of God’s agency for obedience to result for the covenant people—the theology of predestination “serves to counter the pessimistic anthropology.”[87] This sheds light on how best to understand the passages that speak of volitional repentance (both initially and thereafter) as the necessary condition for membership in the community (e.g., 1QHa 6:28–29; 12:9–10; cf. 1QS 1:3–5; 5:7–8). Due to man’s depraved condition and impotence, repentance was thought to result from God’s creative agency, rather than human volition. Thus, Barclay concludes that the Thanksgiving Hymns “perfect grace” by emphasizing that grace is prior to human action and effects repentance and covenant obedience.[88] Because the author believes every human being is “a foundation of shame and a well of impurity, a furnace of iniquity, and a structure of sin, a spirit of error, and a perverted being, without understanding” (9:24–25), predestination is the only remedy.

In 1QHa 15:37–38 the hymnist praises God for effecting his covenant membership. He says God has “not … put my portion” (לא שמתה הוקי) among hypocrites, “but you have summoned me [lit. “you have called me,” ותקראני] to your kindness, to [your] forgiveness … into the overflow of your compassion for all [righteous] judgments.” This language of calling to “mercy” and “compassion” alludes to Exod 33:19, which expresses God’s freedom to exercise both as he desires. God was free to determine the author’s destiny as one among the apostate Israelites. Instead, God has effectually called him into the community of the new covenant so that he has become a beneficiary of grace. It should be noted that Paul’s language in 1 Thess 5:9 contains several conceptual parallels to 1QHa 15:37–38 in the space of a single verse, with the context employing more language in common with the Qumran sectarians.[89]

We must also highlight the theme of God’s “good pleasure,” as we saw in Sir 33:13, which permeates the Hodayot. At several key points the author couples the term רצון, translated “will,” “pleasure,” or “desire,” with affirmations of predestination (esp. 9:10, 12, 17, 22).[90] When this term is used in the Hodayot, “in each case … the context makes it crystal clear that the idea is that of sovereign grace and pleasure. God has done what He has chosen to do purely and simply because it was His desire to do so.”[91] In three of the occurrences in column 9 (lines 12, 17, and 22) it appears in a prepositional phrase “according to your will” or “for your good pleasure” (לרצונכה), which is essentially equivalent to the Greek κατὰ τὴν εὐδοκίαν αὐτοῦ in Sir 33:13, and also employed by Paul (along with other similar expressions) in Eph 1:3–14 to praise God for his salvific blessings, including celebrating his predestining election of those in Christ (see vv. 4–5, 9, 11).

The clearest expression of double predestination is found in 1QHa 7:25–37.[92] God’s determination at creation is explicitly said to result in one’s destiny, either “eternal salvation and everlasting peace, without lack” (line 29) or “for the [pur]pose of your wrath” and “the day of slaughter.” Line 26 indicates that these predetermined fates involve individuals and cannot be reduced to corporate concepts—“in your hand is the inclination of every spirit, [and all] its [activi]ty.” This passage is vital because it makes the most explicit connection in the literature between predestination and covenant membership in the Yahad—namely, elect status (esp. 7:27–32, 7:35–8:25). Here we read: “You alone [creat]ed the righteous, and from the womb you prepared him for the time of favor, to be attentive to your covenant and to walk in all (your way)” (7:27–28, emphasis added).[93] Thus, we learn in the Hodayot that salvation “involves a transfer from outside the sectarian community to inside.”[94] This transfer of covenantal standing is part of God’s predestining activity, “since all human action requires God’s prior … empowering.”[95] Similarly 1QHa 18:27–33 contrasts God’s rejection of apostates (line 27) with those given insight to be “children of your truth” (line 29) making them rejoice in God’s “covenant and truth” (line 32, emphasis added).

It seems that the syntax of 1QHa 7:30–31 has been misconstrued in the translations. The text reads, “But the wicked you created for the [pur]pose of your wrath, and from the womb you dedicated them for the day of slaughter. For (ëé) they walk in the way that is not good, and they despise yo[ur] covenant, [and] their soul abhors your [statutes].” This rendering would seem to imply that God’s appointing the wicked to judgment is based on their prior sin and rejection of the truth.[96] However, this underappreciates the creational determinism so emphatic throughout this hymn. As noted above, line 26 says that God forms “the inclination of every [human] spirit” and line 27 indicates that this determination is impossible to change. Moreover, line 30 is explicit that the wicked have been created from birth in order to endure God’s wrath. Lines 32–34 express God’s purpose for those destined to face judgement—“For you determined them for the a[ges of] your [wra]th in order to execute great judgements upon them … to be a sign … so that all may know your glory and your great strength” (emphasis added). The point is presented matter-of-factly that God creates people whom he prepares for judgment resulting in the greater revelation of his glory.[97] God’s creational activity forms human desires and actions, resulting infallibly in what he has predetermined for his own praise. This language is strikingly similar to Paul’s defense of God’s freedom in Rom 9:22–23—“What if God, because he desires to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath that have been prepared for destruction and so that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy which he prepared before for glory?” (my translation).

This suggests that the translation of ëé in 1QHa 7:31 as “for” is misguided. While ëé commonly introduces grounds, the context favors understanding the syntax to introduce a purpose or result clause.[98] Therefore, we could better render lines 30–31, “But the wicked you created for the [pur]pose of your wrath … with the result that … they despise yo[ur] covenant, [and] their soul abhors your [statutes].” As Boccaccini says, “What they have done and will do depends on what they are, and what they are is totally out of human control, because it has been preordained by God.”[99] Similarly, Barclay summarizes: “However much their choice of behavior might display their destiny, it could neither determine nor alter it. The humanity here portrayed is a willing player acting out an already scripted drama, whose beginning, continuation, and conclusion are irrevocably laid down by the design of the Author.”[100]

4. Summary Of Findings On Predestinarian Election

What has been reviewed is sufficient to demonstrate that the primary sources validate Josephus’s claim that there were Jews in the Second Temple period who heavily emphasized God’s sovereignty and thereby concluded that everything that happens in human experience—including one’s entrance into the covenant community that will eventually receive salvation or the condemnation of those excluded—results from God’s pre-temporal authorship. This divine determinism is subsumed under notions of meticulous sovereignty via a doctrine of monotheistic creationism. With this evidence, we must reject Thornhill’s claim that “it seems difficult … to make the case that Jews of the period held to any notion … of individual election unto salvation.”[101] While predestinarian election is admittedly in the minority, it is certainly represented, as Josephus’s typology of Jewish belief should predispose us to expect.

II. Conclusion: The Relevance For Pauline Theology

The relevance of all this is the likelihood that “the predestinarian elements in Paul’s teaching were formed under Essene influence.”[102] Additionally, the presence of similar deterministic themes in Sirach, with Paul even showing literary dependence on Sir 33:7–15 in Rom 9:20–23,[103] demonstrates that divine determinism extended beyond Essenism. Although the predestination language in Paul is perennially debated, it is apparent that texts like 1 Thess 5:9 (cf. 1QHa 7:37–38), 2 Thess 2:11–13 (cf. the Treatise), Eph 1:3–14 (which looks like a Christian thanksgiving hymn), and Rom 8:28–11:36 (evidencing literary dependence on Sir 33:7–15 and sharing many thematic overlaps and distinctive phraseology with the Treatise and Hodayot) have numerous conceptual and verbal commonalties with the sources surveyed above. The rarity of such language does not mitigate against the likelihood of commonality with Pauline theology. Rather, because this language is sparse and distinctive in Second Temple Judaism, the correspondences indicate some relationship between the two.[104]

The predestinarian language Paul employs suggests that he held to a theology of election remarkably similar to the deterministic ideology identified in Sirach and the DSS. Several scholars have noticed this resemblance and concluded that Paul had some formative contact with Essene theology,[105] and perhaps even reworked Essene writings into his letters.[106] The circumstances and the nature of such contact are uncertain. Nevertheless, that the letters bearing Paul’s name share numerous verbal parallels and common deterministic themes is difficult to dispute.[107] Therefore, this Jewish understanding of election in terms of the divine predestination of individuals for salvation is promising for illuminating Pauline theology.

Notes

1. A. Chadwick Thornhill, The Chosen People: Election, Paul and Second Temple Judaism (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 255.
2. Ibid., 59.
3. Ibid., 59–65.
4. Ibid., 254, emphasis added.
5. For example, Paul Heger, Challenges to Conventional Opinions on Qumran and Enoch Issues, STDJ 100 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 311–51; William W. Klein, The New Chosen People: A Corporate View of Election, rev. and exp. ed. (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015), 19–34.
6. Thornhill, Chosen People, 208–11.
7. To avoid the accusation of “parallelomania” (Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 [1962]: 1–13), it should be noted that in addition to the similarities between these predestinarian texts and Paul’s letters, there are significant differences as well, most notably the christological orientation of Paul’s election discourse, his Gentile missionary drive, and the hope he holds out for the future conversion of unbelieving Israel (Rom 11). However, since this study responds to the assertions by Thornhill that our Second Temple Jewish sources do not evidence belief in predestinarian election, and therefore Paul is unlikely to have held to it, the goal here is only to demonstrate that in fact some Jewish texts evidence such a belief and are therefore enlightening for Pauline exegesis, without minimizing the meaningful differences between the two.
8. References to Josephus are from H. St. J. Thackerary, Ralph Marcus, Allen Wikgren, and Louis H. Feldman, Josephus, LCL, 9 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926–1965).
9. On this, see especially Todd S. Beall, Josephus’ Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 113–14; Gabriele Boccaccini, “Inner-Jewish Debate on the Tension between Divine and Human Agency in Second-Temple Judaism,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul and His Cultural Environment, ed. John M. G. Barclay and Simon J. Gathercole (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 15; Jonathan Klawans, “Josephus on Fate, Free Will, and Ancient Jewish Types of Compatibilism,” Numen 56 (2009): 44–90; Jason Maston, Divine and Human Agency in Second Temple Judaism and Paul, WUNT 2/297 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 10–18.
10. For example, Günther Baumbach, “The Sadducees in Josephus,” in Josephus, the Bible, and History, ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 175; Roland E. Murphy, “Sin, Repentance, and Forgiveness in Sirach,” in Der Einzelne und seine Gemeinschaft bei Ben Sira, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel and Ingrid Krammer, BZAW 270 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1998), 263–65; Jonathan Klawans, “The Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, and the Study of Religious Belief: Determinism and Freedom of Choice,” in Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Assessment of Old and New Approaches and Methods, ed. Maxine L. Grossman (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 266–71; Klawans, “Josephus on Fate,” 51–53; Maston, Divine and Human Agency, 22–73.
11. The additional material at Sir 15:14–15 in Hebrew MSS A and B is especially instructive. The text says that at creation God left humanity in the power of its volition (lit. “in the hand of its inclination,” ביד יצרו). This is made emphatic by the inference that follows in v. 15: “If you choose, you can keep the commandments.” However, MSS A and B insert “and he put him into the hand of his snatcher” into v. 14, implying belief in an external hindrance to human freedom (see Rowland E. Murphy, “Yēṣer in the Qumran Literature,” Bib 39 [1958]: 334–44; John J. Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism [Leiden: Brill, 2001], 376). Such a notion may also be behind Ben Sira’s later description of the personified “inclination to evil” (πονηρὸν ἐνθύμημα, a phrase essentially synonymous with the Hebrew יצר הרע even though the extant Hebrew text lacksיצר ) having been “formed to cover the land with deceit” (NRSV). This suggests that an Essene reading of 15:14 was thought possible in light of the negative estimation of the humanיצר in biblical usage (e.g., Gen 6:5; 8:21; Deut 31:21; Ps 103:14; cf. Eccl 9:3; Jer 17:9) and the belief in forces beyond human control that negatively affect the will (as in the Treatise). If some thought the human inclination was corrupted by sin, innately evil, or under the dominion of hostile powers (cf. Jub. 12:20–21), then the need for prior divine agency to resist evil and obey the Law makes a deterministic reading a possible solution. Moreover, as Collins points out, Ben Sira may intend some relation between the humanיצר in 15:14, the description of God as a “potter” (יוצר) in 33:15, the related verb “to form” in Gen 2:7, to which Sir 33:10 alludes, suggesting that the human inclination to do good or evil was ultimately fashioned by God (Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages, 373–75). It is remarkable that the Essene interpolations in these manuscripts are at key passages in Sirach that are usually taken as bald affirmations of freewill (e.g., 11:15–16; 15:14; 16:15–16). Such interpolations provide evidence that some early readers interpreted Sirach in a manner consistent with a kind of theological determinism.
12. See Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, trans. James D. Martin (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1972), 263–68; Murphy, “Sin, Repentance, and Forgiveness,” 263.
13. See Alexander A. Di Lella, The Hebrew Text of Sirach: A Text-Critical and Historical Study (London: Mouton, 1966); Patrick W. Skehan and Alexander A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira, AB 39 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1987), 237, 239; Pancratius C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew (Leiden: Brill, 1997). The translations of Sirach throughout are the author’s rendering of the LXX, unless otherwise noted. Since 1896, several fragmentary Hebrew manuscripts have been discovered, but they account for only about two-thirds of the book. The LXX is still the most complete version we have (Beentjes, Book of Ben Sira, 59), so it will be used as the primary textual basis in this study.
14. See Crenshaw, “Human Bondage,” 52–53.
15. Greg Schmidt Goering, “Divine Sovereignty and the Election of Israel in the Wisdom of Ben Sira,” in The Call of Abraham: Essays on the Election of Israel in Honor of Jon D. Levenson, ed. Gary A. Anderson and Joel S. Kaminsky (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2013), 144.
16. Goering, “Divine Sovereignty,” 146.
17. See T. Muraoka, A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint (Louvain: Peeters, 2009), 734, who glosses the construction in Sir 1:10 and 26 as “to give liberally.”
18. Goering, “Divine Sovereignty,” 146.
19. Skehan and Di Lella, Ben Sira, 138–39.
20. See Émile Puech, “Ben Sira and Qumran,” in The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Studies on Tradition, Redaction, and Theology, ed. Angelo Passaro and Giuseppe Bellia (New York: de Gruyter, 2008), 110–11.
21. Cf. Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 248.
22. Ibid., 280.
23. Goering, “Divine Sovereignty,” 147.
24. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation, 279.
25. See Goering, “Divine Sovereignty,” 144. Maston argues that Ben Sira’s utilization of an ANE debate formula (usually introduced by “do not say…” followed by a refutation or correction; e.g., 5:1–6; 11:23–26; 15:11–12; 16:17) helps to identify the theological opponents as two types: (1) Those who believe in a remote God who “will neither judge humans for their sins nor reward them for obedience,” and (2) those who conceive of “an overbearing God who determines every action,” who “advocated a deterministic view of God’s actions in the world” (Maston, Divine and Human Agency, 19–20, 22–26). Cf. James L. Crenshaw, “The Problem of Theodicy in Sirach: On Human Bondage,” JBL 94 (1975): 47. One might expect advocates of the second view to say things like what we read in Sir 33:7–15. Therefore, some have suggested that Ben Sira’s opponents held to a form of determinism similar to the later Essenes. See, for example, Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 1:141, who calls Sir 33:7–15 “an alien body within his [Ben Sira’s] account”; cf. Donald E. Gown, “Wisdom,” in The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, vol. 1 of Justification and Variegated Nomism, ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 216; Preston M. Sprinkle, Paul and Judaism Revisited: A Study of Divine and Human Agency in Salvation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 214–17, who offers no consideration of Sir 33:7–15 in his treatment of Ben Sira. But such views do not take adequate account of Sir 33:7–15. The ANE debate formula is absent here. Maston says that the deterministic opponents in view use their theology “to avoid obeying the divine will as revealed in the Mosaic Law” (Divine and Human Agency, 24), a view unattested in Jewish sources from the time. The deterministic view that Ben Sira rejects does not look like Essene determinism (see below), but a kind wherein human responsibility for sin is denied, as in Greek Fatalism. We do not have evidence of a kind of apocalyptic Judaism that eradicated human responsibility and divine retribution (contra Gabriele Boccaccini, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 B.C.E. to 200 C.E. [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991], 77–81). A better approach is that of Gerhard Maier, who argues that the determinism evident in 33:7–15 is more foundational for Ben Sira, suggesting that his debates drove the libertarian language found elsewhere (Mensch und freier Wille: Nach den jüdischen Religionsparteien zwischen Ben Sira und Paulus, WUNT 12 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971], 98–115). Even with a theology of meticulous divine sovereignty, Ben Sira would not be inconsistent to admonish readers to make wise decisions to avoid sin. This may explain why fragments of Sirach were discovered at Qumran (2Q18 and 11Q5), possibly suggesting that the Essene community there felt no need to censor its material (though they would have wanted to explain it). As Florentino García Martínez, Qumranica Minora I: Qumran Origins and Apocalypticism, STDJ 63 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 8–9, has pointed out, given what we know about the character of the community at Qumran, it is difficult to imagine that they kept books thought to present concepts hostile to their own ideology. Therefore, the statements that appear to affirm freewill do not preclude classifying Sirach’s theology of election as predestinarian, even if it is not as consistently expressed as at Qumran.
26. Randal A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation, and Judgment, SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature 8 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 135–36. Cf. Skehan and Di Lella, Ben Sira, 399–400.
27. See James K. Aiken, “Divine Will and Providence,” in Ben Sira’s God: Proceedings of the International Ben Sira Conference Durham—Upshaw College 2001, ed. Renate Egger-Wenzel, BZAW 321 (New York: de Gruyter, 2002), 285–86.
28. John J. Collins, Jewish Wisdom in the Hellenistic Age (Louisville: Westminster, 1997), 84–85. Klawans fails to appreciate these similarities between Sir 33:7–15 and the Treatise, since he reads the former in light of Sir 15, effectively muting ch. 33 (“Dead Sea Scrolls,” 275–76).
29. See von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, 267; Greg Schmidt Goering, Wisdom’s Roots Revealed: Ben Sira and the Election of Israel, JSJSup 139 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 50–54.
30. Collins, Jewish Wisdom, 85.
31. See Alexander A. DiLella, “Conservative and Progressive Theology in Sirach and Wisdom,” CBQ 28 (1966): 139–54; Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1:138–53; Don Garlington, The Obedience of Faith: A Pauline Phrase in Historical Context (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1991), 15–19; David A. deSilva, “The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of the Values of a Minority Culture,” CBQ 58 (1996): 435–38; Richard J. Coggins, Sirach (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 50–53.
32. This makes Miryam T. Brand’s reading of this text as a discussion of the special appointment of priests unlikely (Evil Within and Without: The Source of Sin and Its Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Literature [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013], 106–13). Those chosen here are blessed and contrasted with those unchosen and cursed—both are so appointed by God the potter.
33. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, 267.
34. Though Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 149, seems inconsistent when he appeals to the covenantal background to argue that Ben Sira does not believe sin and evil have their ultimate origin in God’s design.
35. See Paul Winter, “Ben Sira and the Teaching of the ‘Two Ways,’” VT 5 (1955): 315–18, who identifies similarities between this passage and the Treatise.
36. Skehan and Di Lella, Ben Sira, 400; cf. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation, 274.
37. See Skehan and Di Lella, Ben Sira, 400; Goering, Wisdom’s Roots Revealed, 54–55.
38. See Goering, Wisdom’s Roots Revealed, 59–60.
39. Perdue, Wisdom and Creation, 274.
40. Contra Maston, Divine and Human Agency, 65.
41. See von Rad, Wisdom in Israel, 267, 270; Goering, Wisdom’s Roots Revealed, 61–68.
42. Singurd Grindheim, The Crux of Election: Paul’s Critique of the Jewish Confidence in the Election of Israel, WUNT 2/202 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 55. What follows, however, does not negate the findings of Simon J. Gathercole, Where Is Boasting? Early Jewish Soteriology and Paul’s Response in Romans 1–5 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 96–100, who demonstrated conclusively the importance of works and reward theology for the community at Qumran, even in the Treatise. Gathercole also recognizes, however, that “the current period of the community’s life and future time of judgment are both situated within a strictly predetermined schematization of history. Although this predetermination includes the ‘kinds’ having been predestined by God for each person, there is still a strong theology of eternal reward granted at the appointed time of judgment” (p. 100). Qumran’s prominent reward theology is still understood in light of their deterministic worldview.
43. For example, Armin Lange, “Wisdom and Predestination in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” DSD 2 (1995): 340–54.
44. Daniel J. Harrington, Wisdom Texts from Qumran (New York: Routledge, 1996), 10. For a detailed treatment of the influence of Sirach on the Qumran literature, see Manfred R. Lehmann, “Ben Sira and the Qumran Literature” in RevQ 3 (1961): 103–16.
45. Magen Broshi, “Predestination in the Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Princeton Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. James H. Charlesworth, 3 vols. (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 2:241. Cf. Helmer Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran: Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls, trans. Emilie T. Sander, exp. ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1995), 55.
46. Broshi, “Predestination,” 241. On the important relationship between sapiential and apocalyptic ideology at Qumran, see John J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Routledge, 1997), 36–40; Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages, 369–83; Collins, Scriptures and Sectarianism: Essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls, WUNT 332 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 241–53; Torleif Elgvin, “Wisdom with and without Apocalyptic,” in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetic Texts from Qumran, ed. Daniel K. Falk, Florentino García Martínez, and Eileen M. Schuller, STDJ 35 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 15–38; Matthew J. Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction, STDJ 50 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 216–32; Stephen Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant to the Covenant of the Community: Literary, Historical, and Theological Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 341–49.
47. Matthew J. Goff, Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls, VTSup 116 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 16–17, 80–82, notes the comparative determinism shared between 1QS 3:15–16 and 4QInstruction and the Book of Mysteries. Cf. Harrington, Wisdom Texts, 77; Leo G. Perdue, Wisdom Literature: A Theological History (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 221.
48. See Collins, Apocalypticism, 38; George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Early Judaism: Some Points for Discussion,” in Conflicted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism, ed. Benjamin G. Wright III and Lawrence M. Wills, SBL Symposium Series 35 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 29; Philip Alexander, “Predestination and Free Will in the Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul, 31.
49. Ringgren, Faith of Qumran, 55.
50. Ibid., 104–5; Broshi, “Predestination,” 235–46; Alexander, “Predestination,” 27–49; Mladen Popović, “Light and Darkness in The Treatise on the Two Spirits (1QS III 13–IV 26) and in 4Q186,” in Dualism in Qumran, ed. Géza G. Xeravits (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 148–65. Some have questioned the dualistic/predestinarian reading of the Treatise. One example is Proben Werberg-Møller, who sees the “two spirits” as psychological dispositions within everyone (“A Reconsideration of the Two Spirits in the Rule of the Community [1QSerek III,13–IV,26],” RevQ 3 [1961]: 413–41). But such proposals have not gained wide scholarly assent.
51. See Broshi, “Predestination,” 236. On the identification of the Qumran community with the Essenes, see especially John J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).
52. See the historical reconstruction of the origins of Qumran in Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). On the relationship of the Treatise to the literary history of 1QS, see Charlotte Hempel, “The Treaties on the Two Spirits and the Literary History of the Rule of the Community,” in Dualism in Qumran, ed. Géza G. Xeravits (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 102–20.
53. Markus Bockmuehl observes that 1QS is the “text that most clearly and explicitly sets out the sect’s distinctive beliefs and religious self-understanding” (“Grace, Works and Destiny: Salvation in Qumran’s Community Rule [1QS/4QS],” in This World and the World to Come: Soteriology in Early Judaism, ed. Daniel M. Gurtner and Lester L. Grabbe [London: T&T Clark, 2011], 234).
54. Broshi says predestination is what distinguishes 1QS from “normative Judaism” (“Predestination,” 235). Cf. Alexander, “Predestination,” 27.
55. See Bockmuehl, “Grace, Works and Destiny,” 242–44.
56. Denise Dombkowski Hopkins, “The Qumran Community and 1QHodayot: A Reassessment,” RevQ 10 (1981): 346.
57. On the relationship between predestination and repentance, see Russell C. D. Arnold, “Repentance and the Qumran Covenant Ceremony,” in The Development of Penitential Prayer in Second Temple Judaism, vol. 2 of Seeking the Favor of God, ed. Mark J. Boda, Daniel K. Falk, and Rodney A. Werline (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007), 159–75; David Lambert, “Was the Qumran Community a Penitential Movement?,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. Timothy H. Lim and John J. Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 501–13; Mark A. Jason, Repentance at Qumran: The Penitential Framework of Religious Experience in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 105–43.
58. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 152. Cf. Klawans, “Josephus on Fate,” 63.
59. Martin Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” in Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. John J. Collins and Robert A. Kugler (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 48–51.
60. Hengel, “Qumran and Hellenism,” 48.
61. Translations of 1QS are from Michael O. Wise, Martin G. Abegg Jr., and Edward M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York: HarperOne, 2005), unless otherwise noted. Translations noted as “Charlesworth” are from James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Rule of the Community and Related Documents, vol. 1 of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994). Translations noted as “DSSSE” are from Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
62. Collins calls the Treatise “the most systematic presentation of the worldview in the scrolls” (Apocalypticism, 10).
63. Broshi, “Predestination,” 237; cf. Popović, “Light and Darkness,” 150–51; Bockmuehl, “Grace, Works and Destiny,” 244.
64. That 1QS 4:26 indicates that the Treatise is about the divine appointment of human fate casts doubt on Mark Adam Elliott’s suggestion that it was written only to explain division within Israel, and thus has little to say about predestination (The Survivors of Israel: A Reconsideration of Pre-Christian Judaism [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000], 407). Predestination is the author’s explanation of division in Israel. So I find Thornhill’s appeal to this argument misguided (Chosen People, 210).
65. Brand, Evil Within and Without, 246. Cf. Armin Lange, “The Determination of Fate by the Oracle of the Lot in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Mesopotamian Literature,” in Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetic Texts from Qumran, 41–44.
66. See LSJ 960; T. K. Abbott, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, ICC (New York: Schribner’s, 1909), 19; Andrew T. Lincoln, Ephesians, WBC 42 (Dallas: Word, 1990), 36. Most English translations fail to express the thrust of Paul’s use of “lot” imagery here, favoring something like “we have obtained an inheritance” (e.g., CSB, ESV, NRSV). But see NIV: “we were also chosen” (cf. NET).
67. See Daniel C. Timmer, “Variegated Nomism Indeed: Multiphase Eschatology and Soteriology in the Qumranite Community Rule (1QS) and the New Perspective on Paul,” JETS 52 (2009): 345–47.
68. For example, Jer 31:31–37; 33:8; Ezek 11:19; 16:4; 18:31; 24:13; 36:25–27, 33; 37:14, 23; 39:29.
69. Markus Bockmuehl, “1QS and Salvation at Qumran,” in Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, 396.
70. There is some textual uncertainty here, with good manuscript evidence favoring “as firstfruits” in place of “from the beginning.” Also, the genitive πνεύματος, which I have rendered as objective referring to the human spirit (as in 1 Thess 5:23), may be taken as subjective, referring to the divine Spirit (as in Rom 15:16; 1 Cor 6:11). Even if I am wrong in both exegetical decisions, the note of divine determinism is no less pronounced and detecting affinity to theological concepts present in the Treatise is not far-fetched. It is interesting that Thornhill has a full discussion of the textual-critical problem here (Chosen People, 85–86), but never comments on the fact that Paul says explicitly that God had chosen these people “for salvation” (εἰς σωτηρίαν), even though his thesis is that Paul and the Jewish sources never present election as effecting one’s “soteriological standing” (p. 254).
71. Menahem Monsoor, The Thanksgiving Hymns (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1961), 53.
72. J. Licht, “The Doctrine of the Thanksgiving Scroll,” IEJ 6 (1956): 89.
73. For example, Chris VanLandingham, Judgment and Justification in Early Judaism and the Apostle Paul (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2006), 122, who uses this argument to set the author’s statements about human responsibility against his predestinarian language, calling into question his consistency on the relationship between divine and human agency in salvation.
74. Eugene H. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 12. Cf. Ringgren, Faith of Qumran, 16–17.
75. See Svend Holm-Nielsen, Hodayot: Psalms from Qumran (Arahus: Universitetsforlaget, 1960), 332–48; Hopkins, “Qumran Community,” 337–38.
76. Contra Thornhill, Chosen People, 191–92.
77. D. A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 1994), 82.
78. Translations of the Hodayot are from Hartmut Stegemann and Eileen Schuller, eds., Qumran Cave 1.III: 1QHodayotawith Incorporation of 1QHodayotband 4QHodayota-f, with trans. by Carol Newsom, DJD 40 (Oxford: Clarendon, 2009).
79. Grindheim, Crux of Election, 58.
80. See E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1997), 87–101.
81. 4QInstruction and the Book of Mysteries employ the term מחשבה similarly (4Q417 1 i 11–12; 1Q27 1 i; 4Q299 3a ii-b; see Goff, Discerning Wisdom, 80–81). These pre-sectarian wisdom texts testify that the determinism of the Hodayot is not an idiosyncrasy of Qumran.
82. See Lange, “Wisdom and Predestination,” 350.
83. See Merrill, Qumran and Predestination, 18–19; Maston, Divine and Human Agency, 101–2.
84. For example, J. Philip Hyatt, “The View of Man in the Qumran ‘Hodayot,’” NTS 2 (1956): 276–84; Daniel Falk, “Psalms and Prayers,” in Complexities of Second Temple Judaism, 27–28; Stephen Westerholm, “Paul’s Anthropological ‘Pessimism’ in Its Jewish Context,” in Divine and Human Agency in Paul, 71–98; Sprinkle, Paul and Judaism, 136–44; Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 245–51.
85. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 282–83.
86. Though Sanders is badly mistaken when he says, “these profound views of human sinfulness do not touch soteriology” (Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 283; original emphasis).
87. Maston, Divine and Human Agency, 108–10.
88. See Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 261–65.
89. See Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, “The Impact of Selected Qumran Texts on the Understanding of Pauline Theology,” in Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3:153–85.
90. See Merrill, Qumran and Predestination, 17–18; David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), 32–33.
91. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination, 17.
92. See Maston, Divine and Human Agency, 98; Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 255–57.
93. See Monsoor, Thanksgiving Hymns, 62–63; Falk, “Psalms and Prayers,” 29–33.
94. Falk, “Psalms and Prayers,” 30. Cf. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 283, who says that the sect believed only faithful members of the covenant (i.e., those who have joined the sect) will be “cured” of this depraved condition. On the covenantal focus of the Hodayot, see Hultgren, From the Damascus Covenant, 409–60.
95. Falk, “Psalms and Prayers,” 31.
96. On this reading, Licht finds a “blatant contradiction” in the author’s reasoning about the cause of perdition for the wicked (“Doctrine of the Thanksgiving Scroll,” 7). This conclusion is unnecessary in light of the iterative affirmations of determinism in the context.
97. See Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 29–30.
98. As we have seen, it is best not to distinguish too sharply between God’s purpose and the result of his actions in Qumran theology.
99. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 64.
100. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 256–57.
101. Thornhill, Chosen People, 97.
102. Broshi, “Predestination,” 242.
103. See John Piper, The Justification of God: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Romans 9:1–23, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1993), 167–96.
104. Thus Flusser, after describing the numerous distinctive parallels between the DSS and pre-Pauline Christianity, including predestinarian election, concludes, “The number and importance of the notions we have shown in common … mean that these points of contact cannot be explained away as incidental” (Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 71).
105. See Broshi, “Predestination,” 242–46; Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 75–87; Martin Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM, 1991), 49–51; Kuhn, “Impact of Selected Qumran Texts,” 153–85; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Impact of the Dead Scrolls (New York: Paulist, 2009), 98–108.
106. See especially Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 75–87; Fitzmyer, Impact of the Dead Scrolls, 98–108.
107. For evidence of the presence and influence of the Essenes in Jerusalem, see Josephus, Ant. 15.371–378; 18.19; J.W. 5.145; Oscar Cullmann, “The Significance of the Qumran Texts for Research into the Beginnings of Christianity,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament, ed. Krister Stendahl (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 18–32. Hengel is probably correct that Paul would have had frequent contact with Essenes in Jerusalem (Pre-Christian Paul, 49–51).