Przegląd tekstów qumrańskich w aspekcie świątynnym

Abstract

The Qumran community definitely broke with the temple cult practised in Jerusalem regarding it as impure and desecrated by the priests from the Hasmonean royal family, as they bluntly explain in their work “Some Precepts of the Torah” (4QMMT). They replaced blood sacrifices with prayer, study of the Law and communal meals with elements of sacred rites. It does not mean at all that they ceased to believe that the temple as such, had been established by the will of God, who wanted to live in it amongst His people. W hat is more, the theme of the temple frequently recurs in the manuscripts and their authors regard it as absolutely fundamental for the entire community. The texts distinguished by means of the key motif of the “temple” are concerned with four formal categories of the temple: historical, eschatological, spiritual (human) and heavenly. It has to be noted that just as the texts dealing with the eschatological temple are interpreted in the texts in the light of the historical temple, so is the historical temple evaluated in the texts devoted to it and expressing opinions about it from the angle of the one and only eschatological or heavenly temple. Therefore, it seems that inclusion of texts in particular categories is to some extent only conventional. Still, the dominant theme legitimises such classification. Considering the attitude of the community to the Temple, the very fact that the problem itself was dealt with in their manuscripts means that the texts concerning the eschatological, heavenly or spiritual temple and putting them in place of the historical temple, express a critical attitude to the latter. On the other hand, the texts dealing with the issues of the historical temple itself, can be divided, depending on the time they were written, into those expressing a positive or negative attitude. The temple motif appearing 137 times in 39 texts seems to reflect objectively the historical truth concerning the attitude of the Qumran community members to the Temple. The existence of texts parallel, at least in fragments, is not an obstacle to forming opinions, the more so that parallel texts are preserved in different fragments and thanks to that they seem to give in their context a more complete picture of the writers’ views. Moreover, the importance and popularity of a particular idea is undoubtedly evidenced by the circulation of the preserved documents. The Qumran scrolls are fascinating read giving profound insight into the ideals, desires and aspirations of the people living so close in time to the beginnings of Christianity. It appears that God’s Chosen People, from the historical point of view fighting constant wars and in the biblical aspect ‒ notoriously breaking the Covenant with God, also had their ideals, desires and aspirations.