144 - The Scrolls and the New Testament

The Scrolls and the New Testament
Edited by Krister Stendahl
308pp. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1957. $4.00.

During the slightly more than a decade since the first of the Dead Sea scrolls were found in1946, a veritable avalanche of books, articles, monographs, and reviews pertaining to these important discoveries has come from the press. Indeed, scholars will welcome the recent appearance of a full-sized Bibliographie zu den Handschiften vom Toten Meer (Berlin,1957) compiled by Christoph Burchard. When one surveys this spate of literature, it becomes obvious that the authors fall into three main categories. First, there are those who, having consulted the text of the Scrolls in their original Hebrew and Aramaic, make more or less permanent contributions to international scholarship; secondly, there are those who, though acquainted with the original languages, prefer to consult what others have written on the subject in the languages of Europe and America and to offer their re-appraisal of the evidence; thirdly, there are the great numbers of popular writers whose linguistic limitations prevent their referring to anything not written in their own language. It needs to be said at the outset that all of the contributors to the symposium under review here fall into the first category.

This volume, ably edited by Krister Stendahl, Associate Professor of New Testament at Harvard Divinity School, comprises fourteen essays written by twelve scholars: seven Protestants, four Roman Catholics, and one Jew. Eight of the studies were written in English, and six others have been translated from German or Latin. All but three of the essays had appeared previously in various American or European periodicals. It has proved necessary, in some of the articles, to simplify the technical apparatus, but in all cases the authors (so the editor assures us) have taken into account new material which appeared subsequently to the first publication of their articles. One has in this volume, therefore, a crosssection of up-to-date investigations by a representative group of scholars in Austria, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the Vatican, and our land.

Amid so much of outstanding worth in this symposium, it is difficult to single out three or four essays for special comment. Ernest Vogt, S.J., discusses the meaning of the concluding phrase in the angelic chorus at the birth of Jesus Christ (Luke 2:14). The nominative eudokia, in the inferior textus receptus, was rendered by the King James translators, on earth peace, good will among men." The RSV translators, choosing the variant reading eudokias witnessed by the earlier Greek manuscripts, render the phrase, on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased." The evidence in the Qumran texts not only offers decisive linguistic support for the Semitic construction lying behind the

145 - The Scrolls and the New Testament

variant eudokias, but it also indicates (as Vogt points out) that God's good pleasure' refers more naturally to the will of God to confer grace on those he has chosen, than God's delighting in and approving of the' goodness in men's lives" (p. 117). Thus the meaning of Luke 2:14 is ". . . peace among men of God's good pleasure," that is, among his chosen ones.

Several authors deal with significant parallels and differences between the practices and teachings of the Qumran group and the primitive Christian church. Among important analyses of this kind are those by Sherman E. Johnson on "The Dead Sea Manual of Discipline and the Jerusalem Church in Acts" (pp.129-142), Raymond E. Brown, S.S., on "The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles" (pp.183207), and Bo Reicke on "The Constitution of the Primitive Church in the Light of Jewish Documents- (which includes the Damascus or Zodakite Fragments as well as the newly discovered material at Qumran) (pp. 143-156). To varying degrees these authors find anew what had been previously overlooked by certain schools of New Testament scholarship, namely that the primitive Church in Palestine was essentially a Jewish-Christian group, and that, therefore, it is not surprising to discover, in the light of this new acquisition of information about one of the contemporary Jewish sects of Palestine, a variety of interesting points of similarity that assist one in understanding the historical context of the early Church.

Stendahl's selection of the several studies which are included in this volume is well-balanced and representative of some of the best of contemporary scholarship. Each of the authors proceeds in a sober and scientific manner to explore the resources provided by the Scrolls for assessing more exactly the historical and theological background of the New Testament. The symposium deserves to receive a cordial welcome among theologians and New Testament scholars alike.

Bruce M. Metzger
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey