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ABSTRACTS
Summary
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
CHAPTER FIVE - MIRACLE IN THE QUMRAN LITERATURE
This chapter is concerned solely with the evidence of the scrolls, not with the classical sources on the Essenes. Overall, the Qumran scrolls show very little interest in miracle, but there are three texts of particular interest. The first of these, the Genesis Apocryphon (1 QapGen), includes an account of Abraham's conflict with Pharaoh over Sarah, in which Abraham eventually lays his hands on Pharaoh and prays for his recovery. This is not, however, a direct parallel to the Gospel healing and exorcism stories, since the demon afflicting Pharaoh was sent by God to protect Sarah from Pharaoh's unwelcome attentions in response to Abraham's prayer and obediently desists when Abraham prays for its removal; the spirit is described as 'evil' but in fact acts on God's and Abraham's behalf throughout. Moreover, Abraham is not represented as regularly performing such feats. The second text, The Prayer of Nabonidus (4QprNab) is so fragmentary that the story it tells cannot be reconstructed with certainty. Some scholars see it as the account of an exorcism or healing performed by Daniel, but the most plausible reconstruction is that of Pierre Grelot, who sees the healing of the idolatrous Nabonidus as carried out directly by God, with the anonymous Jewish soothsayer's role being merely to announce to the king what God has done. The third text, the Messianic Apocalypse (4Q521) is the most significant, in that it explicitly associates healing and raising the dead with the Messianic age, even if it is unclear whether these miracles are to be performed by God or his Messiah.
