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116
The handful of women and children in the cemetery were buried much later, by Bedouin tribes.
© 2007 Doug Mason 44 doug_mason1940@yahoo.com.au
Lessons from History
HERMENEUTICAL PRINCIPLES OR PRESUPPOSITIONS OF
DSH
1. Everything the ancient prophet wrote has a veiled, eschatological
meaning.
2. Since the ancient prophet wrote cryptically, his meaning is often to be
ascertained through a forced, or abnormal construction of the Biblical
text.
3. The prophet s meaning may be detected through the study of the textual
or orthographic peculiarities in the transmitted text. Thus the
interpretation frequently turns upon the special readings of the text cited.
4. A textual variant, i.e., a different reading from the one cited, may also
assist interpretation.
5. The application of the features of a verse may be determined by
analogous circumstance or by
6. Allegorical propriety.
7. For the full meaning of the prophet, more than one meaning may be
attached to his words.
8. In some cases the original prophet so completely veiled his meaning
that he can be understood only by an equation of synonyms, attaching to
the original word a secondary meaning of one of its synonyms.
9. Sometimes the prophet veiled his message by writing one word instead
of another, the interpreter being able to recover the prophet s meaning by a
rearrangement of the letters in a word, or by
10. The substitution of similar letters for one or more of the letters in the
word of the Biblical text.
11. Sometimes the prophet s meaning is to be derived by the division of
one word into two or more parts, and by expounding the parts.
12. At times the original prophet concealed his message beneath
abbreviations, so that the cryptic meaning of a word is to be evolved
through interpretation of words, or parts of words, as abbreviations.
13. Other passages of scripture may illumine the meaning of the original
prophet. 117
Qumran and the GB make the same claims
The people of Qumran said they were living in the Last Days . The GB also says these are
the very last of the Last Days . The people of Qumran thought they had unlocked mysteries
contained in Scripture regarding the imminent cataclysmic coming of the Messiah. The GB
also says it has unlocked the truth concerning the imminent cataclysmic coming of Christ and
everything associated with that event.
History repeats and the Governing Body of Jehovah s Witnesses stands in a long line of
people who have wrongly predicted that they knew when Christ was coming.
There is no doubt that Christ IS coming, for Scripture says so, but God has provided no clue
when that cataclysmic event will take place. Indeed, Scripture clearly says that no one knows
117
Biblical Interpretation among the Sectaries of the DSS , pages 60 62, William Brownlee, in The
Biblical Archaeologist, Vol 14, No 3, (September 1951)
© 2007 Doug Mason 45 doug_mason1940@yahoo.com.au
Lessons from History
but God the Father. In the meantime, Christ says, Coming, ready or not , while the faithful
Christian says, Ready, coming or not .
© 2007 Doug Mason 46 doug_mason1940@yahoo.com.au
The Governing Body s Pesher Treatment
There is a marked similarity in the manner in which the Jewish community at Qumran and the
Governing Body of Jehovah s Witnesses (GB)118 apply prophetic Scripture. This method is
termed Pesher .
This is relevant to the current Study because the GB applies Pesher treatment to the Faithful
and Discreet Slave (FDS) parable. The GB teaches that the FDS parable is a prophecy, and
that elements within it are allegories or symbols.
The use of Pesher treatment at Qumran refers to their use of our Old Testament , but the
critical observations on Pesher also apply to any who use it with the New Testament .
Features of Pesher
The following list119 summarizes interpretive features of the 1st and 2nd century BCE Jews
living at Qumran, showing the Pesher treatment they employed when interpreting prophecy.
§ð The authors of Scripture are said to be speaking to the contemporary audience. A
word, text or OT allusion is related to a present person, place, or thing. Scripture is
written especially for the present. The work of the inspired interpreter is to discover
the meaning for the present.
§ð Current events interpret scripture, rather than scripture being quoted to explain a
current event.
§ð There is no attempt to explain what the Bible meant when it was originally written,
but rather what it means in the day and age of the commentator, particularly for his
own community.
§ð The interpreter shows little inclination to justify his wholesale substitution of the
author s intent for that of his own community.
§ð Although the term pesher literally means to explain , it is an application of OT
scripture with little to no concern for the original context of the passage.
§ð Interpretations appear to lack any coherent methodology.
§ð Interpretative techniques are fundamentally eisegetical. That is, their hermeneutic
approaches are hostile to the notion of objective interpretation.
§ð They fragment the text and force each phrase to cause it to carry a contemporary
meaning.
§ð They rarely give reasons for their interpretations.
§ð It is possible that they invent variants of Scripture.
§ð Scriptural prophecies are said to be incomprehensible mysteries that can only be
interpreted by the Teacher of Righteousness .
118
See the Appendix: Textual Weaving from Qumran to Waco for a comparison of Qumran with David
Koresh and his Branch Davidian sect.
119
Based on:
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Instone-Brewer/TheolHermeneutics.htm
http://www.xenos.org/MINISTRIES/crossroads/OnlineJournal/issue3/mtmain.htm
A Doctrinal Study of Acts 2:14 Clifford Rapp Jr., Chafer Theological Seminary
© 2007 Doug Mason 47 doug_mason1940@yahoo.com.au
The Governing Body s Pesher Treatment
§ð Although all the authors of Scripture were prophets (including Moses and David),
God reveals things to their Teacher of Righteousness which were not even known to
the prophets, so that the Teacher s words come from the mouth of God .
§ð All the destructive activities described by a prophet are attributed to the wicked
priest while all the good things are attributed to their own righteous teacher .
§ð They simply state that this is that . For example, in the Song of the Well at Num.
21:18 the well is the Torah , the diggers are the returned of Israel and the nobles of
the people are those who come to delve in the well .
An example of Pesher at Qumran
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