I hope that this brief review of the Qumran community’s concepts of premortal, mortal, and postearth life has illustrated some of the interesting content of the sectarian scrolls from Qumran and has illustrated some of the difficulties that exist in understanding the ideas contained in them. Our relative uncertainty of the details of many of their conceptions only complicates the difficulties of relating them to Latter-day Saint doctrine.

I wish to thank Becky Schulties for her assistance in the preparation of this paper.

1. The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," Ensign (November 1995): 102. See also Moses 6:55–62 and other scriptural passages as listed in the Topical Guide, s.v. "salvation, plan of."

2. See, for example, Romans 8:29; Hebrews 1:6; 2 Nephi 25:12; Moses 1:6.

3. Those Jews who accepted the declarations of Jesus represent a significant exception to this statement, of course. However, the statement is made as a general observation on the status of all Jews at the end of the old era and most Jews at the beginning of the new one, the time when the Qumran community was in existence.

4. See the discussion of the messianic concept at Qumran by Florentino García Martínez in this volume.

5. Reasons that the inhabitants of Qumran cannot be viewed as so-called primitive Christians anticipating the true Messiah include: they seem to have believed in multiple messianic figures with different functions, especially royal and priestly functions (i.e., from a Latter-day Saint perspective, they fragmented the various roles of the true Messiah among separate individuals); their messiahs were not imagined to be divine; their messiahs would come with power and bring a new order to the earth (not unlike what we expect Jesus to do at his second coming), but they would live the pure form of the law of Moses after the coming of their messiahs; these people made no claims to be prophets authorized to speak for the Lord; and there is no prophetic reference in the Scrolls to Jesus or John the Baptist, whose names had been prophesied long before this time according to Latter-day Saint belief, nor is there any mention of John the Baptist or any of the apostles who actually ministered the gospel during the last three decades of the community’s existence at Qumran.

6. All English renditions of passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls in this paper are quoted from Florentino García Martínez, trans., The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, translated into English by Wilfred G. E. Watson (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), unless otherwise noted. Note also that the columns of the scroll containing the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH) have been renumbered since they were originally published. García Martínez uses this more recent numeration. I have provided the older numeration in brackets for convenience in using other translations, such as the one by Vermes.

7. Josephus, Wars of the Jews, ed. E. H. Warmington (London: William Heinemann, 1921), II.8.11.

8. See, for example, 2 Enoch 23:4–5 in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983), 1:140, and Hebrews 12:9.

9. Interestingly, the title Lord of Spirits is used several times in the Jewish pseudepigraphic text 1 Enoch, which dates from about the time of the Qumran community but was not composed by it. See 1 Enoch II.37–71 in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, 1:29–50.

10. These and other passages, including CD II 2–13 and 1QpHab VII 5–15, are briefly reviewed by Armin Lange, "Wisdom and Predestination in the Dead Sea Scrolls," Dead Sea Discoveries 2/3 (1995): 340–54.

11. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, trans. Ralph Marcus, Loeb Classical Library (1943), 13.172f.

12. Note the similar perception preserved in 1QM XIII 9–13: "You, [have crea]ted [us] for you, eternal people, and you have made us fall into the lot of light in accordance with your truth. From of old you appointed the Prince of light to assist us, and in [. . .] and all the spirits of truth are under his dominion. You created Belial for the pit, angel of enmity; his [dom]ain is darkness, his counsel is for evil and wickedness. All the spirits of his lot angels of destruction walk in the laws of darkness; towards them goes his only desire. We, instead, in the lot of your truth, rejoice in your mighty hand, we exult in your salvation, we are happy with your aid and your peace. Who is like you in strength, God of Israel?" See also CD II 7–10.

13. Elsewhere in the scrolls and other Jewish literature of the period the chief wicked spirit is designated as Belial, a title for Satan that occurs once in the New Testament (2 Corinthians 2:16). Greek manuscripts of this verse actually read Beliar, a common variant of Belial in Rabbinic and pseudepigraphic documents.

14. Elisha Qimron and James H. Charlesworth, trans., Rule of the Community and Related Documents, vol. 1 of The Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 49.

15. Eugene H. Merrill, Qumran and Predestination: A Theological Study of the Thanksgiving Hymns (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 58.

16. Latter-day Saints may remember that a similar belief of predestination is evident in the account of the apostate Zoramites’ prayer (see Alma 31:17).

17. Another passage in 1QM X 11–5 indicates that as part of his plan, God not only decided the fate of individuals, but of nations: "[. . . You created] . . . the earth and the laws of its divisions in desert and steppe, of all its products . . . of beast and birds, of man’s image, of the gener[ations of . . .], of the division of tongues, of the separation of peoples, of the dwelling of the clans, of the legacy of nations. . . ." (compare Acts 17:26).

18. Bruce R. McConkie, "The New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage," BYU Speeches of the Year (Provo, Utah: BYU Harold B. Lee Library, 1960), 3.

19. Rule of the Community (1QS) I 1–18, in Qimron and Charlesworth, Rule of the Community, 7–9. Note the emphasis on loving the faithful "sons of light" and hating the "sons of darkness." Since such a concept is not found in the Hebrew Bible or rabbinic writings, it is often suggested that this teaching, found in several passages in the sectarian scrolls, may have served as the background for Jesus’ statement that "ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies" (Matthew 5:43–4).

20. See Acts 23:6–9.

21. Josephus, Wars of the Jews, II.8.11 (2.154–5).

22. As cited in James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmnas, 1994), 79.

23. This text is also known as 4QMessianic Apocalypse. It draws on Isaiah 61:1, a scripture that was quoted in reference to Jesus in Luke 4:18.

24. Some scholars have suggested that this passage does not really refer to the afterlife, but to the conditions of members of the community. See, for example, VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls Today, 80.

25. Interestingly, the expression "crown of glory" occurs in a similar context in 1 Peter 5:4 and D&C 104:7 (see also its occurrence in Isaiah 28:5; 62:3; and Proverbs 4:9; 16:31, and related expressions such as "crown of life" occur elsewhere in the New Testament and Doctrine and Covenants).

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