Knowledge and Deeds in the Two Spirits Treatise

a. A Word on Terminology and Translation

This is not intended to be a close philological study of various words denoting perception or any other concept, either in the Two Spirits Treatise or on a broader scale. The focus is not on the semantic difference, for instance, between ‭לכש‬ and ‭הניב‬: words such as ‘insight’ and ‘understanding’ will be used to translate these; ‘wisdom’ will translate ‭המכח‬, and ‘knowledge’ will translate ‭תעד‬. It is assumed that all of these terms (and their verbal and adjectival cognates) convey some sort of knowledge, and ‘knowledge’ will be used as an umbrella of sorts that comprises the perception implied in all of these terms. Although exactly what the Treatise means by ‘knowledge’ or other perception words will not be discussed in depth, part of the burden of this study is certainly to illustrate particular characteristics and functions intended in the text's use of knowledge terminology.

b. Survey of Important Treatments in Secondary Literature

Before direct engagement with the text, it will be helpful to address and discuss a couple of the most important treatments in secondary literature of knowledge in the Two Spirits Treatise. Two of the most fruitful conversation partners for the present purposes are Carol Newsom and Shane Berg, both of whom have pointedly addressed the topic within the last decade.

In The Self as Symbolic Space, Carol Newsom investigates the Community Rule and the Hodayot in order to illustrate how the community's speech constructed and promoted a complex picture of the self as a ‘symbolic space’. ⁸ She grounds much of her analysis on philosophers like Michel Foucault and the Bakhtin circle in order to uncover the power dynamics at work in the symbolism surrounding knowledge, practices, and the self in these documents. Newsom insists that she does not primarily aim to reconstruct events behind the text; instead she strives to illuminate how the texts functioned to create figural worlds and self-understanding. ⁹ For this reason, she does not allocate much space to historical debates regarding the exact relationship between the Qumran site and the scrolls, the composition history of the Community Rule, or the precise makeup of the community. She assumes a ‘Qumran’ community stood behind the Community Rule and the Hodayot, then she concentrates her energy on the texts themselves. Therefore, regardless of whether one agrees that the group using the Community Rule should be dubbed the ‘Qumran community’, ¹⁰ she makes focused literary observations that are valuable. ¹¹ In particular, after using her second chapter to examine different perspectives on knowledge in Second Temple Judaism, she devotes her third chapter to knowledge in the Two Spirits Treatise.

Two fundamental claims for her approach are that ‘language is always socially stratified and socially stratifying’ ¹² and that texts do not merely house ideas but symbolically act on the surrounding world. ¹³ Through these lenses, Newsom depicts the Two Spirits Treatise as ‘a discourse of the self’ that describes a social contradiction that can only be portrayed symbolically. ¹⁴ Within this discussion she analyzes how language about knowledge in the Two Spirits Treatise functions as a symbolic structure.

Before addressing Newsom's focused treatment of the Treatise in Chapter 3 of her The Self as Symbolic Space, a few observations in her second chapter warrant mentioning. Newsom appeals to Daniel Schwartz's distinction between the halakic foundations of Qumran and the Sadducees on one hand and the Rabbis on the other, with the Rabbis functioning as a proxy for reconstructing the Pharisees’ habits. Schwartz classifies Qumran and the Sadducees as realists who appeal to nature to ground their interpretations of the law, while he labels the Rabbis (and, therefore, possibly the Pharisees) as nominalists who appeal directly to torah for justification of legal prescriptions. ¹⁵ For instance, the Rabbis do not deem animal bones impure because scripture only refers to human bones, while the Sadducees and the Temple Scroll do consider animal bones impure because they share the same nature as human bones (which are impure). ¹⁶ These approaches to halakah, then, reveal different epistemologies: ¹⁷ the Sadducees and Qumran base knowledge on nature and reality while the Rabbis base it on torah. Although ‘Qumran’ is an oversimplified category and these labels may not be consistently accurate, it should still be recognized that the Two Spirits Treatise undoubtedly exhibits realist epistemology over against nominalist. These elements will be explored in detail later, but suffice it to say that there are continuous references to nature (some translate in ‭תודלות‬ 3.13 as ‘nature’ ¹⁸ ), design, assigned spirits, allotment, and evaluating human character based directly on their actions. On the other hand, there is no mention of torah. Occasional readings of ‘laws’ do not translate ‭הרות‬ but ‭טפשמ‬. ¹⁹ Hence, Newsom's dialogue with Schwartz helps illuminate that knowledge in the Treatise concerns assessing the activity of reality.

In Chapter 3 Newsom examines the discourse on anthropology in the Two Spirits Treatise to illustrate how this text promotes a symbolic form of knowledge that serves to enact symbolic action. Using a lens of ideological criticism, she situates its abstract mode of knowing in a concrete historical struggle that required symbolic action. Newsom argues that this struggle was the experience of foreign political domination. ²⁰

Newsom wants to apply this ideological analysis not merely to the text of the Two Spirits Treatise but to the ‘structured way of knowing’ evident therein, since this must be closely related to historical situations or ‘subtexts’. She claims that the object of knowledge in the Treatise is apparently ‭שיא‬ ‭ינב‬ ‭לוכ‬ ‭תודלות‬ (3.13), but that all of the subsequent qualifications assume interconnected webs of meaning. Under this rubric, to understand human character one must understand God's plan of history, and vice-versa. ²¹ Newsom characterizes this model of knowledge in the Treatise as implicitly semiotic, such that one understands actions, character traits and events as parts in a system of relationships. For example, actions are signs of spirits in 3.14. What is germane to the present study is that the Treatise's conception of knowledge stresses the representative function of actions within this web of meaning, a claim which will be explored further below.

While Newsom ends the chapter with an historical claim—that the author of the Treatise has superimposed the struggle against Gentile power onto the anthropological struggle within a human being—her literary analysis and the questions it raises are most valuable for the present purposes. Space will not be devoted to further commendation of her analysis, which excels in more ways than mentioned above; instead, her analysis will be used as a launch pad to approach further issues with which this study is concerned. Some of the questions raised here, however, will not be fully explored until a later section of the present study.

Newsom titles her third chapter ‘Knowing as Doing’ to signify that the knowledge structure in the Two Spirits Treatise depicts symbolic action that served as a replacement for real action that was impossible, and she largely concentrates her treatment on the symbolic function of actions. In light of her assessment of the semiotic model of knowledge in the Treatise, along with the close relationship between knowledge and actions in the text, one can legitimately inquire after the epistemological functions of actions. Newsom certainly recognizes the communicative power of different uses of space, as evident when she examines the physical representation of rank achieved through standing in 2.19–25. ²² She rightly stresses the symbolic significance of this action, but one would like her then to address explicitly how this significance relates to knowledge within the community. For instance, how how does the ranking in 2.19–25 inform members of realities about the spiritual realm, and how might that relate to how other actions also signal spiritual realities or knowledge in the Treatise? In 2.22 the text states that members are to order themselves by rank and spirit ‘so that each man in the house of Israel knows his standing in the Yahad’. While Newsom describes how acted ranking symbolizes the community's spiritual worldview, ²³ one could also ask how members discern spiritual standing in the first place. Later she briefly acknowledges a connection between these ranking rituals and knowledge, stating that in these ceremonies, ‘one knows simply by looking, what is better, what is worse’. ²⁴ Intriguing for the Treatise, then, is whether the same tenet—‘one knows simply by looking, what is better, what is worse’—is envisioned in 3.13–14 when the sons of light are apparently taught to know by looking at human deeds as signs of their spiritual nature and origin. ²⁵ The existence of this epistemological standard in 1QS 2 may not prove its existence within the Treatise, but it seems to parallel and shed light on an analogous epistemological assumption at work in the Treatise.

When Newsom presents her theory regarding the historical contradictions that the Two Spirits Treatise strives to combat symbolically, she looks to the near literary context of 1QS, specifically the disciplines in 5.24 that allow one to overcome these contradictions by enhancing ‘his insight and the perfection of his way’. ²⁶ This seems very significant, as she notices that the Treatise encourages members to overcome historical and ideological contradictions through actions—‘the practices of daily life’. ²⁷ If Newsom is correct that knowledge in 1QS also ‘allows one to transcend the temporal and with it to transcend subjection to conflict and contradiction’, ²⁸ then there must be a fundamental relationship between actions and knowledge that is central to her focus on overcoming contradiction. She briefly notes the connection: ‘it is through obedience that one receives knowledge and through knowledge that one experiences now the overcoming of subjection to contradiction’. ²⁹ But this does not seem to be abstract conceptual knowledge that grants power to overcome. She explains that this knowledge only comes to those who honestly convert, to the obedient, ³⁰ such that there seems to be a direct causal relation between obedient actions and the power to overcome. It would be inexact on her terms to assert that knowledge divorced from action gives this power. It is at least only knowledge with obedience; but then, if obedience is the foundation of knowledge—‘it is through obedience that one receives knowledge’ ³¹ —then one must ask whether the goal in the Treatise is to know about the plan of God or to enact it. A close examination of the text, taken up later, will insist, first, that these goals cannot be fully delineated, but, second, that the Treatise often elevates action above knowledge in relation to this question.

Other issues arising from Newsom's analysis will be addressed further below.

In Religious Epistemologies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Shane Berg situates the Two Spirits Treatise (as well as 4QInstruction and the community hymns of the Hodayot) in the wisdom tradition but classifies it as a hybrid text that interweaves both wisdom and apocalyptic elements. ³² He devotes his entire third chapter to epistemology in the Treatise, making this book a valuable conversation partner. Most of the present study's engagement with Berg's work will come when it pursues a close reading of the Treatise, but some preliminary remarks are in order.

Berg recognizes that the Two Spirits Treatise resembles the wisdom tradition of Israel in its omission of any references to exclusively Israelite politics, laws, or cultic activities as grounds for religious knowledge; instead, this stream of texts elevates human nature and experience as one means of acquiring knowledge. ³³ In its concern to portray the religious element of common human experience, Jewish wisdom literature may even anticipate natural theology. ³⁴ These are certainly valid classifications of the Treatise. It was already noted above that there is no mention of ‭הרות‬ in the Treatise, and neither is religious knowledge grounded in biblical narratives or cultic activities. Berg insists, however, that the Treatise is not merely a straightforward wisdom text because of its inclusion of significant apocalyptic elements. ³⁵ Regardless, such affinities with the wisdom tradition will speak directly to observations below about knowledge and deeds. Moreover, Berg explicitly recognizes the focus within the Treatise on deeds and ethics. ³⁶

a. Different Types of Knowledge and their Significance to Spiritual Activity

Instead of pursuing a monolithic theme of ‘knowledge’ in the Two Spirits Treatise, one should recognize that the Treatise depicts different types of knowledge. A helpful distinction can be made concerning the relation between knowledge and spirits. The Treatise mentions both knowledge from spirits (see 4.2–4, 21–22) and knowledge about spirits (see 3.13–14; 4.25–26 [implied, see below]). ³⁷ On the one hand, the spirits beget knowledge: one spirit ‘enlightens the mind/heart of man … (and generates) understanding and insight and wisdom … (and) knowledge ³⁸ in every plan of action’ ³⁹ (4.2–4); with a spirit of truth God ‘instructs the upright in knowledge of the Almighty and the wisdom of the sons of heaven, making the perfect of way understand …’ (4.21–22). On the other hand, recipients of the Treatise must have knowledge about the spirits in order to detect them: the Maskil is to instruct the sons of light about ‘all the kinds of spirits (of the sons of man)’ (3.13–14), and the conclusion to the Treatise speaks of the knowledge of good [and evil] given to humans and commands each person's lot to be determined ‘according to his spirit’ (4.26), implying that this knowledge of good and evil concerns the ‘work of [the spirits’] deeds’ (4.25), which reveal each person's spiritual character and thus determine his lot (more on these texts below).

Regarding knowledge from spirits, Berg calls attention to the ‘epistemological agency of spirits’ in the Treatise. ⁴⁰ The spirits do indeed generate knowledge in 4.2–4 and 4.21–22, as seen above, but a close examination of these texts reveals a firm association between this spirit-wrought knowledge and deeds. In fact, surveying the entire Treatise demonstrates that what is stressed even more than the epistemological agency of the spirits is the ‘deed agency’ of the spirits. ⁴¹

b. Significance of Deeds to Spiritual Activity

This ‘deed agency’—the fact that spirits generate deeds—emerges in the two texts describing epistemological agency. In 4.2–4, the spirit that enlightens a man's heart in 4.2 also ‘directs before him all the ways of true righteousness’, and language of ways or paths (‭ךרר‬) often describes works (see 3.20–21; 4.1, 11–12, 15, 17). This spirit does generate attributes of knowledge in 4.3, but woven in with these products of insight and understanding are also the deed-related qualities of humility, patience, and compassion. In 4.4, the spirit generates knowledge that is for ‘every plan of action’. Turning to 4.26, one notices that this line does not depict deed agency of spirits, but the knowledge of good and evil that God sends appears to allow evaluation of deeds, referring back to 4.25, which does picture spirits producing deeds: ‭ןהישעמ‬ ‭תלועפ‬.

Beyond the epistemological agency texts, many other places in the Treatise describe the spirits as producing deeds. The words most clearly referring to deeds are ‭השעמ‬ and ‭הלילע‬ but it was mentioned above that ‭ךרר‬ often implies deeds as well (see especially the parallelism between ‭ךרר‬ and ‭הלילע‬ in 4.17). Reproducing and commenting upon each relevant instance would be cumbersome and unnecessary; suffice it to say that but the Treatise clearly and repeatedly emphasizes that spirits generate good or evil actions: see 3.14, 20–21 (‭ךרר‬), 22, 25; 4.1, 2 (‭ךרר‬), 4, 9 (‭הרובע‬), 10, 11 (‭ךרר‬), 15–17, 21, 25.

c. Knowledge and Deeds in the Treatise

It remains to investigate the prominence of knowledge and deeds in the Treatise as a whole, as well as their relationship with each other. This analysis will demonstrate that the Treatise emphasizes deeds more than it does knowledge—as already apparent in the heavier emphasis on deeds as products of the spirits—but it will also show that the knowledge that is featured emerges almost always as a practical knowledge whose primary purpose and result is the generation of deeds. ⁴²

Although knowledge is clearly a theme in the Treatise, it is by no means the most prominent concern. For instance, in the first large section of the Treatise (3.13–4.1), knowledge ⁴³ is not mentioned except in the divine epithet, ‭תוערה‬ ‭לא‬ and by implication in the opening by the verb ‭ןיבהל‬, related to ‭הניב‬. Calling God the ‘God of knowledge’ definitely spotlights knowledge in some sense, but it is unclear, first, what sort of knowledge this may indicate (subsequent discussion will help clarify this), and, second, whether this epithet describes God's own knowledge or the knowledge that God imparts (which remains uncertain ⁴⁴ ). Other than this title and the fact that the Maskil is to instruct (‭ןיבהל‬, 3.13), therefore, this first third of the discourse notably lacks any reference to knowledge.

While knowledge is practically absent from 3.13–4.1, deeds are prevalent. One subject of the Maskil's teaching is the deeds of human beings (3.14). ‘In the hand of the Prince of Light is the design of all the sons of righteousness, concerning the paths of light on which they walk’, just as the Angel of Darkness designs the dark paths on which the sons of evil walk (3.20–21). This angel's dominion governs the sins and rebellious deeds of the sons of righteousness (3.21–22). God founds every deed on the spirits of light and darkness (3.25), and God will delight forever in the actions motivated by the spirit of truth (4.1). On the terminological level, therefore, all of these references support the second element of the present study's thesis, that the Treatise stresses the significance of deeds more than it does that of knowledge. Yet two things should be noted in this section which indicate that there is nonetheless an evident relationship between knowledge and deeds when the former appears (the first aspect of the thesis). First, the one direct mention of knowledge in this section, ‭תוערה‬ ‭לא‬ (3.15), likely does relate to deeds. The material surrounding this epithet primarily highlights that God designs what happens on earth (‭היוה‬ …‭םתויהבו‬ ‭םתבשחמ‬ ‭לוב‬ ‭ןיבה‬ ‭םתויה‬ ‭ינפלו‬ ‭הייהנו‬), presumably referring back inter alia to the spirit-wrought deeds in 3.14. ⁴⁵ Second, the important introduction to the Treatise implies transfer and cultivation of knowledge, and this knowledge addresses the deeds of the sons of men (‭םהישעמל‬, 3.14). Thus, the first large section of the Treatise (3.13–4.1) stresses deeds more than knowledge, while the two appearances of knowledge bear some relation to deeds. The exact character of the connection, however, remains uncertain in these indirect references.

The relationship between knowledge and deeds becomes clearer in three passages in the remainder of the Treatise, which continues to concentrate on deeds but does mention knowledge more explicitly than before. The beginning statement in 4.2–4 has already been addressed above in association with the spirit's activity, and the connection between knowledge and deeds falls under the spirit's operations in these lines. In 4.2, one spirit ‘enlightens the mind/heart of men’, an action probably connoting some form of knowledge, and this is done ‘to direct before him all the paths of true righteousness’, likely using ‭יבדר‬ to signal deeds (see 3.20–21; 4.1, 11–12, 15, 17, for the association between ‭ךדר‬ and deeds in the Treatise). It becomes clearer that this spiritual activity generates deeds in 4.3, as it produces humility, patience, and compassion, which likely do not describe merely ‘inward’ dispositions unrelated to actions. These attributes are placed side-by-side with epistemological terminology (understanding, insight, and wisdom), indicating a close relationship among these qualities. In 4.4, the spirit generates knowledge ‘in/for every plan of action’ (‭השעמ‬ ‭תבשחמ‬ ‭לובכ‬ ‭תעד‬). There could hardly be a more concise expression of deed-related knowledge. According to 4.2–4, then, knowledge appears highly practical in that its value emerges in the good deeds it produces. Moreover, epistemological terms such as ‘understanding’ and ‘insight’ are closely united with practical virtues such as ‘patience’ and ‘compassion’.

The second appearance of knowledge that reinforces a relationship with deeds in this section does not do so as clearly as the first. In 4.22 there is a concentration of knowledge terminology: God will ‘instruct the upright in the knowledge of the most high and the wisdom of the sons of heaven, in order to make the perfect of way understand’. The references here to deeds are indeed less explicit, but they are still present. First, this string of epistemological terminology describes enlightenment that comes as a result of God's eschatological purifying of humanity in 4.20–21, which centers on the cleansing of deeds (‭זאו‬ ‭העשר‬ ‭תולילע‬ ‭לוכמ‬ ‭שרוק‬ ‭חורב‬ ‭ורהטלו‬… ‭רבג‬ ‭ישעמ‬ ‭לוכ‬ ‭ותמאב‬ ‭לא‬ ‭ררבי‬ see also ‭הימר‬ ‭ישעמ‬ ‭לוכ‬ ‭תשובל‬, 4.23). Thus, God gives this knowledge by way of cleansing people's actions. Second, in 4.22 it is the ‭םירשי‬ and the ‭ךרד‬ ‭ימימת‬ who receive this knowledge, likely denoting those whose deeds are righteous (see 3.20–21; 4.11–12, 17). Given the surrounding concentration on actions, it seems unlikely that 4.22 describes abstract knowledge, but it is certainly possible that this wisdom of the sons of heaven resembles the apparently abstract mysteries mentioned in 4.6 (discussed below). The connection between deeds and knowledge apparent in this text, however, differs somewhat from other instances because here knowledge seems to come as a reward for good deeds, or at least as a result of God's purification of deeds.

Finally, the Treatise presents knowledge in conjunction with deeds at the very end, when the text claims that ‘God has caused the spirits to own/rule over the sons of men in order to (grant) knowledge of good [and evil], that they may [decide] the lot of every living being according to his spirit when it visits’ (4.26). When read in light of the preceding line, which alludes to God's knowledge of how these deeds play out in every age, the final line implies knowledge about which deeds correspond to which spirit, so that those with knowledge can determine which spirit governs each living being. Such knowledge presupposes the connection established in 4.2–4, that the knowledge wrought by the spirit of truth issues in corresponding deeds (see also 4.15–16); therefore, the Treatise suggests that one can know a spirit by its fruits.

While all of these references to knowledge have indicated its practice-oriented purpose and character, there is one mention of knowledge with no explicit connection to actions. In 4.6, the spirit of truth guides people, apparently, to ‘hide the truth of the mysteries of knowledge’. Regardless of how best to translate ‭תמאל‬ ‭אבחו‬, it clearly implies some concealment regarding the ‭תעד‬ ‭יןר‬. There is no mention of a practical concern, ⁴⁶ and a phrase like ‘mysteries of knowledge’ does tend to imply abstraction. It should be noted, however, that the ‘hidden things’ in 1QS 5.11–12 are tied to deeds: they are the things from which the wicked have deviated. As mentioned above, these ‘hidden mysteries’ in 4.6 may relate to the ‘wisdom of the sons of heaven’ in 4.22, which were also surrounded by emphasis on deeds.

Outside of this obscure instance, the foregoing analysis has demonstrated that knowledge in the Treatise always suggests a practical concern. Almost sixty years ago, W.D. Davies helpfully catalogued different types of ‭תעד‬ in the Community Rule, the Habakkuk pesher, and the thanksgiving hymns in his 1953 article. ⁴⁷ This piece appeared very early in Scrolls research, and his primary concern in the essay is to distinguish knowledge ‘in the Dead Sea Scrolls’ from Hellenistic gnosis, so his systematic conclusions may be too monolithic. Regardless, Davies attends to specific texts and makes helpful distinctions between, for example, passages only denoting intellectual discernment and those indicating personal knowledge. ⁴⁸ One wonders, then, how many passages Davies would have placed in a category labeled ‘knowledge associated with deeds’. He recognizes across the Dead Sea corpus a particular concern with interpreting God's works, ⁴⁹ which may speak to the Treatise's insistence that interpreting human works of good and evil (3.13–14; 4.26) allows insight into God, if the Treatise assumes that these human works are indeed God's works. Davies also cites Bo Reicke, who contends that ‭תעד‬ in the Dead Sea Scrolls is largely a practical knowledge tied to obedience, ethics, faith, and fear of God, rather than intellectual cognition. ⁵⁰ Again, such a claim about a broad range of texts may oversimplify, but it nonetheless resonates with the focus in the Treatise on practical knowledge—that is, knowledge whose central purpose and proof is practice.

d. Whose Deeds?

Because of the Treatise's focus on deeds, both in connection with knowledge and beyond, it is worth taking a brief excursus to ponder exactly which deeds are signified throughout this text. On the one hand, Carol Newsom may be right to highlight the symbolic action achieved by the Treatise's complex construction of knowledge, ⁵¹ as opposed to seeing any realistic action being enjoined by the text. In a similar vein, the ‭תודלות‬ in 3.13–14 and 4.15 may refer to all human history, ⁵² implying that the rhetoric of the Treatise does not apply to ordinary, present situations. But does this deep concern with human actions never sharpen its focus to real, present deeds of those in the midst of the audience? A.R.C. Leaney views the ‭תותוא‬ in 3.14 to designate distinctive spiritual marks noticeable in people's physical and moral characteristics. Then ‭תורוד‬ signifies different ‘societies’ into which humans are assigned based on these characteristics. ⁵³ In this line of interpretation, the teaching of the Treatise could apply more easily to present individuals, not just broad historical descriptions. Regardless of how to translate these first lines, the exhortations to such ordinary virtues as humility, patience, and compassion (4.3), along with warnings against such everyday vices as lying, pride, deceit, and foolishness (4.9–11), could certainly be aimed at a very real community to whom it is directed instead of being merely generic virtue and vice lists. It seems that (pious) hearers could not help but notice these traits in themselves and others. The failures and afflictions of the righteous (3.21–24) could certainly reflect a struggle with the complex reality of good people sinning. The author, readers, and hearers of this text may indeed be weeding out sons of darkness from their own community. In fact, this seems to be the case later in the ranking procedures in 1QS 5–7, 9. ⁵⁴ The ‘original intent’ of the Treatise may be hard to ascertain, but those who incorporated it into the Community Rule seem to have applied the standards in the Treatise to their very real struggles to maintain a holy community. If this reflects the Treatise's independent intent, then the deeds so often mentioned reside nearer than merely symbolic actions, as active standards for removing real enemies from their midst.

e. Knowledge and Deeds in Other Dead Sea Texts

The foregoing discussion has highlighted two ways in which knowledge relates to deeds in the Two Spirits Treatise. First, right knowledge should produce good deeds. Second, as a logical corollary, one can know whether someone else has the right knowledge by how they act, such that the proof of knowledge is good deeds. ⁵⁵

This second form of knowledge that aims to discern the goodness of a person's deeds actually frames the entire Treatise. In 3.14, the Maskil instructs members to understand spirits by interpreting their deeds, while in 4.25–26 people are given the ability to discern the good and evil outworkings of the spirits in order to classify individuals. Further, although not mentioning knowledge, 4.15–16 confirms that human deeds unfold based on the divisions of the spirits allotted to each person. This element of knowing and evaluating people by their deeds also emerges in other similar texts in the Dead Sea corpus. These comparisons can both provide a plausibility structure for the interpretation of the Treatise offered here and shed light on epistemological tendencies of other texts.

A similar emphasis on discerning actions exists in the sapiential text 4QInstruction (also known as Sapiential Work A or Musar le-Mevin). Fragment 1 of the 4Q417 manuscript, although damaged and having many lacunae, seems to present a repeated stress on understanding about human deeds, particularly in 4Q417 1 i 6–13. Such insight guides one to know ‘truth and wrong, wisdom …’ (ll. 6–7), to ‘discern between [good and evil according to] deeds’ (l. 8), which facilitates understanding God (ll. 8–9, 13). ⁵⁶ In addition to these resonances with the Two Spirits Treatise, 4QInstruction also shares the rather unique claim that even this insight into the good and evil of human actions is privileged information. ⁵⁷ This group of similarities does not necessarily prove anything about the Two Spirits Treatise, but the esteem for understanding the character of human deeds and thereby understanding God in a prominent ⁵⁸ wisdom text in the Dead Sea corpus perhaps renders more plausible the similar emphasis the present study has located in the Two Spirits Treatise. ⁵⁹

The rest of 1QS also promotes a tight connection between actions and knowledge. Many believe the Two Spirits Treatise to be more closely related to 4QInstruction than to the rest of 1QS (see n. 59), so resonances throughout the Community Rule may be less significant than those mentioned above in connection with 4QInstruction. Nevertheless, the simple fact that some communities incorporated the Treatise into the Community Rule as a unified text justifies the recognition of parallels as potentially revealing. If nothing else, they may shed light on the process of composition that eventually led some groups to ‘canonize’ the Two Spirits Treatise as part of the Community Rule. On the other hand, these parallels are particularly important if the Treatise played a significant role within the use of the Community Rule. ⁶⁰ In this case, to interpret the rest of the Rule is probably to explore some of the earliest commentary on the Treatise, which may clarify some aspects of the Treatise itself.

Regardless of the warrant for comparing the rest of the Community Rule to the Treatise, the former reflects the tendencies that the present study has explored in the Treatise: first, that actions receive primary attention; and, second, that knowledge often relates to actions. These two characteristics are especially evident in the material preceding the Treatise. The Community Rule begins by emphasizing actions and does not mention knowledge until 1.11–12. Here they are to bring in all of their knowledge, along with their strength and wealth. Knowledge receives no special emphasis here beyond being the first in a group of three things that must be submitted to the Yahad. The author designates the purpose of bringing in knowledge, viz. in order to have it clarified or purified in the truth of the commandments of God. These commandments seem to be precepts that above all are to be done (as their first mention indicates in 1.7). The lines preceding 1.11–12 are dominated by injunctions to right conduct: ‘to live [by the Yahad's rule] … to do the good and upright … to cling to all good deeds, to do truth and righteousness … no longer to walk in the hardness of a guilty heart … to do the commandments of God … to walk before [God] with integrity’ (1QS 1.1–8).

It also must be noted how heavily the author stresses God's deeds in column 1, also refraining from any mention of God's knowledge or even wisdom—although ‭הצע‬ likely denotes God's plan or will, which could indirectly imply knowledge or wisdom (cf. 1.8, 10, 13). Regardless, God's actions receive the spotlight. In 1.19 the Levites are to bless God and ‘all his deeds of truth’, and in 1.21 the priests recount God's ‘righteousnesses’ as shown forth in their mighty deeds. Addressing the significance of God's actions in this text would require another essay, but the focus here on God's actions comports well with the simultaneous valuation of human actions in this column. If column 1 is any indicator, the author elevates actions far above knowledge.

In column 2 the lack of emphasis on knowledge does appear again, as the author relates the Yahad's fundamental characteristics in 2.24–25 without mentioning knowledge; however, on either side of this, one finds two likely affirmations of reflective, conceptual knowledge. First, the author prays, ‘[may God] graciously gift you with knowledge of eternal things/eternal knowledge’ (2.3). Let it be conceded that this phrase likely signifies reflective knowledge concerning eternity. If so, then the author clearly affirms such knowledge. The curse that follows this blessing is revealing, however, insofar as it condemns the evil for their wicked deeds (‭עשר‬ ‭ישעמ‬, 2.5; ‭ךשוחכ‬ ‭הכישעמ‬, 2.7). It does not specifically condemn them for lacking knowledge. Later the author sums up the error of the damned as his soul's ‘abhorring the teachings of knowledge’ (2.26–3.1), and he then identifies or equates these teachings with ‘deeds of righteousness’ (3.1). These two descriptions rebuke not a mere lack of knowledge but a rejection thereof, and they indicate a close relationship between rejecting knowledge—even reflective knowledge—and practicing evil deeds. In 2.19–25, members stand in order of ranking ‘so that each man in the house of Israel knows his standing in the Yahad’ (2.22). In the Two Spirits Treatise, this knowledge of ‘where people stand’, literally and figuratively, fundamentally concerns their deeds (see 3.13–14; 4.15–16, 26). In sum, two features stand out in the Community Rule before the Two Spirits Treatise. First, actions take center stage—practices demanded of the community, evil actions of the wicked, and God's gracious and mighty deeds. Second, where knowledge is mentioned, it often relates closely to deeds, as the Rule highlights evil actions as markers of those rejecting knowledge. Such features are not dissimilar from those identified in the Treatise.

The remainder of 1QS evinces these same characteristics, but the relationship between deeds and knowledge will receive primary focus here. The initial examination of a new member in 5.20–21 closely relates the neophyte's understanding and actions, as he is judged on the basis of ‘his understanding and his deeds in torah’. The members are ranked according to each man's understanding and works (5.23). The annual review of a man's spirit will promote or demote him based on his understanding and the perfection of his way (5.24). A similar test appears in 6.13–14, in which the head of the many investigates an aspirant's ‘understanding and works’; then, after a year, the many again examine his ‘understanding and works’ (6.18). In these cases ‘understanding’ (‭לכש‬) may denote practical wisdom or prudence, but, regardless, some form of knowledge and deeds are presented as tightly bound. There are so many expressions of ‭לכש‬ and ‭השעמ‬ standing together that this coupling appears to be a common idiom.

Carol Newsom appeals especially to 1QS 5.11–12 to argue that in 1QS discernment does not merely arise from diligent study, as ‘True torah can be known only in the sect’. ⁶¹ Thus 1QS implies that one only knows torah by doing certain practices that only the community does. There again appears a causal relationship between actions and knowledge, although this time it is reversed: actions appear to cause knowledge (see in the Treatise, 1QS 4.22, discussed above). Not even the ‘hidden things’ in 5.11–12 are divorced from actions: they are the things from which the wicked have deviated.

In column 8, the community's study of torah sets them apart from the rest of Israel in fulfillment of Isa. 40.3. They explain how they are preparing the highway for God: ‘this [Isa. 40.3] is studying the torah [which] he commanded by the hand of Moses, in order to act (‭תושעל‬) according to all that is revealed …’ (1QS 8.15). This seminal interpretation asserts that knowledge gleaned from study directly produces actions.

The Community Rule also assumes a close relationship between deeds and spirits, as evident in 5.21, 24; 6.17; 7.18–19, 23–24. ⁶² Given the focus on spirits in the Treatise, their mention in the rest of 1QS may be even more relevant to their characteristics in the Treatise than are other parallels in 1QS. ⁶³ Suffice it to say that the remainder of 1QS evinces the same tight coordination between spirits and deeds as was seen above in the Two Spirits Treatise. Although the latter is most likely a distinct work, this correspondence offers yet another insight into why communities united these two texts in the first place: they held complementary views on the integral relationship between a person's deeds and his or her spiritual character.

The author of the Treatise does employ several key images from Genesis 1–3, but a lengthy engagement does not seem necessary for an accurate interpretation of knowledge in the Treatise. Despite the similar imagery, the Treatise offers no exegetical basis for its driving image, that of the two spirits. Even if it is ‘relying on’ Genesis in some way, it employs its images so differently that engaging the Genesis text mainly only serves to highlight the distinct direction taken by the Treatise. ⁶⁴ The two texts treat knowledge of good and evil so differently, for example, that nothing much more can be said beyond the claim that they both address knowledge of good and evil. While the themes and images in Genesis 1–3 may have been significant to the Two Spirits Treatise, the author of the latter by no means felt constrained to reproduce their particular usage in Genesis 1–3 when constructing his ideology, particularly not that of knowledge.

The Treatise certainly displays relations to and possible influence from several other early Jewish documents. These comparisons are significant, particularly in how they demonstrate the uniqueness of the Treatise's complex anthropology in its pneumatological, cosmological and eschatological dimensions. ⁶⁵ Because of this uniqueness and the present study's limited scope, however, it seems most fruitful to spend the remaining discussion concentrating on the Treatise without explicitly investigating these comparisons.

f. A Word on Theology and Anthropology

Anthropology in the Two Spirits Treatise is clearly theological, as human actions are determined by the spirits that God sends to control human beings. This situation, however, along with the foregoing discussion, implies that this text not only promotes a theological anthropology but also an anthropological theology. That is, the Treatise continually instructs its target audience how to recognize God's operations by observing human actions. God is not presented as anthropomorphic, but knowledge of God does come by way of studying, as it were, anthropology. This hearkens back to the parallel some posit between the Jewish wisdom tradition and natural theology, ⁶⁶ but the theology here is anthropocentric. God is not so much known by the world he has created à la Romans 1 but by the actions that God-sent spirits produce in human beings. ⁶⁷

But which is foregrounded, God's plan or the deeds themselves? There may be a premium set on knowing God's plan in texts like 4.6 or 4.22, but deeds do not seem to function merely instrumentally in the Treatise. Especially in light of the eschatological purging of deeds envisioned in 4.18–23, knowing God's plan may primarily refer to knowing God's elect, in the present and the future, by the spirit-led evaluation of their deeds. Shane Berg insists that observation of human deeds creates ‘crucial religious knowledge about cosmic activity and intention. Specifically, human deeds provide a window into the unfolding of God's plan in creation and history.’ ⁶⁸

In terms of the anthropology itself, human deeds are central, and these are said to be governed by the spirits sent by God. The purging imagery in 4.18–23, however, also implies that the identity of the human being is not exhausted by his or her deeds at a single time. There is a struggle ‘in the heart [singular] of a human being [singular]’ between the spirits of truth and deceit, ⁶⁹ and some amount of deceit or falsehood can be cleansed away. Such a picture differs from those in which simply the unrighteous people are wiped away, ⁷⁰ and the cleansing implies that the essence of the human being must reside elsewhere than in his or her deeds.