Sectarianism and Soteriology 393 The continuity in the referents of the PB in Numbers 6 (pronounced upon Abram’s descendants as constituting the new nation of Israel) and the blessing of Abram and all his descendants in Gen 12 (which was familial in focus but pandemic in scope) illustrates to what extent 1QS has modified this facet of the HB’s outlook by redirecting the PB. Driving this shift is a fundamental difference in the Dead Sea group’s perception of its role in the world (12). While the election of Abram and God’s blessing of him were to serve the good of the entire human race, the same ideational complex served antithetical ends in 1QS. Not only did the sect decline to act as an agent of blessing for the world, but its posture toward outsiders of any stripe, Jews as well as Gentiles, was consistently dismissive in 1QS and other writings from the sect’s mature period (13). II. Similar Curses in Other Second Temple Literature While other Jewish literature of the Second Temple period also attests curses by Jews directed at other Jews, those maledictions almost always use moral criteria as the primary means to identify their targets, which include “sinners,” the “wicked”, or those who have committed a specific sin (e.g., intermarriage with Gentiles) (14). An interesting example of this phenomenon appears in Jubilees 23, where the renewed younger generation of Jews accuse their progenitors of unfaithfulness to the covenant (Jub 23,16). This new generation mounts a corrective military campaign against the older sinners, but to no avail, and Jubilees consequently proclaims that “a great punishment shall befall the deeds of this generation from the Lord, and He will give them over to the (12) When applied in this way, the PB-curse develops “the social solidarity and self- identity of the community by excluding other individuals or groups from that community” primarily on the tautological basis of the members’ election and non-members’ non- election, and secondarily with respect to obedience to the (sectarians’) law; J.S. ANDERSON, “The Social Function of Curses in the Hebrew Bible”, ZAW 110 (1998) 223-237 (235). (13) My approach to Qumran’s sectarianism is in accord with the diachronic taxonomies of the group’s literary corpus proposed by García Martínez and van der Woude (see F. GARCÍA MARTÍNEZ – A.S. VAN DER WOUDE, “A ‘Groningen’ Hypothesis of Qumran Origins and Early History”, RevQ 14/56 [1990] 521-541) and by G. BOCCACCINI, “Qumran and the Enoch Groups: Revisiting the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis”, The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls I. Scripture and the Scrolls (ed. J.H. CHARLESWORTH) (Waco, TX 2006) 37-66. (14) Outside the Dead Sea Scrolls, see 1 En 5,5-7 (against the wicked, contrasted with the elect); 41,8 (against sinners); 80,2-8 (against sinners); 97,10 (a woe against sinners, the unjust rich, and liars); 98,4b (against sinners); 102,3 (against sinners); Jub 9,14-15 (potentially against Noah’s descendants); 20,6 (against sinners); 24,27-33 (against the Philistines), 26,34 (Isaac against Esau); 30,15 (against Jews who intermarry); Bar 2,2-5 (against sinful Jews, including the speaker); TLevi 14,4 (a threatened curse against impiety); PsSol 4,14-22 (against hypocrites). In the Dead Sea Scrolls, in addition to the texts surveyed above see 1QS 4,12-14; CD 1,13-2,1; 1QM 13,4-5; 4Q201 2,12-17 (= parts of 1 En 2,1-5,6); 4Q280; 4Q286 frag. 7 line 2,13; 4Q289 frag. 1 lines 1-2; 4Q377 frag. 1 recto lines 2,4-6; 4Q473 frag. 2 lines 3-8. Here I draw on and modify the list given by J.S. ANDERSON, “Denouncement Speech in Jubilees and Other Enochic Literature”, Enoch and Qumran Origins. New Light on a Forgotten Connection (ed. G. BOCCACCINI) (Grand Rapids, MI 2005) 132-136 (132, n. 1).