The War Scroll (1QM)

The War Scroll is the strangest military document in antiquity: a liturgy in the form of an army manual, written for a war that had not happened. Nineteen columns describe a forty-year campaign in which the Sons of Light — the exiled sons of Levi, Judah and Benjamin — destroy the Sons of Darkness, the Kittim (almost certainly the Romans) and their allies. Everything is specified. The length of the shields and the metal of the javelins. The inscriptions on the trumpets: "The Mighty Deeds of God to Scatter the Enemy," "The Slain of God." The mottoes on the banners as the army advances and as it returns. The priests who blow the signals but must not defile themselves by touching a corpse. The seven engagements in which the two sides will prevail alternately, until in the seventh God''s own hand decides the battle. **Not really a strategy.** The tactics are borrowed from Roman practice, but the outcome never depends on them. The archangel Michael leads the heavenly host alongside the human army, Belial commands the other side, and victory belongs to God: *"Thine is the battle, and from Thee comes the power ... it is not ours."* **Where it stands.** Sectarian, in no canon.

The War Scroll is the fullest surviving picture of Jewish apocalyptic expectation on the eve of the New Testament — and it makes the shape of the gospel stand out sharply by contrast. Here is a community waiting for exactly what many first-century Jews wanted: a holy war in which God and his angels annihilate the Romans and the wicked, and the faithful remnant inherits the land. The Messiah of that hope is a conqueror. Against this background it becomes clear why Jesus'' refusal to raise an army was so disorienting, why the crowd wanted to make him king by force in John 6:15, why Peter drew a sword in the garden, and why the disciples still asked in Acts 1:6 whether he would now restore the kingdom to Israel. Revelation 19–20 uses comparable imagery of a final conflict, but with a decisive difference: the rider on the white horse has already won, his robe is dipped in his own blood, and no human army fights beside him. The New Testament takes the apocalyptic hope and relocates its victory to a cross. Modern translations are under copyright; Berean quotes briefly and links to the published editions.

• Revelation 19:11-21— A final battle already won by the rider on the white horse
• John 6:15— The crowd tries to make Jesus king by force
• Acts 1:6— Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

• ·Yigael Yadin, 'The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness' (Oxford, 1962)
• ·Jean Duhaime, 'The War Texts: 1QM and Related Manuscripts' (T&T Clark, 2004)
• ·Geza Vermes, 'The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English' (Penguin, 2011)
• ·The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library

• Manuscripts

  The Community Rule (1QS)

  Who the Sons of Light were