From the Qumran document called the Commentary on Habakkuk comes a passage that was an explanation of the phrase from Habakkuk 2:4 that says “the righteous will live by their faith”.
According to the translation here, the passage reads:
Interpreted, this concerns all those who observe the Law in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver from the House of Judgment because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness.
Now when VanderKam and Flint, in The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, discuss Paul’s relation to the scrolls a major question is whether Paul’s use of the Habakkuk passage in Romans 1:17 and Galatians 3:11 draws upon a similar understanding.
They say that there are two ways the word translated as “faith” could be taken. It could be taken as personal faith in the Teacher of Righteousness. In other words it could mean something like what evangelists mean when they call people to faith in Jesus Christ.
Or it could mean obeying the teachings of the Teacher of Righteousness.
Since the phrase “works of the Law” has been found in another Qumran text, there has been a lot of discussion about whether Paul rejected the idea of the kind of Torah obedience implied in the idea of observing the Law at Qumran (the etymology of the word “esssene” may well derive from “observers of the Law”). The New-Perspective-on-Paul people have seen Paul rejecting the “covenental nomism” of groups like the Qumran sect.
According to our authors the Qumran text probably interprets “the righteous will live by faith” both ways. That is, loyalty to the Teacher of Righteousness is part of it, but keeping the Torah as he interpreted it was inseparable from this.
They claim that Paul interpreted Habakkuk as only meaning personal loyalty or faith.
VanderKam and Flint discuss many other parallels between New Testament writings and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
In some of the speeches in Acts and in the book of Hebrews the method of interpreting scripture reminds us of Dead Sea documents. In both Hebrews and certain texts from Qumran Melchizedek prefigures the messiah. However, the Qumran texts speak of two messiahs, one of whom will be a Davidic king and one of whom will become a heavenly high priest. In Hebrews these two figures combine in Jesus.
Of course, there is also the use of 1 Enoch in Jude 6-7 and 14-15. 2 Peter probably depends on Jude rather than directly on 1 Enoch. The fall of the angels was due to sexual promiscuity which is compared to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah.
But the one other New Testament passage that VanderKam and Flint think may come directly from Qumran is 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1. This passage, which has sharp dualism between light and darkness and demands the separation of believers from unbelievers, is similar to the religious separatism of the Essenes.
It asks what agreement Christ has with Beliar. In the Dead Sea Scrolls Belial is a name for the evil one. The word occurs in the Hebrew Bible referring to worthless or wicked men. But the demonic sense of the word is a feature of the Dead Sea Scrolls. So this odd passage sounds more like Qumran than Paul.
2 Corinthians seems to result from stitching together various writings, most of them by Paul. But it must be admitted that this passage sounds unlike Paul.
VanderKam and Flint conclude that we find in the New Testament some ideas that we also find in the scrolls. But, for the most part, the New Testament authors went in a “different direction”.
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