David Flusser

“this religious concept becomes evident from Josephus' description of John's baptism: "For thus, it seemed to him, would baptismal ablution be acceptable, if it were not to beg off from sins committed, but for the purification of the body, when the soul had previously been cleansed by righteous conduct" (Ant. XVIII, 117).94 By "purification of the body" Josephus means ritual purity, which was a concept of great importance in the Judaism of the Second Commonwealth generally. This purity, according to John the Baptist, is not obtainable without the previous "cleansing of the soul", i.e. repentance. This idea, that moral purity is a necessary condition for ritual purity, is emphatically preached in DSD, which says about the man whose repentance is not complete: "Unclean, unclean he will be all the days that he rejects the ordinances of God . . . But by the spirit of true counsel for the ways of man all his iniquities shall be atoned, so that he shall look at the light of life, and by the spirit of holiness which will unite him in his truth he shall be cleansed from all his iniquities; and by the spirit of uprightness and meekness his sin will be atoned, and by the submission of his soul to all the statutes of God his flesh will be cleansed, that he may be sprinkled with water for impurity and sanctify himself95 with water of cleanness" (DSD III, 5-9).96 This doctrine leads to the rule: "Let him not enter the water to touch the purity of the men of Holiness, for they will not be cleansed unless they have repented from their wickedness" (DSD V, 13-4; cf. ibid. VIII, 17-18). The regular ablutions of the sect, which enabled its members to touch their pure food97, were forbidden to outsiders (and to members of doubtful behaviour) because these ablutions were not considered valid unless preceded by full repentance. That baptism leads to the remisssion of sins was accepted by Christianity generally (Bul. 135-6), but the idea that the atonement is really caused by the repentance which precedes the actual immersion98 94. The first to interpret the NT correctly on the basis of Josephus's words was E. Meyer (Ursprung und Anfange des Christentums I, Berlin 1924, p. 88). His view is confirmed by the Scrolls. 95. See below. 96. W. H. Burrows, "John the Baptist" in The Scrolls (see note 1 above), pp. 39-41.—See also S. E. Johnson, "The Dead Sea Manual", ZAW 66 (1954), 107-8. 97. See C. Rabin, Qumran Studies, Oxford 1957, pp. 7-8. 98. The outward expression of this view in the baptism of John is the 51 gradually weakened in the new milieu.”
― David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity

“The Covenant brought to the members of the sect amongst other things deliverance from sin: it is "the covenant which God established for the first ones92 to atone for their transgressions" (CDC IV, 9-10), or, in a more explicit statement, "God in His wondrous mysteries atoned for their transgressions and took away their iniquity" (CDC III, 18). This practically means that one of the important functions of the sect as an institution is "to atone for the guilt of transgression and iniquity of sin" (DSD IX, 4). The Christian Church has a similar function, which is, however, based on a different theological claim: it is the death of the Saviour which atones for the sins of the Christian (Bul. 85, 100).93 This belief is often combined in Christianity with the institution of baptism, which also results in the deliverance from sin. In some NT passages (see I Pet. iii, 21; Eph. v, 25) there is a direct link between baptism and the death of Jesus, but originally the two notions were separate. This also emerges from the traditions about John the Baptist, who preached "a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins" (Mark i, 4; Luke iii, 3). The meaning of 92. See note 84 above. 93. Of course, already the first disciples of Jesus were of the view that his death brought atonement, but in the second Christian stratum the belief that the death of Christ atones for those who believe in him is typical. 50”
― David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity