11QMelchizedek (11Q13)
Fragments of a Hebrew scroll from Qumran Cave 11 that comment on verses of Scripture and centre on Melchizedek. It shows how some Jews read the figure of Genesis 14 and Psalm 110 before the letter to the Hebrews was written.
See the object at deadseascrolls.org.il ↗An English translation of column 2 (Posen Library; the opening lines are shown, the rest after free registration) ↗
The scroll is a parchment manuscript in Hebrew, found in Cave 11 at Qumran and surviving only in fragments. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which holds it, assigns the copy to the Hasmonean period and classes it among the exegetical texts, as a collection of pesher commentaries on verses from the Hebrew Bible.
In the Authority’s description the text focuses on Melchizedek and portrays him as a heavenly saviour who will rescue the righteous at the final judgment; its writer seems to take the word Elohim in several biblical verses as referring to Melchizedek. The description notes the likeness to what the letter to the Hebrews says of Jesus. The scroll is evidence for Jewish interpretation of Melchizedek in the last centuries BC. It is not evidence for the meeting told in Genesis; see Melchizedek Blesses Abram.
Cited in
- about 2085 BC, traditional date