Atonement Ideas in the Qumran Scrolls

This dissertation is an investigation of the atonement ideas in the non-biblical Qumran Scrolls against the background of the soteriology of this literature and of its antecedents in Israel. It contains an exegetical study and analysis of the atonement and salvation passages in the Scrolls and a summary of the movement of thought which these evince.
The main theses are that at Qumran the salvation ideas were influenced by Lev. 26 rather than by lsa. 53, that the verb “atone” was usually metaphorical, except for cultic atonement, and that the general character of the soteriology precluded ideas of supererogation or vicarious suffering.