Evil Powers, Exodus, and Future Deliverance: Qumran Texts and Sayings of Jesus

In the present article, I argue that a passage from the Damascus Document (CD 4:12–16 + 5:15–19) and an opaque saying attributed to Jesus (Luke 11:20) mutually illuminate each other. The starting point of both is the conception that a conflict between God and the evil power(s) took place before the Exodus. An analogy is drawn between this period and the present liminal period considered as the beginning of the eschatological period prior to the eschaton. The expectations for healing and resurrection in the eschaton in 4Q521 2 ii 8, 11–12 shed light on Matt 11:3 // Luke 7:19. When viewed through the lens of the conception that the eschatological period has already commenced, these expectations were transformed to Jesus’s activity in the present.