Sectarianism and Soteriology. The Priestly Blessing (Numbers 6,24-26) in the Qumranite Community Rule (1QS) While sociological differences regarding food, dress, and other practices can and did signal tension between some religious groups in Second Temple Judaism, distinctions directly related to the question of personal salvation in the afterlife served that purpose for others (1). This is particularly true of the group that settled at Qumran about 150 B.C.E., and due to the prominence of religious language and thought in the Qumranites’ sectarian writings, conventional sociological and anthropological analyses are not capable of dealing comprehensively with the group’s secession from, and continued existence apart from the rest of Second Temple Judaism (2). Since corporately- uttered curses and blessings are valuable avenues for understanding the ideology of the groups who author and use them, this article will first consider the reuse of the blessing-curse pattern based on the Priestly Blessing (PB) of Numbers 6 in the Community Rule (1QS) (3). Comparison of how curses in particular were applied elsewhere in Second Temple Judaism informs some closing reflections on what the imaginative redeployment of the PB at Qumran tells us of the group’s ideology and self-identity (4). (1) An earlier version of this paper was presented in the Curses and Curse Stories in Mediterranean Antiquity Group at the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, 28 May 2007. While recognizing the value of conventional indices of sectarianism (tension, separation, difference, exclusivity, etc.; see B.R. WILSON, The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism. Sects and New Religious Movements in Contemporary Society [Oxford 1990]; R. STARK – W.S. BAINBRIDGE, The Future of Religion. Secularization, Revival and Cult Formation [Berkeley, CA 1985]), this paper explores their expression in terms of a religion concerned above all else with personal salvation from sin and its consequences. (2) See over the last few decades W.H. BROWNLEE, “Anthropology and Soteriology in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament”, Use of the Old Testament in the New and Other Essays. Essays in Honor of William Franklin Stinespring (ed. J.M. EFIRD) (Durham, NC 1972) 210-240; B. JANOWSKI – H. LICHTENBERGER, “Enderwartung und Reinheitsidee: Zur eschatologischen Deutung von Reinheit und Sühne in der Qumrangemeinde”, JJS 34 (1983) 31-62; M.A. SEIFRID, Justification by Faith. The Origin and Development of a Central Pauline Theme (NovTSup 68, Leiden 1992) 81-108; M. BOCKMUEHL, “1QS and Salvation at Qumran”, Justification and Variegated Nomism, vol. 1: The Complexities of Second Temple Judaism (ed. D.A. CARSON – P.T. O’BRIEN – M.A. SEIFRID) (WUNT 2/140; Grand Rapids, MI – Tübingen 2001) 381-414. (3) I define a curse (and, mutatis mutandis, a blessing) as a verbal expression of the wish that evil might befall someone, including but not limited to a “curse” lexeme but excluding pronouncements of woe. Blessings so defined overlap with prayers. (4) See further S.H. BLANK, “The Curse, Blasphemy, the Spell, and the Oath”, HUCA 23 (1950) 73-95; B. NITZAN, “Blessings and Curses”, Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. L.H. SCHIFFMAN – J. C. VANDERKAM) (Leiden 2000) I, 95-100. Such an approach has the advantage of constructing an understanding of the group’s self-image from the perspective of the group itself rather than by using a model from elsewhere; see J.M. JOKIRANTA, “‘Sectarianism’ of the Qumran ‘Sect’: Sociological Notes”, RevQ 20 (2001) 223-239.