"In a common rejoicing" : Liturgical communion with angels in Qumran

Sammanfattning: The dissertation contains a study of the conception of "liturgical communion with angels"-its prevalence and import-as expressed in the Qumran texts. The writer views these texts as constituting the remains of a "sectarian library", the literary heritage of an exclusive and excluding community, whose self-image would have been characterised by its functioning like the Temple and in the constant presence of God's angels. Eighteen different text excerpts are focused on, liturgical as well as non-liturgical, all somehow attesting to variously expressed conceptions of "liturgical communion with angels". The majority of texts, however, only refer to or presuppose this kind of conception. They confirm that there is such a thing as communion with angels, but do not in fact "put it into practice" liturgically. It is theory rather than practice. The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, however, are understood to be a liturgical text cycle, the very performance of which might have been seen as joining together humans and angels in common worship. Lastly examined is 4Q491 11 I, a very enigmatic fragment containing the remarkable claims of someone already seated in heaven, possibly an early literary example of a tradition related to man's actual transformation; a priestly tradition, an "offshoot" of which would in due time imply "unio liturgica" in and through an elect emissary. Although the conception of "liturgical communion with angels" as expressed in the Qumran texts is obviously multi-faceted in terms of "time and space", the study, nevertheless, concludes that, at least primarily, it should be described as the idea of apresent and an earthly phenomenon, as a privilege and an experience which was available toall Qumranites, an idea featuring and marking the whole of the community.