Franco Manzi - Links Between Qumran and The Letter To The Hebrews

Links Between Qumran and The Letter To The Hebrews

In his doctoral research, Manzi does not detect direct dependence of the Letter to the Hebrews upon the texts and intellectual systems of Qumran, but at the very most, an indirect dependence that is owing to the common origin in the Jewish cultural background, and in particular speculation about the cultic role of angels. Manzi's proposal that the Melchizedek of llQMelchizedek is to be identified with the Almighty is not generally shared by earlier researchers and it remains for time to tell whether it gains acceptance, being contested by those who maintain that the instances where Melchizedek is presented as an agent of God rather than God himself are numerous. Nevertheless Manzi's thesis, despite its inaccessibility to those who do cannot cope with Italian, the only language in which it has been published so far, has been found "on many points, ... useful and convincing". The published version includes many extensive schemes, indices and bibliographical elements for anyone with a will to examine his arguments. In his later research and publications, Manzi has generally not pursued further investigation of the world of Qumran, which is not lacking in the attention of other scholars, but has been occupied with various themes connected with the Letter to the Hebrews and angelology, as well as the Pauline corpus. He was also one of the editors of the festschrift for his teacher Cardinal Vanhoye.