judaism of the second temple period

JUDAISM OF THE

SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD

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EERDMANS -- Judaism of the Second Temple Period (Flusser) final textMonday, September 24, 2007 5:25:17 PM

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JUDAISM OF THESECOND TEMPLE PERIOD

volume 1

Qumran and Apocalypticism

David Flusser

Translated by

Azzan Yadin

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

The Hebrew University Magnes Press • Jerusalem, Israel

Jerusalem Perspective • Jerusalem, Israel

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Originally published in Hebrew under the title

Yahadut Bayit Sheni: Qumran ve Apocalyptica

(Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press and Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Press, 2002).

This English edition © 2007 William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,

The Hebrew University Magnes Press,

Jerusalem Perspective

All rights reserved

Published 2007 by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /

P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.

The Hebrew University Magnes Press, P.O. Box 39099, Jerusalem, Israel

Jerusalem Perspective, Jerusalem, Israel http://www.jerusalemperspective.com

Printed in the United States of America

12 11 10 09 08 07 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Flusser, David, 1917–2000

[Yahadut Bayit sheni. English]

Judaism of the Second Temple period / David Flusser; translated by Azzan Yadin.

p. cm.

Contents: v. 1. Qumran and apocalypticism

ISBN 978-0-8028-2469-1 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Judaism — History — Post-exilic period, 586 b.c.–210 a.d.

2. Jewish sects — History. 3. Jews — History — 586 b.c.–70 a.d.

4. Qumran community. 5. Apocalyptic literature — History and criticism.

I. Title.

BM176.F5513 2007

296.09¢014 — dc22

2007022167

www.eerdmans.com

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Contents

Foreword vii

Acknowledgments x

Introduction: Qumran and the Essenes xi

1. The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview 1

2. The Essene Worldview 25

3. The Economic Ideology of Qumran 32

4. Medicine and Qumran 38

5. A Pre-Gnostic Concept in the Dead Sea Scrolls 40

6. “In the Image of the Likeness of His Form” 50

7. “Not by an Angel . . .” 61

8. A Qumran Fragment and the Second Blessing of the Amidah 66

9. 4QMMT and the Benediction Against the Minim 70

10. The ‘Book of the Mysteries’ and the High Holy Days Liturgy 119

11. Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll 140

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12. The Death of the Wicked King 159

13. A Comment on a Prayer for the Welfare of King Jonathan 170

14. The Roman Empire in Hasmonean and Essene Eyes 175

15. The Eschatological Temple 207

16. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum 214

17. The Apocryphal Psalms of David 258

18. The “Flesh-Spirit” Dualism in the Qumran Scrolls andthe New Testament 283

19. “The Secret Things Belong to the Lord” (Deut. 29:29):Ben Sira and the Essenes 293

20. The Jewish Origins of the Early Church’s Attitudetoward the State 299

21. The Isaiah Pesher and the Notion of Twelve Apostlesin the Early Church 305

22. The Half-shekel in the Gospels and the Qumran Community 327

Index of Names 334

Index of Subjects 337

Index of Sources 342

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CONTENTS

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Foreword

Those who do not know Hebrew may finally read the English versions of Da-vid Flusser’s collected essays. The present volume, Judaism of the Second Tem-ple Period: Qumran and Apocalypticism, is the culmination of a remarkableeffort and collaboration on the part of translator Azzan Yadin and three pub-lishers: Magnes Press, Jerusalem Perspective, and Eerdmans. It is with greatsatisfaction that the publishers bring Flusser’s insights to a wider audience.

Flusser conversed fluently in nine languages and read scholarly litera-ture in an additional seventeen. His first language was German. His second,learned fluently only after his immigration to Israel, was Hebrew. Conse-quently, most of Flusser’s published writings are in German or Hebrew. Onlya small percentage of Flusser’s articles were authored in English. The scopeand importance of Flusser’s research is so great that it is unthinkable that hisHebrew and German writings should for long remain untranslated to En-glish. Flusser’s contributions to Dead Sea Scrolls research, Apocalypticism,and Apocalytic Literature is inestimable. Jerusalem Perspective is pleased tohave had a hand in this publishing endeavor.

Though Flusser wrote less often in the English language, he did succeedin producing two volumes in English: with the help of his student R. StevenNotley, he wrote Jesus (The Sage from Galilee, 4th ed., Eerdmans, 2007); andwith the help of his student Brad H. Young, he collected most of his Englisharticles into Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press,1988, 725 pp.).

My relationship with Flusser was one of a pupil to his mentor. Enrolledas a student in the department of Jewish History at the Hebrew University, I

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began to study New Testament and Early Christianity with Flusser in 1964. Atthat time, he was only 46 years old. He continued to enlighten me until the fi-nal days of his life, even from his hospital bed at the Hadassah UniversityMedical Center in Jerusalem. Professor Flusser died on September 15, 2000,his 83rd birthday.

Flusser was one of the world’s leading Jewish authorities on the NewTestament and Early Christianity. His pioneering research on Jesus andChristianity’s relationship to Judaism won him international recognition.Flusser’s collaboration with Robert L. Lindsey, beginning in 1961, resulted in anew approach to the Synoptic Gospels, the approach espoused by The Jerusa-lem School of Synoptic Research (www.js.org), which is an association ofJewish and Christian scholars. This unique cooperation was capped recentlyby the twelve essays (including one by Flusser, posthumously) of Jesus’ LastWeek: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels (ed. R. S. Notley, M. Turnageand B. Becker; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005).

In my judgment, disciples should assure that all the unpublished mate-rial of a prominent teacher is published before they publish their own re-search. The teacher’s work takes precedence over the disciple’s. With this inmind, I approached Hai Tsabar, director of Magnes Press, the publishing armof the Hebrew University, about the possibility of translating into English thetwo-volume collection of Flusser’s Hebrew articles that Magnes Press recentlyhad published. To my delight, Hai was as enthusiastic about the project as Iwas. It is my pleasure here to thank him publicly for facilitating this difficultand lengthy project.

Even before the project was envisioned, Jerusalem Perspective had madean effort to expand Flusser’s English bibliography. Since 1989, we have pub-lished most of Flusser’s English output; note these examples: “. . . To BuryCaiaphas, Not to Praise Him” (Jerusalem Perspective 33 & 34 [Jul.-Oct. 1991],23-28), and “New Portrait of Salome” (Jerusalem Perspective 55 [Apr.-Jun.1999], 18-23). These and Flusser’s other recent articles also have been pub-lished electronically at http://www.jerusalemperspective.com/.

The publishers wish to express their appreciation to Serge Ruzer. Inconsultation with Professor Flusser, Dr. Ruzer collected, arranged andbrought to press the two volumes of Flusser’s published Hebrew articles.(The present volume is the translation of the first volume of that collec-tion.) The publishers are greatly indebted to the volume’s translator, AzzanYadin, Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University. Mythanks are extended to the editors and graphic artists of Wm. B. EerdmansPublishing Company, who have given us a product worthy of Flusser’s ge-nius.

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FOREWORD

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Finally, I would like to sincerely thank the donors who made this vol-ume possible (see the Acknowledgments page), especially the Branch family.

David BivinJerusalem Perspectivehttp://www.jerusalemperspective.com/

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Foreword

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Acknowledgments

The publishers are deeply grateful to the following donors. Their generositymade the publication of this volume possible.

Stephen and Jean Branch(in memory of Buddy and Iris Branch)

Patricia West Branch

Steven Czarsty, Jr., and Judith Czarsty(in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Branch)

S. P. Branch(in memory of Bible translators William and Betty Sedat, Guatemala)

Wm. Stan and Suzy Bivin, Steve and Julie Bivin,Andrew and Margaret Bosanquet, Quincy and Joanne Burgess,

Alistair and Nicola Montgomery, Phillip and Linda Pattillo,Thomas and Colette Rumfelt, Paul, Clarice and Jeffery Steen

(in memory of Gregory Steen)

Dale L. and Pat Broam, James H. Charlesworth, Martha Eaton,Ryan Gustafson, Karin Hahn, Nancy E. and Vincent M. Johnsen,

Edwin and Helen Plenty, Warren J. Porter, Mitchell L. Riggs, L. Vasquez

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Introduction: Qumran and the Essenes

The articles in the present collection consist of my studies of the Dead SeaScrolls, a pursuit I began when the scrolls were first discovered and whichcontinues to this day, as their publication continues. Though some of thesestudies were published years ago, I chose not to needlessly update them. Ihave spared the readers many of the hypotheses put forward by some schol-ars, primarily because I do not wish to take part in the creation of the “phan-tasms” that seem to have sprouted like mushrooms in the wake of the “shock-ing” discovery, a discovery that, for whatever reason, causes some people tothrow discretion to the wind. That said, every publication, be it of a worth-while study or — and particularly — of a new Qumran text, requires a will-ingness to reexamine our assumptions and, on more than one occasion, toabandon established conclusions. This ongoing process is reflected in thestudies gathered in this volume.

Most scholars rightly identify the Qumran community with the Essenes,who are known to us from the writings of Josephus, Philo, and Pliny the Elder.If in the early days of Qumran scholarship Josephus shed light on the scrolls,today the roles are reversed and the scrolls aid in interpreting Josephus. In thecourse of investigation it has, moreover, become apparent that Josephus is amore accurate witness than Philo in all matters Essene. Of course, there arefacts that neither author mentions, and details they mention but the scrollspass over in silence. Ultimately, however, there are not many points of contra-diction between Josephus’ account and the writings of the sect.

The identification of the Qumran community with the Essenes doesnot answer all questions. It is clear that not all the Qumran writings are sec-

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tarian or reflect a specifically Essene sensibility. After all, the Qumran corpuscontains parts of all the books of the Bible except the Scroll of Esther (whichwas rare at the time), and even fragments of Ben Sira (Sirach), whose viewcertainly was at odds with that of the Qumran community. This apparentdiscrepancy may be due to the fact that the Dead Sea sect, like many of itscontemporaries, considered Ben Sira part of the biblical canon. In light ofthis, it is necessary to distinguish between the sectarian writings and the restof the Qumran texts. One scholar has proposed an orthographic criterion:that the sectarian writings employ a unique plene spelling. But while this hy-pothesis cannot be rejected out of hand, there is no reason to assume that aQumran scribe could not have employed this spelling when copying non-sectarian texts. Another distinguishing criterion may be the special, some-what artificial language of the sectarian texts, though here too the distinc-tion is not absolute.

There is no question that the whole (or almost whole) scrolls that werecomposed by the Qumran sectarians include the War Scroll, the CommunityRule (also called the Manual of Discipline) and the Rule of the Congregation,the Hodayot, the Temple Scroll, and 4QMMT. The status of the DamascusDocument is more complicated, since it was published before the discoveryof the scrolls from a medieval witness preserved in the Cairo Genizah. Whenthe scrolls were first discovered, there were scholars who recognized a con-nection between the Damascus Document and the Qumran writings. Sincethen, a number of important Damascus Document fragments from Qumranhave been published (see DJD XVIII, 1996). The Qumran fragments preservea reference to Damascus (there, p. 44), though it occurs in a problematic sen-tence that speaks of “the Interpreter of the Law who will come to Damascus”(CD 7.18-19). Now, the Interpreter of the Law is an important figure withinthe community. We further find reference to “the converts of Israel, who leftthe land of Judah and lived in the land of Damascus” (CD 6.5), and to “all themen who entered the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (CD 8.21, andsee also 10.19; 19.34; 20.21). It appears, then, that the Interpreter of the Lawcame to Damascus, where a new covenant was established among those wholeft Judah and “lived in the land of Damascus.” The matter is further compli-cated by the fact that the community of the Damascus Document differs withregard to its laws and its social structure from the strict ideological structureof the Qumran community, reflecting more closely the description of theEssenes found in Josephus. What was the fate of the Damascus group? Whydid the laws of the Damascus Document merge with parts of the Rule of theCongregation? Perhaps the community eventually settled near the Essenes onthe banks of the Dead Sea, though there will undoubtedly be scholars who

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INTRODUCTION: QUMRAN AND THE ESSENES

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will use these issues as a launching pad for much more colorful hypotheses(assuming, of course, they are aware of the severity of the problem).

As noted, we ought to distinguish the texts that contain the Esseneworldview from the Qumran trove as a whole. A similar challenge exists withregard to the relationship between the Essene writings and the biblical apoc-rypha. It is clear that the Essene writings are apocalyptic — this is a major is-sue in the scrolls. Among the Jewish apocryphal works there are some thatemerged from the same dualistic conception that gave rise to the Essene cult,including Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and the Book ofEnoch which is preserved in its entirety in Ethiopic (Geez).

One area that has not received the attention it merits is the potentialcontribution of Qumran Hebrew to the history of the Hebrew language. I be-lieve the language of the scrolls is largely artificial. The Qumran authors tookcare to avoid rabbinic Hebrew, preferring to imitate the Hebrew of the Bible,but the shift is not always smooth; occasionally one finds in the Qumran textsclear influence of Rabbinic Hebrew and even of Aramaic. Moreover, there areQumran passages whose Hebrew is very similar to that used in Jewish liturgyto this very day — passages composed by members of the sect itself. In this re-gard, it is important to bear in mind that the Essene sect, and the broadermovement within which it took shape, are part of the wondrous phenome-non known as Second Temple Judaism. It would be wrong to isolate theQumran sectarians from the broader Jewish context of the time. Indeed, theybear the same special message that helped shape the spiritual profile of Juda-ism to the present day.

As for early Christianity, my Judaism and the Origins of Christianity is acollection of essays devoted to that topic. Let me state for now that the teach-ings of Jesus reflect first and foremost the views of the sages, but they are alsoinfluenced by Jewish apocalypticism. Jesus knew the Essenes but rejectedtheir cultish separatism. To the extent that his teachings show traces ofQumran influence, it was most likely transmitted through John the Baptist,who was closer to the Essene sectarians (though he too rejected their separat-ism). Interestingly, the Qumran theology exerts greater influence on the sec-ond layer of formative Christianity, that is, on the epistles of Paul and otherNew Testament texts. A detailed discussion of these matters is available in myaforementioned book.

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Introduction: Qumran and the Essenes

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1. The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview

I

The discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls, whose authors were apparently theEssenes, has generated many new insights into different areas of the study ofancient Judaism, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. It is particularlyworth noting that the discovery of the Scrolls provides for us the earliestknown example of the ancient sectarian literature, and therein lies their im-port, as research tools into the social and religious underpinnings of the sects.The material that has been published thus far does not provide us with acomprehensive picture of the spiritual evolution of the sect, but with everynew publication we are able to piece together a fuller picture of the religiousferment within the sect. The publication of the Hebrew collection Otsar ha-Megilot ha-Genuzot (The Dead Sea Scroll Treasury)1 which is now widelyavailable, sheds new light on the spiritual dilemmas of the sect, and it seemsto me that we can now hazard a preliminary reconstruction of the spiritualdevelopment of the Qumran community.2

All the sectarian texts found in the Judean Desert exhibit a series of core

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1. Otsar ha-Megilot ha-Genuzot, E. Sukenik (ed.) (Jerusalem, 1954). [Translator’s note:The Dead Sea Scrolls are cited according to The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, F. García Marti-nez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar (eds.) (Leiden, 1997-1998).]

2. The present study assumes that the sectarian writings found in the Qumran caves wereproduced by a single group. It is evident that they belong to the library of the community whoseremains have been excavated, and that the texts all refer to a select group, outside of which thereis no salvation.

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religious and social beliefs, which define the sect and distinguish it from therest of the Jewish people. The classic formulation of this worldview is foundin the third and fourth column of the Manual of Discipline. The sectarianview is ultimately based on a doctrine of dualism, which divides the worldinto two warring factions: the faction of light and the faction of darkness. Ac-cording to the Qumran authors, every divine act is guided by this duality(1QS 3.25). The faction of light is led by the angel Michael, the Prince of Light(1QM 17.6), while the faction of darkness is headed by Belial, the Prince ofDepravity. The entire world is divided, with each faction including both hu-mans and angels. The sons of light, who are governed by the authority oflight, are, in fact, the members of the Qumran community. The sons of dark-ness, on the other hand, are the people of evil, consisting of anyone who op-poses the sect and its teachings. The doctrine of the bifurcated world and itswarring factions is related to the sectarian belief in predestination: “Beforethey existed He established their entire design. And when they have come intobeing, at their appointed time, they will execute all their works according tohis glorious design, without altering anything” (1QS 3.15-16). “Before creatingthem You know all their deeds for ever and ever. . . . Without You nothing isdone, and nothing is known without your will” (1QHa 9.7-8). Thus, the divi-sion into two hostile groups was determined prior to the creation of theworld. God furthermore decided who would be counted among the righ-teous, who among the wicked: “For you created the just and the wicked”(1QHa 12.38, and see also 7.14-21 and CD 2.7-12). And yet, this division is onlytemporary: “God, in the mysteries of his knowledge and in the wisdom of hisglory, has determined the end to the existence of injustice and on the ap-pointed time of the visitation he will obliterate it for ever” (1QS 4.18-19). Thescrolls preserve many eschatological visions concerning the destruction of thewicked, fantastic descriptions of reversals in the natural order of the world,an eruption of the forces of evil from hell, and a violent war between theforces of good and evil both on earth and in the heavens. Only the good willbe spared the otherwise total destruction — where “the good” refers, quitenaturally, to the members of the sect themselves.

These key doctrines are found throughout the Qumran writings. Thatsaid, a close examination of the individual texts reveals differences in the doc-trines and beliefs expressed in each. What is the nature of these differences? Isthere a discernable conceptual evolution, or perhaps there were different as-pects to their teachings? The following survey will attempt to answer thisquestion.

What was the core position of the sect concerning the creation of newideas within the Qumran community? The teachings of the sect — of at least

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JUDAISM OF THE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD

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some of them — were esoteric, and never intended for Israel as a whole. Indeed,the members of the sect were commanded to “hide the counsel of the Law inthe midst of the men of injustice” (1QS 9.17, and see also 10.24, and 1QHa 13.24-26). And yet, when the same member was afforded religious revelation of somekind, it was forbidden to keep it to himself, lest the elders of the community beangry with him: “And every matter hidden from Israel but which has beenfound out by the Interpreter, he should not keep hidden from them for fear of aspirit of straying”3 (1QS 8.11-12, and see also 9.16-19). Josephus also mentionsthese two complementary rules: according to his account, members of theEssenes would vow “to conceal nothing from the members of the sect and to re-port none of their secrets to others” (JW 2.141).4 As for the rule requiring thatmembers make available their discoveries to the broader community, it is tiedto the sect’s historiosophy, to wit, that the entire course of history, from arche toeschaton, has been divinely foreordained: “Everything has been engraved beforeyou with the stylus of remembrance for all the incessant periods and the cyclesof the number of everlasting years in all their predetermined times, and theywill not be hidden, and will not be lacking from before you” (1QHa 9.23-25).The history of the world has been foreordained, divided into a series of “times”or eras, to the point that it is said of human beings “You have shared out theirtasks in all their generations” (1QHa 9.16). One wishing to live according toGod’s will must, then, adopt a series of changing attitudes, each according tothe events of his time, of his generation. He must, then, “walk with everyone inthe measure of the truth and the regulation of the time” (1QS 8.4, and see CD12.20-21). This is the reason for the positive approach toward the religious fer-ment within the community — it was seen as a means of calibrating the spiri-tual and practical position of the sect with the changing course of history. Theoccasional revelations of divine will that manifested themselves within thecommunity provided guidance regarding the appropriate position to beadopted vis-à-vis the shifting conditions, and it was the sect member’s obliga-tion to act accordingly. It was incumbent upon him “to be united in the counselof God and walk in perfection in His sight, complying with all revealed thingsconcerning the regulated times of their stipulations” (1QS 1.8), while theQumran sages were enjoined “to fulfill the will of God in compliance with allrevelation for every period; he should acquire all the wisdom that has been

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The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview

3. The term ‘straying’ (ogsl) refers in the Qumran texts to a betrayal of the sect’s cove-nant. In the Manual of Discipline, the man is cursed who “enters this covenant, and places theobstacles of his iniquity in front of himself to stray” (1QS 2.12), “may he be cut off from themidst of all the sons of light because of his straying” (1QS 2.16). The Damascus Document dis-tinguishes between those who ‘stray’ and those who ‘hold fast.’

4. All citations from Josephus follow the Loeb edition, translated by Thackeray.

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gained according to the periods and the decree of the period” (1QS 9.13-14, andsee also 9.18-20, 8.15-16, 10.25-26, 4QPHab 7.11-14.5

The practical outcome of the community’s positive disposition towardthe revelations occurring in its midst, was that the individual members sup-ported the evolution of its sectarian doctrine, and even guided it. Needless tosay, the publication of individual views within the sect entailed a critique ofthe spiritual innovations of any individual member.6

II

The full elucidation of the intellectual evolution under discussion hinges onthe following questions: when were the individual scrolls composed? The ex-cavations at Khirbet Qumran7 demonstrate that the sect settled in the Judeandesert during the reign of John Hyrcanus (135-104 bce), or perhaps AlexanderJannaeus (103-76 bce),8 and remained there (apparently with an interruptionof a few decades during the reign of Herod) until the summer of 68 ce, whenthe region was destroyed by the soldiers of the X legion, during the war ofVespasian.

Two of the sect’s works reflect a recognizable political-historical setting,thereby allowing us to determine the date of their composition. The first ofthese is the War Scroll, an eschatological apocalypse, in which the Sons ofLight (i.e., the members of the cult) will conquer the entire world in fortydays. Their main enemy is the “Kittim of Assyria,” that is, the sons of Japheth

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5. The present discussion is intended as a supplement to my article on Qumran’s view ofprophecy, “The Apocryphal Book of Ascensio Isaiae and the Dead Sea Sect,” Judaism and the Or-igins of Christianity, 3-20.

6. Of course, only innovations that did not break with the core beliefs of the sect could beaccepted. Josephus recounts that the Essene initiate vowed “to transmit their rules exactly as hehimself received them” (BJ 2.142), perhaps the oath alluded to in 1QHa (6.20): “I do not ex-change your truth for wealth, or for a bribe all your judgments” since “all who know you do notchange your words” (6.15).

7. See R. de Vaux, “Fouilles au Khirbet Qumrân,” RB 61 (1954), 206-236.8. I am of the opinion that they settled in the desert during the reign of Alexander

Jannaeus. According to Josephus (AJ 13.311; BJ 1.78), Judah the Essene studied with his studentsin Jerusalem during the reign of Aristobulus I. The epithet “the exiled of the desert” (1QM 1.2)indicates that the community sought refuge in the desert from persecution, thus making it un-likely that some members remained in Jerusalem. I concur with Seligman (review of KarlElliger, Studien zum Habakuk-Kommentar vom Toten Meer [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1953],Qiryat Sefer 30 [1956], 44) that Jannaeus is a leading candidate for the “wicked priest” who per-secuted the Teacher of Righteousness, who was the founder of the sect.

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and their king — referring to the Hellenistic king in Syria, one of the Seleucidemperors.9 Since Syria was conquered by Tigranes of Armenia in 83 bce, andlater became a Roman province, it stands to reason this is a terminus antequem for the composition of the War Scroll.10

The second datable work is Pesher Habakkuk, a typological interpreta-tion that elucidates the words of the prophet as references to the history of thesect.11 Most scholars agree, and with good reason, that the Kittim12 “who . . .come from far off, from the islands of the sea, to devour all the nations, like aneagle, insatiable” (1QpHab 3.9-12), who occupy a central place in the Pesher,are the Romans, who appeared on the Jewish historical horizon at this time.The author of the Pesher understood full well that the Romans would play animportant role in the history of the Jews, and predicted quite accurately that“the last priest of Jerusalem, who will accumulate riches and loot from plun-dering the nations” will ultimately have their loot “given into the hands of thearmy of the Kittim” (1QpHab 9.4-7), that is, the Romans. Pesher Habakkuk,then, was composed prior to 63 bce, when Pompey conquered Jerusalem.13

5


9. The material on the Kittim in the War Scroll has been collected by Seligman in his re-view of Elliger, p. 43, n. 17.

10. I believe that it is possible to date the War Scroll more precisely to the reign ofJannaeus (see n. 8), which included a civil war during which the sect might have entertained thehope of seizing political power by force. The opening paragraph of the War Scroll (1.1-7) de-scribes the political situation during which the apocalyptic war will erupt. Though the para-graph is poorly preserved and difficult to reconstruct, I believe there are grounds to supposethat it reflects the reality of 89 bce, when Demetrius Eucaerus invaded the land “being helpedby the violators of the covenant” (1QM 1.2), namely, the Pharisees. I hope to discuss this issuemore fully at a later date.

11. In addition to Pesher Habakkuk there are also fragments of Pesher Micah and PesherPsalms, both of which display a similar interpretive approach, and may have been composed atthe same time — and perhaps by the same author. Philo speaks (Quod omn. Prob. Liber §82) ofan Essene custom in which following the Sabbath study of Scripture, a learned man wouldstand and explain everything that was in need of elaboration “symbolically”: t~ g~r pleÀsta di~sumbËlwn {rqaiotrËpæ zhlãsei par’ aÔtoÀv filosofeÀtai. It appears that Philo’s symbolic in-terpretation of the Essenes refers to the typological approach of the Pesher texts.

12. According to Josephus, this name applies to the nations of all the islands, and to mostof the Sea People (AJ 1.128). The word appears to originate in the phrase “But ships shall comefrom Kittim” (Num. 24:24), and was applied by Second Temple speakers to foreigners who cameby boat. Thus the Kittim mentioned in the War Scroll (as in 1 Maccabees 1.1 and 8.5) are theGreeks, while those in Pesher Habakkuk (and in Daniel 11:30) are the Romans.

13. And see M. Z. Segal, “On the History of the Sect Yahad,” Tarbiz 22 (1951), 138-140;Seligman’s review of Elliger, 43-44. I believe these scholars date Pesher Habakkuk too early, sincethey fail to notice that the text distinguishes between two historical eras: that of the Teacher ofRighteousness — which is referred to in the past tense, and that of the Kittim — referred to inthe future tense.

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The Manual of Discipline is the sect’s regulations, while Hodayot is acollection of religious poetry. Neither provides explicit references to the po-litical reality of the day, and so must be dated using — among other tools —their intellectual and doctrinal content. As I will argue in what follows, thiscontent points to a relatively late composition. Among other factors leadingto this conclusion is the conciliatory and irenic political tone of these texts,which contrasts with the activism of the War Scroll, on the one hand, but ac-cords with Josephus’s description of the Essenes as peace seekers, on theother. Moreover, I will argue that the Hodayot, which are appended to the endof the Manual of Discipline, contain innovative religious doctrines, unat-tested in the other Qumran texts. Therefore, the presumed order of composi-tion would be: the War Scroll (prior to 83 bce), Pesher Habakkuk (prior to 63bce), the Manual of Discipline, and the Hodayot.14

III

Do the scrolls reveal the social background of the Qumran community?Among the members of the sect, a special role is played by the priests: thesons of Aaron governed the property of the sect (1QS 9.7), taught Torah andproper conduct (1QS 6.3-5, CD 4.3-4, 5.5), and were “asked for their counsel inevery matter” (1QS 6.4). It is undoubtedly no coincidence that the founder ofthe community, the Teacher of Righteousness, is himself a priest (PesherPsalms 2.15, Pesher Habakkuk 2.8). Among the priests of the sect, a specialplace was reserved for “the sons of Zadok, the priests who safeguard the cove-nant” (1QS 5.2, and see also 9.14, and CD 4.3-4, 5.5). As a result, scholars haveconcluded — rightly, it seems — that certain priestly families played a crucialrole in the establishment of the sect.15

Throughout its existence, members of the community refer to them-selves with the biblical term }evionim, the word from which the Ebionites de-

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14. The dating of the Damascus Document is knottier. Rabin, The Zadokite Documents(Oxford, 1954), x, rightly asserts that the Damascus Document is made up of two distinct com-positions that were united by a medieval copyist. Needless to say, there is no assurance that thetwo compositions were originally produced at the same time.

15. See, in particular, Segal, “On the History of the Sect Yahad,” 137 and 149. Based on theinterpretation of Ezekiel 44:9 in CD 4.3-4, Seligman (review of Elliger, 44) argues that the term“Sons of Zadok” is used symbolically in the Qumran scrolls. However, he fails to notice that thepassage also interprets the word “priests” (kohanim). That the priests played a practical role inthe sect is evident both from the scrolls themselves and from Josephus, and see also Rabin,Zadokite Documents, 14.

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rive their name. In using this term, the Qumran community apparentlysought to emphasize their own asceticism and poverty — a corollary to theirvirulent attacks against the wealthy and privileged. The roots of this ideologyof poverty — a pattern that repeats with other movements in other historicaleras — are found in the lower social and economic status of most of theQumran sectarians. The Qumranites are distinguished by their poverty fromthe wicked, for “the strength of heroes lies in the abundance of luxuries, . . .the abundance of grain, wine, oil; they take pride in their belongings and pos-sessions” while the members of the community thank God that “You have notplaced my support in greed, nor in wealth . . . nor have you placed the inclina-tion of the flesh as my refuge” (1QHa 18. 22-25). They did not view their pov-erty as merely the result of social injustice; they elevated their poverty to aworldview. Not only does it distinguish them from the wicked rich, it acts as apositive force; they are not mere paupers, they are “poor in grace,” that is, thepoor who have a share in God’s grace. The phrase “poor in spirit” (1QM 14.7)marks the sect as a collective of the poor, within which the holy spirit acts,that is, as a community with a positive religious message.16 Indeed, the ideo-logical commitment to poverty manifested itself in the community’s practiceof shared property, as discussed both by Josephus and by the Manual of Dis-cipline. Josephus says of the Essenes “Riches they despise” (BJ 2.122). The ide-ology of poverty was closely connected with the ascetic tendencies evident atQumran: they eat one plate with a single course at each meal (130), avoid oilsthat soften the skin (123), and refuse to wear new clothing or shoes until theones on their body deteriorate completely (126).17 Indeed, audible laughterwas prohibited within the community: the bylaws of the sect determine apunishment for any member “who giggles inanely causing his voice to beheard” (1QS 7.16). The radical avoidance of any worldly pleasure is rooted inthe ascetic spirit that dominated the sect. No member of the community“should walk in the stubbornness of his heart in order to go astray followinghis heart and his eyes and the musings of his inclination. Instead he shouldcircumcise in the Community the foreskin of his tendency and of his stiff

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16. The early followers of Jesus, who apparently also hailed from the same lower strata,referred to themselves as “poor” (Luke 6:20) and “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3). The scrolls provethat the Matthean language should not be rejected as a later church emendation in the “Pauline”spirit.

17. The view that the Essenes avoided alcohol is not supported by the ancient sources.The Manual of Discipline (6.5) states that the Qumranites drank tirosh, a word that can betranslated according to its Mishnaic sense of unfermented juices (see Y. M. Grintz, “The Mem-bers of the Qumran Community” (Hebrew), Sinai [1953], 15), or according to its biblical senseof “wine.”

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neck” (1QS 5.4-5). Josephus similarly remarks (BJ 2.120) that the Essenes“shun pleasures as a vice and regard temperance and the control of the pas-sions as a special virtue.” This asceticism leads to a certain intensity in theirsocial and intellectual tendencies, and finds expression primarily in an abdi-cation of personal freedom for the sake of sectarian discipline. The Manual ofDiscipline demonstrates the extent to which the community’s bylaws system-atically took over the life of the individual, and even over his thoughts. Thetotalizing demands the sect made of its individual members were undoubt-edly a powerful force in shaping it as a single social entity. Moreover, the as-cetic demands included a separation from the dominant society and itsnorms:18 a practical manifestation of the hostility the community felt towardthe rest of society, portrayed as the lot of Belial and the Sons of Darkness,whose norms must be uprooted.

The contrast between the socially ascendant groups within SecondTemple Jewish society, on the one hand, and the community of “the poor”(}evionim), on the other, is further highlighted in the honorable title “the sim-ple of Judah” (1QpHab 12.4).19 The first Christians also adopted this honor-ific,20 casting themselves as the simple to whom God has revealed the secretskept hidden from “the wise and the intelligent.” It is possible that theQumranites who adopted this epithet did so to highlight their radical rejec-tion of the teachings of the sages. For according to the scrolls, the teachings ofofficial circles are not only misguided, they are deleterious: “They are media-tors of fraud and seers of deceit, they have plotted a devilish thing against me. . . to change your Law, which you engraved in my heart, for flattering teach-ings for your people; they have denied the drink of knowledge to the thirsty,but for their thirst they have given them vinegar to drink, to consider theirmistake. . . . But they, hypocrites, plot intrigues of Belial, they search you witha double heart, and are not firmly based in your truth. . . . They speak to your

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18. Following Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, M. J. Olgin (trans.) (New York, 1926).19. It appears the epithet ‘the simple’ peta}im derives from the sectarian midrash on “The

Lord protects the simple; when I was brought low, He saved me” (Psalm 116:6). It appears theyinterpreted the verse to apply to themselves, the simple whom God keeps and will, in the future,redeem them, since they accepted their poverty willingly.

20. The gospels (Matt. 11:25-30, Luke 10:21-22) preserve a prayer of thanksgiving attrib-uted to Jesus, which begins: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you havehidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to the simple.” Theprayer is similar to the Hodayot not only in its rhythmic structure and the opening “I thankyou”: the torah mentioned by Jesus is — like the sect’s — an esoteric teaching made known onlyto a select few, referred to as the simple, the same title applied to the Qumran community. (TheGreek n©pioi corresponds here — as in the Septuagint — to the Hebrew fyaop.) And seeE. Meyer, Ursprung des Christentums (1924), 280-291.

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people with staggering lip and weird tongue to convert to folly all their deedswith deceit. . . . For they said of the vision of knowledge: It is not certain! andof the path of your heart: It is not that!” (1QHa 12.9-18). These words bespeakan opposition between certain circles in Second Temple Judaism and theQumran community, and, indeed, a conflict between two mutually exclusiveworldviews, each claiming exclusive truth.

There was clearly a deep rift between “the poor of grace” and their con-temporaries, a rift explained by the scrolls in theological terms, as part of thedivision of the world into two warring parties. “For God has sorted them intoequal parts until the last time, and has put an everlasting loathing between[their] divisions. Deeds of injustice are an abhorrence to truth and all thepaths of truth are an abhorrence to injustice. (There exists) a violent conflictin respect of all their decrees since they cannot walk together” (1QS 4.16-18).This dualistic doctrine provides an ideological grounding for the sect’s hatredtoward the broader society, that is, toward all who rejected their teachingsand lifestyle, and refused to share in their plans. The members of Qumranvow “to love all the sons of light, each one according to his lot in God’s plan,and to detest all the sons of darkness, each one in accordance to his guilt inGod’s vindication” (1QS 1.9-11; and see Josephus, BJ 2.139). Hatred toward thesurrounding society is thus transformed into a religious commandment. Thedualistic doctrine similarly justifies the radical disengagement from others,since they are the wicked who are to be avoided. “None of the men of theCommunity should acquiesce to their authority in any law or regulation. Noone should eat of any of their possessions, or drink or accept anything fromtheir hands unless at its price. . . . No holy man should support himself on anydeed of futility, for futile are all those who do not know the covenant. And allthose who scorn his word he shall cause to vanish from the world; all theirdeeds are uncleanness before him and there is uncleanness in all their posses-sions” (1QS 5.15-20, and see also CD 6.14-16). Their isolated residence in thedesert allowed the Qumran community to strictly adhere to God’s com-mandment, that a chasm be maintained between the two parties that makeup humanity. The desert community set itself apart from “the dwelling of themen of sin” (1QS 8.13), and distanced itself from all of the sinful society oftheir day. At the same time, the desert affords an effective means for the as-cetic withdrawal of the community from all worldly pleasures, from “thenoise of the nations and the uproar of kingdoms” (1QHa 14.7).

That said, it is clear that the move to the desert has a concrete socialfunction as well. After all, many popular movements in antiquity had theirgenesis in a departure for the desert. This move was motivated by the difficultsocial conditions, and often by pressures and persecutions that caused the

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group to seek safe haven in the desert. It appears that persecution played arole in the Qumran community’s move to the desert.21 Proof of this is foundin the War Scroll (which in our reckoning was composed early on in the exis-tence of the sect), which refers to the members of the community as “the ex-iled of the desert” (1QM 1.2), that is, as having been forced to go into exile inthe desert. According to the War Scroll, the members of the community willdo battle against the forces of the enemy “when the exiled sons of light returnfrom the desert of the nations to camp in the desert of Jerusalem” (1QM 1.3).Here, then, the departure for the desert is seen as a means of concentratingthe forces needed for the revolutionary military operation.

In those days, anyone seeking a total revolution adopted an apocalypticdoctrine. After all, these doctrines hold that the corrupt order cannot beoverturned until the current world passes away and a new world order arises,one suited to divine justice. Man cannot precipitate this revolution unaided;righteousness will take the place of corruption only with divine assistance.The apocalyptic thinker sees himself as living in the final generation, and thusmaintains the hope of seeing the dawn of a new, just world.

We saw above that for the Qumran community there existed a chasmbetween them and the rest of Jewish society, a.k.a. the Sons of Darkness, achasm that could only be bridged in the end of days, when evil is completelyabolished. The worldview of the “poor of grace” was, then, thoroughly apoca-lyptic: they believed their time was the end time. They were “those who ob-serve the Law, whose hands will not desert the service of truth when the finalage is extended beyond them, because all the ages of God will come at theright time, as he established for them in the mystery of his cunning” (1QpHab7.11-14). God, then, has revealed to them the secrets of “the consummation ofthe era” (1QpHab 7.2), which they may yet live to witness. Only the righteous— these being, of course, the members of the Qumran community — will bespared the total annihilation. In them will the verse “The meek shall inheritthe earth, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity” (Ps. 37:11) be ful-filled, a verse that concerns “the congregation of the poor who will tough outthe period of distress and will be rescued from all the snares of Belial”(4QpPsa 2.9-11). The end of days will usher in not only a cosmic revolution,but a social revolution, here on earth, in which “the wicked ones of Israel willbe cut off and exterminated for ever” (4QpPsa 3.12-13), and “the congregationof his chosen ones . . . will be chiefs and princes” (4QpPsa 3.5). The apocalyp-

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21. These persecutions did not cease even after the community had exiled itself, as “theWicked Priest pursued the Teacher of Righteousness to consume him with the heat of his angerin the place of his banishment” (1QpHab 9.4-6).

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tic doctrines did not merely console the Community, they promised wonder-ful rewards to those who steadfastly adhere to the community of the poor.

It should be noted that the scrolls published thus far do not emphasizethe role of the messiah. True, one of the Hodayot speaks of the birth of “awonderful counselor with his strength” (1QHa 11.10), i.e., the messiah.22 Thereare also scattered references to “the messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS9.11),23 references to the messiah and to the high priest of his time;24 however,so far none of the scrolls that have been discovered give voice to doctrines orbeliefs that involve the personality of the messiah (or the two messiahs). Itappears that the relatively marginal role of the messianic figure within the re-ligious system of the scrolls is the result of the central role played by theQumran community itself in the redemption of humanity.

Apocalyptic beliefs are intended from the outset to motivate the believ-ers to change their ways: they are formed for this very purpose, and acceptedby their holders as such. The nature of the change depends, of course, on thecontent of the beliefs. Thus, the belief of Jesus and his disciples that the king-dom of heaven had already appeared, situated them in a realm of purely ethi-cal considerations, which led to a fundamentally pacifistic decision. In con-trast, the doctrine of the absolute eradication of evil in the end of days —which appears in all the major scrolls — contains a strong element of resis-tance to contemporary society as such. This apocalyptic view is rooted in thedualistic nature of Qumran’s teachings: in the end of days the lot of Belial willbe annihilated and the sons of light will rule the world. But the hope for es-chatological revolution was not presented as a flight of fancy. For it is thishope that inspired one of the Qumran scribes to compose the War Scroll,with its detailed discussion of the war between the sect and its enemies. Inthis war, which will last forty years (see also 4QpPsa 1.6-8), the sons of lightwill emerge from the desert, conquering the Land of Israel, then the entireworld. The author does not merely imagine the development of the war —

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22. This particular hymn teaches an eschatological dualism. When the mother of themessiah becomes pregnant, there will be another who is “pregnant with a serpent” in Sheol, andwhen the messiah is born “the gates of Sheol will open for all deeds of the serpent” (1QHa 11.1-18). Most of the hymn is devoted to this eruption of evil forces.

23. And see also CD 7.21, 20.1, 13.21, 14.19. Admittedly, the current form of CD speaks oflarqyw vrha jyqm “the messiah of Aaron and Israel” (and once of the messiah from Aaronand Israel [CD 20.1]. However, it is clear that the copyist “corrected” the difficult phrase “themessiah of Aaron and Israel” by omitting the yod of yjyqm. The discovery of the scrolls hasdemonstrated the error of building mountains of interpretation on the omitted yod of a medi-eval copyist.

24. On the doctrine of the two messiahs in Qumran and elsewhere, see Grintz, “TheMembers of the Community,” 30-33.

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the opening paragraph of the War Scroll (1QM 1.1-7) sets out the historicalconditions that will hold at the time of its outbreak. As noted, we are of theopinion that these conditions could not hold after 83 bce. The war will begin“when the exiled sons of light return from the desert of the nations to campin the desert of Jerusalem” (1QM 1.5). It would appear, then, that we are situ-ated at the beginning of the community’s desert sojourn, the beginning of itsexile. The ultimate goal of the war — world conquest — is admittedly fantas-tic, but it should be noted that the scroll allots six years of battle to the con-quest of Israel, and that most of the text is devoted to battling a very real en-emy, the “Kittim of Assyria” and their (Seleucid) king. The detaileddescription of the warriors’ armaments and battle tactics further suggeststhat the author believed this to be a realistic plan. It appears the War Scrollwas intended to urge the members of the community to hasten salvationthrough military force. After all, this was a period of fierce civil wars and re-curring invasions by foreign enemies; a military adventure might not haveseemed so far-fetched. Indeed, a group centered in the desert may well havehoped that, given the general upheaval in the Land of Israel, they might enjoythe same success as the early Maccabees.

The driving force behind the War Scroll and its military plans was theideological commitment of an apocalyptic mind. This would be the war toend all wars. The two camps facing off in battle are, in fact, the two factionsinto which God has divided the world. The “Sons of Light,” the Qumranites,will fight the Sons of Darkness, with absolute victory to the former. Thenthere will dawn “a time of salvation for the nation of God and a period of rulefor all the men of his lot, and the everlasting destruction for all the lot ofBelial” (1QM 1.5). Indeed, the entire cosmos will participate in the war, andthe Sons of Light will receive succor from heavenly forces, “for this will be theday determined by him since ancient times for the war of exterminationagainst the sons of darkness. On this (day), the assembly of God and the con-gregation of men shall confront each other for great destruction. The sons oflight and the lot of darkness shall battle together for God’s might, betweenthe roar of a huge multitude and the shout of gods and of men” (1QM 1.10-11).The confidence of the author that “the poor whom you save” will be able “tofell the hordes of Belial” (1QM 11.8-9) is, then, based on two factors. First, thebelief that the entire war is part of God’s plan — for “since ancient time youdetermined the day of the great battle . . . to exterminate all the sons of dark-ness” (1QM 13.14-16). And second, the expected assistance of the heavenlyhosts, headed by “the majestic angel of the kingdom, Michael” (1QM 17.6).

The War Scroll, then, is an admixture of apocalyptic visions and sobermilitary strategy; a cosmic victory is assured the Community by its advanced

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war tactics. This combination of mythical doctrines and Realpolitik consider-ations, which allowed the author to plan the war down to the most minutedetails, is not sui generic. To the contrary, this is the typical ideology of Jewishmessianic movements, as well as various medieval sectarian movements —an ideology that on occasion succeeded in pushing its adherents into actualwar (as with the Hussites and the German peasants). As far as we know, how-ever, the Qumran community never tried to carry out the plans of the WarScroll.

We have seen that the War Scroll advocates one of the core beliefs ofQumran, namely the division of the world into two factions (see particularly1QM column 13). The enmity toward the “lot of Belial” — couched as a reli-gious commandment by the sect — encouraged them to conceive of a mili-tary action that will destroy the Sons of Darkness. The division of the worldinto two factions is understood as a divine decree that precedes the creationof the world. In other words, there was current at Qumran a belief in “dou-ble” predestination (praedestinatio duplex):25 God determined who would berighteous and who wicked. “You, you alone have created the just man, andfrom the womb you determined him for the period of approval to keep yourcovenant . . . to open all the narrowness of his soul to eternal salvation andendless peace without want. And you have raised his glory above flesh. Butthe wicked you have created . . . from the womb you have predestined themfor the day of slaughter. For they walk on a path that is not good . . . their soulloathes your [covenant]. . . . You have established all those . . . to carry outgreat judgments against them before the eyes of all your creatures” (1QHa

7.17-23). Both the reward of the righteous and the punishment of the wickedare divinely predestined. As scholars have noted,26 the belief in double pre-destination does entail that its adherents passively submit to their fate. Whenthe believers believe that as members of God’s lot they must act in accordancewith God’s will, the praedestinatio duplex can provide them confidence anddetermination,27 “for all their deeds are in your truth” (1QHa 14.8-9). In addi-tion to this confidence, the doctrine of double predestination can engenderamong its adherents an ideology of military activism (e.g., Cromwell’s puri-

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25. I hope to demonstrate in a separate study that this doctrine made its way into Chris-tianity from the Qumran community or a sister movement.

26. See M. Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie (1922) 1.102, n. 2, and 1.11,n. 4.

27. Adding to Weber’s statements (cited in the previous note), I would point out that it isprecisely the double predestination that exhorts its believers to action. The notion that God cre-ated both the righteous and the wicked recognizes these as moral categories. A person who feelsthat he has been selected to righteousness, and that his deeds are just, is confident in all his actions.

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tan soldiers), for the enemies of God’s select were indeed created to be pun-ished. Moreover, the victory of the righteous over the Sons of Belial has beenforeordained, and thus may be seen as a fait accompli. The War Scroll es-pouses the doctrine of predestination (see in particular 12.1-5) and believedthat the enemies’ downfall at the hands of the sons of light is a foregone con-clusion, since “we, in the lot of your truth, rejoice in your mighty hand . . .whose mighty hand is with the poor . . . since ancient time you determinedthe day of the great battle . . . to humiliate darkness” (1QM 13.12-16).

From these statements it is clear that the dualism, double predestina-tion, and apocalypticism of the Qumran community could engender an ac-tivist ideology (as indeed happened in other movements), and, as the WarScroll clearly demonstrates, this activism took on a military form. Of course,this ideology is not limited to a single book. After all, the War Scroll was ac-cepted within Qumran, so the hopes of its author were shared by the commu-nity, at least for a time. As we will see, even after the sect underwent a signifi-cant spiritual transformation, the Qumran community did not completelyrelinquish their activist stance,28 but rather postponed the earthly revolutionto the distant future time. Apparently, the War Scroll came to be understoodas referring to this more distant future.

IV

The day of judgment awaited by the War Scroll’s author never came. Themembers of the community began to realize that “the final age will be ex-tended and go beyond all that the prophets say, because the mysteries of Godare wonderful” (1QpHab 7.7-8). When the Romans invaded, the Qumranitessaw them — and not the members of the community — as the instrumentsof divine wrath against “the last priests of Jerusalem . . . [for] in the last daystheir riches and their loot will be given into the hands of the army of theKittim” (1QpHab 9.4-7).

Were it not for the existence of elements that proved themselves mallea-ble to these new developments, the failure of the activist line might have sig-naled the collapse of the Community altogether. But the extant sources por-tray the Dead Sea community as a fascinating example of the evolution of a

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28. Josephus famously describes the Essenes as pacifists, but he also tells of John theEssene, who fought valiantly against the Romans (BJ 2.567; 3.11, 19). It stands to reason that theEssenes — or at least some of them — were swept up in the national uprising against theRomans. Those who participated in the war probably felt that the predestined day of judgmenthad arrived.

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philosophy that manages to preserve itself only by altering the meaning of keyconcepts, even to the point of outright reversal.

The activism that had earlier dominated now became a conditionalpacifism. To be sure, the members of the Community did not relinquish theirdream of ultimate victory, but they did allow that the time for this victory wasnot yet at hand. They are now “[those who keep] their nerve until the time ofyour judgments” (1QHa 6.4). The community bases this new position on thedoctrine of double predestination, which itself undergoes a transformation.The same view that had previously emboldened the author of the War Scrollto outline a holy war aimed at annihilating the lot of Belial, now becomes anideology of patient acceptance of the injustice that governs the world. Thenew logic is as follows: God predetermined the time of vengeance against theSons of Darkness according to his secret wisdom, but has yet to reveal thistime to his followers. It is incumbent upon the members of the sect to avoidany rash activity that might undermine the world order established by Godsince before creation, for “all who know you do not change your words. Foryou are just, and all your chosen ones are truth. All injustice and wickednessyou obliterate for ever, and your justice is revealed to the eyes of all your crea-tures” (1QHa 6.15-16). Similarly we find admonitions to each member of theCommunity that “in this time . . . all that happens to him he should welcomefreely and be gratified by nothing except God’s will . . . [and] wish for nothingthat he has not commanded and be ever alert to the precept of God” (1QS9.24-25). In other words, he must acquiesce to the unjust decrees of the gov-ernment of Belial that currently rules the world, since this too is God’s willand one cannot rise up against it. The day of judgment will surely come, butfor now it is necessary “to reply with meekness to the haughty of spirit, andwith a broken spirit to the men of the bending (of the Law), those who pointthe finger and speak evil” (1QS 11.1-2). It is from this spirit of acquiescence tothe evil forces governing the world that the community member prays toGod, promising: “I shall not repay anyone with an evil reward; with goodnessI shall pursue man. For to God (belongs) the judgment of every living being,and it is he who pays man his wages. I shall not be jealous with a wicked spirit,and my soul shall not crave wealth by violence. I shall not be involved in anydispute with the men of the pit until the day of vengeance” (1QS 10.17-19).Josephus too recounts — in an almost precise parallel — that the Esseneswears “to keep his hands from stealing and his soul pure from unholy gain”(BJ 2.141). But he omits to mention that they abstain from revolutionary ac-tivity only for a limited time — “until the day of vengeance.” The demand toacquiesce to those wielding worldly power has ramifications for one’s per-sonal behavior: not only must one abstain from violence toward them, it is

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necessary to obey their political and economic demands. “In this time,” theManual of Discipline enjoins “everlasting hatred for the men of the pit inclandestine spirit. To them he should leave goods and hand-made items like aservant to his master and like one oppressed before someone domineeringhim. He should be a man enthusiastic for the decree and for its time, for theday of revenge. He should perform (God’s) will in all that his hand shouldtackle and in all that he controls, as he commanded” (1QS 9.21-24). Followingthe failure of the activist approach, the hatred of the men of the pit — thevery people who are to be destroyed in the approaching day of vengeance —is buried under the facade of the absolute subjugation fitting of slaves!

There is a further parallel between Josephus’s description of the Essenesand the scrolls, with regard to the acceptance of imperial authority. Accordingto Josephus, they vow “to keep faith with all men, especially with the powersthat be, since no ruler attains his office save by the will of God” (BJ 2.140).Here too Josephus makes no mention of the temporary nature of this subjec-tion, nor of the “everlasting hatred for the men of the pit in clandestinespirit.” Did the Essenes manage to hide their hatred of society at large andtheir eagerness for the day of vengeance from Josephus, or did he omit thesedetails because they did not fit with his portrait of the Essenes as Jewish phi-losophers, seekers of peace and brotherhood? Whatever the case, the Manualof Discipline and the Hodayot describe a community that refrains from eviland lovingly accepts their worldly suffering. Their outward behavior fits wellwith the ideal portrayal of the Essenes known from Josephus and Philo — as-suming, of course, one overlooks the doctrine of eternal hatred and ven-geance to which they secretly adhered.

Like all Jewish movements, the Qumran community considered itselfverus Israel, “Israel who walk in perfection” (1QS 9.6).29 But when their hopesof gaining political power came to naught, the hope of being identified as thesum total of the Jewish people was dashed as well. Only when the sinning Is-rael will be destroyed, only, then, in the eschaton, will the Community aloneremain as the true Israel. As a result, the destruction of all the nations of theworld — the main focus of the War Scroll — is almost wholly absent from theother scrolls. The contrast between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Dark-ness is limited, in practical terms, to sectarian hatred aimed at the rest of theJewish people.

The shift in the Yahad’s attitude toward mainstream Judaism finds ex-pression in the content of the term berit, covenant. The author of the War

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29. Manual of Discipline 8.12 reads “And when these come into being in Israel,” and thescribe added “a Yahad” above the line — perhaps an appositive gloss to ‘Israel’?

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Scroll knows of a single covenant, the one God forged at Sinai with “a nationof holy ones of the covenant” (1QM 10.10): “You established a covenant withour fathers and ratified it with their offspring for times eternal” (1QM 13.7-8).But in other scrolls, the word oyrb often signifies the teachings of the Sect, itsrules and its commandments, to the exclusion of the remainder of the Jewishpeople: “for futile are all those who do not know the covenant” (1QS 5.19).This covenant is the result of God’s graceful selection of the Community, andso it is called “a covenant of grace (dsj oyrb)” (1QS 1.8). It is also referred towith the biblical eschatological name “new covenant” (CD 6.19; 8.21; 1QpHab2.3). True, this “new covenant” does not — as Christianity would have it —nullify the old, but it is — as it is for Christianity — a sine qua non of salva-tion. The community of “God’s chosen” (1QpHab 10.13) has become a sect, inthe technical sense of the word.

The author of the War Scroll believed the members of the Communitywill ascend together from the desert of Jerusalem, seize the Temple, and theirpriests “shall take their positions at the burnt offerings and the sacrifices, inorder to prepare the pleasant incense of God’s approval, to atone for all hiscongregation” (1QM 2.5), but when this vision failed to materialize, there de-veloped a severe religious and practical difficulty: the members of the Yahadbelieve the Temple to be defiled and presently not able to be purified. How,then, can they maintain their religious obligations toward God while distantfrom the impure Temple? Their answer was to represent the commandmentsand special purity restrictions of the Yahad as a full and satisfactory substitutefor the Temple service in which they never participated. In their words:“When these exist in Israel in accordance with these rules in order to establishthe spirit of holiness in truth eternal, in order to atone for the guilt of iniquityand for the unfaithfulness of sin, and for approval for the earth, without theflesh of burnt offerings and without the fats of sacrifice — the offering of thelips in compliance with the decree will be like the pleasant aroma of justiceand the perfectness of behavior will be acceptable like a freewill offering”(1QS 9.4-5). Indeed, the special commandments of the Qumran communityare described as “pleasing atonement” (1QS 3.11).30 The men of the Yahad

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30. Josephus and Philo refer to this issue in their description of the Essenes. Philo recountsthat the Essenes “have shown themselves especially devout in the service of God, not by offeringsacrifices of animals, but by resolving to sanctify their minds” (Quod om. Pr. 1.75; following F. H.Colson’s translation for the Loeb edition). And Josephus is referring to this as well in saying that“They send votive offering to the temple, but perform their sacrifices employing a different ritualof purification. For this reason they are barred from those precincts of the temple that are fre-quented by all the people and perform their rites by themselves” (AJ 18.19). Josephus’ account hasgiven rise to various speculations as to the “offerings” of the Essenes. Some scholars suggested

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conclude that the defiled sanctuary in Jerusalem is not, in fact, the Temple —rather, the sect itself is the true Temple: “at that time the men of the Commu-nity shall set apart a holy house for Aaron, in order to form a most holy com-munity, and a house for the Community for Israel, those who walk in perfec-tion” (1QS 9.5-6; see also 8.4-11; CD 3.19-4.4). The elevation of the Temple to aspiritual-mystical symbol is for the God-community of the Yahad a responseto their distance from the actual Temple services. The elevation of the Yahaditself to the status of a spiritual Temple provides the conceptual underpin-nings for the special role of the priests in the community. It is likely no coinci-dence that immediately following the words of 1QS cited above, there follows:“Only the sons of Aaron will have authority in the matter of judgment and ofgoods, and their word will be definitive” (1QS 9.7).

V

The Essene psalmist who composed the Hodayot compares the men of theYahad to “trees of life in the secret source, hidden among all the trees at thewater” (1QHa 16.5-6). The Community lives in hiding, set apart from the evilworld that refuses to recognize it: “He who causes the holy shoot to grow inthe true plantation hides, not considered, not known, its sealed mystery. Butyou, O God, you protect its fruit with the mystery of powerful heroes andspirits of holiness, so that the flame of the searing fire will not reach thespring of life, nor with the everlasting trees will it drink the waters of holiness,nor produce its fruit” (1QHa 16.10-13). The small group of God’s select sits inthe Judean desert, adhering to its teachings and commandments, and ab-staining from any activity “until the time of your judgment” (1QHa 6.4). Fornow, it is incumbent upon the Qumran community “to take root before theygrow and their roots extend to the gully” (1QHa 16.7). They must drink theholy waters from the source of divine knowledge and immerse themselves inthe wondrous secrets of God.

What were the challenges facing the men of the Yahad in those days?

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that the phrase diaforËthv |gne¾wn means “the distinction of the offerings,” failing to notice thatthis is merely a scholastic form of di}foroi |gne¾ai (the various offerings) of the Essenes, men-tioned in BJ 2.159. (Compare di}foroi baptismo¾ in the Epistle to the Hebrews 9:10). This was ap-parently understood by H. Liezmann, Geschichte der alten Kirche (1937), 1.22. It should also benoted that the Latin translation of Antiquities (6th century) and the Epitome (10th or 11th cen-tury) read: jus¾av oÔk ›pitŸlousin diaforËthti |gne¾wn. This reading is not attested in any of themanuscripts, and it is clear that the oÔk has been inserted in a misguided attempt to emend thetext and thus clarify its meaning.

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They delved deeply into the question of mankind, its natural baseness and theglory that God gracefully sets upon it. There emerged from within the Com-munity the spiritual doctrine of man’s election through divine grace, a doc-trine that has so far been found only in the hymn appended to the Manual ofDiscipline and in the hymns of the Hodayot.31

The dualistic doctrine of Qumran asserted that there is a unity betweenthe good and the pure, on one hand, and between the evil and the impure, onthe other. The spirits of light engender “generous compassion with all thesons of truth, of magnificent purity which detests all unclean idols” (1QS 4.5),while to the spirit of deceit belong “appalling acts performed in a lustful pas-sion, filthy paths in the service of impurity” (1QS 4.10). The same identifica-tion of impurity and sin is heard in the words of the War Scroll: “Accursed beall the spirits of [Belial’s] lot for their wicked plan, may they be damned fortheir deeds of filthy uncleanness” (1QM 13.4-5).32

Like most apocalyptic thinkers, the members of the Qumran commu-nity believed that the present days are governed by the forces of deceit, or, touse their dualistic phraseology, the current era is “all the days of Belial’s do-minion” (1QS 2.19; 1.23; and see also CD 4.12-13; 6.14; 12.23; 1QpHab 5.7). Inlight of this, the Manual of Discipline concludes, that if the world is currentlyunder the dominion of Belial and his lot — the source of all impurity — thenthe world itself is in the realm of impurity. The world “has been defiled inpaths of wickedness during the dominion of injustice until the time ap-pointed for the judgment decided” (1QS 4.19-20). Even mankind itself hasbeen defiled in sin by the dominion of Belial, and will be restored only in theend of days, when the rule of evil is abolished. “Then God will refine, with histruth, all man’s deeds, and will purify for himself the structure of man, rip-ping out all spirit of injustice from the innermost part of his flesh, and cleans-ing him with the spirit of holiness from every wicked deed. He will sprinkleover him the spirit of truth like lustral water (in order to cleanse him) from

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31. To be sure, the doctrine of man’s inherent impurity and election through divine graceis found only in liturgical texts. But this does not mean that the doctrine is limited to this genre,since the Manual of Discipline contains extended theological discussions, while the War Scrollcontains numerous liturgical passages. It appears, then, that the doctrine is absent from thescrolls published thus far simply because it had not yet been formulated at the time of theircomposition.

32. Thus it is clear that the purification of the Yahad in the “waters of uncleanness” (hdynym) (1QS 3.4; 4.21) is tied to purification from sin (see also Isaiah 1:16; Ezekiel 36:25). Members ofthe community are enjoined as follows: “He should not go into the waters to share in the purefood of the men of holiness, for one is not cleansed unless one turns away from one’s wicked-ness, for he is unclean among all the transgressors of his word” (1QS 5.13-14, and see also 3.4-9).

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all the abhorrences of deceit and (from) the defilement of the unclean spirit”(1QS 4.20-22).

The characterization of man as a creature who has been defiled by thedominion of Belial paves the way for a doctrine of mankind as inherently sin-ful and errant — a doctrine that plays a central role both in the hymn ap-pended to the Manual of Discipline and in the Hodayot.33 Man is no longer acreature that has become defiled, but “human uncleanness” (1QS 11.14-15) and“a sin of flesh” (1QS 11.12).34 These are the congenital conditions of one bornof woman: man is “a creature of clay, fashioned with water, a foundation ofshame and a source of impurity, an oven of iniquity and a building of sin, aspirit of error and depravity without knowledge” (1QHa 9.21-23); a base crea-ture, innately governed by its sinful urges for “every impure abomination andguilt of unfaithfulness” (1QHa 19.11); a “structure of dust fashioned with wa-ter . . . shame of dishonor and source of impurity . . . and a depraved spiritrules over him” (1QHa 5.21-22); “he is in iniquity from his maternal womb,and in guilt of unfaithfulness right to old age” (1QHa 12.30). Disgust and re-vulsion in the face of man’s nature, as well as disdain for human society, aretypical of those who would negate the world and flee from it, and it is to thiscategory that the Qumran community clearly belongs.

The scrolls posit an unbridgeable gap between mankind and God, for“To you, God of knowledge, belong all the works of justice and the founda-tion of truth; but to the sons of Adam belong the service of iniquity and thedeeds of deception” (1QHa 9.26-27). Is there, then, a path of salvation formankind from its own base and sinful nature? The members of God’s elect

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33. In addition to these sources, there is one mention in the Damascus Document of theenemies having “defiled themselves with human sin and unclean paths” (CD 3.17).

34. The word ‘flesh’ (rqb) regularly refers in the Hodayot to man qua material creaturewho cannot be the agent of his own salvation. This sense appears to derive from biblical He-brew, where rqb refers, inter alia, to the human body, and rqb lc (‘all flesh’) is all livingcreatures. There are also a number of biblical verses that could cause a religious doctrine thatdisdains human nature to adopt the term as a designation of man’s corporeality and materialbeing, for “evil belongs to humankind, to the assembly of the unfaithful flesh” (1QS 11.9).Among these verses are: “My [= God’s] breath shall not abide in man forever, since he too isflesh” (Gen. 6:3), “all flesh had corrupted its ways on earth” (Gen. 6:12), “in God I trust, I amnot afraid, what can flesh do to me?” (Ps. 56:5), “He remembered that they were but flesh, apassing breath that does not return” (Ps. 78:39), and others like these. Paul’s use of ‘flesh’ isidentical to that found in the Hodayot (see, e.g., “the sin of the flesh” [1QS 11.12] and Romans8:3), so this sense should be seen not as a Pauline innovation but rather a stage in the semanticdevelopment of the biblical term in certain Jewish circles. It is worth noting that the War Scrollusually employs the term to refer to the war cadavers, while the special sense of ‘flesh’ is unat-tested in this document.

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community know “that there is hope for someone you fashioned out of dustfor an everlasting community. The depraved spirit you have purified fromgreat offense” (1QHa 11.20, and see also 6.6; 9.14). God lifts up the man whodesires him from his base destiny and purifies him of “the uncleanness of hu-man being and from the sin of the sons of man” (1QS 11.14-15). This is done bybestowing upon man the divine spirit, for “the path of man is not secure ex-cept by the spirit which God creates for him” (1QHa 12.31). Indeed, God ele-vates his elect from the baseness of man to the sublime heights of the angels:“For the sake of your glory, you have purified man from offense, so that hecan make himself holy for you from every impure abomination and guilt ofunfaithfulness, to become united with the sons of your truth and in the lotwith your holy ones, to raise the worms of the dead from the dust, to an ever-lasting community and from a depraved spirit to your knowledge, so that hecan take his place in your presence with the perpetual host and the spirit . . .to renew him with everything that will exist and those who know in a com-munity of jubilation” (1QHa 19.10-14). Needless to say, not all people aregranted the gift of purifying spirit. The dualistic doctrine of Qumran assertsthat only part of humanity has been elected to be counted among the righ-teous — and that part of humanity that God has chosen to purify of their de-filement and sin is, of course, the members of the Yahad themselves.

Man is “a creature of clay fashioned with water” (1QHa 9.21) and “un-faithful flesh” (1QS 11.9), and only the gift of spirit can purify and redeemhim. There is, then, a dichotomy between the material element of human ex-istence and the purifying spirit. Yet it should be noted that there has not yetbeen found in the scrolls an explicit contrast between materiality as such —or the material world — and the spiritual realm of the divine, a division thattypifies a strand of Greek thought beginning with Plato and down throughthe various Gnostic movements.35 The scrolls do not negate the world assuch. True, the Manual of Discipline asserts that the world “has been defiledin paths of wickedness during the dominion of injustice” (1QS 4.19), but it isnot inherently a source of impurity. God established it as the place for thespirits of light and darkness (1QS 4.2), and even “created man to rule theworld” (1QS 3.17-18). Moreover, the wondrous secrets of creation and the im-mutable laws governing the universe are proof of God’s greatness and singu-lar will (1QHa 9.7-20). Indeed, these laws of righteousness only serve to high-light the nullity of mankind (1QHa 9.21-27).

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35. It should be noted that up to now I have not found in the scrolls any identification ofthe lot of light with life and of evil with death, a correspondence attested both in pagan religionsand in the early church.

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The view expressed in the Hodayot and the Manual of Discipline, ac-cording to which man is a base, defiled and impure creature, is organicallytied to the passive version of divine predestination. According to this doc-trine, everything is determined in advance solely according to God’s will, thisbeing the sole source of all being, for “by his knowledge everything shallcome into being, and all that does exist he establishes with his calculationsand nothing is done outside him” (1QS 11.11). Thus, God has foreordained aparticular individual to be righteous and one of God’s elect, since from“[God’s] hand is the perfection of the path” (1QS 11.10-11). It appears, then,that by the Community’s account, man’s corrupt nature prevents him frombecoming righteous through his own agency, for man is a creature of “eviland unfaithful flesh” (1QS 11.9), and his works are bereft of value. Man is abase creature, helpless to raise himself up if not for God’s will: “I am dust andashes, what can I plan if you do not wish it? What can I devise without yourwill? How can I be strong if you do not make me stand? How can I be learnedif you do not mould me?” (1QHa 18.5-7). When God’s unique and absolutewill decides to elevate one of his elect from the guilt and defilement that isotherwise his lot, when God decides to bridge the yawning chasm that divideshim from helpless mankind, this divine judgment is not contingent upon hu-man merit — for indeed there is no such thing — but rather upon the mercyand grace of the beneficent deity: “I know that no one besides you is just. Ihave appeased your face by the spirit which you have placed in me, to lavishyour kindnesses on your servant forever, to purify me with your holy spirit, tobring me near by your will according to the extent of your kindnesses” (1QHa

8.19-21). The elect’s knowledge that he has been blessed with God’s grace, fillshim with confidence and provides him with inner fortitude: “But when I re-membered the strength of your hand and the abundance of your compas-sion36 I remained resolute and stood up; my spirit kept firmly in place in theface of affliction. For I leaned on your kindnesses and the abundance of yourcompassion. For you atone iniquity and cleanse man of his guilt throughyour justice” (1QHa 12.35-37). The doctrine of man’s election through preor-dained divine grace seeks to clarify the means by which an individual meritsbecoming one of the elect. It is a doctrine that reflects a religious sensibilitythat is concerned with individual salvation, which apparently dominated the

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36. “The abundance of your compassion,” which appears in the holiday musaf liturgy, isan ellipsis of “your heart and your compassion” in Isaiah 63:15. The Greek translator of Isaiahunderstood vwmh as pl«jov, and so too in the scrolls we find fymjr vwmh paralleling owjylsbwr. This Hebrew phrase was translated similarly in the Epistle to the Ephesians (1:7): ploØtovt«v q}ritov aÔtoØ. Both 1QH and Ephesians use fymjr vwmh as a definition of the divine gracethrough which God designates His elect.

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Yahad at that time. According to this doctrine, the Community is the sum to-tal of all the individual elect: “All the sons of your truth you bring to forgive-ness in your presence, you purify them from their offences by the greatness ofyour goodness, and by the abundance of your compassion, to make themstand in your presence for ever and ever. For you are an eternal God and allyour paths remain from eternity” (1QHa 15.29-32). And similarly: “For I knowthat shortly you will raise a survivor among your people, a remnant in yourinheritance. You will purify them to cleanse them of guilt. For all their deedsare in your truth and in your kindness you judge them with an abundance ofcompassion and a multitude of forgiveness. According to your mouth youteach them, and according to the correctness of your truth, to establish themin your council for your glory” (1QHa 14.7-10). The Community, which is theonly path to salvation, is not only the natural framework that encompasses allof God’s elect; adherence to the Yahad and observance of its laws are a neces-sary condition of redemption. Thus, membership in this fellowship of graceis itself one of the gracious acts that God has bestowed upon his chosen ones:“You, you alone, have created the righteous man . . . to keep your covenant”(1QHa 7.17-18). Indeed, the elect’s recognition that it is the purifying holyspirit that beats in his heart as he is elevated “from a depraved spirit to Yourknowledge” (1QHa 19.12), as well as the exoteric and esoteric doctrines of theCommunity — to which the members wholly devote themselves — all theseare gracious acts of a beneficent God toward his elect: “And your compassionfor all the sons of your approval, for you have taught them the basis of yourtruth, and have instructed them in your wonderful mysteries” (1QHa 19.9-10).In other words, the Community itself played a central role in the doctrine ofGod’s gracious salvation of man. This doctrine is of course not contrary tothe accepted views within the Yahad regarding the cosmic role of the “com-munity of God” in the processes that govern the universe, from its inceptionto its ultimate end, nor to the notion that the members of the Communitywill be handsomely rewarded in the end of days for their fidelity to the Yahad.

The teaching that it is predestined divine grace that elevates one fromthe human impurity posits a sharp opposition between the vast majority ofmankind, that is doomed, on the one hand, and the small number of electwho have been purified. Humanity is divided along a horizontal line, with asmall group of individuals elevated above it through the will of God. This di-chotomy is essentially different from the vertical division of the two campsfacing off against one another — the lot of God and the lot of Belial, the Sonsof Light and the Sons of Darkness — which is one of the key teachings of theWar Scroll and of the Manual of Discipline. The Hodayot are aware of this di-vision as well (see, e.g., 1QHa 7.17-32; 6.18-20), albeit in a much weaker form,37

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as the doctrine of the individual’s election out of the defiled state of mankindmoves front and center. It is possible that the two doctrines of election arenot, from a conceptual point of view, mutually exclusive, and thus may befound in conjunction.38 Another possibility is that the Qumranites recon-ciled the two doctrines by assuming that all of humanity is the lot of Belial,judging by its crooked ways, whereas only those purified of the “sins of man-kind” are of the lot of light.

The scrolls published thus far bear witness to three distinct stages in theDead Sea Community’s doctrinal development. First, the division of theworld into two hostile factions and the doctrine of predestination, which to-gether served as the basis for bellicose activism (the War Scroll). Second,though the sect does not abdicate its activism altogether, it does postpone thedestruction of the wicked to the more distant future and endorse a condi-tional pacifism. Their hatred of the surrounding society becomes “everlastinghatred . . . in the clandestine spirit,” as they maintain a façade of slavish sub-mission to the regnant world order. This new position is based on a doctrineof divine predestination in its passive version: since the “ultimate end” hasnot yet come, members of the Yahad must not rebel against the will of God,but rather refrain from taking any action against the wicked (Manual of Dis-cipline, Hodayot). Finally, there emerges a doctrine of man’s predestinedelection out of a divine grace. This doctrine is based on the regnant views ofthe Yahad, that mankind is inherently defiled and sinful, and that the passivedoctrine of predestination indicates that all human action is ultimatelyrooted in God’s will (Hodayot, the hymn appended to the Manual of Disci-pline). It appears, then, that after the political conditions of the day forced theCommunity to relinquish its activist approach, they adapted their teachingsto the new reality and settled for a hidden hatred toward surrounding society,while nursing a hope for their eventual triumph. In time, however, the sectbecame enclosed within itself, turned away from the great masses of human-ity that are steeped in the “impurity of man, the sinfulness of mankind.” Itsmembers immersed themselves in the doctrine of man’s election through di-vine grace, a doctrine that showed them the way to their personal salvation.

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37. It should be noted that “Belial” designates an angel of darkness in the War Scroll andin the Manual of Discipline, but ‘something bad, a transgression’ in the hymn appended to 1QSand in the Hodayot. This meaning is also reflected in the Septuagint, and see Flusser, “TheApocryphal Book of Ascensio Isaiae and the Dead Sea Sect,” Judaism and the Origins of Chris-tianity, 5, n. 6.

38. Indeed, the same two doctrines are attested in primitive Christianity. I hope to showelsewhere that their roots are in the Dead Sea Community, or affiliated circles.

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2. The Essene Worldview

In 1950 I published an article in which I summarized my views of the Essenes.1Since then, many additional Qumran texts have been published, as well as en-lightening articles, but though new problems have arisen and altered the pic-ture somewhat, the basic arguments remain pertinent today. The communitythat lived in Qumran was undoubtedly the Essenes, who are known to us fromcontemporary authors. When the study of the scrolls was in its infancy,Josephus was taken as the main guide to understanding their content. Today,the scrolls shed light on Josephus’s statements about the Essenes. It seems twomain questions must be raised: First, which of the Qumran texts were writtenby the Yahad itself, and which by members of the apocalyptic movement fromwhich the Essenes emerged? Second, in what areas did this strict sect allow forflexibility in matters of doctrine? For there is no question that the Essenes werea “doctrinal collective” that instituted a binding theological worldview. Theseare weighty questions, and absolute answers are hard to come by, among otherreasons due to the fragmentary nature of the extant material.

The composition of several apocryphal works can be located in thebroad context out of which the Essene sect emerged, among them Jubilees,1 Enoch, and the Testaments of the Patriarchs. There is also a compositionthat has been preserved in an early Christian text, Didache, which was alsopreserved independently in a Latin translation from Greek. Researchers havedubbed the text “The Two Ways.”2

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1. See “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” in the present volume.2. See Flusser, “The Two Ways” (Hebrew) in the Hebrew edition of Judaism and the Ori-

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I begin with a short discussion of “The Two Ways,” which by all ac-counts is a Jewish text that has been incorporated into the Didache, and earlyChristian work from 100 c.e., approximately. Thus, “The Two Ways,” whoseoriginal language is Greek, was written no later than the first century c.e. Itopens:

There are two ways in the world, one of life, the other of death, one oflight, the other of darkness; upon them two angels are appointed, one ofrighteousness, the other of iniquity, and between the two ways there is agreat difference. (1.1)3

The way of light is accompanied by fascinating ethical advice, while theway of darkness consists largely of an enumeration of sins. The author, ofcourse, exhorts the reader to choose the path of life and avoid sin. The imageof two ways is familiar from the Greeks, and is also attested in rabbinic litera-ture. The dualism of this image fits well with the Essene spiritual worldview,but is at odds with the doctrine of predestination that is characteristic of theEssenes, according to which it is God who creates the righteous and thewicked. According to the doctrine of double predestination, the scope of hu-man decision is extremely narrow, whereas the image of the two ways seeks todemonstrate to the reader that he has the freedom to choose between the wayof life and the way of death. According to Rabbi Aqiva, this very decision wasput to the first human: “God put before him two ways, the way of life and theway of death, and he chose for himself the way of death.”4

As noted, this is the opening image of the tractate “The Two Ways,”which has been preserved in the Christian Didache. The phrase cited above issimilar to the well-known theological discussion in the Manual of Discipline(3.13–4.36), though there the goal is different: the theology seeks to provide aconceptual foundation for the Essene doctrine of double predestination,whereas the opening of “The Two Ways” holds that man must decide for him-self which of the ways he chooses.

Still, there is no question that “The Two Ways” exhibits literary ties tothe theological tractate in 1QS, as a comparative analysis readily reveals. Here

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gins of Christianity (Tel Aviv, 1979), 235-252; idem, “Which Is the Right Way That a Man ShouldChoose for Himself?” Tarbiz 60 (1991), 163-178.

3. See H. van de Sandt and D. Flusser, The Didache: Its Jewish Sources and Its Place inEarly Judaism and Christianity (Assen and Minneapolis, 2002), 128.

4. Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael to Exodus 14:29, Mekilta de Rabbi Ishmael, J. Z. Lauterbach(trans.) (Philadelphia, 1933), 2.248. See also the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai ad loc.;Pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 13.8-9; 2 Enoch 2.15.

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we find that translating the Greek of Didache 3.7-8 yields a statement identicalto that of 1QS 4.3: “It is a spirit of meekness, of patience, generous compas-sion, eternal goodness.” Not only is the terminology identical, they are listedin the same order. Thus there is clear evidence for the literary dependence of“The Two Ways” on the Manual of Discipline. How, then, can we explain thisliterary dependence, on the one hand, and the theological differences, on theother?

The answer to this question appears to lie in the fact that the author of“The Two Ways” possessed an earlier version of the Manual of Discipline, inwhich the doctrine of double predestination — so central to the worldview ofthe Qumran Community — had not yet been inserted. According toJosephus, the Essenes believed “that Fate is mistress of all things, and thatnothing befalls men unless it be in accordance with her decree” (AJ 13.172, andsee also 18.18). Along the same lines we find the statement in the Manual ofDiscipline: “From the God of knowledge stems all there is and all there shallbe. Before they existed he established their entire design. And when they havecome into being, at their appointed time, they will execute all their works ac-cording to his glorious design, without altering anything” (1QS 3.15-16).

The starting point of our analysis is the dictum of Rabbi Aqiva, citedabove. According to his view, already the first human was given the choice be-tween two ways — a choice subsequently given to each and every human be-ing: the way of life or the way of death. We may hypothesize that this was theoriginal version of the theological tractate in the Manual of Discipline, beforethe Essene editor reworked it to fit the doctrine of predestination. The origi-nal wording no doubt stated that man must decide whether to walk in thepath of righteousness, or in the path of wickedness. The image of two wayswas not excised from the Manual of Discipline altogether, but now the deci-sion which path to follow is no longer a matter of human choice, but of di-vine predestination. The editor made a number of textual changes, in order topromote his own position. It is possible that the hypothetical original versionincluded a statement about the first human being presented with the choicebetween the two ways. The matter becomes clearer if we compare the extantversion with the hypothetical original:

1QS 3.17-21He created humanity (qwna) to rule the worldAnd placed for him two spirits so that he would walk with them . . .They are the spirits of truth and of deceit . . .In the hand of the Prince of Lights is dominion over all the sons

of justice;

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The Essene Worldview

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They walk on paths of light.And in the hand of the Angel of Darkness is total dominion

over the sons of deceit;They walk on paths of darkness.

Reconstruction of the Earlier Version

He created man (fda) to rule the worldAnd placed for him two ways so that he would walk with them . . .They are the ways of truth and of deceit . . .In the hand of the Prince of Lights is the way of justice;Those who choose it walk on paths of light.And in the hand of the Angel of Darkness is the way of deceit;Those who choose it walk on paths of darkness.

There is also a striking similarity between “for God has sorted theminto equal parts . . . since they cannot walk together” in the Manual of Disci-pline (4.16-18) and the opening statement of “The Two Ways” (cited above).

I have no doubt that the earlier version of the theological tractate in theManual of Discipline originally stated that God “created man [and not just‘humanity’] to rule the world” (3.17), since that is the language used in Gene-sis 1.26-28. Thus we learn — and not only from Rabbi Aqiva’s dictum — thatGod placed two ways in which to walk before the first human. It is hard to saywhat the (whole) theological tractate looked like before the Essene revisionbrought it in line with their doctrine of predestination. Irrespective, I haveshown elsewhere,5 that the four terms that appear in the Manual of Disciplineappear in the same order in “The Two Ways.” It stands to reason, then, thatthe author of “The Two Ways” knew, at least, the earlier version of 1QS 4.2-14,which includes the two opposing lists of the ways of light (4.2-8) and the waysof the wicked (4.9-14). These two lists served as paradigms for his parallellists.

Clearly, then, the doctrine of double predestination was the grand inno-vation of the Qumran community, as it crystallized into a sect with its partic-ular doctrines, thus distinguishing itself from the broader apocalyptic move-ment. The conditions for such a move had appeared earlier. The literaryworks produced by this apocalyptic movement — e.g., 1 Enoch, Jubilees, theTestament of the Patriarchs — clearly emphasize the dualism of good andevil, both in the mortal world and in the world of the angels and spirits. Thesetexts also record ‘Belial’ and ‘the Prince of Depravity’ (hmtqmh rq) as epi-

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5. See above, n. 2.

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thets for the devil. Finally, they mention a community of God’s elect that doesnot include the People of Israel as a whole.

These matters are more or less well established. In my opinion, we canfurther state with relative confidence that certain Qumran scrolls or compo-sitions were written by the Essenes — using criteria not limited to the doc-trine of predestination. It is much more complicated to determine which ofthese are purely sectarian works, and which have their origins in the circlesthat were close to the Essene sect. After all, even if a certain text or a certainpassage does not reflect Essene ideology or terminology, this does not meanthat it does not belong to the sectarian corpus; Essene authors were not re-quired to demonstrate their adherence to the sect’s teachings in every wordthey wrote.

The publication of Qumran fragments over the last several decades hasmade apparent the need to rethink the nature and scope of groups that grewalong the periphery of the sect, because they refused to accept its governmentand its doctrine of predestination, in all its severity. It is quite possible thatJohn the Baptist and his movement were situated on the margins of theQumran community.6 It is also possible that both the Testament of the Patri-archs and “The Two Ways” were composed on the margins of the sect, andgrew out of a polemic with its teachings, particularly predestination and theEssene interpretation of shared property.

While the Testament of the Patriarchs and “The Two Ways” were com-posed, in Greek, on the margins of the Qumran community, they are basedon sources that belong to the broader movement from which the Essene sectemerged. In any case, it appears these compositions date to before the estab-lishment of the sect. Our analysis of “The Two Ways” clearly indicates that itis rooted in a pre-Essene version of the theological treatise within the Manualof Discipline. As for the Testament of the Patriarchs, it is possible that it too isbased on earlier sources, since an earlier version of the Testament of Judahwas one of the sources of the Book of Jubilees. The two cases at hand are typi-cal of the crystallization of new religious movements, as well as movements inpolitics and philosophy. A new movement emerging from an existing frame-work will often turn to an earlier literary stratum of the mother movement.The use of earlier material, then, does not contradict the assertion that we aredealing with the periphery of the Essene sect.

This is not the place for an in-depth exploration of the question of mes-sianic hopes and the figure of the messiah or, more accurately, the three mes-

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6. See my article, “John the Baptist and the Dead Sea Sect,” in the Hebrew edition of Ju-daism and the Origins of Christianity, 81-112. See also my book Jesus (Jerusalem, 1998).

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siahs: the offspring of the house of David, the high priest of the end of days,and the prophet identified in rabbinic literature as Elijah.7 The hopes forthree messiahs were not limited to the sect. Already in 1 Maccabees, as part ofthe ‘appointment letter’ given by the Jewish people to Simon, the son ofMattathias, we find three roles critical to the proper functioning of the “Stateof Israel”: Simon will be “their leader and high priest forever, until a trust-worthy prophet should arise” (1 Macc 14:41). The absent element is the re-newal of the prophetic office, but this need is filled — according to theHasmonean faithful — in the days of John Hyrcanus, Simon’s son. He unitedthe three offices, being the political leader of Israel, the high priest, and aprophet (AJ 13.209, and see BJ 1.68).

The belief in three messiahs found its way into Christianity as well, andits harbingers may be evident in the gospels. Already the Ebionites, a Jewish-Christian sect, held that the person of Jesus encompassed all three roles: theking, the high priest, and the prophet. The same idea appears in the writingsof Eusebius, who adduces biblical prooftexts to show that the epithet ‘mes-siah’ (jyqm, anointed one) is applied to kings, prophets, and high priests. Thenotion that Jesus is king, prophet, and high priest, made its way from Catho-lic theology to one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin,and became one of the fundaments of Protestant doctrine. Thus, a Jewishidea attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls became one of the most important mo-tifs in Christian theology.

As noted, 1 Maccabees states that the people bestowed upon Simon theson of Mattathias both political power and the high priesthood, “until a trust-worthy prophet should arise.” The phrase “trustworthy prophet” was used bythe Ebionites in reference to Jesus, while the Sages emphasized the messianicking, the “son of David.” Both the prophet, Elijah, and the righteous priestwere relegated by the Sages to the margins of their messianic expectations.Both the Essenes, and the broader movement from which they emerged, ele-vated the importance of the eschatological priest. For the Qumran commu-nity, like the Testament of the Patriarchs, priesthood is greater than kingship.This axiology is evident in the lofty status of priests within the sect, a sectwhose founder, the Teacher of Righteousness, was himself a priest. Indeed, in anumber of texts — both in the scrolls and in the Testament of Levi — the es-chatological priest is elevated to super-human stature.

I have mentioned the important contribution of the recently publishedtexts to our understanding of Qumran’s eschatological doctrine. These texts

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7. See my article, “The Reflection of Jewish Messianic Beliefs in Early Christianity” (He-brew), in Z. Baras (ed.), Messianism and Eschatology (Jerusalem, 1983), 103-134.

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emphasize the super-human aspect of the priest at the end of days. Of course,in this area as well, progress yields new questions. True, it stands to reasonthat the Qumran community believed that the eschatological priest will beone of their own Sons of Zadok, and it is possible that they once thought thatthe Messiah of the House of Aaron is the Teacher of Righteousness or, per-haps, his heir, the Interpreter of the Law. But how can this hope be reconciledwith the midrash on Melchizedek uncovered among the fragments? There isno reason to assume that this work refers to an angel named Melchizedek.Clearly this Melchizedek is described as playing a role very similar to that ofthe Messiah of the House of Aaron, except that Melchizedek cannot be a scionto this house since he lived before Aaron. It is also evident that the super-human descriptions of the eschatological priest in the scrolls and the Testa-ment of Levi, and of Melchizedek in his eponymous scroll, are similar to thedescriptions of the ‘son of man’ in the apocalyptic literature. That said, theQumran scrolls have yet to yield a single explicit reference to the ‘son of man.’This is doubly perplexing if we consider that John the Baptist, who was closeto the Essenes, hoped for the advent of the ‘son of man,’ as the Gospels ofMatthew and Luke plainly attest.

We may assume that there was no uniformity of opinion among themembers of the Qumran community with regard to the details of their escha-tological doctrine. It is possible that strict discipline was not enforced, and thatthe sect did not consider significant disagreements in this area. Still, the mostimportant shift may occur in the study of early Christianity, more specifically,in the question of Jesus’ own messianic consciousness. Some Christian schol-ars have denied he had any messianic consciousness, assuming that the churchinvented this doctrine after Jesus’ death. The Qumran texts that have beenpublished of late suggest that the idea of a super-human messianic figure cir-culated in Jewish apocalyptic circles long before Jesus’ time. In truth, rabbinicJudaism never accepted this messianic mythology, and Jesus himself belonged,ultimately, to Pharisaic-Rabbinic Judaism. But Jesus was not a pure Pharisee,and he had access to the mythological aspects of Jewish apocalypticism, par-ticularly with regard to the role of the messiah — no doubt under Essene in-fluence. Now, with the publication of the new Qumran fragments, it is no lon-ger possible to assert that this “Christology” was created by the church afterJesus’ tragic death, since these motifs circulated prior to his death.

If we wish to make progress in this fascinating field, we must refresh ourquestions, and cast anew a critical eye on the synoptic gospels, which are, ofcourse, our primary source of information concerning the historical Jesus.

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3. The Economic Ideology of Qumran

The present article is concerned with the famous Dead Sea community, frag-ments of whose library — including a number of complete scrolls — werediscovered in the caves of Qumran. There is no question that the group inquestion is the Essenes, one of the three Jewish schools of the Second Templeperiod, who are discussed in the works of Josephus Flavius and Philo of Alex-andria, the famous Jewish philosopher. It is relatively easy to prove that theQumranites were the Essenes, both as a matter of overall identification, andin a detailed and minute investigation. One of the criteria for this identifica-tion is the presence of two key doctrines in the Dead Sea Scrolls that are citedas Essene by Josephus. I am referring to the doctrine of double predestina-tion, and the demand of every member to share his property.

I begin with a discussion of double predestination, a religious-philosophical doctrine with important ramifications for the economic ideol-ogy of Qumran. The concept of free will is widely held to be one of the greatachievements of Judaism — without entering into the complications thatarise from the juxtaposition of free will and a single, omniscient God thatgoverns all. I must admit that I too have a difficult time imagining a form ofJudaism that does not maintain a mutual dialogue between mankind and itscreator. However, we must bear in mind the logical difficulties alluded to justnow: how can man possess free will when God knows everything and deter-mines the course of events? This is not the place to enter into this discussion,but the issue is important inasmuch as it may help us to understand the posi-tion of divine predestination, which radically limits or even negates man’sfree choice. This was the position of the Essenes at Qumran. Josephus dis-

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cusses the Essene doctrine of divine predestination, and we find explicit dis-cussion of it in the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves. According to Josephus, thethree Jewish schools of his day were divided on this matter. As noted, theEssenes believed in an absolute divine predetermination: man is helpless inthe face of God’s decrees. The Pharisees — who fathered Rabbinic Judaism inits development from its origins to the present — accepted the idea of divineprovidence, but held that man is, in some sense, God’s partner. That is, man-kind is given the power to influence and even alter events, in accordance withhis behavior — be it through repentance and good deeds, or through histransgressions. The Sadducees, the third group, took a completely differenttack, arguing that any divine supervision is extraneous, since man is responsi-ble for his deeds and for the ensuing results.

One of the conceptual difficulties that arise from the doctrine of abso-lute divine predestination, involves the existence of evil — a problem that isfound in more or less acute versions in any religious system that includes di-vine providence. If everything comes into being in accordance with God’swill, must we not conclude that the good and beneficent God is also the au-thor of evil? The Qumran scrolls not only failed to resolve this difficulty, butrepeatedly asserted that God had indeed created evil, as well as wicked andsinful people. That is, they established a dualistic system, according to whichthe world is emphatically divided into good and evil, and there exists a campof evil spirits, headed by Belial, the Prince of Darkness, and all this is in accor-dance with God’s will! Alongside the doctrine of divine predestination, theEssenes maintained a radical dualism that divides humanity into the Sons ofLight and the Sons of Darkness. The combination of predestination and du-alism is referred to in scholarly discourse as the doctrine of double predesti-nation. Incidentally, this teaching is not limited to the Qumran community,but found its way into certain Christian groups who were apparently influ-enced by the Essene theology on this point.

Before we come to the economic ideology of the Dead Sea community,we must first indicate a number of conclusions that follow from their theo-logical worldview. Evil will not, of course, endure. According to the scrolls,God has placed eternal enmity between the faction of righteousness and thefaction of evil, and in the end of days there will be a war between the Sons ofLight and the Sons of Darkness, at the conclusion of which the wicked will bedestroyed, and with them the dominion of darkness. This war, which was de-scribed in detail in a unique text published by the late Yigael Yadin, will lastforty years, and in its course the Sons of Light will conquer the entire world.The enemies to be annihilated are not only the nations of the world, but themembers of the Jewish people that refuse to accept the ways of the Qumran

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The Economic Ideology of Qumran

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sect. Indeed, the scrolls clearly hold that Israel itself is divided into the Sons ofLight, God’s elect, and the Sons of Darkness.

Even before the discovery of the scrolls, there were scholars who arguedthat the Essene doctrine of double predestination served as a conceptualgrounding for their sense that they and only they are God’s elect. In otherwords, their theology was forged in order to justify their sense of superiority,and their tendency to break off from Jewish society as a whole. And indeed,the scrolls repeatedly emphasize the chasm that lies between them and therest of the Jewish people. The members of the Community are referred to asthe chosen ones of God, while the rest of the Jewish people are sinners. But,according to the scrolls, the separatist tendency of the Sons of Light is notonly a question of theoretical worldview, nor merely a way of distinguishing apolitical-religious group from the other factions of the day. The Essenes, whoconsidered themselves God’s elect, expressed their unique character througha sectarian lifestyle, characterized by a rigid communal structure and specialordinances, attested both in Josephus’s account of the Essenes and in theQumran scrolls themselves, particularly in the Manual of Discipline. Accord-ing to both Josephus and Philo, the sect numbered some forty thousand fullmembers, but its ideological and theological influence on the Jewish peopleas a whole was great.

Both Josephus and Philo point to the uniquely Essene practice of sharedwealth, what effectively amounts to the abolition of private property. This is awell-established fact, and need not detain us here. It is significant that commu-nal property is attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is not the place for an ex-tended discussion of the sources, but I will cite two brief passages: “All thosewho submit freely to His truth will convey all their knowledge, their energies,and their riches to the Community of God” (1QS 1.11-12); “[the initiate’s] pos-sessions and his earnings will also be joined at the hand of the Inspector of theearnings of the Many” (1QS 6.19-20). The ancient authorities mentionedabove, as well as the scrolls, provide a wealth of information about the precisenature of this communal property, as well as the role of the Inspector.

The idea of shared wealth played an important role in the overall ideol-ogy of the Dead Sea Community. Analysis of this unique phenomenon re-veals that it is linked to broader economic issues in the sect’s worldview. In-deed, there is a causal connection between the Essene doctrine of sharedwealth, on the one hand, and their religious, social, and political teachings, onthe other. A thorough discussion of the rich and varied ramifications of thisEssene doctrine may shed light on the mutual influences of economics, reli-gion, and politics in other groups, during other times, living under differentcircumstances.

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One approach to the Essenes’ shared wealth is from parallel groups inChristian sects that existed from those days down to the present. This phe-nomenon, which appears time and again in the Christian world, has its ori-gins in the Essene teachings. Indeed, today it is evident that the Essenes had aconsiderable impact on all the movement within early Christianity, as itemerged in the late Second Temple period. The sources indicate that commu-nal property was instituted in the Jerusalem Church, as described in Acts2.44-45, a description that spawned many imitations among radical Christiancommunities in the Middle Ages and modern era. To my knowledge, the firstof these were the Hussites, in 15th century Bohemia, whose center was the cityTabor. Over time, other Christian sects emerged that adopted a life of sharedwealth, particularly in the United States and Canada. I spent time on a Cana-dian agricultural sectarian commune, among other reasons to learn howshared property works in religious communities, in the hopes of learningabout the life of the Essenes and the ideological issues that emerge from suchcommunities. There are those who argue that these non-Jewish agriculturalcommunes influenced the kibbutz movement in its infancy. If so, it appearsthat the roots of the kibbutz phenomenon lead back to the Dead Sea commu-nity. In any case, there is evident and understandable interest among the kib-butzim in the Essene sect, interest that predates the discovery of the scrolls.

Unlike the Israeli kibbutzim, the members of the Canadian agriculturalcommune knew nothing about the organization of the ancient Essenes. Strik-ingly, these Canadians, who lived according to a strict code enjoining sharedproperty, developed an ideology similar to that of the Qumran community.Thus, for example, they had to face the problem of economic ties with theoutside world. For them, as for the Essenes, such ties were, of course, neces-sary, but were restricted to certain staff members. Similarly, the Essenesplaced outside economic ties under the jurisdiction of the inspectors, alreadymentioned above, who were charged primarily with the economic life of thecommunity.

Clearly, any group that adopts the principle of shared property will ex-perience some tension with the outside world and its different customs. Themembers of the Canadian commune, and other groups like it or affiliatedwith it, saw outsiders as erring, almost lost, since they did not possess theproper belief. And they, like the ancient Essenes, felt themselves clearly supe-rior to the outsiders, God’s only select, who are promised a place in the worldto come. Shared property creates a social and an ideological separatism, anideology that finds robust expression in the Qumran texts.

I hope it is now clear why I had to preface the present topic with a dis-cussion of the Essene dualism of light and darkness and their doctrine of

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double predestination. They believed that they were selected by God, fromthe very beginning of time, to be his chosen ones, to confront the others —including the rest of the Jewish world — who are nothing more than the Sonsof Darkness, doomed to eternal infamy. The Qumran scrolls demonstrate theintegral role of shared property in the worldview of the sect.

I could explore in some detail the conceptual and practical links be-tween the high level of ritual purity enforced at Qumran and the sharing ofproperty. Anyone familiar with the Talmudic sources knows the different lev-els of ritual purity Jews could adopt, be it as individuals or as groups, each ac-cording to his choice. But for those who do not know these texts, suffice it tosay that the highest level of ritual purity distinguished the Essenes from therest of the Jewish people, whom they considered impure. Shared propertyprobably assisted them in maintaining their purity.

Philo notes that sharing property helped the sect avoid a raft of socialproblems. They did not have rich and poor members, since all could live inpeace from the common wealth. That was the economic reality. From anideological perspective, however, shared property entailed an idealization ofpoverty and a concurrent disdain for wealth. In this too the Essenes were notunique, though it is certainly not the case that all communal groups share thisview. It is certainly possible that resistance to economic oppression and to thegrowing ranks of the newly rich, quite prevalent in those days, was among thecatalysts for the formation of the Qumran community. In any case, in seeingpoverty as a full-fledged religious ideal and disparaging wealth, the Essenesparted ways with the wealthy Sadducees and with the Pharisees, the progeni-tors of rabbinic Judaism. This is not to suggest, of course, that the sages lovedriches and supported the accumulation of wealth; they were, after all, com-mitted to social justice. But it is evident that they do not view poverty as a de-sirable trait or a religious ideal, but rather a defect that should be minimizedto the extent possible, through the institution of decrees and regulations, aswell as though charity and acts of loving-kindness. The Essenes, in castingpoverty as a religious ideal and disparaging wealth, influenced certain move-ments within Christianity, an influence that is evident already in the teach-ings of its founder.

The discussion thus far clearly suggests that the Jewish sect whose writ-ings were discovered in the Dead Sea region was, to use a modern terminol-ogy, a group of radical revolutionaries — a characterization it shares withother, non-Jewish communities, that embraced poverty and adopted theprinciple of shared property. The Essene resistance to economic oppression— not only aimed at Jews, but also the oppression of gentiles at the hands ofthe last of the Maccabee rulers — aroused their interest in the social and po-

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litical changes occurring in their world. As a result, the members of the sectand its authors became aware of the social injustices perpetuated by variouskingdoms, and particularly the Roman empire, whose greed drove them toconquer kingdoms and enslave whole nations. Among the scrolls are a num-ber of texts that provide invaluable information concerning the negative as-pects of Roman imperialism.

The present context allows for only a brief discussion of Qumran’seconomy and broader worldview. My primary intent was to introduce thereader to the great contribution made by the Qumran scrolls to our under-standing of Second Temple Judaism, and to the general character of the DeadSea community.

Frank Moore Cross and Esther Eshel have recently published a Qumrantext that is relevant to the present discussion.1 According to the publishers,this text, which was composed in Jericho in the first half of the first centuryc.e., records the declaration of one Honi ben Elazar that he is contributing tothe Qumran community (the Yahad) his property, including a house inHolon, fig and olive trees, and his servant named Hisdai. It appears to be thecontribution of the initiate to the sect, ‘anyone from Israel who freely volun-teers’ in the idiom of the scrolls (1QS 6.13), following his first probationaryyear. At the end of his second probationary year, his property will be sold andthe proceedings channeled to the common fund of the community, thusmarking the initiate’s acceptance into the sect and elevation to status of mem-ber (see 1QS 6.18-24). The newly discovered text provides external proof forthe basic historical reliability of the initiation process to another SecondTemple Jewish sect, namely the description found in Acts 4:34: “There wasnot a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses soldthem and brought the proceeds of what was sold.” It should be noted that thepractice of shared property was an innovation found among Jesus’ disciplesin the Jerusalem church. According to the gospels, neither the communitythat formed around Jesus during his lifetime, nor the followers of John theBaptist, adopted the principle of shared property — contrary to the contem-porary practice at Qumran. This appears, then, to be a case of Essene influ-ence on the followers of Jesus, influence that became evident only after hisdeath.

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1. Frank Moore Cross and Esther Eshel, “Ostraca from Khirbet Qumran,” Israel Explora-tion Journal 47 (1997), 17-28.

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4. Medicine and Qumran

Dedicated to Prof. Abraham (Teddy) Weiss

The Wisdom of Ben Sira, which was composed at or around 185 b.c.e., con-tains a beautiful chapter in which Ben Sira praises doctors and the science ofmedicine (38.1-15). He is referring to conventional medicine, not some “alter-native” medicine, though the latter was very common in the ancient world, somuch so that it was difficult to distinguish between “conventional” medicineand medicine that involved exorcism and spirits. This distinction will becomeclearer in a moment, when we examine the medicine practiced in the Essenesect, which has rightly been identified as the group that lived at Qumran. Fol-lowing the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it became evident that this fa-mous community grew out of a broader apocalyptic movement. This com-munity composed a number of literary works, including Jubilees (from thesecond century b.c.e.), the texts that make up 1 Enoch, a rough contemporaryof Jubilees that displays a great deal of similarity from a literary and otherperspectives, in its literary and religious aspects, and the scroll known as theGenesis Apocryphon, discovered at Qumran.

We begin with Josephus’ account of the Essenes (BJ 2.136). He writesthat they “display an extraordinary interest in the writings of the ancients,singling out in particular those which make for the welfare of soul and body;with the help of these, and with a view to the treatment of diseases, they makeinvestigations into medicinal roots and properties of stones.” Concerning thebenefits and risks of different stones, this was an ancient view that still has itsadherents today. For instance, the amethyst was thought to protect againstinebriation — indeed, the name a-methyst is Greek for ‘no inebriation.’

What were the ancient texts from which the Essenes learned to cure ill-

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nesses? The Essenes undoubtedly possessed the Book of Cures that Noah sup-posedly passed down to his son, Shem. We learn of such a ‘Noah Book’ fromJubilees (10.1-14), Hebrew fragments of which were uncovered in the Qumrancaves. According to Jubilees, one of the angels taught Noah how to heal alldiseases, so that he might use the plants of the earth to cure them: “And thehealing of all their illnesses together with their seductions we told Noah sothat he might heal by means of herbs of the earth. And Noah wrote every-thing in a book just as we taught him according to every kind of healing . . .and he gave everything which he wrote to Shem, his oldest son” (Jubilees10.12-13).1 It is striking that this chapter has a rough parallel in the introduc-tion to Sefer Assaf ha-Rofe (‘The Book of Assaf, the Healer’) and scholars havenot been able to explain how this account found its way into a medieval He-brew book.

There was a strong similarity between Essene medicine and the variousexorcisms which were borderline witchcraft and prohibited to Jews. There isno question that the people in the movement from which the Essene sectemerged were aware of the ambivalence in these areas of medicine. Nonethe-less, the Book of Enoch tells of the wicked sons of angels that “took wives forthemselves from all they chose” (Gen. 6:2), and taught mankind “magicalmedicine, incantations, the cutting of roots, and plants” (Enoch 7.1; 8.3).2 Ifso, the very same herbal cures found among the Essenes, and which are de-scribed in Jubilees (10.1-14) and the gift of an angel (Raphael the Healer) toNoah, are described in the Book of Enoch together with incantations, as partof the deleterious teachings the wicked angels passed on to mankind.

The Genesis Apocryphon, which was composed in Aramaic, speaks ofthe great afflictions (column 20, based on Genesis 12:17) that were visitedupon Pharaoh because of Abraham’s wife, Sarai. Pharaoh asked Abraham topray for him, “and he laid his hands upon him.” And when Sarai was returnedto him, Abraham prayed for Pharaoh and laid his hands upon his head.

The biblical account does not mention Abraham laying his hands onPharaoh’s head. Indeed, this mode of healing is not mentioned in the entire Bi-ble, nor in the Talmud. This healing practice is known from the stories of Jesus.And now we find in a Jewish text, composed before Jesus (and which containsnot a trace of Christianity), evidence that the Essenes themselves used to healthe sick by the laying on of hands. Thus, the Dead Sea Scrolls have enrichedour knowledge of the history of this alternative medical practice.

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Medicine and Qumran

1. O. S. Wintermute, translator, from J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseud-epigrapha (New York, 1985), 2.76.

2. E. Isaac, translator, in Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1.16.

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5. A Pre-Gnostic Concept in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Dedicated to my friend, Shlomo Pines

Upon the discovery of its literature, the Dead Sea community became a leadingcandidate to be one of the important forerunners of the Gnostic worldview,1 inlight of its unique ideology. Like the various Gnostic movements, the Dead SeaScrolls emphasize the secrecy of its doctrines, while maintaining a starklydualistic approach to humanity and the world, a world that it pessimisticallyviews as given to the dominion of darkness. The Qumran worldview is alsosimilar to Gnosticism in its firm belief that, in the end, “when those born of sinare locked up, evil will disappear before justice as darkness disappears beforelight. As smoke vanishes, and no longer exists, so will evil vanish forever. Andjustice will be revealed like the sun which regulates the world. . . . And knowl-edge will pervade the world, and there will never be folly there” (1Q27[1QMysteries] 1.5-7).2 And yet, these traits, while unquestionably significant, donot prove that this Jewish sect contained a set of ideas that could serve as theraw material for the creation of a Gnostic myth. I believe I have found in one ofthe scrolls evidence for a concept that could pave the way for an explicitly Gnos-tic notion, but may also be understood as following from the sect’s ownworldview. Still, the concept in question is somewhat atypical of Qumran’smainstream ideology, and as such holds particular interest.

The Qumran community believed that this interesting and unique con-cept exists — in nuce and only if interpreted as a cosmic or meta-historical

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1. See G. Stroumsa’s article on gnosis in Judaica (1988), 15-30, especially pages 18, 25, and28, n. 18. See also Ithamar Gruenwald, From Apocalypticism to Gnosticism (Tel Aviv, 1988).

2. See also Megillat ha-Hodayot, J. Licht (ed.) (Jerusalem, 1957), 242.

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statement — in the prophecy of Habakkuk: “The Torah becomes slack andjustice never emerges in victory. The wicked surround the righteous — there-fore justice emerges perverted” (Hab. 1:4).3 Needless to say, it is certainly pos-sible to interpret this verse in the manner of the Pesharim, as referring to thesacred history of the sect. This is, indeed, the approach of Pesher Habakkuk:“So the Torah becomes slack [The interpretation of this is] that they have re-jected the Law of God. The wicked surround the righteous [Its interpretation:the wicked is the Wicked Priest and the righteous] is the Teacher of Righ-teousness . . .” (1QpHab 1.10-13). Despite its fragmentary nature,4 it is clearthat we are dealing with a concrete, historically grounded interpretation: therighteous is identified with the Teacher of Righteousness, while the wickedwho pursues him is the Wicked Priest.

The Manual of Discipline offers a completely different reading of thisvery verse (1QS 4.19-21), but before turning to discuss this new mode of inter-pretation, we must first cite Matthew 12:18-21. Immediately prior to this pas-sage — a citation from Isaiah 42:1-45 — we are told that Jesus ordered thosepresent not to make known his healing. This prohibition is offered “to fulfillwhat had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah” (Matt. 12:17), and thenMatthew cites Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the Lord’s servant, that he “will notcry or lift up his voice, nor make it heard in the street” (Isa. 42:2). The connec-tion between the story and the prooftext is fairly flimsy, and it stands to rea-son that the Greek editor reworked the passage before inserting it into Mat-thew’s narrative. The critical point for our investigation is that Matthew 12:20quotes Isaiah as saying that the servant will not cry out “. . . until justiceemerges in victory (tpqm jxnl ayxy de),” but in fact Isaiah 42:4 reads“. . . until he has established justice on the earth” (tpqm urab fyqy de).Clearly, then, we have here a composite of two priestly teachings: those of Isa-iah, and those of Habakkuk, who proclaims “and justice never emerges in vic-tory” (Hab 1:4).6 The juxtaposition is probably due to the similarity betweenHabakkuk’s words and Isaiah’s statements that the Lord’s servant “will bring

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A Pre-Gnostic Concept in the Dead Sea Scrolls

3. Translator’s note: the Hebrew jxnl can mean “forever” or “in victory.” The presenttranslation incorporates both meanings (‘never’ = not forever), as they are germane to Flusser’sanalysis.

4. The end of the verse, “therefore justice emerges deformed,” is attested in the Pesher,but its interpretation is lost. Incidentally, both Pesher Habakkuk and the Septuagint read lkemtpqmh for the Masoretic tpqm lkem.

5. See K. Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament (Philadel-phia, 1969), 107-115. Stendahl uses this passage, and others like it, to reach conclusions regardingthe social background against which the Gospel of Matthew was composed. See also n. 9, below.

6. See also Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew, 113-114.

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forth justice to the nations” (42:1) and “will bring forth justice in truth”(42:3).7 It seems, moreover, that this fertile cross-pollination between Isaiah42:1-4 and Habakkuk 1:4 is found in two other passages in the scrolls, to bediscussed below (though this does not necessarily indicate the juxtapositionoriginated in the scrolls). For now it should be noted that both according toMatthew 12:18-21 and the two passages in the other scrolls, Habakkuk 1:4 willundergo a profound transformation in the end of days: Habakkuk states that“justice never emerges in victory” because evil has dominion over the world;this is also the reason that “justice emerges perverted.”8 In the end of days,however, a great change will occur in our world, and then “justice will pre-vail” indeed. Both the scrolls and Matthew anchor this hope in the contrastbetween Habakkuk’s “justice never emerges in victory” (1:4) and Isaiah’s de-scription of the Lord’s servant who “will bring forth justice to the nations”(42:1) and “will bring forth justice in truth” (42:3).

As noted, Matthew’s citation (12:18-21) of Isaiah 42:1-4 reads “until jus-tice prevails forever” (12:20), rather than “will bring forth justice in truth”(42:3), and this change is due to the influence of Habakkuk 1:4.9 Interestingly,the word ‘truth,’ that is missing in Matthew, plays a key role in the two parallelpassages from Qumran. The first is found in 1QHa 12.24-25,10 where the poet— one of the leaders of the sect — addresses God, saying:

Those who walk on the path of your heart have listened to me;They have aligned themselves before you in the council of the

holy ones.You will bring forth their justice,And truth for the righteous.

It is clear that the latter half of this quote combines Habakkuk’s state-ment “justice never emerges in victory” (1:4), with Isaiah’s “will bring forth

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7. As far as I know, biblical citations of the type found in Matthew 12:18-21 are unique tothis work and are not found in the other gospels. There are, however, composite citations in theDead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament epistles. An outstanding example is Romans 11:21-27.I have discussed this phenomenon in my article, “Today If You Will Listen to His Voice: CreativeJewish Exegesis in Hebrews 3–4,” B. Uffenheimer and H. Reventlow (eds.), Creative Biblical Exe-gesis: Jewish and Christian Hermeneutics Through the Centuries (JSOTSup 59; Sheffield, 1988),55-62.

8. See above, note 6.9. The words “until justice prevails forever” in Matthew 12:20 also reflect the phrase “un-

til he has established justice in the earth” in Isaiah 42:4, since Matthew skipped over the word“He will not grow faint or be crushed” in the opening of the verse.

10. See also Megillat ha-Hodayot, 94-95, where the rhyme structure is different.

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justice in truth” (42:3). Thus, the parallelism equates ‘truth’ and ‘justice’. Asthe context clearly indicates, the leader of the sect is expressing his firm beliefthat God will indeed save the members of the community from the plottingsof its enemies. It is, of course, possible that some of the motifs in this passageare tied to the community’s hope for an eschatological redemption — indeed,the next passage will show that the eschatological process has been trans-ferred to the hope for present-day salvation — but all the same, the poemdoes not display any markedly eschatological traits.

The second and decisive Qumran passage that combines Isaiah 42:1-3with Habakkuk 1:4 appears in the Manual of Discipline, at the very beginningof the eschatological discussion, which includes a description of the total an-nihilation of all evil in the end of days. The verses in question parallel the pas-sage from 1QMysteries, with which we opened the present discussion. Here isthe relevant citation (1QS 4.18-20):

God, in the mysteries of his knowledge and in the wisdom of his glory, hasdetermined an end to existence of injustice and on the appointed time ofthe visitation he will obliterate it forever. Then the world truth shallemerge in victory, for it has been defiled in paths of wickedness during thedominion of injustice until the time appointed for justice decided.11

Concerning the biblical background to this passage, it appears that thekey lies in Isaiah 42:3: “he will bring forth justice in truth.” This verse appearsto have influenced the author’s understanding of Habakkuk 1:4. According tothe latter, “justice never emerges in victory” in the present era, because of thedominion of iniquity that causes justice to “come forth perverted.” The simi-larity between Isaiah and Habakkuk allows the interpreter to identify ‘justice’with ‘truth,’ as the parallel in 1QHa 4.25 already demonstrated. As for why thepoet speaks of ‘world truth,’ we will return to this question anon. The key is-sue is that the Qumran community was able to discover in this verse an im-portant proclamation. The prophet teaches: “The Torah becomes slack andjustice never emerges in victory. The wicked surround the righteous — there-fore justice emerges perverted” (Hab. 1:4). To the Qumran reader, this meansthat the world will remain in dire straits until evil is banished from it. For aslong as the wicked surround the righteous, justice never emerges in victory,or, in other words, the justice that does come forth under these conditionscannot but be perverted. In the future time, however, when wickedness is an-nihilated, “world truth shall emerge in victory.”

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11. See Megillat ha-Serachim, J. Licht (ed.) (Jerusalem, 1965), 102-103.

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Our discussion of the Manual of Discipline passage has thus far beensuperficial. A profound understanding of its meaning requires that we exam-ine the broader context (1QS 4.18-23), of which our verses are an integralpart.12 The passage includes the description of the baptism of the spirit in theend of days (1QS 4.20-22), a critically important component, since John theBaptist makes his followers the same promise.13 This promise is a link withinthe narrative chain of the broader passage, that seeks to delineate the variousstages of the total ablution of mankind and the world, a process that will oc-cur following the eschatological destruction of all evil, “when those born ofsin are locked up” (1QMyst 1.5). When the appointed time comes, and Goddestroys all evil from the world, the truth will subsequently emerge from theways of iniquity that defiled it under the dominion of sin. Then God will pu-rify mankind as well: “He will sprinkle over him the spirit of truth like lustralwater (in order to cleanse him) from all the abhorrences of deceit and (from)the defilement of the unclean spirit” (1QS 4.21-22).14 The baptism of the puri-fying spirit serves to banish from mankind every trace of the tainted and de-filed human nature that is now his lot. Man will be transformed from a baseand despised creature, to an altogether new being, pure in both flesh andspirit. Then will the purified and redeemed man be able “to instruct15 the up-right ones with knowledge of the Most High, and to make understand thewisdom of the sons of heaven to those of perfect behavior. For those God haschosen for an everlasting covenant and to them shall belong the glory ofAdam” (1QS 4.22-23).16

Thus, the scroll’s comments on the change in the status of “world truth”

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12. See Megillat ha-Serachim, 102-104.13. Regarding this matter see D. Flusser, “John’s Baptism and the Qumran Sect” (He-

brew), in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem, 1982), 81-112, and especially 93-103.14. Regarding the purification of the ‘world truth,’ it is not said explicitly that this will be

done by God. Perhaps they believed — following the particular logic of this kind of religiousthought — that the impurity of the ‘world truth’ will disappear at that point of its own accord,without any additional action from the spirit of holiness.

15. Here, as in the other scrolls (with the possible exception of 4QMMT), the verb vybhlis transitive, and note the parallelism with lycqhl.

16. See Licht’s comments ad loc., Megillat ha-Serachim, 104. Also, Marböck, HenochAdam, “Der Thronwagen,” Biblische Zeitschrift, N. F. 25, Paderborn 1981, 102-111; P. W. Skehanand A. A. Di Lella, “The Wisdom of Ben Sira,” The Anchor Bible (New York, 1987), 545. The edi-tors link the “glory of Adam” in 1QS 4.23 with the “splendor of Adam” in Ben Sira 49.16. See also1QHa 4.15; CD 3.20; and the Pesher to Psalm 37 3.1-2. On this last source see Maurya P. Horgan,Pesharim, 1.53, and 2.214. Whether the scrolls are referring here to the splendor of Adam, or per-haps — as Licht suggests — God’s elect will receive the splendor that is due all humanity, re-mains an open question.

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(1QS 4.19-20) are not part of a single picture, unfolding before us the sublimepurification and elevation of creation in the end of day, after the annihilationof all evil. Only now, when we have cast our net more widely, can we trace thetrue meaning of this concept, which involves the redemption of “world truth”from its impurity. As noted above, from a purely interpretive standpoint, onewould expect the author to refer to ‘truth’ simpliciter, not “world truth”. Afterall, the importance of the concept ‘truth’ in Qumran’s religious worldview isreadily apparent. Indeed, one of the manuscripts of the Manual of Discipline(8.18) employs the word ‘truth’ in place of the Tetragrammaton.17 So it is clearthat the author had some reason to prefer the version “world truth”. After all,in the very same scroll we learn that “these are the foundations of the spirit ofthe sons of truth (in) the world” (1QS 4.6), whereas other passages speak of“sons of truth.”18 Now, the word jxn can mean eternity in Qumran Hebrew,as we find, e.g., in 1QS 3.8. But the statement “world truth shall emerge jxnl”draws on Habakkuk 1:4, where jxn means ‘victory,’ and thus the sense ap-pears to be “world truth shall emerge in victory.” As for the phrase ‘worldtruth,’ it appears to refer to the truth that resides within the world, distin-guishing absolute truth from this more partial, mundane truth.

There remains one more interpretive issue to be addressed in the pas-sage at hand. The Manual of Discipline states that “the ‘world truth’ has beendefiled in paths of wickedness during the dominion of injustice” (4.19), andone might understand that it was the world itself that was defiled under thegovernment of Belial.19 But this is not the case. It was the ‘world truth’ thatwas defiled in this world, as Habakkuk 1:4 decisively proves. There Habakkukstates that “justice never emerges in victory,” due to the present-day behaviorof the wicked, and “therefore justice emerges perverted.” As we’ve seen above,the Qumran scrolls twice identify Habakkuk’s prophecy with the truth. Thus,the idea of the ‘world truth’ being defiled in the paths of wickedness is an-chored in Habakkuk’s.

Now it is clear why the author of the scroll distinguishes between ‘truth’in the broader sense and ‘world truth,’ which is the part — or perhaps the ema-nation — of truth that resides in the world.20 After all, absolute truth cannot, byits very nature, be sullied. Not only truth, but all the core concepts of the sect areimmutable, and in this Qumran dualism is different from Gnosticism’s. God“created the spirits of light and of darkness and on them established every deed,

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17. See Megillat ha-Serachim, 181, and below, n. 23.18. For instance, 1QS 4.5, and Megillat ha-Hodayot, 245 (the lexicon).19. And see 1QS 2.19: “They shall act in this way . . . all the days of Belial’s dominion.”20. The Manual of Discipline refers to God’s elect as “sons of truth” (4.5), and rightly so.

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on their paths every labor” (1QS 3.25-26); God “sorted them into equal partsuntil the last time, and has put an everlasting loathing between their divisions.Deeds of injustice are an abhorrence to truth and all the paths of truth are anabhorrence to injustice. (There exists) a violent conflict in respect of all theirdecrees since they cannot walk together” (1QS 4.16-18). And what could behigher than ‘truth’ — a term that takes the place of God’s name! — for theQumran community?21 Truth as such, then, is pure, but the truth that resides inthe world was indeed “defiled in the paths of wickedness during the dominionof injustice until the time appointed” (1QS 4.20-21).

The difference between the absolute, immutable truth, and the ‘worldtruth’ which is currently in a state of defilement, may be explained from an-other perspective as well, namely, as part of the world historical redemptionprocess, from its creation to the eschaton. God “created man to rule the worldand placed within him two spirits so that he would walk with them . . . the spir-its of truth and of deceit” (1QS 3.17-19). If so, creation is a divine act, not dispar-aged or evil. Concerning the concept of the defiled ‘world truth,’ it would havebeen better had the following statement been less opaque: “From the spring oflight stem the generations of truth, and from the source of darkness the genera-tions of deceit” (1QS 3.19).22 That is to say, all the developments and traits oftruth emanate from the spring of light, while those of deceit derive from thesource of darkness. It may be that ‘spring of light’ and ‘source of darkness’ havea concrete sense: perhaps the generations of truth and deceit flow into theworld from locations transcendent to the world. A little later on the following isstated explicitly: “These are their paths [the paths of the spirits of truth and ofdeceit] in the world” (1QS 4.2).23 It appears, then, that the ‘world truth’ is thatpart of the truth that has agency within the world, and thus is beholden to thedevelopments that occur within the world that houses it. The Qumran commu-nity holds that the dominion of Belial is currently defiling the world, but thiswill cease on the appointed day of judgment, when all evil will be forever abol-ished. It should be noted that there has thus far not been found a single state-

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21. See Megillat ha-Serachim, 181.22. See Megillat ha-Serachim, 85.23. This passage may cast light on the circumstances leading up to the defilement of the

world truth. The Manual of Discipline speaks here of the “paths in the world” of the two spiritsof truth and deceit. Now, the path of the spirit of deceit only exists in the world as it now stands,under the dominion of Belial, but will cease “when those born of sin are locked up” (1Q27 1.5).1QS also speaks of the ‘world truth’ being defiled in the “paths of wickedness” (3.20). If so, the‘world truth’ was defiled by the spirit of deceit that exists in the world, which is governed byBelial. Regarding the word ‘world’ (lbo), see Gruenwald, From Apocalypticism to Mysticism, 85,n. 48, who rightly cites the meaning of the word among the Mandeans.

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ment in the scrolls to the effect that this defilement has tainted the world itself;the world is conceived as the battleground upon which the forces of light anddarkness engage in battle. According to 1QS 4.18-23, the wickedness that cur-rently governs the world defiles both humanity and the ‘world truth’. But, again,at the appointed time, when the sources of deceit are sealed and evil can no lon-ger enter the world, then evil will cease, as darkness flees in the face of light, assmoke dissipates and is no more. Then, both humanity and the ‘world truth’will be purified of the residual defilement from the days of Belial. The eradica-tion of evil from the two foci is described in similar terms:

Then the world truth shall emerge invictory, for it has been defiled inpaths of wickedness

Then God will refine . . . all man’sdeeds, and will purify for himself thestructure of man . . . (in order tocleanse him) from all the abhor-rences of deceit and (from) the de-filement of the unclean spirit

For the current inquiry, it would have helpful to know the precise sense of“emerge in victory” (jxnl axo) — which originates, as noted above, inHabakkuk. The Hebrew word jxn can mean ‘eternity,’ but this yields an al-most impossible reading, that after the defeat of evil, the worldly truth willdepart from the temporally delimited universe. This is a bit of theological di-alectic that is foreign to the worldview of Qumran. jxn means ‘victory,’ an ex-odus from slavery to freedom. This allows us to narrow the potential sense of“the world truth shall emerge in victory,” but a number of questions remain.Chief among them is the following: did the author think that the ‘world truth’is presently enslaved, but will gain its freedom in the eschaton, or, alternately,does the phrase “emerge” refer to a movement? If the latter, perhaps this im-age indicates that, once purified, the world truth will depart to be reunitedwith the absolute truth, or perhaps it will return to the spring of light, fromwhich emerge the generations of truth.24 These questions remain open, sincein the scrolls that have been published thus far there is no trace of the ideasand terminology found in this passage.

The events that befall the ‘world truth,’ and particularly its defilement,are very similar to the Gnostic myth. And yet, it is imperative that we exerciserestraint. To more clearly define the proximity between the Manual of Disci-pline’s account of truth’s defilement and eventual victory, on the one hand,and the Gnostic view, on the other,25 let us survey once again the drama as

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24. See 1QS 3.19.25. Note particularly Gruenwald, From Apocalypticism to Mysticism, 89-92.

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described in the scrolls. God “created the spirits of light and of darkness andon them established every deed” (1QS 3.25) and permitted the spirit of iniq-uity to act within the world all the days of the dominion of Belial. A part ofthe absolute truth is also located within the world, and is called ‘world truth,’while the absolute truth resides, one must conclude, outside the world, in a“spring of light” (1QS 3.19). But due to the dominion of evil in the world, theworld truth “has been defiled in paths of wickedness during the dominion ofinjustice until the time appointed for judgment decided” (1QS 4.19-20). Hu-mankind suffers a similar fate, as even the sons of justice are tainted with sin.However, in the future God will “purify for Himself the structure of man . . .from every wicked deed. He will sprinkle over him the spirit of truth likelustral water (in order to cleanse him) from all the abhorrences of deceit and(from) the defilement of the unclean spirit” (1QS 4.20-22). Humanity and the‘world truth’ will, then, be purified at one and the same time. Before thattime, that part of truth will be trapped within a world of sin and deceit, andthus “emerges perverted,” but when evil vanishes completely “the world truthshall emerge in victory” (1QS 4.19-20).

Had 1QS 4.18-21 — with its account of the ‘world truth,’ its defilementin the world and its eventual triumph — survived apart from the rest of theQumran literature, there would undoubtedly be scholars who would identifyit as a Gnostic fragment of unknown origin. They might have been perplexedthat the spiritual entity that is defiled in the world is called ‘truth’ and not‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdom’ and the like. They might also lament the absence ofany information regarding the descent of ‘truth’ into the world, and particu-larly the call that frees her from her fetters and defilement. Our hypotheticalscholars, unaware that this is a Qumran fragment, would likely notice thatour text uses the same terminology of an eschatological baptism of the spiritas John the Baptist, which might lead some of them to far-reaching conclu-sions about the true religious doctrine of the Precursor. The passage does notcontain the typically Gnostic negation of the flesh and of matter, but purifica-tion from evil’s defilement through the agency of the spirit accords with theputative Gnosticism of the passage, as does the notion that the walkers in jus-tice will gain knowledge of God and be elevated to the glory of Adam.

This thought experiment may help clarify the common elements to ourpassage and the Gnostic worldview.26 Indeed, the notion of truth descendinginto the world, being defiled, but then emerging, purified, ‘in victory,’ is a

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26. The best characterization of Gnostic thought I know of is Gruenwald, FromApocalypticism to Gnosticism, 192. Gruenwald’s definition helps clarify the differences betweenGnostic thought and the views expressed in the Manual of Discipline.

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central part of the mythology of the first known Gnostic, Simon Magus, acontemporary of the first Christians. Anyone familiar with Gnostic literatureknows well the dramatic story, in its various versions, of the descent of‘knowledge’ or ‘wisdoms’ from the supernal world, and their capture in thisworld, below. As a result of this descent, the evil material world came into ex-istence. It is also well established that humanity is also trapped in these direstraits, and that the only path to redemption is through the endowment of“spiritual” people with “knowledge of the Most High.” As a result, not onlyare these individuals redeemed from the evil, material world, but parts of thesupernal being that are trapped in matter will be released and return to theirheavenly source.

At the same time, it is important to bear in mind the substantive differ-ences between them. The Gnostic myth contains a fiercely dramatic dynamic,that does not jibe with the Qumran writings. Both the members of theQumran community and the Gnostics posit an absolute dichotomy betweengood and evil, but unlike the monotheistic27 — indeed, theocentric —Qumranites, the Gnostics’ main innovation is the revolt of the angels,28 aturn against the one and only God of Israel’s Torah. This reversal takes shapein the Gnostic mythology, which transforms a revolutionary theology into adrama that is both cosmic and very much human.

Others have noted these differences, and we have repeated them here inorder to draw the reader’s attention to the fact that the passage in 1QS, and es-pecially the discussion of the ‘world truth,’ may be seen as a Gnostic digres-sion from the religious ideology of Qumran. As noted above, the scrolls pre-sent a fixed and immutable conceptual worldview; yet here we find that the‘world truth,’ which is part of the absolute truth, has been altered, tainted, inthis world, and will only be repaired in the end time. There is a clear similar-ity between this doctrine and the Gnostic notion of the “wisdoms” that, in es-sence, “has been defiled in paths of wickedness during the dominion of injus-tice until the time appointed for justice decided.” This similarity may be dueto external, Gnostic influence on the Qumran thinkers, but I believe this viewmust be rejected. Better, to my mind, to suppose that the ideology of thesesons of light developed the forces buried within it in posse in a Gnostic direc-tion. In either case, it appears we were right to title this brief study “a pre-Gnostic concept in the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

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27. Unlike the Persian religion.28. This is the title of Anatole France’s novel, essentially a retelling of the Gnostic myth.

Even after the thrilling discovery of the Gnostic library, the work of this French author remainsvaluable.

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6. “In the Image of the Likeness of His Form”

Written with Shmuel Safrai

Scholars have long recognized the importance of the Book of Tobias for re-constructing the history of Jewish matrimony.1 Two Greek versions of thebook are extent, the long and the short. Additional fragments of the book inHebrew and Aramaic were uncovered among the Qumran scrolls, provingthat the long Greek version is a translation from the Aramaic. According toAlbright,2 this version was composed in the fifth or fourth century b.c.e.,since the royal Aramaic of the Qumran fragments predates the Aramaic ofthe Book of Daniel. The book famously contains an interesting parallel to thephrase “according to the law of Moses and Israel” (larqyw hqm odc) fromthe ketubah, the Jewish marriage contract.3 There are three relevant passages:Tobias 6.13, 7.12 and 7.13, and the differences between the three are fascinating.Tobias 6.13 indicates that Reu}el cannot deny Tobias his daughter, “accordingto the Law of Moses” (kat~ tÌn nËmon MwusŸwv), or, following the long ver-

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1. See, e.g., the comments of Dov Heller in Abraham Kahana (ed.), ha-Sefarim ha-Hitzonim (Tel Aviv, 1936-1937), 2.301-302; A. Gulak, in Tarbiz 3, 366; idem, Urkundenwesen inTalmud (Jerusalem, 1935), 42-43.

2. W. F. Albright, Bibliotheca Orientalis 17 (1960), 42.3. Prof. Shimshon Rosenthal called my attention to the importance of this formula many

years ago.

We dedicate this study to the jubilarian, both for its intrinsic importance and because it dealswith the evolution of biblical concepts in the ancient world, a topic dear to Prof. Seligman’sheart. Finally, in discussing love and companionship between a man and a woman we honor hiswife, who is ‘permitted to him by law.’

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sion, “as per the statute of the Book of Moses” (kat~ tªn kr¾sin t«v b¾blouMwusŸwv). When the two are married, Reu}el addresses Tobias, saying (7.12),“take her from now on according to the statute (kat~ tªn kr¾sin),” while thelong version repeats the phrase found in 6.13: “she is given to you as per thelaw of the Book of Moses.” In the third verse (7.13) Reu}el says to Tobias: “Be-hold, pray take her according to the Law of Moses (kat~ tÌn nËmonMwusŸwv),” and in the long version, “Pray take her according to the law andthe statute written in the Book of Moses (kat~ tÌn nËmon ka¿ tªn kr¾sin tªngegrammŸnhn en t° b¾blæ MwusŸwv), that I give you her for a wife.” This for-mula appears a fourth time, with a minor change, in the long version of thenext verse (7.14): “according to the statute of the Law of Moses” (kat~ tªnkr¾sin toØ MwusŸwv nËmon).

We have cited the relevant formulas in both Greek versions, in order toallow the reader to come to her own conclusions. Needless to say, we cannotknow to what extent the two Greek translators altered the original, but thismuch is clear: the Aramaic text discovered at Qumran includes a fragmentcontaining the phrase “book of Moses,” which the editors assign to Tobias10.13, which fits with the fact that the long Greek version was translated fromthe Aramaic. We may assume, then, that all four verses of the Aramaic versionread “book of Moses”, but that “book” was absent from the short version.Also absent is the important word kr¾siv, statute (which appears in Jewishketubot, as we will see below), which only appears in Tobias 7.12: “take herfrom now on according to the statute (kat~ t©n kr¾sin)”.4 In any case, theword kr¾siv, which translates either od or vyd, alludes to the ketubah formula:“according to the law (od or, in some cases, vyd) of Moses,” an allusion bestpreserved in the long Greek version, which is based on the Aramaic. It shouldalso be noted that the Qumran Temple Scroll speaks of “a young virgin who isnot betrothed, and she is permitted to him by law (kwjh vm)” (11QTa 66.8-9),a formula that is similar to that of Tobias 7.13.

Let us turn now to another passage from the Book of Tobias, namelyTobias’s prayer on his wedding night, in which, inter alia, he says: “You mademan and you made for him his wife, Eve, as a helpmate and a support, andfrom the two was born the seed of mankind. And you said: It is not good thatman should be alone, I will make him a helper as his partner” (8.6). Thisquote is from the long version, and the short is almost identical. Scholars have

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“In the Image of the Likeness of His Form”

4. The phrase hqm orwo (‘The Law of Moses’) appears in the short version at 6.13 and7.13, as well as in the fourth verse cited above from the long version: “according to the statute ofthe Law of Moses” (7.14). This last statement has no counterpart in the short version, and thereis some question as to whether it was in the Aramaic original.

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already noted that the mention of Adam and Eve and of their progeny is rem-iniscent of the Jewish matrimonial blessings,5 the topic of the present study.

The two topics mentioned by Tobias — marriage according to the Lawof Moses, and Adam and Eve and progeny — also appear in the standard ver-sion of the Samaritan marriage contract,6 which contains the formula:“. . . like Eve, who was created from the rib of Adam as a helpmate, for fruit-fulness and reproduction. . . . Just as the Lord said through his servant Moses:‘he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or her marital rights’ (Exod.21:10). . . .” Is the conjunction of the two motifs here significant? It all dependson whether the formulas in the present-day Samaritan ketubah derive fromearlier sources, and whether they may have been influenced by Jewishsources. It seems that as far as the two points in question are concerned, thelatter possibility must be discounted, since the language of the Samaritan for-mula is quite different from the Jewish ketubah and the wedding blessings.However, even if the Samaritan marriage contract derives from an ancientsource not influenced by the Jewish matrimonial traditions, it is still possiblethat the two motifs (Adam and Eve and their progeny, and Moses) do not de-rive from a single source common to the Samaritan ketubah, the Jewish bless-ings, and the Book of Tobias, but rather to the analogous role of matrimonyin Jewish and Samaritan society. It is natural both for Jews and Samaritans tomention these motifs during a wedding ceremony. Indeed, Christians makemention of the first couple in the Garden of Eden during their wedding cere-monies, even to this very day.7 That said, we ought not underestimate the im-portance of the Samaritan ketubah for our study, as — stylistic differencesnotwithstanding — the appearance of the two motifs bespeaks a profoundcommonality, as will be evident in what follows.

The formula “according to the law of Moses and Israel” belongs in theJewish ketubah. The formula, which has no halakhic significance, was addedto the groom’s pronouncement (“Behold, you are sanctified unto me”) onlyduring the Middle Ages, and is attested beginning in the 11th century.8 As wesaw, the long version of Tobias reflects the formula “according to the law of

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5. See Heller’s discussion in ha-Sefarim ha-Hitzonim.6. See the two Samaritan inscriptions published by Pinhas Grajewsky in Mizrah u-

Ma{arav 2 (1928), 229-231; M. Gaster, Studies and Texts (London, 1925-1928), 3.139, 143, 154, 159,165, 176. Also of interest is the Hebrew story at 169-170.

7. This is evident from, inter alia, the parodic passage at the end of G. Büchner’s comedyLeonce und Lena.

8. See H. Albeck (ed.), Studies in Memory of Moses Schorr (New York, 1945), 14-15; andsee also Sefer ha-Shetarot le-Rabbenu Yehudah b. Barzilay ha-Bartzeloni, Halberstamm (ed.), 11and 55.

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the Book of Moses.” Fortunately, archaeological excavations have provided uswith two ancient inscriptions that date roughly to the time of Bar Kokhba. Inone,9 only the words “according to the law of M[oses]” were preserved. Itwould appear that the formula used in this ketubah is identical to that ofBabatha’s famous marriage contract,10 which opens with the statement thatthe matrimony is proceeding “according to the law of Moses and of Israel”(yadwhyw hqm odc). As the editor rightly notes, this is essentially the sameformula as we find in the Talmudic discussion of the marriage contract of theAlexandrian community, which came before Hillel the Elder:11 “When youenter my household you will be my wife according to the law (od) of Mosesand the Jews.”12 It is possible that the two Yerushalmi passages once read vydc(“according to the law”) but that the scribe of MS Leiden, upon which theprinted edition is based, or perhaps one of his predecessors, replaced it withodc (of similar meaning), with which he was more familiar.

Despite the early evidence for the formula “yadwhyw hqm vydc” it ap-pears that neither it, nor “larqyw hqm odc,” which is still in use today — isoriginal. We believe the earliest formula was “oydwyw hqm odc.” The Mishnahstates (Ketubot 7.6): “These are the women who are divorced without receiv-ing the ketubah payment: a wife that transgresses the law of Moses and Jewishcustom (oydwhyw hqm od le orbweh).” The Mishnah then elaborates themeaning of “law of Moses” and of “Jewish custom”: transgressions against theformer are full-fledged legal transgressions, while the latter refers to transgres-sions relating to proper behavior. This distinction, however, appears to be sec-ondary — a retroactive attempt to distinguish between the two elements,made when the formula had become problematic inasmuch as it refers both towritten Halakhah encoded in the book of Moses, and to non-biblical and yetobligatory Halakhah. The word dat, in the sense of law, is Persian, while theword oydwhy is very unusual in later Hebrew, as Hebrew (unlike Aramaic) re-fers only to ‘Israel’ and not to ‘the Jews.’ As a result of this linguistic discomfortlater authorities changed the formula to “larqyw hqm odc.” The earliest at-

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9. Discoveries in the Judaean Desert II (Oxford, 1961), 3, 20, and see Milik’s fascinatingcomments there. The marriage contracts of the Jews of Elephantine are structured differently,and contain no corresponding formulas.

10. See Y. Yadin, “The Judean Desert Caves” (Hebrew), Yediot 26 (1962), 222, document 7;idem, The Search for Bar Kokhba (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1971), 237, and see also Yadin’s fascinat-ing comments in both sources.

11. P. Ketubot 4, 28d, and p. Yebamot 15, 14d. The same story appears in t. Ketubot 3.9, butthere we find the standard formula: “according to the law of Moses and Israel.”

12. Thus in the two passages in the Palestinian Talmud. The actual marriage contracts ofAlexandrian Jews were most likely composed in Greek.

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testation of this “corrected” version is found in t. Ketubot 7.6:13 “Because hefailed to treat her according to the law of Moses and Israel.” This new formula,which is still standard today, is the typical lectio facilior, inasmuch as it doesaway with the archaic “oydwhy.” The price for this move, however, is that, se-mantically, the word ‘Israel’ is now tied to its immediate predecessor, ‘Moses,’but only loosely to od. This is also true of yadwhyw hqm vydc, where — if weare correct — the infrequent od has been replaced by the more standard vyd. Ifso, the syntax of oydwhyw hqm odc is the most difficult of the three (thus,lectio difficilior), while its content is clearer than the others. Both its terminol-ogy (od, oydwhy) and its content — the law of Moses understood as the part ofthe law that is codified in the Torah, alongside an unwritten Jewish law — in-dicated that it stems from the Persian or early Hellenistic period. And since theformula “hqm rps odc” is known from the Book of Tobias, it appearsoydwhyw hqm odc is an expanded version that aims, perhaps, at greater clarity,or perhaps to distinguish the Jewish ketubah from its Samaritan counterpart.

Now to the main subject at hand. We saw above that both the Samaritanand the modern Jewish ketubot, as well as Tobias’s prayer on his nuptial night,mention Adam and Eve and their progeny. They are also the subject of one ofthe “seven blessings” offered at Jewish wedding ceremonies. These blessingsare listed in b. Ketubot 7b-8a in the name of Rav Yehudah, presumably theAmora by that name. But the opening of Kallah Rabbati, one of the so-called‘minor tractates,’ reads:14 “Regarding the seven blessings, how do we bless?Rabbi Levi said . . .”15 This seems to be the correct reading, and the Talmud’smistake, for in b. Ketubot 7b, immediately prior to the citation of the bless-ings in the name of Rav Yehudah, another matter — the requirement thatnew guests appear with the bride and groom during the seven days of theirwedding celebration — is cited in his name. But this passage is also found int. Megillah 4.14, where it is obvious that the sage in question is RabbiYehudah, the Tanna, and not Rav Yehudah, the Amora. This strongly suggeststhat Kallah Rabbati correctly cites the seven blessings in the name of RabbiLevi, while the Babylonian Talmud erroneously attributed this statement toRav Yehudah, due to the preceding mention of Rabbi Yehudah, the Tanna.And while the Talmud mentions only six blessings, adding the blessing on thewine yields seven blessings in all.

But it is not only the seven blessings that are recited at wedding ceremo-

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13. And in t. Ketubot 4.9, and see above, n. 11.14. See M. Higger (ed.), Masakhtot Kallah, 170-171. Immediately prior to this we find the

blessing on the betrothal cited in the name of Rabbi Yehudah.15. On the seven blessings see Azriel Hildsheimer, “The History of the Benedictions of

Betrothal and Matrimony” (Hebrew), Sinai 10 (1942), 107-119.

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nies. B. Ketubot 8a, immediately following the passage just cited, recounts anincident in which only five or six blessings were recited, followed by the asser-tion that “those of the east [i.e., Babylonia] bless the groom with seven bless-ings, those of the Land of Israel with three.”16 In a discussion of the havdalahblessings, marking the end of the Sabbath, we find the following rule: “Onewho minimizes cannot proceed with less than three, one who maximizes can-not add beyond seven” (b. Pesahim 103b). We may surmise the identity of thethree wedding blessings. If we exclude the blessing on the wine, which appar-ently was not mandatory since it is not mentioned in Ketubot 8a, we come tothe blessing “that all was made for His glory” which is undoubtedly old sinceit is alluded to by Rabbi Yehuda in t. Megillah 4.14. The next blessing(“Blessed art thou . . . who created man”), however, is in fact the conclusion ofthe fourth blessing. It appears, then, that the third blessing was added for thesole purpose of reaching the number seven. The last blessing is beautiful andpoetic, but its conclusion is identical with that of the sixth. It appears, then,that the last of the seven blessings is no more than a copy of its predecessor. Itis not easy to decide whether the fifth (“qyqo qwq”) or the sixth constitutedpart of the original three blessings. Perhaps both were once part of a singleprayer that had to do with marital joy.

All this points to the central importance of the fourth blessing, a textthat — as noted — has rough parallels in the Samaritan ketubah and in theancient Book of Tobias. In what follows, we will argue that the fourth blessingdates back to the time of the Second Temple, will try to elucidate its depen-dence on biblical motifs, and point to a fascinating parallel in the Dead SeaScrolls. The benediction states: “Blessed art thou O Lord our God, king of theUniverse, who has created man in his image, in the image of the likeness of hisform, and has prepared unto him out of himself a building forever. Blessedart thou, O Lord, Creator of man.”17

The linguistic influence of the biblical creation story of Adam and Eve isplainly evident. The phrase “fdah oa rey rqa” depends on Genesis 2:7.The word flx famously appears in Genesis 1:26-27, and note especially verse26: “Let us make humankind in our image,” a verse that also contains theword ‘likeness’ (owmd). The blessing also mentions the creation of Eve: “theLord made for Adam, from his rib, a building forever, as it is written, ‘and the

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16. Ha-Hilukim, Margaliouth edition (1938), 143-145.17. The word flxb, ‘in the image,’ is not attested in the Genizah text (TS8H), nor in the

Italian liturgical tradition. The version cited here is found in Siddur Rav Sa}adia Gaon (He-brew), p. 108, though the critical apparatus refers to an alternate version also attested in Sa}adia’soeuvre. All these are secondary alterations, stemming from the putative syntactical difficulty of“in the image of the likeness of his form” (owmd flxb woynbo).

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rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman’.” Theword oynbo, ‘form,’ apparently serves as an allusion to Isaiah 44:13, regardingthe creation of an idol: “he makes it in human form, with human beauty,18 tobe set up in a shrine.” Another possibility is that the author’s reference toyde vynb de, ‘a building forever,’ alludes to Psalm 132:12: “. . . their sons forevershall sit on your throne.” As we will see, this de yde vynb refers in the blessingnot only to Eve, whom God created for Adam from his rib, but also to the hu-man race, the descendents of Eve who will exist “forever.” Humankind, then,is likened to a vynb, a building. We might also mention a linguistic and con-ceptual parallel found in b. Shabbat 114a: “To what does vyanb refer? RabbiYohanan said: these are the sages who concern themselves with the buildingof the world all their lives.” The same idea is famously found at the end of b.Berakhot (64 and 71): Rabbi Elazar said in the name of Rabbi Hanina: Sagesincrease peace in the world, for Scripture states ‘All your children shall betaught by the Lord, and great shall be the peace of your children (Fynb).’Don’t read this as ‘your children (Fynb)’ but rather as ‘your builders(Fynwb).”19 Both these dicta point, at the very least, to a possible connectionbetween children and the building of the world, and it stands to reason thatthe author of the blessing was inspired by vbyw in Genesis 2:22 to add the con-cept of de yde vynb, that is, the generations of Eve, the mother of all life. Asfor the ongoing existence of the progeny of Adam and Eve, the de yde vynb ofthe blessing, it is worth citing the creation account in the Qumran Hodayot:“You have created the earth with your strength, seas and deeps [with dry landand all its inhabi]tants you have founded with your wisdom, everythingwhich is in them you have determined according to your will” (1QHa 9.13-16).

There is also a significant parallel to the terminology and content of thewedding blessings in the beginning of the third book of the Sibylline Oracles,which is actually the end of the second book.20 There (line 8 or, in some ver-sion, 10) we find reference to man’s having God’s image,21 while further on(line 27 or 33) we read about God fixing “the pattern of the human form.”22 It

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18. Apparently in a relatively early period this verse was interpreted as if the idolater cre-ated an idol of Adam, since Ben Sira states: “Shem and Seth and Enosh were honored, but aboveevery other created living being was the beauty of Adam” (49.16). It is possible that this early in-terpretive tradition is the basis for the reference to woynbo of Adam in the matrimonial blessing,and to the War Scroll’s “fda oynbo” (10.14), to be discussed below. Compare also b. Sanhedrin84 and t. Sanhedrin 8.5.

19. In the Qumran Isaiah scroll there is, in fact, an interlinear w hanging over Fynb.20. Hanna Safrai called our attention to this parallel.21. ‡njrwpoi jeËplaston £qontev ›n Âkonti morf©n.22. tÖpov morf«v merËpwn. An interesting passage from an early Samaritan text, the

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is possible that the Greek tÖpov, pattern, reflects the Hebrew oynbo, whichappears in the same context in our benediction.

We will return to the Dead Sea Scroll parallels to the benediction, one ofwhich plays a critical role in our argument. But first it is necessary to clarifythe meaning of “woynbo owmd flxb.” The prayer book }otzar ha-tefilot(252b) cites a saying by Rabbi David ben Zimra, which originally appeared inthe anthology of Talmudic commentaries known as shitah mequbetzet to t.Ketubot 8a: “One must pay close attention to the fact that flx is a subtleword, while oynbo is a coarse term . . . and one should not use it to modifyanything immaterial, including God. As a result there are those who emendthe formula, but the matter is resolved by recognizing that woynbo, ‘his form,’is reflexive. That is, wonbo of man is in ‘the image of the likeness’ of the cre-ator.”23 In other words, the phrase woynbo owmd flxb, ‘in the image of thelikeness of his form,’ is an independent statement that stands in apposition tothe preceding word, wmlx. The form of man was created in the image of thelikeness of God.24

As for the “form of man” (fda lq woynbo), this terminology is found inthe Dead Sea Scrolls, specifically in two fragments from 1QMysteries (1Q27),which refer to the “form of the male” which will be no longer, since “their formis of dust” (foynbo rpem).25 This last phrase has a parallel in the Hodayot,where we find: “What is someone born of woman. . . . He is a structure (hnbm)of dust fashioned with water” (1QHa 5.20-21), a verse that includes the wordhnbm rather than the cognate form oynbo. The author of the Hodayot furtherstates: “I am a creature of clay, fashioned with water, a foundation of shameand a source of impurity, an oven of iniquity and a building of sin” (1QHa 9.21-22). He describes his body, saying, “the foundations of my build have crum-bled” (1QHa 15.4), and further “You founded upon rock my building and ever-lasting foundation as my base” (1QHa 15.8-9). The term hnbm in the sense of‘body’ is also found in the Manual of Discipline, in reference to the purity of

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Memar Marka, reads: “Blessed is God who introduced a variety of creatures for the sake of man,who is glorious in the shape that is upon the image of God, the form of the heart with no formof the shape.” Heidenhiem, Bibliotheca Samaritana 3 (1896), 3.

23. See Shitah Mequbetzet on Ketubot (Tel Aviv, 1963), 160.24. The original language must have been owmd flxb and not wowmd flxb, since the

phrase woynbo wowmd flxb would have been ambiguous, as though the oynbo of man were inthe wowmd flx of himself! The failure to recognize that woynbo owmd flxb is an independentphrase engendered the interpretive difficulties that the various emendations sought to over-come (see above, n. 17).

25. Our thanks to J. T. Milik who allowed us to cite these verses, as well as the phrase“book of Moses” from the Book of Tobias. All these are from the Qumran scrolls that have notyet been published.

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man in the end of days: “Then God will refine, with his truth, all man’s deeds,and will purify for himself the structure of man, ripping out all the spirit of in-justice from the innermost part (wrqb ymco)” (1QS 4.20-21).26 The juxtaposi-tion of hnbm and fymco is also found in a Hodayot fragment, which reads“like my build and my entrails” ([y]mcow yoynbmc) (1QHa 22, middle). Clearly,then, the poetic use of oynbo to refer to the human body has a number of fas-cinating attestations in the Qumran scrolls. This was the elevated, poetic lan-guage of the Second Temple period, as we are now able to recognize thanks tothe discoveries at Qumran. Due to the unique worldview of the Qumran com-munity, most of these references to the human body appear in a pejorativesense, but there is no reason to suppose this was true of all the literature of theday. After all, if the benediction speaks of the image of the likeness of the formof God, this form, oynbo, undoubtedly carries a positive valence.

We now turn to the most significant parallel to the fourth of the wed-ding blessings, and it is found in the War Scroll (10.14), as part of the descrip-tion of the great acts of creation, one of which is “man’s image, thegener[ations of his r]ib.” So great is the similarity between this phrase and thelanguage of the wedding blessing, that Yadin’s restoration is certainly correct.The parallel between the sectarian scroll and the “rabbinic” blessing becomesmore apparent when the two are juxtaposed:

who has created man in his image,in the image of the likeness of his form,and has prepared unto him out of himself

a building forever.

man’s imageand the gener[ations of his rib]

The parallel goes beyond the linguistic and substantive similarities con-cerning man and his form, but rather extend to the statement about Eve, whois built from Adam’s rib, and about her descendents: “the generations of hisrib” — corresponding to the “building forever” that God “prepared untohim.” There is, then, a literary connection between the language of the scrolland the wedding blessing. Are we to suppose that the author of the War Scrollwas familiar with the wedding blessing, or perhaps both have their roots inthe same literary tradition? Whatever the answer, the language of the WarScroll suggests that the blessing is ancient, and was composed during the Sec-ond Temple period. There is also a methodological lesson to be learned fromthese texts: scholars who argue that poetic language in liturgical texts is amarker of late composition are sadly mistaken. Our analysis suggests that at

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26. Most of the Qumran citations offered here have been collected by Yadin in his editionof the War Scroll.

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least parts of these poetic liturgical works are, to the contrary, quite early. Un-fortunately, this is not the place to discuss the evolution of literary Hebrew inthe Second Temple period and post 70.

Furthermore, it should not be surprising that the blessing states that theform of man, that is, man’s material aspect, was created in the image of God.This is not, of course, an anthropomorphism, but rather a holistic view ofman that encompasses his spiritual and material aspects alike. The anthro-pology that here finds expression is not one of dualism, according to whichthe spirit alone is created in God’s image, but unitary, sanctifying both thebody and the spirit. This same view finds expression, albeit in a more subtleform, in the teachings of Hillel the Elder, who taught that bathing in a bath-house is a religious commandment:27

Once, when Hillel the Elder concluded his studies with his disciples, hewalked along with them. His disciples asked him: ‘Master, where are youbound?’ He answered them: ‘To perform a religious duty.’ ‘What,’ theyasked, ‘is this religious duty?’ He said to them: ‘To wash in the bath-house.’ Said they: ‘Is this a religious duty?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘if the statuesof kings, which are erected in theatres and circuses, are scoured andwashed by the man who is appointed to look after them, and who therebyobtains his salary — nay more, he is exalted in the company of the greatof the kingdom — how much more I, who have been created in the imageand likeness, as it is written: ‘For in his own image God made mankind’(Gen. 9:6).

We have traversed a long way to arrive at our destination. We beganwith the Book of Tobias, which contains the two motifs found in the Samari-tan marriage contract, as well as in Jewish marriage ceremonies to this veryday. The Book of Tobias employs the phrase “according to the law of the bookof Moses,” and we traced its development, ultimately arriving at the presentversion, “according to the law of Moses and Israel.” The second motif inTobias is found in the prayer he offers on his nuptial night (8.6), namely, themention of the creation of Adam and Eve, from whom “was born the seed ofmankind.” This is the very content of one of the seven Jewish matrimonialblessings, and we have tried to explain its meaning. Apparently, this is the old-est of the seven blessings. Indeed, its terminology — with its fascinating par-

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27. Leviticus Rabba 34.3, in Midrash Rabbah: Leviticus, J. J. Slotki (trans.) (London, 1939),428. And see also Avot According to Rabbi Nathan, B (Schechter edition, p. 66). There is anotherstory about Hillel in Leviticus Rabba that suggests that he also conceived of the body as theabode of the soul.

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allels in the Qumran scrolls — suggests that it dates back to the Second Tem-ple period. Our conclusions relate not only to the history and development ofthe matrimonial blessings, but to the meaning and function of ancientprayers as such: often they are the expression of profound religious andphilosophical thought. The impetus for these prayers lies, of course, in anovel development of biblical thought, a topic which our jubilarian has soably studied.

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7. “Not by an Angel . . .”

This titular phrase, familiar from the Passover Haggadah,1 was discussed inan earlier study of mine.2 The phrase “Not by an angel . . . and not by a mes-senger, but rather the Holy One Blessed Be He himself in his glory (redeemedus from Egypt)”3 does not appear in the sources from which the Haggadah aswe now have it is drawn, but it is known from other rabbinic sources.4 It isworth noting that the Gospel of Mark echoes the same idea (Mark 13:32, andsimilarly Matt. 24:36), when Jesus says: “But about that day or hour no oneknows, neither the angel in heaven, nor the son, but only the Father.”5 Thestatement in Mark is, most likely, the earliest (even if indirect) witness to thestatement under consideration.

The assertion that God redeemed Israel not by the mediation of an an-gel or a messenger, but rather He Himself acted as redeemer, is based on the

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1. See the discussion in S. Safrai and Z. Safrai, Haggadah of the Sages (Hebrew) (Jerusa-lem, 1998), 220, as well as p. 11, nn. 29-30.

2. D. Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem, 1988), p. 252, n. 24, andp. 254, n. 33.

3. The phrase “himself in his glory” (wmxebw wdwbcb) is a late addition of God’s “glory”to the original “himself.” See Safrai, Haggadah of the Sages, 140. “Himself” appears to be the cor-rect reading, with “in his glory” added as the result of the incorrect assumption that God re-deemed Israel from Egypt by the agency of the Divine Glory.

4. See Safrai, Haggadah of the Sages, p. 11, nn. 29-30. See also Sifre Deuteronomy §42(p. 88 in the Finkelstein edition; Hammer edition, p. 86), §337 (Finkelstein, pp. 386-387; Ham-mer edition, p. 339).

5. The singular “angel” is attested in the Vatican manuscript. Other manuscripts (fol-lowed by the NRSV), read “angels.” See also Acts 23:8; Galatians 1:8.

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Hebrew Vorlage of Isaiah 63:8-9 LXX (among other witnesses), which is ap-parently the correct reading. It was Yehezkel Kaufmann who discovered thatIsaiah 63:9 LXX provides the context for our statement from the PassoverHaggadah.6 It is the Septuagint version that serves as the basis for, e.g., theNRSV: “For he said, ‘Surely they are my people, children who will not dealfalsely’; and he became their savior in all their distress. It was no emissary(rÂx) or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity heredeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” Al-ready Yigael Yadin in his comments to the War Scroll 13.14 noted that theQumran verse was in fact a midrashic elaboration of Isaiah 63:9 LXX. Forthere we find: “And which angel or prince is an aid like [you?].” This state-ment provides an important piece of textual evidence inasmuch as it demon-strates that the Qumran community interpreted Isaiah 63:9 according to theSeptuagint’s reading, against the Masoretic text as we have it today. This in-formation could not be gleaned from the two Isaiah scrolls discovered atQumran. In the fragmentary copy the relevant words are not preserved, whilethe Great Isaiah Scroll is inconclusive on this point. The only possibly signifi-cant detail in the Great Isaiah Scroll is the reading re awl, which could beunderstood as a synthesis of the ketiv al (‘not’) and the qere wl (‘to him’).7This hypothesis is, however, best discounted since the plene orthography awlis typical in Qumran texts. Moreover, as I will show in what follows, the moti-vation for the qere form (wl) lies elsewhere.

In the War Scroll 13.14 we find ‘ruler’ (rq) instead of ‘emissary’ (rÂx), asin the Septuagint (and jylq, ‘messenger,’ in the Haggadah). The shift is sig-nificant, as it is the former term that best accords with the original version ofDeuteronomy 32:8-9:8

When the Most High apportioned the nations / when he dividedhumankind,He fixed the boundaries of the peoples / according to the number ofthe angels;The Lord’s own portion was his people / Jacob his allotted share

The idea that a divine ruler is appointed to each nation is quite ancient,and amply attested in the apocalyptic and eschatological literature of the Sec-ond Temple period. The Book of Daniel, for example, states that it is the angel

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6. See his critique of E. E. Urbach in Qiryat Sefer 36 (1961), p. 146, n. 17 (Hebrew).7. On qere and ketiv see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis,

1992), 58-64.8. See Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, p. 252, n. 24.

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Michael who governs Israel. But alongside this approach we find the claim(already encountered above in Deuteronomy) that while other nations aregoverned by angels, Israel is the Lord’s portion. Indeed, it appears this is theview of Isaiah 63:8-9, according to the original reading reflected in the Septu-agint, in the War Scroll, and in the Passover Haggadah. It is striking that, ab-sent a proper appreciation of the importance of Isaiah 63:8-9 LXX — a rela-tively recent development — we would not be able to reconstruct the originalsense of the verses from the ancient rabbinic sources. As we will see, this losswas caused by the qere wl (‘to him’).

We must assume that the first step in the loss of the meaning of thisverse lies in a shift in the understanding of rx. For, depending on the Hebrewvocalization, the same consonants may be read as rÂx (‘emissary’) or as r½xtzar (‘to anguish’), and, over time, the latter became the dominant reading.This led to an intermediate stage, in which ‘to anguish’ was paired with theketiv al (‘not’), yielding “He did not anguish” (rather than: “It was no emis-sary”). This reading is reflected in the Vulgate and the Aramaic Targum, andwas also the view of Rashi, the medieval Bible commentator, who, followingthe Targum, writes: “‘In all their distress (forx lcb)’ that He brought uponthem, ‘He did not anguish (rx al),’ that is, He did not bring anguish uponthem in accordance with their misdeeds. For the angel of His Presence is Mi-chael, the Ruler of the Divine Presence, who serves before God, and he alwaysredeems as he is delegated to do by the Almighty.”

In the final (present) stage, the misreading of rx was joined with theqere, wl (‘for him’) in place of al (‘not’). This shift occurred in the Tannaiticperiod, as we see in a passage found both in the Sifre Numbers9 and in theMekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael: “And so you find that whenever Israel is enslavedthe Divine Presence (Shekhinah), as it were, is enslaved with them, as it issaid, ‘. . . in all their distress He was distressed.”10

In the earlier, intermediate, stage which followed the ketiv, the verse wasinterpreted as an assertion that God does not cause anguish to anyone, leastof all to Israel, while the angel Michael saves them from distress. But now, fol-lowing the qere, the meaning of the verse is transformed: the Holy OneBlessed Be He participates, as it were, in the sufferings of Israel. We are deal-ing here with a particularly bold aspect of the Jewish humanism of that pe-riod,11 the notion that God suffers with Israel, which apparently originated in

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“Not by an Angel . . .”

9. §84, Horovitz edition, p. 82.10. Pisha 14 (Horovitz-Rabin edition, 51; Lauterbach 1.113).11. See my article “Who Loves Mankind” (Hebrew) in Judaism of the Second Temple Pe-

riod: The Sages and Their Literature (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2002), 146-150.

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the circle of Rabbi Aqiva and his disciples. As Rabbi Meir says (m. Sanhedrin6.5):12 “R. Meir said: When man is troubled, what says the Divine Presence?My head pains me, my arm pains me. If these are the words of Scripture withregard to the blood of the wicked, how much more when the blood of therighteous is spilt?” In truth, it is hard to determine the precise dynamic be-tween the idea of God’s suffering, on the one hand, and Isaiah 63, on theother. Did the qere wl (‘to him’) allow the verse to be “harnessed” as aprooftext to the idea that God suffers with Israel, or perhaps to the contrary,the notion of divine commiseration with Israel gave rise to the qere wl. Onething is certain: the consonantal text of Isaiah 63:9 is a crux interpretum.

It is worth noting that the anthropomorphic notion of God’s sufferingcaused a great deal of discomfort among medieval Jewish Bible commenta-tors, who were as a rule disturbed by the anthropomorphic elements in mid-rash. Rashi fails to note the qere, instead repeating in Hebrew the Targum’sreading, while Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, referring to the qere, states: “This isto be understood as a parable, that is, as though God were in anguish and forthis reason hastened to redeem them.”

In summary: The correct reading of Isaiah 63:9 was preserved in theSeptuagint, and is also reflected in the War Scroll and in the Passover Hagga-dah. There is no question that this is a difficult verse, apparently because itsterminology — and its content — are linked with the traditions involving thenegotiations between God and Moses following the Golden Calf (Exodus32:34; 33:14-15).13 The negotiations open with God commanding Moses: “Butnow go, lead the people to the place about which I have spoken to you; see,my angel shall go in front of you” (Exod. 32:34). In other words, God soughtto hand Israel over to an angel, until Moses interceded, saying, “Let the Lordgo with us” (Exod. 34:9).14 A similar view is found in God’s statement (Exod.33:14): “My presence will go with you and I will give you rest.” The translatorof the Septuagint sensed the affinity between this verse and Isaiah 63:9, andtranslated the Hebrew fynp (‘presence’) in both verses with the same Greekword, aÔtËv, which here means “I myself.” Here, again, is Isaiah 63:8-9: “Forhe said, ‘Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely’; and hebecame their savior in all their distress. It was no emissary (rÂx) or angel buthis presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; helifted them up and carried them all the days of old.”

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12. Following MS Kaufmann (where it appears as 6.10).13. The link between the biblical passages was pointed out to me by Shmuel

Löwenstamm.14. See Midrash Ha-Gadol, Exodus (Margaliyot edition, p. 694).

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We stated that the consonantal text of Isaiah 63:9 is difficult, particu-larly because the terminology borrows from Exodus. The first step in the lossof the original meaning occurred because the word rx (rÂx, ‘emissary’) waswritten scripto defectiva. The word forx, ‘their distress,’ which occurs in theprevious verse, provided an erroneous solution, connecting rx to hrx (‘dis-tress’). Thus there emerged the view that God is not the source of Israel’s dis-tress. Who offers them succor? “The angel of God’s presence — Michael, oneof the angels of the presence and heavenly ruler over Israel — redeemedthem.”

The next step in the obfuscation of Isaiah 63:9 is preserved in theMasoretic text (following the ketiv), as well as in the Vulgate and the Targum.It is followed by a third stage, in which the qere wl (‘for him’) replaces itshomonym al (‘not’). This reading is attested as early as the Tannaitic period,prior to the redaction of the Mishnah. The shift is graphically subtle, and itstands to reason that its originator was convinced he was restoring the origi-nal meaning of the verse. The qere wl, moreover, fits with the idea that Godsuffers along with Israel, which appears among the disciples of Rabbi Aqiva.Originally, then, God was not the direct cause of Israel’s distress, whereas ulti-mately God actually participates in their anguish.

We have traversed a long way to track the changes that occurred in theunderstanding of a single verse, Isaiah 63:9. But our perseverance has, I wouldhope, been rewarded, even in terms of methodology. We have uncovered anexample of a perfect synthesis of textual history and biblical interpretation,on the one hand, and the spiritual history of ancient Israel, on the other.

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“Not by an Angel . . .”

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8. A Qumran Fragment and theSecond Blessing of the Amidah

Émile Puech has recently published all the extant fragments of one of theQumran scrolls.1 One of the fragments has great significance both for thegospels and for the history of the second blessing of the Amidah, known as‘Mighty Deeds’ or gevurot.2 It is not easy to categorize the scroll and its con-tent, since only a few small fragments survived. The fragment in question isthe largest of the group, and it was copied in the early years of the first cen-tury b.c.e., which indicates it was composed prior to this time. The editor,Puech, is uncertain as to whether the text in question was composed by mem-bers of the Qumran community, since the extant fragments do not containthe ideas and terminology that characterize the Qumran sect. To the con-trary: up to this point, the word fydysj (‘righteous men’), for instance, hasnot turned up in any of the typically sectarian scrolls — though it does here.The editor further notes that the fragment endorses the belief in the resurrec-tion of the dead, and if this scroll does indeed reflect Qumran’s own ideology,it follows that they too must be counted, along with the Pharisees and thechurch, as adherent to this belief. However, it appears this is not a sectariancomposition. The mere fact that the scroll was copied by a Qumran scribedoes not, in and of itself, prove that its content was acceptable to the commu-nity. After all, fragments of Ben Sira were also discovered among the scrolls,and he did not believe in life after death, while the Essenes believed in the im-

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1. É. Puech, ‘Une apocalypse messianique (4Q521)’, RQ 60 (1992), 475-519.2. The fragment in question is 2ii+4. We are particularly concerned with lines 8 and 12.

See Puech, ‘Une apocalypse messianique,’ 485.

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mortality of the soul.3 It is not enough to state that the text in question statesthat God “will make the dead live” (4Q521, frag. 2 II, line 12), to conclude thatthe author maintains a doctrine of a general, eschatological resurrection.4 Butanother fragment clarifies that this was indeed the belief of the author.5

The following passage is pertinent to our discussion (4Q521, frag. 2 II,lines 5-13):

5. For the Lord will consider the pious, and call the righteous by name,6. and his spirit will hover upon the poor, and he will renew the

faithful with his strength.7. For he will honor the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom,8. freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out

the twisted.. . .11. And the Lord will perform marvelous acts such as have not existed,

just as he said,12. for he will heal the sick and will make the dead live, he will

proclaim good news to the poor13. and he will satisfy the impoverished; he will lead the abandoned

and enrich the hungry.

The author enumerates the ‘marvelous acts such as have not existed’which the Lord will perform ‘just as he said’ (line 11). There is no doubt thatthis is the Jewish context out of which grew the gospel of the “historical” Je-sus.

As noted, there is an important parallel between line 12 of this passage,and the response Jesus gives to the messengers from John the Baptist. Indeed,lines 12-13 are very similar, both in form and in content, to the Beatitudes(Matt. 5:3-12; Lk. 6:20-23). Furthermore, the scroll states (line 6) that “his

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A Qumran Fragment and the Second Blessing of the Amidah

3. See Josephus, BJ 2.154-158, and also AJ 18.18. Josephus’s account indicates that a corre-late to Essene belief in the immortality of the soul was the rejection of corporeal resurrection.Josephus, after all, states that the Essenes viewed death as the release of the soul from its bodilyfetters, and we see that the Qumran community (in their later stages) conceived of the ‘flesh’ invery negative terms. See D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” in the present vol-ume. In my view, there is not a single passage in the Qumran texts that can count as an unam-biguous endorsement of the belief in resurrection. That said, we cannot discount the possibilitythat there were Essenes who adopted the Pharisee view with regard to physical resurrection.

4. Puech rightly cites as a parallel (p. 492) the words of Jesus (Matt. 11:5; Lk. 7:22) that theraising of the dead is one of the signs of the advent of the messianic era. It is clear that Jesus isreferring to the miracles he has performed, not to a general resurrection in some future time.

5. See 4Q521(frag. 7 + 5 II, line 6): “He who gives life to the dead of his people.”

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spirit will hover upon the poor.” This statement explains the phrase “the poorof spirit,” which is attested both from the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3) and from thescrolls, where it refers to the Qumran members themselves.6 These are not thepoor as such, but rather the poor upon which the spirit of God hovers.

The Qumran fragment in question is particularly meaningful for thesecond blessing of the Amidah, known as ‘Mighty Deeds’ (gevurot).7 For herewe see that the purpose of the blessing was not to emphasize the belief in res-urrection, as against those who would deny it, but rather to praise God as thedoer of “mighty deeds.” Indeed, this may once have been the conclusion ofthe blessing. Thus, the phrase “You revive the dead” that opens the benedic-tion does not refer to a general resurrection in the future. But first let us citethe relevant lines from our text:

8. freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening outthe twisted . . .

12. for he will heal the sick and will make the dead live,he will proclaim good news to the poor

A few preliminary remarks are in order. First, line 8 is a citation of Psalm 146:7-8. Second, it is noteworthy that the Qumran passage is reminiscent of the stan-dard, “Babylonian,” version of the blessing, not of the Palestinian version,which states: “You are mighty, powerfully humbling the mighty and bringingthe tyrant to justice, You live forever, causing the wind to blow and the dew tosettle. You sustain all life and revive the dead, bringing forth salvation for us ina moment’s time. Blessed art thou O Lord, who revives the dead.” There arePalestinian traditions of the blessing, but all contain similar language. Interest-ingly, the Qumran passage is most like the Babylonian version. This is not par-ticularly problematic, since the Palestinian version was the norm in ByzantinePalestine, while its “Babylonian” cousin is in no way later; at least the core ele-ments of most “Babylonian” blessings are, no doubt, of Palestinian origin.8

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6. See D. Flusser, “Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit,” Judaism and the Origins of Christianity(Jerusalem, 1989), 102-114.

7. On this benediction see I. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History, Ray-mond P. Scheindlin (trans.) (New York and Philadelphia, 1993), 45-46. Of particular importanceis the passage that parallels both the language of the scroll and that of the second blessing in theBabylonian Amidah, as well as the blessing Nishmat kol hai (“the breath of every creature”),which states: “He who awakens the sleeping and wakes the slumbering, gives speech to themute, unfetters the imprisoned, supports those who stumble, and raises up those who are bentdown.” Of course, the Amidah is not dependent upon the language of Nishmat kol hai.

8. For an example of this dynamic see D. Flusser, “The ‘Book of the Mysteries’ and theHigh Holy Days Liturgy,” in the present volume.

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Let us, then, compare the language of the gevurot blessing (in its stan-dard, “Babylonian” version) with the Qumran scroll:

Gevurot 4Q521revives the dead with great mercy makes the dead livesupports all who fall9 straightens out the crookedheals the sick heals the sick10

frees prisoners frees prisoners

If we compare the language of the blessing to our Qumran text, on theone hand, and the biblical parallels, on the other,11 we find that the two post-biblical texts are much closer to each other than to the language of the origi-nal biblical verses.

The linguistic similarity is such that it excludes the possibility of merecoincidence. To my mind, it is unlikely that the second blessing of ourAmidah was known to the author of 4Q521. And in any case, there is no evi-dence that the Qumran composition influenced the rabbinic blessing, sincethere are no sectarian elements visible in the Qumran composition.12 Theblessing too is fundamentally non-sectarian — except for the secondary ele-ment in its conclusion, i.e. the reference to the Pharisaic-Rabbinic belief in es-chatological resurrection.13

In light of all this, it appears that already in the Hasmonean era thereexisted a prayer, whose language is reflected in the second blessing of theAmidah (the Gevurot) in its standard version, and this is a significant findingfor the history of Jewish prayer in general. Moreover, the fragment fromQumran sheds light on the Jewish background of Jesus, though that lies be-yond the purview of the present analysis.

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A Qumran Fragment and the Second Blessing of the Amidah

9. This phrase is missing in Rav Sa}adia Gaon’s prayer book.10. The Hebrew here is fyllj, a variant of fylwj, ‘sick.’11. For an excellent comparison between the language of the blessing and its biblical an-

tecedents see the commentary on the prayer book by Rabbenu Yehudah ben Yaqqar, the rab-binic master of Nahmanides, published by S. Yerushalmi, A Commentary on the Prayers andBenedictions (Jerusalem, 1989), 1.39.

12. Though this does occur elsewhere, and see “The ‘Book of the Mysteries’ and theHigh Holy Days Liturgy.”

13. See the discussion in Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy. I would like to reiterate that both thebody of the blessing (prior to the conclusion) and 4Q521 are not referring to an eschatologicalresurrection (unlike, e.g., the fragment cited in Puech, ‘Une apocalypse messianique,’ 501). Simi-larly, Jesus’ statements concerning the resurrection of the dead as a result of his actions (Matt.11:5; Lk. 7:22), certainly do not concern the ultimate resurrection.

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9. 4QMMT and the BenedictionAgainst the Minim

Dedicated to Clemens Thoma, in friendship

I. The Irredeemably Wicked in Seder {Olam

A fascinating article published recently,1 deals with a Qumran scroll that hasyet to be published in its entirety. One of the passages in this text, known as4QMMT, supports our hypothesis that Birkat ha-Minim, the blessing againstheretics, in the Amidah prayer, was originally aimed against the Essenes. Assuch, it seems apt to summarize the results of our findings of the past severalyears,2 and provide additional analysis that may help clarify this knotty prob-

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1. See Y. Sussman, “The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Obser-vations on Miqsat Ma{ase Ha-Torah (4QMMT),” Tarbiz 59 (1990), 11-76. The scroll was pub-lished in full by Z. J. Kapera, “An Anonymously Received Pre-Publication of the ‘4QMMT’,” TheQumran Chronicle (Cracow, 1990), No. 2, Appendix A, 1-11.

2. See my articles: “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” Reuven Mass Festschrift (Je-rusalem, 1974), 266-273; and “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum,” in the pres-ent volume; “The Jewish-Christian Schism,” in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 637-643.And see also H. Milikowsky, “Gehenna and ‘Sinners or Israel’ in the Light of Seder {Olam,”Tarbiz 55 (1986), p. 322 nn. 91-92; B. Z. Binyamin, “Birkat ha-Minim and the Ein Gedi Inscrip-tion,” Immanuel 21 (1987), 68-79; I. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy: A Comprehensive History (Philadel-phia and New York, 1993), 33, 35-36, 45-46. And see, furthermore, R. Kimelman, “Birkat ha-Minim,” in E. P. Sanders (ed.), Jewish and Christian Self-Definition (Philadelphia, 1981), 224-226.While I was writing this article E. Fleischer published his important study “On the Beginningsof Obligatory Jewish Prayer,” Tarbiz 59 (1990), 397-441, which touches on the incorporation ofBirkat ha-Minim into the Eighteen Benedictions (435-436). Fleischer argues that there was nofixed liturgy pre-70: “Prayer, in the common sense of the word, was established by RabbanGamaliel and his court only after the destruction of the Second Temple, as is famously re-

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lem. To expand the scope of the discussion, we first turn to Tosefta Sanhedrin13.4-5,3 the source for b. Rosh ha-Shanah 17a.4 However, a superior version ofthe passage is found at the end of the third chapter of Seder {Olam,5 fromwhich we now quote:

The judgment of the evildoers in hell is twelve months as it is said “Fromnew moon to new moon” (Isa. 66:23). Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri said: fromPassover to Pentecost, as it is said, “from holiday to holiday” (ibid.). Aftertwelve months, the souls of Jewish sinners who transgressed the com-mandments disintegrate and their bodies decompose; they become ashes,hell expels them, and the wind disperses them under the feet of the righ-teous, as it is written: “And you shall tread down the wicked, for they willbe ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lordof hosts” (Mal. 4:3 [MT 3:21]). But those who separate themselves fromthe community, for example the minim, informers, hypocrites and here-tics, as well as those who cause terror in the Land of the Living, those whodeny the resurrection to the dead, those who say that the Torah is not ofdivine origin and Jews who scoff at the words of the sages, will be lockedin hell and they will be judged in it for all eternity, forevermore, as it iswritten “And they shall go out and look at the dead bodies of the peoplewho have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall

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4QMMT and the Benediction Against the Minim

counted in the Mishna (Berakhot 5.3)” (p. 426). No doubt, Fleischer’s thorough argument callsfor a thorough response, and we must respect his words in this regard: “The common practicein these parts, of grasping on to marginalia (that is: the marginal and circumstantial evidencethat can, as the author well recognizes, be interpreted in different ways) and setting them at thecenter, to undermine their testimony, and to think that the central theme is thereby undone —in no way furthers the search for truth. Core assumptions in fundamental issues are not the re-sult of a single piece of evidence, but rather of an aggregate. Therefore, anyone who questionsthe contribution of any single argument in what follows is advised to ignore it, and base his ob-jective considerations on the remaining ‘aggregate’” (p. 397 n. 1). There is no doubt in my mindthat Fleischer’s article ought to precipitate a revolution in the field of Jewish Studies, and schol-ars of Jewish prayer must not ignore it. I believe that some of the questions Fleischer’s articleraises have been addressed in S. Safrai’s earlier study, “Gathering in the Synagogues on Festivals,Sabbaths and Weekdays,” British Archaeological Research (International Series 499; Oxford,1989), 7-15.

3. The Hebrew text is based on the Zuckermandel edition (Halberstadt, 1881), 434.4. With parallels at: M. Higger (ed.), Minor Tractates (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1970), 96, and

see especially the sources cited at 145; and see also tosefta derekh eretz in M. Higger (ed.), DerekhEretz Tractates (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1970), 278.

5. The critical edition is found in C. J. Milikowsky, Seder Olam, II: Text and Translation(Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 1981), 229-231. See also Milikowsky, “Gehenna and ‘Sinnersof Israel.’” A textually inferior version was published by Dov Ber Ratner, in his edition of Seder{Olam (New York, 1966), 16-17; see the notes and emendations therein.

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not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh” (Isa. 66:24).“And their form shall waste away; Sheol shall be their home (zevul)” (Ps.49:14 [MT 49:15]). That is, Sheol wastes them away, but they are notwasted away. On account of what? That they lifted their hands against thezevul, as it is written: “their home (zevul),” and zevul refers to the Temple,as it is written, “I have built You an exalted house (zevul)” (1 Kgs. 8:13).6

The opening sentence is not found in the Tosefta parallel, but is foundin m. Eduyot 2.10, where the view that “The judgment of evildoers in hell is12 months” is cited in the name of Rabbi Aqiva. According to his view, whichis shared by the other sages, the infernal punishment of the evildoers is tem-porary, since following that period “all flesh shall come to worship beforeme, says the Lord” (Isa. 66:23). The discussion that follows in Seder {Olam,however, suggests that Jews who transgress the Torah and the command-ments are punished in hell for twelve months and then destroyed (the sameview is found in t. Sanhedrin 13.4-5). Not only does this contradict RabbiAqiva’s position — that is, that evildoers are relegated to hell for a limitedtime only — but there is an inherent difficulty with the notion that evildoersare to be destroyed, but that destruction is preceded by a stay in hell. It ismore probable that this “transition” time in hell (prior to total destruction)emerged as a secondary development of Rabbi Aqiva’s position in m. Eduyot2.10. Indeed, in the text of Seder {Olam the phrase “After twelve months” fol-lows immediately after the citation from Eduyot 2.10, but before the punish-ment of Jewish transgressors. But while this is a plausible hypothesis, itshould be noted that the Pesiqta de Rav Kahana suggests that the souls ofevildoers dissipate after twelve months, with hell playing no purifying role inthe account.7

In any case, the account that parallels t. Sanhedrin deals with two typesof sinners and two infernal punishments meted out to them. Clearly, the edi-tor sought to emphasize the severity of the second group, as its punishment isfar worse than that of the first: it is, after all, far better to be destroyed than tobe in hell “for all eternity, forevermore.” The same is true regarding the men-dacity of the two groups of sinners — the second group is far more severe,and far more clearly defined, than the first. The first are merely “Jews whotransgressed the commandments,” and there is no discussion of the nature ofthese transgressed commandments. Indeed, in the Tosefta they are referred to

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6. Translation (with slight modifications) from Seder Olam: The Rabbinic View of BiblicalChronology, H. W. Guggenheimer (trans.) (Northvale, NJ, 1998), 42-43.

7. See Pesiqta de Rav Kahana, Y. Y. Mandelbaum (ed.), (New York, 1962), 165, andMilikowsky, “Gehenna and ‘Sinners of Israel’,” 327.

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simply as ‘sinners’ (fyeqwp). The second group, however, is made up of thosewho “separated themselves from the community,” and this is clearly a very se-vere transgression. Despite this, the second list contains a variety of looselyrelated sins, and we will try to understand how this list came to be and toidentify its original intent. All the same, it does appear that there were oncetwo distinct theories regarding infernal punishment, and that one of themdid not need to stress that severity and precise nature of the sins.

The punishment of the first group is that their souls “disappear, and theirbodies decompose; they become ashes, hell expels them, and the wind dispersesthem.”8 Absolute annihilation is also mentioned in the New Testament, namelyin Second Thessalonians (1:8-9), where Paul discusses — in Greek, of course —the great day of judgment, when “. . . those who do not know God and . . . thosewho do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus . . . will suffer the punishment ofeternal destruction, separated from the presence of the Lord and from the gloryof his might.” The same phrase appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well. Thus, theWar Scroll speaks of the end of days, a time “of everlasting destruction for allthe lot of Belial” (1QM 1.5). The Manual of Discipline also says, sublimely, of thesinner, that “his spirit will be obliterated, the dry with the moist, withoutmercy.9 May God’s anger and the wrath of His verdicts consume him for ever-lasting destruction” (1QS 2.14-15). The most important parallel for the presentdiscussion is in column 5 of 1QS. There the author speaks of the need “to be seg-regated from all the men of injustice who walk along the path of wickedness”(5.10-11), since “they treated revealed matters with disrespect, and this is whywrath will rise up for judgment in order to effect revenge by the curses of thecovenant, in order to administer fierce punishments for everlasting annihila-tion without there being any remnant” (5.12-13).

This last passage from the Manual of Discipline alludes to Numbers15:30-31: “But whoever acts high-handedly . . . affronts the Lord, and shall be

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8. The punishment of absolute annihilation of the wicked is also mentioned in Enoch84.5, and see also Enoch 91.19. As for the last verse, see: J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch, AramaicFragments of Cave 4 (Oxford, 1976), 260-261. Thus, the Aramaic original read “andba iwsl,”that is, “for an absolute annihilation.” And see the important comment of M. Black, The Book ofEnoch (Leiden, 1985), 282, who cites the Targum to Isaiah 53:9. Clearly, the Targum to Isaiah re-flects the first type of punishment for those damned to hell, following the typology of ToseftaSanhedrin and Seder {Olam.

9. A similar curse is leveled against “all the men of the lot of Belial” at 1QS 2.7-8: “Ac-cursed are you, without mercy, according to the darkness of your deeds, and sentenced to thegloom of everlasting fire. May God not be merciful when you entreat him. May he not forgiveby purifying your iniquities.” See also 4Q280 lines 4-5 (a passage discussed in P. J. Kobelski,Melchizedek and Melchireša [Washington D. C., 1981], 38). We will come across the idea that cer-tain sinners will never be forgiven in what follows.

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cut off from among the people. Because of having despised the word of theLord and broken His commandment, such a person shall be utterly cut off andbear the guilt.” The verse refers to people who have offended the Torah “high-handedly”10 and violated its commandments (as understood by the Qumrancommunity) and therefore “such a person shall be utterly cut off and bear theguilt.” Or, as the Manual of Discipline declares, God will “administer fiercepunishments for everlasting annihilation without there being any remnant.” Itis fascinating to compare and contrast the Qumran interpretation to Numbers15:30-31 with that of the rabbinic midrash, the Sifre Numbers.11 “Whoever actshigh-handedly — this is one who reveals aspects of the Torah.” Rabbi Aqivagoes on to interpret the second hemistich of the verse, by playing on the re-peated employment of the same root both in the absolute and finite forms(hikaret tikaret), an emphatic structure in biblical Hebrew (thus: “shall surelybe cut off”): “hikaret — this refers to this world; tikaret — this refers to theworld to come.” We find, then, a striking resemblance between Rabbi Aqiva’sinterpretation and the position of the Manual of Discipline, on the one hand,and the punishment of “Jewish sinners who transgress the commandments” inSeder {Olam — their souls disintegrate and their bodies decompose — on theother, since these too will not be pardoned after their death. Even Rabbi Aqiva,whose views are generally moderate, is quite strict when it comes to one whoreveals aspects of the Torah,12 “The dead are atoned for by their death, butthese remain accountable (for this transgression).” But if such a sinner were torepent prior to his death, his transgression would, of course, be pardoned.Here too, then, despite all the severity of the issue at hand, we can recognizethe human aspect of Rabbi Aqiva’s teaching. The question is, whether evenprior to Rabbi Aqiva there were sages who were willing to employ such a be-nevolent dialectic argument in order to free certain sinners from their hellishfate. As we will see, Jesus’ statement in Matthew 12:3213 does not reflect thesame lenience that is typical of Rabbi Aqiva and his associates.

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10. That is, in an impertinent fashion. See W. Bacher, Die exegetische Terminologie (Leip-zig, 1899; reprint Darmstadt, 1965), 1.149-151.

11. H. S. Horowitz, Sifre Numbers (Leipzig, 1917; reprint Jerusalem, 1992), 120-121.12. Rabbi Aqiva is not cited by name, but this is the continuation of his earlier statement.13. See D. Flusser, “Die Sünde gegen den heiligen Geist,” in E. L. Ehrlich (ed.), “Wie gus

sind Deine Zelte Jaakow . . . ,” Festschrift für R. Mayer (Gerlingen, 1986), 139-149, and especiallyp. 141. See also Sifre Deuteronomy §328 (Hammer edition, p. 339): “The Holy One, blessed beHe, will forgive anything, but desecration of His name He will requite immediately.” It is worthnoting that among the Noahide commandments, and even earlier, are prohibitions “that arewritten in the Torah, and were they not written — it would have been justified to write them”(Sifra ad Leviticus 18:4, and also t. Yoma 67b) — including blaspheming God’s name.

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We turn now to the punishment of the second group of sinners: they“will be locked in hell and they will be judged in it for all eternity, forever-more.” Here more than the other cases we should assume that those who arecondemned to this eternal punishment have no hope of atonement under anycircumstances; their sin is so severe that they have lost all hope. This interpre-tation finds support in Jesus’ response to those who accused him of exorcis-ing with the help of Beelzebul, the master of the demons. He says: “Whoeverspeaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaksagainst the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age tocome” (Matt. 12:32).14 The same tradition is already attested in 1 Enoch,15

where one of the angels of Holiness is charged with the spirits of those deadwho “sin against the spirit” (20.6). The essence of their crime is explained alittle later on: “This accursed valley (that is, hell) is for those accursed forever;here will gather together all those accursed ones, those who speak with theirmouth unbecoming words against the Lord and utter hard words concerninghis glory. Here shall they be gathered together, and here shall be their judg-ment, in the last days” (27.2-3). According to 1 Enoch, then, those who speakagainst the Lord and his glory have not atonement in this world or in thenext, but rather they are doomed to hell for all eternity, forevermore.16

Comparative analysis of the second type of sinners in Seder {Olam andt. Sanhedrin 13.5, on the one hand, and the parallel traditions in the Book ofEnoch and the New Testament, may point us toward the original kernel con-cerning those damned to hell for all eternity. We saw that according to Enochand Jesus’ saying, those who spoke ill of the Lord and cursed his Glory, willnot be forgiven in this world nor the next. And indeed, we find this very ac-cusation in our Tosefta tradition: the punishment for sinners who “liftedtheir hands against the zevul is an eternity in Hell.”17 The best interpretationof this statement is found in the Palestinian Talmud Sanhedrin 23c: “Just asone who blasphemes is hanged because he lifted his hands against a core be-

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14. See Flusser, “Die Sünde.” Incidentally, Jesus’ dictum corresponds to Rabbi Aqiva’sstatement about one who reveals aspects of the Torah: “hikaret — this refers to this world;tikaret — this refers to the world to come.” And see above, n. 11.

15. Fortunately, this particular section was preserved in Greek, and not only in theEthiopic, which was made from the Greek.

16. Incidentally, we saw in the Sifre (above, n. 11), that one who high-handedly reveals as-pects of the Torah has his soul cut off in the world to come. This is roughly what Seder {Olamsays of the first type of sinners, while the second is damned to an eternity in hell (as is the case inthe Book of Enoch and Jesus’ dictum). We will see in what follows that the two types of sinnersin Seder {Olam, and in the parallel in t. Sanhedrin, were formed from two distinct traditions.

17. The Hebrew phrase lwbzb fhydy wtqp is discussed in J. Levy, Wörterbuch über dieTalmudim (Berlin, 1924), 4.147.

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lief (rkeb wdy tqpq), so I extrapolate regarding all those who lift theirhands against a core belief that they too are to be hanged.”18 In this context,the Hebrew lwbz refers to God’s glory, which the sinners have affronted.19

The gloss found in Seder {Olam and in t. Sanhedrin 13.5 (at the end), accord-ing to which zevul refers to the Temple, is, then, a secondary addition.

We have seen that those who “lifted their hands against the zevul” andrebelled against divine kingship and the divine glory, will not be forgiven andare condemned to hell for all eternity, at least according to Jesus and the Bookof Enoch. Clearly, then, this was the original meaning of Seder {Olam andTosefta Sanhedrin. And yet, while this view is still articulated in these texts,there appears to be a shift in the overall sense. Now, those who have aban-doned all hope are a distinct type within the broader category of those whoseparated themselves from the community as a whole inasmuch as they“lifted their hands against the zevul” and spoke blasphemously against God’sglory. True, those who are condemned to eternal damnation are still peoplewhose mouth has spoken “unbecoming words against the Lord” and uttered“hard words concerning his glory” (Enoch 27.2-3), but the general thrust issomewhat different: these are sinners who have rebelled against God by virtueof their ideological and practical veering from the ways and beliefs of the peo-ple as a whole, thus causing damage to the Torah, the faith, and the People ofIsrael. Incidentally, the version in Seder {Olam is superior to that of t. Sanhe-drin 13.5 inter alia in that it does not count the vyqrwp, ‘the separatists,’among a long list of sinners, but rightly locates them at the opening of the list,with the other sinners functioning as an enumeration of this general type:“Those who separate themselves from the Jewish community, e.g., the minimand the apostates.”

I believe a still more specific definition of these separatists is possible.20

The list of those who have broken away from the community as a whole andwho are thus condemned to hell for all eternity, may be divided into two sub-

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18. For a better understanding of the relationship between these motifs within thebroader framework, it may be useful to cite Numbers 15:30-31 once again: “But whoever actshigh-handedly . . . affronts the Lord, and shall be cut off from among the people.”

19. lwbz is translated as ‘glory’ in the Septuagint to Psalm 49:15, and similarly in Jerome’sLatin translation from the Greek, though later, when Jerome translated the Psalms directly fromthe Hebrew he rendered it habiticulum (a residence), following the rabbinic interpretation. lwbzis also the name of the fourth heaven, according to b. Hagigah 12b. On the meaning of the bibli-cal term see S. Löwenstamm’s article in the Biblical Encyclopedia (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1954),2.907-908, s. v. lwbz.

20. I have benefited greatly from the acute analysis offered by Milikowsky, “Gehenna and‘Sinners of Israel’,” 329-337.

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categories. The first includes “the minim and the apostates and the infor-mants and the hypocrites,” while the second enumerates “the heretics(epikorsin) who deny the resurrection of the dead and state that the Torah isnot of divine origin.” The latter refers only to core theological errors and islimited to the realm of right belief, and originates in Mishnah Sanhedrin 10.1— or in a tradition that is preserved in this Mishnah.21 Superficially, it mightbe tempting to correlate the Mishnah’s list of those who have no place in theworld to come with those doomed to eternal damnation in hell, especially asit would not be particularly difficult to include individuals who maintain de-viant ideological beliefs among “those who separate themselves from thecommunity.” Nonetheless, it stands to reason that those who cut their tieswith the People of Israel as a whole are enumerated in the first list. Thus itwould appear that the three additional types were added at a later date to thefirst list, thus expanding the purview of the original statement.22

At first glance it appears that the author of our Seder {Olam was familiarwith two established lists of typological sinners, and, wishing to delineate thetypes of “separatists,” he used these two existing lists of those who have ex-cluded themselves from the People of Israel as a whole.23 Nonetheless, I am ofthe opinion that this is true only of the second list of sinners, which reallydoes originate in m. Sanhedrin 10.1. The first list, which includes “the minimand the apostates and the informants and the hypocrites” is of anothersource. True, this list is reflected in a variety of other sources, but it would ap-pear that this is its original site of composition. From here it spread, either di-rectly or indirectly, to the other sources mentioned. After all, the four types

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21. The Mishnah states here: “These are they that have no share in the world to come: hethat says that there is no resurrection of the dead prescribed in the Torah, and he that says thatthe Torah is not from Heaven, and a heretic (epikoros; literally, ‘Epicurean’).”

22. This expanded list now includes seven sinners!23. This is the view of Milikowsky, “Gehenna and ‘Sinners of Israel’,” 331, who provides

references to the parallel list in Seder {Olam. We would only add the statement that appears inHigger, Minor Tractates (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1970), 281, and see also the list of parallels atp. 145. Concerning the first, original, list, and its terminology, see van Loopik, The Ways of theSages and the Way of the World (Tübingen, 1991), 56-60. In the Apocalypse of Peter, a second-century Christian text preserved in its entirety only in an Ethiopic translation, we find the fol-lowing: “But the unrighteous, the sinners, and the hypocrites shall stand in the depths of dark-ness that shall not pass away, and their chastisement is the fire, and angels bring forward theirsins and prepare for them a place wherein they shall be punished for ever, every one accordingto his transgression” (M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament [Oxford, 1924], 514). Clearlythis statement is derived from our Baraita, in the original form which we have hypothesized. In-terestingly, the same text goes on to state that the generation of the flood and the idolaters willbe burned in an eternal fire — just like the sinners enumerated in Seder {Olam and its parallels,prior to those whose punishment is eternity in hell.

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enumerated as having broken from Israel as a whole certainly fit the determi-nation that they divorced themselves from the general public. Let us examine,for the sake of clarification, another passage that includes the list of four sin-ners: “The minim and the apostates, and the informants, and the hypocrites,and those who desecrate the name of God. Of them does Scripture state: ‘Thewicked shall depart to Sheol, all the nations that forget God’ (Ps 9:17), and‘What is crooked cannot be made straight’ (Ecc 1:15).”24 Here we find a num-ber of blasphemers in addition to our four established types: all these devi-ants are beyond redemption, and so those who “forget God” are seated in hellfor all eternity. The language of this passage indicates that it is based on thesame tradition preserved in Seder {Olam’s discussion of those who separatethemselves from the Jewish people — to this list have been added three typesof sinners, originally cited in m. Sanhedrin 10.1.

As noted, the four typological sinners are all “separatists.” The first ofthese are the minim. Much has been written on this term,25 and there is noneed to add to the discussion here, except to state the established fact that thisterm did not originally designate the Christians, and that it was only later thatthey were counted among the minim. Next come the apostates (fydmwqm), aterm that in the Hebrew of the Sages designates apostasy in the broader senseof one who has turned his back on his faith — without necessarily convertingto another religion.26 The third type is made up of the informants (owrwsm),that is, those who hand Jews over to the non-Jewish authorities.27 The variousversions of Birkat ha-Minim, which will be discussed below, employ the termfynyqlm, but it should be noted that while mishnaic Hebrew knows the verbvyqlhl (to act as an informant), the noun vyqlm is not attested — strong sup-port for reading owrwsm over fynyqlm. The severity of this accusation isheightened by the repeated occurrences of the verb rwsml (in Greek) in theGospel accounts of Jesus’ betrayal to the Roman authorities.28 Just prior to hisbeing handed over to the authorities, Jesus himself alludes to the punishmentthat awaits the betraying informants: “The Son of Man goes as it is written ofhim, but woe to that one by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have

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24. Higger, Minor Tractates, 77 and 85.25. See the literature cited above, n. 2, and Milikowsky, “Gehenna and ‘Sinners of Israel’,”

332, nn. 91-92.26. See Milikowsky, “Gehenna and ‘Sinners of Israel’,” 332-333, and especially Levy,

Wörterbuch, 3.282.27. A comparison with the Qumran Temple Scroll 64.6-9 is apposite, and will be dis-

cussed in the second section, below.28. For a list of the occurrences of rwsml in the New Testament discussion of the death

of Jesus, see W. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (Chicago, 1979), 614.

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been better for that one not to have been born” (Matt. 26:24; Mark 14:21; Luke22:22). This statement fits the account of Seder {Olam and Birkat ha-Minim.

The final group of sinners are the fypnj, the hypocrites.29 There is noquestion that the hypocrites belong to this list, even though they are omittedin some versions — including the Seder {Olam passage as it appears in t. San-hedrin 10.5 (and, following the Tosefta, in b. Rosh ha-Shanah 17a). The hypo-crites are also not attested in any of the extant versions of Birkat ha-Minim.The reason for their omission is evident: the root -j-i-n underwent a seman-tic shift and in later Hebrew came to mean ‘flatterer.’ As a result, the idea thatthe fypnj, the “flatterers,” have separated themselves from the Jewish com-munity no longer made sense to those who knew the term only in its later se-mantic development. How could flatterers be thought to have broken awayfrom the public? But this was not always so. Already in the Ugaritic epic wefind the phrase Fbl inj, meaning “the wickedness of your heart.”30 In bibli-cal Hebrew as well, the root i-n-j refers to various wicked men and sinners,and the noun hpwnj can also refer to impurity. The Septuagint also translatesthe root in this sense, that is, as wickedness and the like.31 Furthermore, in theWisdom of Ben Sira (16.6; 40.15; 41.10) the word appears in a pejorative sense.In 16.6 we find a parallelism between “a sinful band,” on the one hand, and “agodless people” (inj ywg), on the other. Similarly, in 40.15 Ben Sira juxtaposes

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29. On the meaning of this term see J. Barr, “The Hebrew/Aramaic Background of ‘Hy-pocrisy’ in the Gospel,” in P. K. Davies and R. T. White (eds.), A Tribute to Geza Vermes (Shef-field, 1990), 307-326; Levy, Wörterbuch 2.83-84; Rabbenu Natan, Aruch Completum (New York,1956), 448; M. Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim (New York, 1950), 1.482-485; L. Koehler andW. Baumgarten, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden, 1958), 317; Klaus Seybold’s articlein Theologisches Wörterbuch zum A. T., G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.) (Stuttgart, 1982),3.41-48.

30. See M. Dietrich, O. Lorentz and J. Sammartin, Die keilalphabetischen Texte aus Ugarit(Neukirchen, 1976), under 1.18 I 17. See also G. del Olmo Lete, Mitos y leyendas de Canaan (Ma-drid, 1981), 381, 553. Already in Akkadian the word means ‘wickedness.’

31. Two apparent exceptions are found in Job (34:30; 36:13), where inj is translated intoGreek as Õpokr¾thv, no doubt a reflection of the new semantics of the root. See G. F. Moore, Ju-daism (New York, 1971), 2.192, who rightly cites the phrase hrwo ypynj in the Midrash Psalms51.1 (Midrash Tehilim, S. Buber edition [Vilnius, 1892], 282, and see the parallels cited in Buber’snotes). The Greek Õpokr¾thv is also found in the Greek translation of Jesus’ words to the Phari-sees, particularly in Matthew 23. In his Hebrew translation of the New Testament, FranzDelitzsch renders this term fypynj. If this is indeed the Hebrew word Jesus used for the Phari-sees, it stands to reason that he adopted this pejorative designation from the Pharisees’ oppo-nents, though he used it in the more moderate meaning of his day, suggesting that they are hyp-ocrites. The matter, in any case, has not been settled. In the Manual of Discipline 4.10, thephrase inj bwr is cited as one of the traits of the wicked, but its precise meaning cannot be de-termined.

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“the offshoot of violence” with “the root of the godless” (inj qrwq). BenSira’s grandson, who translated the book into Greek, maintained the originalsense of the Hebrew root. The word appears but once in the Book of Daniel(11:32), in the section composed during the decrees of Antiochus IV: “He shallseduce with intrigue (iynjy) those who violate the covenant.” There is somedispute among modern commentators whether the word is used in its origi-nal sense, or perhaps in the newer meaning of flattery.32 Apparently, the se-mantic shift in the root inj occurred at a relatively late time, and only in He-brew, since Syriac maintains the biblical sense of ‘wicked.’

As noted, from the time of the Tannaim and down to modern Hebrew,the root inj designates a flatterer, one who praises another in order to find fa-vor in their eyes. Nonetheless, the biblical sense of fypnj did not disappearcompletely from the Hebrew of the sages even as late as the third century c.e.The following tradition is cited in the name of Rabbi Yonathan, or perhapsRabbi Yohanan:33 “Every occurrence of the word hpwnj in Scripture, refers tothe minim. The key verse for this interpretation is “trembling has seized thegodless (fypnj)” (Isa. 33:14). Here the sage argues that the biblical sense offypnj is identical with minim. Thus, the fypnj are rightly counted in the listof those who have rwbye ycrdm wqrp, alongside the minim. Clearly, thefypnj were characterized by a particular kind of wickedness, unlike that ofthe other sinners enumerated, but at the present there is no way to decide thiscritical issue.34

II. ‘Traitors’ in the Qumran Scrolls

We have tried to show that the end of Seder {Olam, Chapter Three, is based onthe view that those who “separate themselves from the path of the commu-nity, for example the minim, the informers, the hypocrites and the heretics . . .lifted their hands against the zevul” and rebelled against the kingship of God.In order to clarify the background to this view we must turn to the Dead SeaScrolls, which indicate that one aspect of this view is prevalent not only in‘rabbinic’ Judaism, but was once, during the Hasmonean reign, shared by allJews.

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32. See especially J. A. Montgomery, The Book of Daniel (ICC; Edinburgh, 1959), 457-458;L. F. Hartman and A. A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel (New York, 1978), 271.

33. Genesis Rabbah 48 (Bereshit Rabbah, Theodor and Albeck edition [Jerusalem, 1965],480), where the tradition is cited in the name of Rabbi Yonathan, but in the name of RabbiYohanan in Midrash Hagadol to Genesis (Margaliyot edition [Jerusalem, 1947], 284).

34. See also van Loopik, The Ways of the Sages, 59.

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A previously unknown passage from the Damascus Document reads:

12. . . . [And whoever]13. divulges the secret of his people to the pagans, or curses his people

or preaches14. rebellion against those anointed with the spirit of holiness and

[leads his people to] error [or rebels against]15. God’s word.

(4Q270 [= 4QDe], fragment 2.12-15)

The text survives in fragmentary form, so it is impossible to determinethe precise nature of the sins enumerated here. Nonetheless, it is clear that thepassage deals with an individual who “divulges the secret of his people to thepagans,” who curses his people and who “rebels against God’s word.” There ap-pears to be a strong correlation between this passage and the account in Seder{Olam regarding those who “lifted their hands against the zevul.” One point ofdifference: in Seder {Olam the informants and the other sinners belong to asingle category of those who rebel against the kingship of God, while in theQumran fragment those who rebel against God’s word are another type of sin-ner, alongside those who betray their own people. As we will see presently, thisis the situation in the Temple Scroll as well, one passage of which may clarifysome of the obscure points in the Damascus Document fragment:

If a man passes on information against his people or betrays his people toa foreign nation, or does evil against his people, you shall hang him on atree and he will die. On the evidence of two witnesses or on the evidenceof three witnesses he shall be put to death and they shall hang him on thetree. If it happens that the man has committed a capital offence and he es-capes amongst the nations and curses his people, the children of Israel, healso you shall hang on the tree and he will die. And their corpse shall notspend the night on the tree; instead you shall bury them that day becausethose hanged on a tree are cursed by God and man; thus you shall not de-file the land which I give you for inheritance. (11QTemple 64.6-13)35

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35. For a discussion of this passage see J. M. Baumgarten, “Hanging and Treason inQumran and Roman Law,” Eretz Israel 16 (1982), 7-16; Yadin, The Temple Scroll (Jerusalem, 1983),1.373-379; 2.289-291. Yadin uses this passage to reconstruct Pesher Nahum 1.1-11 as a reference tothe hanging of the Pharisees while still alive, as punishment for their having caused Demetriusof Syria to wage war on their king (see Josephus, JW 1.97 and AJ 13.380-381). H. Eshel has com-mented to me that it would appear that if Alexander Jannaeus did hang people alive, this wasprobably done in accordance with his halakhic position. As for the guilt of those hanged, Yadinrightly notes that this is undoubtedly a serious crime “as a result of which the traitor may de-

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This passage deals with two types of sinners who have forged bondswith the gentiles and thus, in effect, “separated from the community,” both ofwhich are condemned to hanging on a tree. The first involves one who “be-trays his people to a foreign nation,” that is, an informant. The second is moredifficult to define, but we need not concern ourselves with its precise details;it is the man who “escapes amongst the nations and curses his people, thechildren of Israel” both as the crowning act of treason and as an attempt tofind favor in the eyes of the enemy. Whatever the details, there is a clear simi-larity between the two types of sinners condemned to death by hanging in theTemple Scroll, and the statement from the Damascus Document cited above.In the latter, it is “whoever divulges the secret of his people to the pagans, orcurses his people,” as well as one who “rebels against God’s word.” There canbe no question that the curses of the Damascus Document are the equivalentof the blasphemer, as described in Mishnah Sanhedrin 6.4: “All that have beenstoned must be hanged. So Rabbi Eliezer. But the sages say: None is hangedsave the blasphemer and the idolator.”36 In other words, the same punish-ment is meted out to the one who curses in the Qumran scroll as to the blas-phemer in the Mishnah. Taken together, these texts indicate that even thoughthe Temple Scroll 64.10 speaks only of one who curses his people, this ismerely one aspect of the accusation of cursing God Himself.

These later discussions of the laws of hanging are based on Scripture:“When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed,and you hang him on a tree, his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree;you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’scurse. You must not defile the land that the Lord your God is giving you for pos-session” (Deut. 21:22-23). We have already cited part of Mishnah Sanhedrin 6.4concerning the hanging of the blasphemer and the idolater, which goes on tostate, “Why is this one hanged? Because he blessed [= cursed] the Name, andthe name of heaven was profaned.” This indicates that the sages provide a two-fold interpretation of the biblical phrase “under God’s curse”: one who cursesGod and the curse of God. The author of the Temple Scroll also seems to be of-fering a two-fold reading: hanging is the punishment for one who curses, and asa result the sinner is himself cursed.37 It should be noted that this interpretationmay in part be rooted in Psalm 37:22: “. . . those cursed by the Lord shall be cut

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liver his people to the enemy and cause a tragedy to befall them” (Temple Scroll 1.373). Josephustoo holds that while Jannaeus’ punishment is terribly cruel, the crime — inviting a foreign en-emy into their land — was heinous. Unfortunately, we have no record of the rabbinic sages’ po-sition regarding the proper execution of traitors.

36. See Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 1.375.37. See Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 2.291.

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off.” The Hebrew for ‘those cursed,’ wyllkm, is written in defective orthogra-phy,38 and so could also be read as the active form, ‘those who curse the Lord’ —a reading that is, in fact, attested in the Septuagint.39

We have seen that both the Temple Scroll and the Damascus Documentportray the cursers and the informants separately, while Seder {Olam includesboth under the category of those who have “lifted their hands against thezevul.” We may hypothesize that at one point, treason and cursing God wereseen as two aspects of the same horrific wickedness, namely, rebellion againstGod and the People of God. Presumably, the evolution proceeded as follows:originally the crime in question was cursing God, but this was later expandedto include informants since their actions came to be seen as a type of blas-phemy. Over time other transgressions of a fundamentally similar naturewere appended to them, including the minim.

In what follows we will try to unravel the basic significance of Birkat ha-Minim. But in order to do that we must first survey the path leading up to thebenediction and propose a hypothesis regarding the evolution of the conceptof the sinners condemned to eternal punishment. One key comment: the factthat a particular idea or motif reaches a new stage does not entail that its pre-vious meaning simply disappears or ceases to be relevant. Often, it coexistsalongside its heir.

It appears that there was an early view that those who lifted their handagainst the zevul, cursing God and God’s glory, would not be granted forgive-ness in this world or the next, and are condemned to an eternity in hell. Thisview is attested in 1 Enoch (20.1, and chapter 27) and in the logion of Jesus(Matt. 12:32). In the second stage, which occurred already in the Hasmoneantimes, the informants were added to the list, alongside the blasphemers. Thisstage is attested in the additional material from Qumran. The third stage in-volves a new and more precise definition of those who will receive such severedivine punishment: those who have rebelled against God’s kingship and lostall hope of redemption are “those who separate themselves from the path ofthe community, for example the minim, the informers, the hypocrites and theheretics.” We have here, then, the preliminary kernel of the discussion in Seder{Olam and its parallels. Still later the sages added other sinners to the list, aprocess whose genesis is in Mishnah Sanhedrin 1.10, and the result is the ver-sion attested in Seder {Olam. This text has been further reworked by the editorof the Tosefta, and is found in Tosefta Sanhedrin 13.5. Having set forth this

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38. The Qumran pesher to this verse has an interlinear vav: wyllwkm. See J. M. Allegro(ed.), DJD V (Oxford, 1968), 44 and Plate XVI; J. Strugnell, Revue de Qumran 7 (1970), 214.

39. See Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Stuttgart, 1984), 111.

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preliminary outline, we can now turn to our main argument, that it was thethird stage, focusing on the eternal punishment of those who “separate them-selves from the path of the community,” that provides the conceptual back-drop to Birkat ha-Minim.

III. The Various Versions of Birkat ha-Minim

Elbogen famously stated that “[n]o benediction has undergone as many tex-tual variations as this one,”40 and at first glance he would appear to be correct.A closer examination, however, reveals that the situation is not so desperate.41

There are, essentially, two core versions of the blessing: the regular, “Babylo-nian” version,42 and the version preserved in the Cairo Genizah, namely, theByzantine Palestinian version.43 The following is the Ashkenazic version in itsoriginal form:44

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40. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 45.41. An accurate picture may be garnered from the version of Birkat ha-Minim found in

the Aleppo liturgy: “The minim will have no hope and the informants and their ilk will all in-stantly perish, and all the enemies of Your people Israel, all their haters and those who wishthem ill — they will all speedily be cut off and destroyed. Please remove the yoke of the gentilesfrom our necks, and do not place us in the hands of our enemies, and let the wicked kingdom beuprooted and broken in our days. Blessed are You Lord, who breaks our enemies and van-quishes the wicked.” This is an expanded reworking of the standard Birkat ha-Minim. The sameis true of Birkat ha-Minim in the liturgy of Crimonia.

42. See L. Finkelstein, “The Development of the Amidah,” in Pharisaism in the Making(New York, 1972), 318-319, and the versions cited there. The versions of the Sefardi, Yemenite,and Persian communities may be found in B. Z. Binyamin, “Birkat ha-Minim and the Ein GediInscription,” 72. The original Ashkenazic version is cited in Siddur }Otzar ha-Tefilot (Vilnius,1914), 1.336-337, and see also ‘tikkun tefilah,’ the helpful commentary of Aryeh Leib Gordon, pp.298-299. See also Seligman Baer, Sefer Avodat Israel (Jerusalem, 1937), 93-94. The benediction ac-cording to the prayer book of Rav Amram Gaon is in D. Goldschmidt’s edition (Jerusalem,1972), 25. See also: D. Goldschmidt, Studies in Prayer and Piyyut (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1979), 199,where he cites Maimonides’ version; the Rumanian version is at p. 130; and the version of aprayer book from the 15th century is at p. 291.

43. A bibliography of Genizah witnesses to Palestinian liturgy is provided by E. Fleischer,Palestinian Liturgy and Liturgical Custom in the Genizah (Jerusalem, 1988), 9-10. See alsoS. Assaf, “From the Palestinian Prayer Book” (Hebrew), Sefer Dinbourg (Jerusalem, 1949), 118;S. Schechter, JQR 10 (1897), 656-657; Jacob Mann, “Genizah Fragments of the Palestinian Orderof Service,” HUCA 2 (1925), 306, as well as the Amidah in piyyut form, p. 309. The fragment thatMann reproduces on p. 310 has a “Babylonian” conclusion — “who breaks our enemies andvanquishes the wicked” — and was influenced by the standard version; see Mann’s discussion,pp. 301-303. Other Genizah fragments were published by Israel Lewy, REJ 53 (1907), 232-241.

44. See Siddur }Otzar ha-Tefilot 1.336-337. See also, D. Goldschmidt, Siddur Tefilat Israel

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May the informants have no hopeAnd all the minim instantly perishAnd all your enemies speedily be cut offAnd may the wicked kingdom be uprooted, and broken,

and vanquished in our days.Blessed are You O Lord, who breaks enemies and vanquishes

the wicked.

Here is the blessing as found in the Yemenite liturgy, which has its ori-gins in Maimonides’ version:

May the apostates have no hopeAnd all the minim and the informants (fyrswm)45 instantly perishAnd may the wicked kingdom be uprooted and broken in our days.Blessed are You Lord, who breaks enemies46 and vanquishes

the wicked.

There are four extant witnesses to the Palestinian version of Birkat ha-Minim,two of one kind and two of another. This is the format of the first kind:

May the apostates have no hopeAnd may the wicked kingdom be uprooted in our daysAnd the Christians and the minim instantly perish.Let them be erased from the Book of Life and not be recorded

alongside the righteous.Blessed are You Lord, who vanquishes the wicked.

Here is the second form of Birkat ha-Minim in the ancient Palestinian format:

May the apostates have no hope, if they do not return to your Torah,And the Christians and the minim perish;Let them be erased from the Book of Life and not be recorded

alongside the righteous.Blessed are You Lord, who vanquishes the wicked.

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(Ramat Gan, 1969), 49. Goldschmidt cites the blessing in its original form but labels it “anotherversion.”

45. This word, attested in Yemenite prayer books, is not found in Maimonides’ version ofthe blessing, as found in Goldschmidt, Studies in Prayer and Piyyut.

46. Some witnesses read ‘evil ones’ (fyeqr) for ‘enemies’ (fybywa), a change attested inthe prayer books of Rav Amram Gaon, Rav Saadia Gaon, and in the Rumanian Jewish commu-nity. ‘Enemies,’ however, is undoubtedly the original language of the “Babylonian” blessing. Italso appears that the first half of the conclusion is not attested in Palestinian witnesses.

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The two Palestinian versions differ in that the second lacks the phrase“And may the wicked kingdom be uprooted in our days,” and in its place, fol-lowing the opening statement “may the apostates have no hope,” there ap-pears the qualification: “if they do not return to your Torah.” This renewedhope for the apostates is part and parcel of the more humane attitude thattook root in the time of the Tannaim and the Amoraim, and is in the spirit ofRabbi Aqiva.47 According to this sage, even the worst sinners, whose sins arenever atoned for, are granted forgiveness if they repent prior to their death.And yet, the first chapter indicated that the punishment meted out to thesesinners is eternal and absolute, and thus we see that the moderate and moremerciful approach stands in tension with the core idea of Birkat ha-Minim,which is attested in all its versions: “Let the apostates (and the like) have nohope.” We may conclude, then, that the phrase “if they do not return to yourTorah” is a secondary addition, indeed, one not attested in all the Palestinianwitnesses of Birkat ha-Minim.

The other difference between the Palestinian versions is, as noted, thatthe second lacks the petition for the destruction of the “wicked kingdom,”even though this is clearly part of the prayer, since it appears in almost all theother versions. It is absent from the two Genizah texts, but even they end withthe conclusion “who vanquishes the wicked (fydz eyncm).” We may assume,then, that the omission of the “wicked kingdom” phrase and the appearanceof the merciful statement in its stead in the two Genizah witnesses, is sheercoincidence. After all, we only have four Genizah texts that include Birkat ha-Minim, and there is no possibility of reaching any sustainable conclusionswith such a small sample. On the other hand, the conclusion is identical in allfour Palestinian texts: “Blessed are You O Lord, who vanquishes the wicked.”This, in contrast to the longer conclusion of the standard “Babylonian” con-clusion: “Blessed are You O Lord, who breaks enemies and vanquishes thewicked.” This, indeed, is the concluding statement in all the “Babylonian” tra-ditions. Only the modern Sephardic Jews of North Africa occasionally replacethe word ‘wicked’ with minim, but this is undoubtedly a late change. Inci-dentally, the fact that the word minim does not appear in any of the originalconcluding statements of the blessing, leads us to conclude that the nameBirkat ha-Minim was not appended to the blessing from the outset, and weshall return to this theme below.

Two more comments must be made regarding the language of Birkatha-Minim. The first concerns the term fynqlm, ‘informants.’ We alreadynoted that the verb vyqlhl is attested in rabbinic Hebrew, but not the nomi-

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47. See n. 12, above.

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nal form vyqlm. It is no surprise, then, that this form is not found in many ofthe versions of Birkat ha-Minim, since it is a late form and was incorporatedinto the blessing when the nominal form gained currency, in the Hebrew ofthe Middle Ages. The earlier form is owrswm (or fyrswm),which is current inearly rabbinic Hebrew. This term also appears in the list of sinners in Seder{Olam and its rabbinic parallels, where it stands for the later fynyqlm. Andrightly so, since the informants, owrswm, are a natural part of Birkat ha-Minim, which was originally composed precisely against them. Thus it is oddthat the informants do not appear in the list of sinners of Birkat ha-Minim inthe Palestinian version, nor in the version of Rav Saadia Gaon, and apparentlynot in those of Maimonides or Rav Amram Gaon. I believe this pseudo-problem can be resolved if we assume that at different times and differentplaces, the informants were omitted from Birkat ha-Minim since they nowrepresented the most severe and the most immediate danger to the Jewishpeople.

The second comment concerns the word ‘Christians,’ which is juxta-posed with minim in the early Palestinian versions and, for whatever reason,in the liturgy of Rav Amram Gaon.48 Scholars today agree, and rightly so, thatthe Christians were not mentioned in the original Birkat ha-Minim.49 Thereseems to be no need, today, to argue against the old view, that Birkat ha-Minim was incorporated into the Amidah prayer at Yavne (Jamnia) in orderto exclude the Christians from Israel as a whole; it has been widely discred-ited.50 We will return to the question of when and why Birkat ha-Minim wascomposed, but regarding the word ‘Christians’ it is clear that it was not erasedby Christian (or internal) censors, since it is absent in the liturgy of commu-nities in non-Christian countries as well, even when these countries containsizable Christian minorities against whom the blessing could be aimed. JustinMartyr (circa 165 c.e.) states repeatedly that the Jews in their synagoguescurse those who believe in Jesus, suggesting that Birkat ha-Minim was cur-rent in his day and aimed primarily at Christianity, which was, at the time, thelargest Jewish sect. Of course, it also broke the geographic boundaries of Is-rael and spread among the nations of the world. A few years before Justin’s

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48. See the Goldschmidt edition, 22.49. See the secondary literature cited above, n. 2, as well as E. Schürer, The History of the

Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, revised edition by G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Black (Ed-inburgh, 1979), 462-463, which cites from Justin Martyr, Epiphanius, and Jerome.

50. See Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 33. As we will see presently, I do not accept Elbogen’sview, according to which the sages of Yavne decreed that Christians be included in Birkat ha-Minim, and nor do most scholars today. For a different view of the Amidah generally, andBirkat ha-Minim in particular, see Fleischer, “On the Beginnings of Obligatory Jewish Prayer.”

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statements, one of the sages foresaw the future developments and likenedChristianity’s conquest of the world to a ‘yellow peril’51 — a sign that theeschaton was at hand. “With the footprints of the Messiah, presumption shallincrease and dearth reach its height . . . the empire shall fall into heresy andthere shall be none to utter reproof.”52 Of course, this does not mean that theword ‘Christians’ was used in Birkat ha-Minim. However, the testimonies ofEpiphanius (died 403 c.e.) and Jerome (died 420 c.e.) indicate that ‘Chris-tians’ were named in Birkat ha-Minim no later than the fourth century. JustinMartyr, Epiphanius and Jerome all spent a significant part of their lives in Is-rael, and it stands to reason that their statements are a reflection of the situa-tion there.

To summarize this last point: Birkat ha-Minim predates the emergenceof Christianity, and its original form could not have referred to Christians.Christians are only mentioned in the liturgy of Byzantine Palestine, but theirinclusion in the blessing occurred no later than the fourth century c.e. It fur-ther appears that only the Palestinian liturgy of the time mentions the Chris-tians, and this custom did not spread to any other community. Note that‘Christians’ precedes the minim in the Palestinian versions of Birkat ha-Minim, proof, to my mind, that the word is a secondary insertion.

Now that we have established that the “Christian Question” is not cen-tral to Birkat ha-Minim, we must examine the different versions anew, with-out trying to reconstruct a single, original version. Rather, we shall first exam-ine the different epithets that designate those who revolt against the kingshipof heaven. We have seen that neither the Christians nor the informants be-long to the early stratum of Birkat ha-Minim, and we will devote a separatediscussion to the “wicked kingdom” that appears in the main body of theblessing. The minim are always mentioned, naturally, along with the infor-mants, while the apostates are cited in the opening line in Maimonides (andthe Yemenite liturgy), Rav Saadia Gaon, and the Palestinian liturgy. There are,of course, other derogatory names, but it is no coincidence that we againcome across the minim, the informants and the apostates, who make up threeof the four types of sinner in the enumeration of Seder {Olam. The hypocrites(fypnj) do not appear in any version of Birkat ha-Minim, since the later se-mantic development of the word made it unfit for the blessing.

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51. See ‘Yellow Peril,’ The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Oxford, 1983), 1249.52. Mishnah Sotah 9.15, where it is part of a secondary addition. The statement is also

found in b. Sanhedrin 97b, Midrash Rabba to Canticles 2.13, and Tosefta Derekh Eretz (Higgeredition), 2.245. See van Loopik, The Way of the Sages and the Way of the World, 321; R. TraversHerford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash (New York, 1975), 207-209. The statement is attrib-uted either to Rabbi Yehudah or to Rabbi Nehemiah.

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The first line of the benediction — in all extant versions — expressesthe hope that those against whom the blessing is aimed “have no hope.” Thisis undoubtedly one of the important foci of the blessing, and further evidencethat the blessing originally grew out of the same conceptual soil as Seder{Olam. Namely, the view that “those who separate themselves from the com-munity, for example the minim, informers, hypocrites and heretics . . . will belocked in hell and they will be judged in it for all eternity, forevermore.” Theyhave no hope for divine forgiveness. Thus, Seder {Olam and its parallels aid usin understanding the intent of Birkat ha-Minim. Needless to say, this is notthe only time that an account of how things are or ought be, finds expressionin liturgy in the form of a petitionary prayer.53

If so, one of the main goals of Birkat ha-Minim is to express in liturgy thewish that there be “no hope” for those who separate themselves from the com-munity. But at some later time, another goal was incorporated and Birkat ha-Minim was no longer aimed against Jews who set themselves apart from theJewish people as a whole (and cooperate with the foreign conqueror), butrather against the wicked and haughty themselves (that is, the ‘wicked king-dom,’ i.e., the Roman Empire).54 All the extant versions of the blessing (exceptfor two of the four Genizah versions) express the hope that “the wicked king-dom be uprooted.”55 The title “wicked kingdom” (vwdz owclm) does not neces-sarily refer to the Roman Empire, but could apply to any wicked gentile govern-ment before or after the Roman period.56 Already in Jeremiah (50:31-32) theword vwdz refers to Babylon, while Ben Sira (35.22-23) prays for a future time inwhich God will uproot the wicked government of the gentiles from the world:57

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53. Another example of this phenomenon occurs in the original version of the blessingfollowing the reading of the Torah; see D. Flusser, “He Has Planted Eternal Life in Our Midst,”Tarbiz 58 (1989), 147-153. The phrase “may they have no hope” was correctly interpreted byRabbenu Yehudah ben Yaqqar, Nahmanides’ teacher, who writes: “Let the apostates have nohope” . . . since they are condemned for all generations; “and all the minim perish in an instant”— the minim and the apostates share the same fate, A Commentary on the Prayers and Benedic-tions (Jerusalem, 1979), 1.48.

54. Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 36.55. See Flusser, “The Jewish-Christian Schism (Part 2),” 641-642. See also the list collected

by L. Zunz, Die Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters (Frankfurt a. M., 1920), 452, s.v. vwdz and fydz,and see also p. 460. It is likely that the statement “You gave over . . . the wicked into the hands ofthose who perform your Law” — part of the Hanukkah liturgy — refers to the Seleucids.

56. In the Amidah service of the High Holy Days, the phrase “wicked kingdom” is notpolitical, but refers to the government of evil as such, as the parallel in 1QMysteries demon-strates. On this see my “The Jewish-Christian Schism (Part 2)” and “The ‘Book of the Mysteries’and the High Holy Days Liturgy,” in the present volume.

57. Translation based on Patrick W. Skehan, The Wisdom of Ben Sira (Anchor Bible 39;New York, 1987), with slight changes.

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God indeed will not delay and like a warrior will not be stillTill he breaks the backs and wreaks vengeance upon

of the merciless the nationsTill he destroys the scepter and breaks off short the staff

of the wicked of the sinner

So great is the similarity between Ben Sira’s words and Birkat ha-Minim’shope that the wicked kingdom be uprooted, that it is impossible to reject outof hand the possibility that Ben Sira’s words influence Birkat ha-Minim indi-rectly, or, alternately, that both are drawing from a third, common source.

Does the juxtaposition of two distinct goals in Birkat ha-Minim — theone against those who separate themselves from the community, the otheragainst the wicked kingdom — indicate that it was once made up of two sepa-rate blessings?58 As we will see, the main changes in the Amidah were madeon account of the plurality and flexibility of the benedictions, so it is difficultto suppose that Birkat ha-Minim could have undergone fundamentalchanges post-Yavne. By ‘plurality and flexibility’ I mean the different possiblepermutations of prayers and blessings, varying from custom to custom andeven from individual to individual. Indeed, it appears to have been possible todeconstruct one of the Eighteen Benedictions to two or more distinct bless-ings.59 We will see that this was in fact done with Birkat ha-Minim, and in-deed our structural analysis suggests that the blessing includes two distinctcomponents: one aimed against the minim and one aimed against the wickedkingdom. In light of the extant evidence it is certainly possible that the bless-ing against the minim was, at some point, inserted into the blessing againstthe wicked kingdom, or vice versa.

In order to verify this claim, we propose an experimental reconstruc-tion of a prototype of Birkat ha-Minim, one that includes all the extant ver-sions. This hypothetical reconstruction is based on the two forms of the“Babylonian” version:

May the apostates have no hopeAnd all the minim and the informants instantly perishAnd all your enemies speedily be cut offAnd may the wicked kingdom be uprooted and broken in our days.Blessed are You O Lord, who breaks enemies and vanquishes

the wicked.

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58. Safrai believes this to be the case (personal communication).59. See my article “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” 269.

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There is no doubt that the ancient version of the fourth line was “And maythe wicked kingdom be uprooted and broken in our days.” The material wehave examined thus far (as well as other considerations) indicates that theword rgmo in the Ashkenazic liturgy is a secondary addition. In addition wehave seen that in a number of versions the word eyncow found its way fromthe conclusion of the blessing into the main body. As a result, Birkat ha-Minim, which was originally phrased in a third person, passive voice (exceptfor the conclusion, of course) became a supplication of God!60

Almost all the extant versions open with the word apostates. It is un-clear, however, whether the phrase “and all your enemies speedily be cut off,”which appears only in the liturgy of Ashkenazic Jewry, is original or a second-ary addition. This much is clear: the bi-partite “Babylonian” conclusion is tobe preferred to the shorter, Palestinian conclusion, “Blessed are You Lord,who vanquishes the wicked,” as it appears the original conclusion referred totwo opponents: the enemies and the wicked. These ‘wicked’ are, of course,identical with the ‘wicked kingdom’ that is mentioned in the main body ofthe blessing, while the ‘enemies’ are internal, e.g., minim. If we accept the au-thenticity of the third line of the reconstructed prayer — a line found only inthe Ashkenazic liturgy — we find that the main body of the blessing also re-fers to the minim and their ilk by means of the word ‘enemies.’ Note that thementioning of two elements in the conclusion of Birkat ha-Minim is unpar-alleled: the other conclusions in the Amidah have only one subject, except forthe Palestinian version of the blessing for Jerusalem that refers to “the God ofDavid, the builder of Jerusalem.” But even there the phrase “God of David”was famously inserted as a new subject. If the “Babylonian” conclusion is,then, correct, this may be an indication that the version of Birkat ha-Minimthat we have today emerged as a synthesis of two originally distinct blessings.

Working on the assumption that Birkat ha-Minim is composed of twooriginally different blessings, I elsewhere proposed61 that the juxtaposition ofthese two was done in the time of Yavne (Jamnia), by Shmuel the Lesser.62 Ifurther proposed that the purpose of this juxtaposition was not to further in-

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60. Comparative analysis of the various versions indicates that there were some whosensed that eyncow is a foreign addition, and two solutions were suggested. In two ancientAshkenazic prayer books, the High Holy Day prayer books of Worms and of Vitry (seeGoldschmidt, Studies in Prayer and Piyyut, pp. 25, 29), we read wnybywa lc eynco while otherspropose: fowa eyncow. See Nusakh Italia (Livorno, 1846), 1.15b (following the liturgy of Crete, aswell as the Rumanian liturgy, cited in Goldschmidt, ibid., 130).

61. Flusser, “The Jewish-Christian Schism,” 641-643.62. See b. Berakhot 28b-29a; p. Berakhot 4, 8a; H. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden (Leipzig,

1983), 4.403.

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crease the people’s hatred of the Roman Empire that had destroyed Jerusa-lem, but to the contrary: if the various “separatists” (fyqrwp) appear in theblessing alongside the wicked kingdom, it follows that they are rebuked justas sharply as the hated Romans. In any case, there is no evidence to suggestthat Birkat ha-Minim was composed during the Yavne period in order tocheck whether a person leading the prayer service was a min.63 The closest wefind is the following statement concerning the congregational prayer leader:64“One does not insist that he begin a prayer anew [in the case of an error], ex-cept if he did not say the benedictions ‘Who resurrects the dead’ or ‘Who van-quishes the wicked’ or ‘Who builds Jerusalem’,” for fear that he is a min. Therepetition of the prayer is justified as follows: if the prayer leader is indeed amin, he will be cursing himself and the congregation will answer ‘amen.’ Buteven if we accept this discussion as historically accurate, there is still no indi-cation that the blessing was composed in order to ferret out the minim andexpel them from the congregation.

My hypothesis notwithstanding, I must admit that there is no clear-cutevidence regarding what decisions were made at Yavne regarding Birkat ha-Minim. This much I do consider certain: Birkat ha-Minim in its present formis a composite of a blessing against the wicked kingdom, and another thatstates that those who separate themselves from the community have no hope.This assumption is supported by a passage in t. Berakhot 3.25 — which ad-mittedly raises a whole new set of problems — that states:65 “One may in-clude the benediction of the minim in that of the separatists, and the benedic-tion of the gentiles in that of the elders, and the benediction of David in thatof Jerusalem. And if one said each as a blessing unto itself, he has fulfilled hislegal obligation.” Incidentally, this passage is a testament to a comment wemade earlier, namely that congregants had the freedom to disassemble the in-dividual benedictions of the Amidah and produce two separate benedictions,or to the contrary, to unite two or more into a single benediction. Here areLieberman’s comments concerning the beginning of the passage: “Thus welearn that this benediction (Birkat ha-Minim in its original form) was origi-nally a curse against the perushim . . . that is, against individuals whose cus-tom it was to set themselves apart (qwrpl) . . . in dire straits . . . this curse wasaimed against all the sects and individuals who threatened the unity of the

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63. Graetz was the first to propose this interpretation, though he did so in a very quali-fied way. See Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 96.

64. p. Berakhot, 5.3, 9c, and see Midrash Tanhuma, S. Buber (ed.) (New York, 1946), Le-viticus 3, p. 3.

65. See Saul Lieberman’s edition of the Tosefta (New York, 1956), 18; Louis Ginzberg,Commentary and Novellae to the Yerushalmi (Hebrew) (New York, 1941), 334-338.

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community. The benediction against the separatists existed long beforeShmuel the Small, as he was the one who fixed the benediction so as to explic-itly mention the minim, since they started to threaten the community as awhole. It had existed as an independent benediction, which allowed theTosefta to state in what follows that if an individual said these as a unit untothemselves he fulfilled his religious obligation.”66 It should be noted that forthe Hebrew speakers of the day, the word qwrp is semantically equivalent toqrwp, as we find in other intransitive verbs such as bcwr-bwcr.

It is clear enough why, over time, the word fyqwrp was omitted fromBirkat ha-Minim. For one thing, the meaning of the word was no longer cur-rent, a dynamic we saw with the word inj (hypocrite). More importantly, therabbinic Sages came to be called fyqwrp, and we will see below that they wereunhappy with this epithet on account of its negative connotations. Nonethe-less, the passage in the Tosefta demonstrates that even those who came to beknown by this epithet continued to speak of the fyqwrp as a derogatory term,i.e., as those who separate themselves from the community. This is an impor-tant finding for the history of the word. In any case, they preferred to omit theword from Birkat ha-Minim, even while Seder {Olam and its parallels indicatethat the phrase “those who separate themselves from the community” wasonce the phrase used to describe those who chose to break with the Jewishcommunity — thus it was appropriate for the term to appear in Birkat ha-Minim.

Saul Lieberman’s hypothesis, that there was once a benediction aimedagainst those who separate themselves from the community, and that Shmuelthe Small “fixed the benediction so as to explicitly mention the minim,” isbased on the accepted text of t. Berakhot 3.25: “One may include the benedic-tion of the minim in that of the separatists,” and this is in fact attested in theextant manuscripts of the Tosefta. But early citations of this passage reflect adifferent text altogether:67 “One may include the benediction of the minimand of the separatists in that of ‘vanquishes the wicked.’”68 This version fits

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66. Saul Lieberman, Tosephta ki-Fshuta (New York, 1955), Order of Zera}im, 1.53-55.67. See above, n. 66, and below, the end of n. 69. Here are the variant readings of the key

phrase: Rabbi Isaiah of Trani — “One may include the benediction of the minim and sinners(fyeqwp) in that of ‘vanquishes the wicked’”; Sefer Yihusei Tannaim ve-Amoraim — “One mayinclude the benediction of the minim in that of the wicked”; p. Berakhot 8a — “One may in-clude the benediction of the minim and of the sinners (on folio 5a: the transgressors [fyeqr])in that of ‘vanquishes the wicked’.” On the various Tosefta manuscripts see M. Krupp, “TheTosefta Manuscripts,” in S. Safrai (ed.), Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum:Literature of the Sages (Assen/Maastricht and Philadelphia, 1987), 1.301-302.

68. Lieberman is correct, of course, that fyeqwp is just a corruption of fyqwrp. The ref-

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perfectly with our hypothesis, that Birkat ha-Minim was composed of twodistinct benedictions.69 The one expressed hope for the speedy uprooting ofthe wicked kingdom, while the other aimed at those who had separated fromthe community (the perushim), with the minim constituting an organic partof this list. In order to better understand this dynamic, then, it is necessary toconsider the emotional and social response of the Jewish people as a whole tothose who, to their mind, separated from the community.

IV. Those Who Separate from the Community

We have established that those who separate from the community were re-ferred to in brief as ‘separatists,’ perushim.70 We will have opportunity totouch on the paradox that the name perushim has come to be associated withthe rabbinic sages, as they were — at the apex of their power — the outstand-

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erence to fydz, ‘the wicked’ (or: fydz eyncm ‘who vanquishes the wicked’), has to do with theconclusion of Birkat ha-Minim.

69. Our analysis would lead us to prefer the phrase “One may include the benediction ofthe separatists in that of the wicked (fydz).” If we may offer a speculative and tentative recon-struction of the first half of Birkat ha-Minim, it would be: “May the separatists have no hopeand all the minim and the informants (and the hypocrites) immediately perish. . . .” The viewthat Birkat ha-Minim is a composite of two benedictions — one against those who separatefrom the community and another against the wicked kingdom — is supported by the (Babylo-nian) conclusion: “who breaks enemies and vanquishes the wicked.” Prior to the juxtapositionof the two benedictions, the Amidah most likely contained a separate blessing against thewicked kingdom. It stands to reason that the natural location of this blessing is between theother two eschatological benedictions: the one dealing with the ingathering of exiles, and theone dealing with the rebuilding of Jerusalem. These three benedictions probably formed a dis-tinct unit within the Amidah. This was apparently one approach, while another involved the in-sertion of a tripartite unit between “Who gathers in his exiled, Israel (larqy wme yjdn ubkm)”and the blessing for Jerusalem, a unit consisting of “Restore our Judges (wnytpwq hbyqh),”Birkat ha-Minim, and the benediction of the righteous. These two approaches were apparentlyunited at Yavne, when the benediction against the wicked kingdom was inserted into the bene-diction against the minim (or the separatists, fyqwrp). In writing this article it came to my at-tention that a similar hypothesis was raised by K. Kohler, “The Origin and Composition of theEighteen Benedictions,” HUCA 1 (1924), 391, 401-402. Kohler bases his proposition on Meqor ha-Berakhah, Landeshut’s commentary to the prayer book Higayon Lev (Königsburg, 1845), 65-66;he cites the view of Rabbenu Isaiah of Trani in Sefer ha-Makhri{a, who, in turn, cites the versionof Tosefta Berakhot 3.25 cited above. In my analysis I have used a new critical edition: “Tosfot u-Fisqei Bet Din {al Divrei Rabbenu Yishaiah Mitrani ha-Zaqen {al Masekhet Ta{anit,” Nisan Zaksh(ed.) (Jerusalem, 1963). Rav Ze}ev Gottholder called my attention to this edition.

70. The root p-r-sh in the sense of ‘set oneself apart’ occurs only once in the Bible, Ezekiel34:12.

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ing representatives of Jewish unity, and fierce opponents of any who brokewith Israel. “Do not separate yourself (p-r-sh) from the community” saysHillel the Elder (m. Avot 2.4) — though perhaps this is a warning aimed atthe House of Shammai, whose halakhic strictures run the risk of insularityand detachment. This is not the place to discuss the historical value of thestory in Avot of Rabbi Nathan, regarding the genesis of the Sadducees and theBoethusians.71 According to this legend, Antigonos of Socho had two disci-ples, Saddoq and Boethus, who misunderstood their master’s dictum that oneshould not worship God for the sake of wages or reward (Avot 1.3), thinkingthat it meant that resurrection is not the reward of the righteous. As a result,“they went and set themselves apart (pirshu; other versions read ‘set them-selves apart from the Law’) and two divisions emerged from them — the Sad-ducees and the Boethusians.” The story undoubtedly existed prior to the re-daction of Avot de Rabbi Nathan, since its kernel has been preserved in acomposition from the Jewish-Christian Ebionites.72 There we find the fol-lowing statement, that was undoubtedly composed in the Tannaitic era:73

“The Sadducees . . . began to separate themselves (lifrosh) from the people asa whole and to deny the doctrine of resurrection . . . saying that it is not rightto worship God for the sake of wages or reward.”74 This is a more originalsource of the same idea found at the basis of the story of the formation of theSadducees and the Boethusians in Avot de Rabbi Nathan. Moreover, bothtexts say that they separated themselves because they rejected the doctrine ofthe resurrection of the dead.

Hatred toward the “separatists” found its way into the legal ruling intractate Semahot (2.10): “We do not occupy ourselves with those who sepa-

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71. Avot According to Rabbi Nathan, Version A, chapter 5; Version B, chapter 10; See Avotde Rabbi Natan, Solomon Schechter (ed.) (New York, 1945), 26.

72. I am referring to the Jewish-Christian source, or sources, that were the basis for thePseudo-Clementines, a Jewish-Christian work composed in 360 c.e. or thereabout, whose herois Clement of Rome, one of the first Christians. The Pseudo-Clementines are extant in two tex-tual traditions. On this thorny question see G. Strecker, Das Judenchristentum inPseudoklementinen (Berlin, 1981); H. J. Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums(Tübingen, 1949).

73. In the Latin: “Sadducaei . . . segregare se coepere a populi coetu et mortuorumresurrectionem negare . . . dicentes non esse dignum ut quasi sub mercede proposita colaturdeus.” Die Pseudoklementinen 2: Rekognitionen, B. Rehm (ed.) (Berlin, 1965), §54.2, 1.39.

74. Schoeps already noted the connection between this statement and the tradition ofAvot de Rabbi Nathan (Theologie und Geschichte, 389-390). Elsewhere, I have discussed the simi-larity between the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions §1.54-71, and the Ebionite account of thedeath of James, brother of Jesus. See Flusser, Entdeckungen im Neuen Testament (Neukirchen,1987), 187. See also Schoeps, Theologie und Geschichte, 413-417.

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rated themselves from the community in any respect.”75 There were thosewho took this reasoning one step further and decreed that this verse fromPsalms excludes those who separate themselves from the community fromthe golden rule to love one’s neighbor; to the contrary, it calls for hatred:“Love everyone but hate the minim and the apostates and the informants” —followed by a discussion of Psalm 139:21-22 — “as it is written, ‘you shall loveyour neighbor as yourself ’ (Lev. 19:18). . . . If he acts according to the norms ofyour people, love him, if not, do not love him.”76 This same verse is adducedby Rabbi Ishmael in the discussion of Gospels and the books of the minim.77

It would appear that the term minim refers here to a particular Christiangroup, of whom it is said, inter alia, that their writings “cause hatred betweenIsrael and their heavenly father.” As for the statement that if a person “acts ac-cording to the norms of your people, love him, if not, do not love him” — itappears to be influenced by an interpretation of another verse: “‘You shall notput a curse on a chieftain among your people’ (Exod. 22:28). This refers to onewho comports himself in accordance with the customs of your people, butexcludes those who separate themselves from the community, e.g., Jeroboamben Nabat,”78 while the parallels read “the norms of your people.”79 Rabbiniclaw follows a similar logic and employs a similar terminology in discussingSadducee women: “The daughters of the Sadducees, if they follow after theways of their fathers, are deemed like to the women of the Samaritans; but ifthey have separated themselves and follow after the ways of Israel, they aredeemed like to the women of Israel.”80

We find, then, a web of interrelated terms, and our focus is on those

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75. See The Minor Tractates of the Talmud, A. Cohen (trans.) (London, 1965), 1.333. Seealso D. Zlotnick (ed.), The Tractate ‘Mourning’ (New Haven, 1966), p. 4 of the Hebrew section,as well as the English commentary, pp. 103-104. Also relevant to our discussion is the ruling citedin Higger, The Minor Tractates, 237 (part of the non-mishnaic rulings that are not included inour version of Semahot): “Regarding those who separate from the community, and fashionthemselves free of commandments, and respect for holy days, and attendance at synagogue andhouses of study, and the minim and the apostates and the informants, not only do we notmourn them, but rather (upon their death) their relatives will rejoice and wear white clothing,and hold a feast, since one who hates the Lord has died.”

76. Avot de Rabbi Nathan, A, 16 (Schechter edition p. 64).77. t. Shabbat 13.5. See Lieberman’s edition (New York, 1962), 58-59, and Lieberman’s

comments in Tosephta ki-Fshuta, 3.206-208.78. Thus in Midrash ha-Gadol ad loc., p. 528 in the Margaliyot edition. And see

A. Büchler, Studies in Sin and Atonement (New York, 1967), 31 n. 1, where the statement is erro-neously cited as found in the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

79. Or: of his people. See b. Baba Batra 4a, Sanhedrin 47a.80. M. Niddah 4.2, and see also t. Niddah 5.2.

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who separate, one way or another, from the community, and are no longercomporting themselves according to the norms of the Jewish people. Theworst of these, the ones whose behavior is opposed to that of the people, arethe object of Psalm 139:21-22, that is, they are counted among the enemies ofthe Lord and as such worthy of hatred. No surprise, then, that the Benedic-tion against the “Separatists” (perushim) — whose main thrust is to deny anyfuture hope for these sinners — was formulated against such individuals,who revolt against the kingdom of heaven. Those who separate themselvesfrom the community, the minim and the apostates and the informants andthe hypocrites, are damned to eternal hell.

V. The Epithet Perushim

It is clear from the above discussion that the group known as perushim (thatis, Pharisees) included in their liturgy the wish that the perushim (that is,those who separate themselves from the community) have no hope, andclearly this unusual state of affairs is relevant to the origin and meaning of theepithet ‘perushim’.81 As such, we must discuss, even if only briefly, the term

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81. A recent book on the Pharisees is S. Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees (Leiden,1991), who — in his attempt to prove that Josephus was hostile to the Pharisees — ignores, ei-ther knowingly or unknowingly, most of the relevant primary sources. See also the importantstudy of A. I. Baumgarten, “The Name of the Pharisees,” JBL 102 (1983), 411-428, and his study“Qumran and Jewish Sectarianism in the Second Temple Period” (Hebrew), in M. Broshi,S. Talmon, S. Japhet and D. Schwartz (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research (Jeru-salem, 1992), 139-151. Schürer devotes a chapter to the Pharisees in A History of the Jewish People,381-414, and see especially his discussion of the name ‘Pharisees,’ 396-399, including a list (397n. 54) of Patristic statements, most of which understand perushim to mean porshim, those whoseparate themselves from the community. See also D. Flusser, “Pharisees, Zadokites, andEssenes,” and Sussman, “The History of Halakhah and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 38-39, and thesources cited therein. It is hard to say when exactly in the Middle Ages “rabbinic” Judaismadopted the name perushim (Pharisees), and how widely the epithet circulated. In any case, it isclear that perushim continued to refer to ascetics, even to this very day. The term famously ap-pears in t. Sotah 15.11: “When the Second Temple was destroyed, the perushim proliferated in Is-rael and they did not eat meat or drink wine” (see E. Urbach, “The Rabbinic Doctrine of Asceti-cism and Suffering” [Hebrew], S. Etinger, S. Baron, B. Dinur and Y. Halperin [eds.], Isaac BaerFestschrift [Jerusalem, 1961], 53). The word was used in this sense later in the middle ages as well:“There are perushim who eat only a single egg (during the time of their mourning) — for in-stance, Rabbi Yitzhak bar Yehudah” (see A. Grossman, The Early Sages of Ashkenaz and France[Hebrew], [Jerusalem, 1981], 310). The author of Sefer Josippon, who wrote in the year 953 c.e.,naturally identifies the Sages with the perushim-Pharisees, following the lead of his main source,Josephus (see D. Flusser [ed.], Sefer Josippon [Jerusalem, 1981], Vol. 2, 176-178). In chapter 30

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perushim as it applies to the Jewish sages. In truth, the epithet is inherentlyambiguous: perushim can serve as a derogatory term (a poresh, one who sepa-rates himself) when employed by the opposing camp, or as praise by mem-bers of the sect.82 As Yehiel of Rome states: “A parush is one who separateshimself from all forms of impurity and from improper food and from igno-ramuses who are not strict regarding dietary restrictions.”83 This positivemeaning is also attested in ‘Fear of Sin’ (atj oary), one of the so-called ‘mi-nor tractates’: “The ignoramus ({am ha-}aretz) is not parush (that is, strict indistancing himself from impurities).”84 Do these sources, and other likethem, indicate that the sages, who “eat their unsanctified meats in a state ofpurity,” coined this term to set themselves apart from the people as a whole?85

I have not found any explicit articulation of this view in the ancient sources.86

In contrast to the Essene sect at Qumran, there is no evidence of a sepa-ratist tendency among the Pharisees. Quite the contrary: their power and thesecret of their success lie in their ability to identify with popular beliefs andwith the practical application of the Torah according to the customs of theJewish people as a whole. It was thanks to this that the Pharisees were able toadvance and shape the course of Jewish history. In light of this, it is difficult tosuppose that these people flaunted their separateness from the Jewish people,and chose to call themselves perushim in the sense of “those who separatethemselves from the community.” It is far more likely, that as the Pharisaic

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(lines 4-5 in my edition), the author refers to “the Jewish sages, namely the perushim (Phari-sees), who explicate (mefarshim) the Torah.” The same etymology is proposed in anothersource, written at roughly the same time, The Ancient Questions (She}elot {Atiqot) (on which seeJosippon, 109 n. 331a). The author describes the Talmudic academy in Jerusalem as “a whollyrighteous group, of those who teach Israel the explicated (mefurashah) Torah . . . and word ofpeace to all the Jewish diaspora in the four corners of the earth, who have a single Torah to ex-plicate” (see Sefer Josippon [Jerusalem, 1979], Vol. 1, 119, ad loc.). This work speaks of the “rab-binic” sages, in contrast to the Karaites. And, indeed, the sages were called perushim-Pharisees incontradistinction to the Karaites, who saw themselves as Sadducees (and see the comments ofHarkavy in Graetz, Geschichte der Juden [Leipzig, 1895], 5.413-415). It is likely that the Karaiteswere the first to identify themselves with the Sadducees — and their rabbinic opponents withthe Pharisees — and that the rabbis adopted this identification. Perhaps the allusions in the Tal-mud alone sufficed to maintain this process, and there is no need to assume familiarity — evenindirect familiarity — with the writings of Josephus.

82. Thus Sussman, “The History of Halakhah and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 39 nn. 125-127.See also Baumgarten, “The Name of the Pharisees,” 411-412, 423-428; Schürer, A History of theJews, 396-398.

83. Aruch Completum, 6.452.84. Higger, Minor Tractates, 77 and 85.85. A suggestion made by Schürer, A History of the Jewish People, 399 n. 61.86. As Baumgarten rightly notes, “The Name of the Pharisees,” 412.

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movement crystallized, its conservative opponents saw it as a threat to theunity of Israel, as a group that separated itself from the community, as‘perushim.’ This epithet undoubtedly offended the Pharisees, and while therewere sporadic attempts to re-semantize the term — proposing a positivesense, especially in the area of purity — they generally rejected the term. In-deed, they continued to use perushim in reference to those who separatedthemselves from the community, a custom that was even fixed in their liturgy.

It is clear, then, why the derogatory term perushim is attested more fre-quently in the words of the Pharisees’ opponents. This is, in any case, the con-clusion to be drawn from the story of Alexander Jannaeus, a story preservedin b. Qiddushim 66a, based on an ancient written source. The story tells of adispute between the king and the Pharisees. At the outset of the dispute, anopponent of the sages addresses the king, saying: “The hearts of the Phariseesare against you.” As a result of the dispute, “all the sages of Israel were massa-cred, and the world was desolate until Shimon ben Shetah came and restoredthe Torah to its pristine glory.” Here (and in the beginning of the story), thePharisees are specifically referred to as “all the sages of Israel.” Anotheraggadic source tells of Shimon ben Shetah, and how he restored the Torah toits former glory:87 “The Sadducees were seated at the Sanhedrin, and KingJannaeus and Queen Salome were seated there, and not one of Israel wasseated with them, except for Shimon ben Shetah.” When none of the Saddu-cee members of the Sanhedrin was able to provide a scriptural proof for aparticular decision, Shimon ben Shetah caused “all of them to depart, and soa Sanhedrin of Israel was established. The day that the Sadducee Sanhedrinwas disbanded and a Sanhedrin of Israel was established was declared a holi-day.” If the previous story referred to the Pharisee sages as “the sages of Israel,”here they are simply referred to as “Israel” simpliciter! The sages are also re-ferred to as perushim in m. Yadayim 4.6-8 by their opponents. In mishnahs 4and 7 the Sadducees say: “We cry out against you, O Pharisees . . .” while aGalilean heretic similarly states, “I cry out against you, O Pharisees. . . .”88

Thus we see that the epithet perushim generally carried a bitter taste intheir own mouths, due to its negative content. It is especially worth notingthat rabbinic literature never identifies even one of the sages as a perushi-Pharisee, while Greek sources do designate certain Jews this way. The mostprominent of these are the Jewish men who attest — in Greek — to their

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87. The story appears as part of the Hebrew explication of the Aramaic phrase found inTractate Ta{anit: anyd le aoqnc obyoy obtl aynmow vyrqeb. See H. Lichtenstein’s criticaledition, “Die Fastenrolle,” HUCA 8-9 (1931-32), 342-343, and see also 298.

88. As a result of the polemic context, in mishnayot 7 and 8 the response of the sages isprefaced by the phrase: “The Pharisees say.”

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Pharisaism, namely Paul (Philippians 3:5, and see Acts 23:6), and Josephus(Vita §10). The New Testament also refers to the following figures as Phari-sees: Nicodemus, who is probably identical with the famous Naqdimon benGurion (John 3:1), and Rabban Gamaliel the Elder (Acts 5:34). Josephus char-acterizes the latter’s son, Shimon ben Gamaliel (Vita §191), as well as Samaiasand Pollion, two prominent Pharisees who lived under Herod (AJ 15.4, 370),and are undoubtedly to be identified with Shammai and Hillel. In addition,Josephus names three Pharisees who were sent from Jerusalem to the Galileeduring the war (Vita §197). Incidentally, these Greek sources prove that thescholars were right to suggest that the Patriarchate and the remaining sages ofthe Second Temple and post-70 were Pharisees.

The Greek sources did not hesitate to designate the “rabbinic” sages asPharisees — in contrast to the silence of the Talmudic sources — because theresistance to the epithet perushim was weaker, or perhaps non-existent, out-side of the circle of the sages themselves. Presumably, the Hebrew andAramaic-speaking Jews of Palestine, those who were not counted among theenemies of the Pharisees, also came to see ‘Pharisees,’ perushim, as a neutralterm, with no negative connotation. In any case, the sages were referred to as‘Pharisees’ by the surrounding environment, and they did not like it.

In the meantime — at some point no later than the reign of AlexanderJannaeus — the Pharisees won the trust of the vast majority of the Jewishpeople, and came to serve as its leaders.89 The rival Essenes saw the great in-fluence of the Pharisees as a calamity.90 They interpret the worship of theCanaanite god Ba}al during the reign of Hosea (2:10) as referring to the com-plete dependence of the masses on the Pharisees: “But they listened to thosewho misdirected them and they acclaimed them, and feared them in theirblindness like god.”91 Under these circumstances it would be ridiculous to re-buke the Pharisees as having separated themselves from the people as awhole, but the negative connotation of perushim still lingered, only now di-rected in new channels: in various circles there circulated the view that thePharisees were hypocrites, and this accusation was voiced against the Phari-sees by Sadducees and Essenes alike; Jesus too accused the Pharisees of hypoc-risy, and there is self-criticism along these lines from the Pharisees them-selves. It is of course no coincidence that the Pharisees — or part of them —

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89. See Schürer, A History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 402-403. See alsoMason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, 372-373, who cites the relevant Josephus sources onthis matter. See also Mark 7:3.

90. See Flusser, “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.”91. See 4QpHosa 2.2-6, and Maurya P. Horgan, Pesharim (Washington, D.C., 1979), 141,

and the Hebrew volume, 38-39.

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appeared to such a varied group of people as hypocrites who pretend to berighteous.92 It is not our role to examine the underlying reality of this accusa-tion against the Pharisee character, which was interpreted by many as hypoc-risy. It may be that the problematic tendency among the Pharisees — andwhich was generalized by their opponents as characteristic of the group as awhole — has its roots in the positive role of the sages. Not only did they takeit upon themselves to live according to the Halakhah, down to its smallest de-tails, but they even managed, for a time, to cast the yoke of Halakhah on thepeople as a whole. Over time, arrangements such as these inevitably lead totension between the strict demands of the party faithful and their own lim-ited capacity to live according to these demands. There are some among themwho appear to make demands but not meet them (see Matt. 23:3) or, in otherwords, who appear as hypocrites.93 This social dynamic was evident amongthe Pharisees themselves, and explains the hypocrisy within their ranks. Suchnegative phenomena presumably disappeared from the world of the Jewishsages after the destruction of the Temple, that is, when there was no longerany possibility to challenge “rabbinic” Judaism, or its dominion over the Jew-ish people.94

Let us deal briefly with the image of the Pharisees as hypocrites. Thephrase originates in the words of Alexander Jannaeus, the Sadducee king, tohis wife: “fear not the Pharisees . . . but the hypocrites who ape the Pharisees;because their deeds are the deeds of Zimri but they expect a reward likePinhas” (b. Sotah 22b).95 The meaning of ‘hypocrites’ may be inferred fromthe words of Jesus in Matthew 23:27-28: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees,hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside lookbeautiful, but on the inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of allkinds of filth.” A similar image appears in the Damascus Document (8.12, and

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92. See the sources cited by H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testa-ment (München, 1928), 4.336-339; G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Century of the Christian Era(New York, 1971), 192-194; M. Weinfeld, “The Charge of Hypocrisy in Matthew and in JewishSources,” Immanuel 24-25 (1990), 52-58.

93. A brief survey of the entries ‘Pharisee’ (768) and ‘puritan’ (837) in the Concise OxfordEnglish Dictionary (Oxford, 1983) may help illuminate the issue: “Pharisee: held to have preten-sion to superior sanctity; self-righteous person, formalist; hypocrite.” “Puritan: . . . purist,member of any non-religious party; person practicing or affecting extreme strictness in religionor morals.”

94. The Church Fathers do not accuse the rabbis of hypocrisy. There is a passage in theDidache (8.1-2) that is based on Matthew 6:16 and 6:5.

95. Following Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews (13.401-404), Jannaeus most likely spokethese words to his wife prior to his death, urging her to make peace with the Pharisees, his en-emies.

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in a parallel passage at 19.25), where the Essenes call the Pharisees “the buildersof the wall . . . those who daub with whitewash” — a clear allusion to Ezekiel13:10. I have shown elsewhere, that the Qumranites viewed the entire Phariseecommunity in a negative light,96 as a movement whose hypocrisy finds expres-sion in its fallacious teachings as well: they are “those who misdirect Ephraim,who with their fraudulent teaching and lying tongue and perfidious lip misdi-rect many; kings, princes, priests and people together with the proselyte at-tached to them. Cities and clans will perish through their advice, nobles andleaders will fall due to the ferocity of their tongues” (4QpNah 2.8-10). A moremoderate approach is adopted by the Sadducee king, at least according to b.Sotah 22b, where Alexander Jannaeus speaks of those “whose deeds are thedeeds of Zimri but they expect a reward like Pinhas.” That is, he is referring toindividuals who are only apparent — not true — Pharisees. Jesus’ statementoffers still another approach, as he describes the Pharisees as hypocrites, but atthe same time admits that they sit on the throne of Moses. He accepts theirteachings as binding, but claims that their actions do not match their teach-ings.97 Jesus’ description of the Pharisees raises the question, How could hehave identified with their teachings, in light of his sharp polemic against them?This apparent paradox is probably best explained if we assume that Jesus was,like Honi the Circle Drawer, a righteous charismatic who belonged to theworld of the sages but did not identify with their “establishment.”98

Jesus levels the following accusation, inter alia, against the Pharisees:“They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of oth-

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96. Flusser, “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes,” in the present volume.97. As noted, Jannaeus too is critical of the actions of those who appear to be Pharisees. A

similar critique of the Pharisees is voiced in the Hodayot: “They speak to your people with stut-tering lip and weird tongue to convert to folly all their deeds with deceit” (1QHa 12.16-17, and seealso line 8).

98. On the righteous, the Hasidim, see S. Safrai, “The Teachings of the Hasidim inTannaitic Literature” (Hebrew), Y. Amorai Memorial Volume (Tel Aviv, 1973), 147; idem, “Hasidimand Men of Deeds” (Hebrew), Zion 50 (1985), 149-151; idem, “The Jewish Cultural Nature of theGalilee in the First Century,” Immanuel 24-25 (1990), 180-181. It would appear that one of thelogia in Jesus’ polemic against the Pharisees was spoken under the influence of the Qumran po-lemic against them. This logion has reached us in two forms: Matthew 23:13, and Luke 11:52,where it is not aimed at the Pharisees and the scribes but rather against the “lawyers,” that is, themasters of halakhah. Luke’s statement — “you have taken away the key of knowledge; you didnot enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering” — is the more original. This isthe only time that the Gospels attribute the word “knowledge” to Jesus, while it is a very centralterm in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In addition, there is a fascinating parallel to Jesus’ logion in theEssene polemic against the Pharisees: “they have denied the drink of knowledge to the thirsty,but for their thirst they have given them vinegar to drink” (1QHa 12.11). The parallel in Matt. 23:13substitutes “Kingdom of Heaven” — a phrase dear to Matthew — for “knowledge.”

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ers; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them” (Matt. 23:4).There is an important parallel to Jesus’ statement in the list of “sevenperushim,”99 five of which are negative and the last two — “the parush charac-terized by fear and the parush characterized by love” — are positive, and the onewho worships God out of love is preferred to one who worships out of fear.100The first five types of Pharisees are characterized as different forms of hypoc-risy. The first is “the shoulder parush,” a term that is glossed as “loads the com-mandments (aowwem)101 on the shoulder.” The parallel in Matthew 23:4 sug-gests that this phrase refers to a Pharisee who loads the commandments on theshoulders of others — an instance in which Jesus’ teachings provide a novel in-sight into the Talmudic statement. As noted, the first five types of perushim,separatists, are described as various types of religious hypocrisy, and it stands toreason that the list originally included seven similar types of negative religiousbehavior, but was later changed to include two positive types.102 Jesus may haveknown the list in its earlier form, since his critique of the Pharisees containsseven instances of “Woe!” (Matt. 23:13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29). In any case, there isan undeniable affinity — conceptual and substantive alike — between Jesus’discussion of the Pharisees and the list of “seven perushim” in the PalestinianTalmud. The main difference appears to be that the Talmud is voicing an inter-nal critique that sages level against themselves, while Jesus is an outsider, whorespects the Pharisees but is also critical of them. For the present discussion itshould be remembered that pre-70 there were many who claimed that the Phar-isees are hypocrites. Indeed, this claim circulated so widely, that the sages them-selves adopted the name ‘Pharisees’ for the hypocrites among them.

VI. The Separatism of the Essenes

The history of the term perushim, ‘Pharisees,’ provides an interesting exam-ple of the tangled ways of an ideology. We already noted that the term is

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99. P. Berakhot 9, 13b, and Sotah 5, 20c. A different version appears in b. Sotah 22b.100. See my article “A New Sensitivity in Judaism and the Christian Message,” Judaism

and Christian Origins, 472-475; Y. Amir, “Philo’s Homilies on Fear and Love, and Their Relationto Palestinian Midrash” (Hebrew), Zion 30 (1965), 47-60.

101. This is the reading in a number of manuscripts, as well as Yalkut Makhiri to Psalm109, Buber edition (Berditchev, 1900), 180-181.

102. It is possible that “the parush characterized by fear” was part of the original list, sincethe phrase certainly lends itself to a negative interpretation. If so, only “the parush characterizedby love” is a new addition to the list, appended as part of the debate whether one should wor-ship God out of love or fear.

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ambiguous: it can serve as a pejorative designation of those who have sepa-rated themselves from the community, but can also be used by a separatistgroup to mark their laudable decision to divorce themselves from the Jew-ish people as a whole, who are doomed to perish. The sages employ the pe-jorative sense in the benediction against the perushim. Over time, as thevast majority of the Jewish people came to accept the authority of the Phar-isees, this name no longer suited them, and the sages generally avoided itwhen referring to themselves. Moreover, during the same time the wordtook on a new pejorative meaning — no longer a reference to separatism, itbecame a marker of religious hypocrisy. Thus was the pejorative sense ofperushim transformed. We will see in a moment that the Qumran commu-nity had no compunctions about applying the root ‘parush’ to separatethemselves, in a decidedly positive meaning.103 Indeed, I will argue that theseparatist sense of perushim originates in the Qumran community. Finally,we will revisit the hypothesis that Birkat ha-Minim was at one point aimedat the Essenes.104

It is an established fact that Qumran considered their separation fromthe community of sinners known as Israel to be a guiding principle, onerooted in their dualistic ideology and institutionalized in their separatist or-ganization that was closed to all on the outside.105 A clear testament to thisseparatism is found in the following passage from one of the scrolls, whichreads:106

14. Midrash of “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of thewicked” (Psalm 1:1). The interpretation of this word: they are thosewho turn aside from the path of the wicked

15. as it is written in the book of Isaiah, the prophet, for the last days:“the Lord spoke to me while his hand was strong upon me, andremoved me from the path of

16. this people” (Isa. 8:11). And (this refers to) those about whom it iswritten in the book of Ezekiel, the prophet, that “they should notdefile themselves any more with all

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103. See Sussman, “The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls.”104. See my article, “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” 269-273.105. See D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” in the present volume;

J. Licht, “Eternal Deceit and the Nation of God’s Redemption,” in Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls(Hebrew), (Jerusalem, 1961), 49-75.

106. 4Q174 (Florilegium) 1.14-17. On the reconstruction of this passage see J. Strugnell,“Notes en marge du volume V de ‘Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan’,” RQ 7 (1970),221-222.

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17. their idols” (Ezek. 44:10). This refers to the sons of Zadok and tothe men of their council, those who seek justice eagerly, who havecome after them to the council of the community.

The Qumran community thought that in divorcing themselves fromthe Jewish people they were abiding by the instruction of the opening of thePsalms: “Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or takethe path that sinners tread.” In other words, they consider the rest of Israel tobe wicked and sinful. In this passage, only the first hemistich is quoted explic-itly, but the second is also relevant: the Qumran author identifies the Psalm-ist’s “path that sinners tread” with “the path of this people” in Isaiah 8:11, thepath from which they have divorced themselves, as per God’s will. The sepa-ratism is justified by Ezekiel 37:23: they have separated themselves from thepath of the people lest they “defile themselves . . . with their idols.” We see,then, that Essene separatism consists of two aspects, both of which appear inthis passage. The first is religious and theological and consists of the Essenedualism that dictates that they steer clear of the path of the sons of darkness.The second is halakhic and ritual: the Essenes of Qumran considered the restof Israel to be impure, and thus were required to set themselves apart lest theybe contaminated by their idols. The temple too they considered impure:“They send votive offerings to the temple, but perform their sacrifices em-ploying a different ritual of purification. For this reason they are barred fromthose precincts of the temple that are frequented by all the people and per-form their rites by themselves” (Josephus, AJ 18.19).107 I will have more to sayabout the halakhic justification in what follows.

The words of Isaiah — “while his hand was strong upon me [the Lord]removed me from the path108 of this people” (8:11) — played a particularlyimportant role in the Essene separatism set forth in the passage at hand. To besure, the MT reads y5n¿rS5y‹w, that is, ‘he warned me,’ but the reading ynrysyw, ‘heremoved me,’ is reflected in a number of ancient translations,109 and is thereading attested in the complete Isaiah scroll discovered at Qumran (the rele-

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107. See my article “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” in the present volume.108. The word ‘way’ (Frd) appears in Psalm 1:1 and Isaiah 8:11, as well as Isaiah 40:3 (“in

the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord . . .”) — a statement the Qumran community (alongwith John the Baptist) understood as a divine commandment (1QS 8.13-16, and 9.20). Accordingto 1QS 8, the ‘way’ in Isaiah refers to “the study of the law” (hrwoh qrdm)”. A number of schol-ars have discussed the dualistic aspect of the term ‘way,’ and see D. Flusser, “Which Is the RightWay That a Man Should Choose for Himself?” Tarbiz 60 (1990), 163-178.

109. See the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, 687; Strugnell, “Notes en marge,” 221;M. Goshen-Gottstein (ed.), Isaiah (Jerusalem, 1975), 2.31.

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vant chapters are not extant in the other Isaiah scroll). We see, then, that theQumran community considered this verse — in its non-Masoretic form — asa biblical justification for their break with the Jewish people as a whole. Thecommunity defined itself as “the sons of Zadok, the priests, and the men oftheir covenant who have turned away from the path of the nation” (1Q28a[=1QRule of the Congregation] 1.2-3)110 or as “the congregation of all thesons of justice, those who establish the covenant, those who avoid walking onthe path of the people” (11Q13 [=11QMelchizedek] 2.24).111 At the same time,they accused their opponents that “they have rebelled with insolence, walkingon the path of the wicked ones” (CD 19.21, and the parallel at 8.8-9; see alsoCD 19.17 and the parallel at 8.4-5). We will return to this passage later in ourdiscussion.

In an earlier article,112 I argued roughly thus: the Essenes used Isaiah8:11 to justify their separation from the people, and defined themselves as hav-ing removed themselves “from the path of this people” or, more succinctly,those who strayed from the path of the people. If we translate the biblicalphrase into contemporary language, we would say that the Essenes are thosewho separated themselves from the way of the people. The similarity betweenthis phrase and “those who separate themselves from the path of the people”— who stand in opposition to “them according to the norms of your people”— is striking. These phrases, then, are rooted in a sectarian interpretation ofIsaiah, that originates among the Essenes, and perhaps among other sectariangroups, for whom removal “from the path of this people” is a statement ofpraise. For those who reject the separatist impetus, on the other hand, “thosewho separate themselves from the path of the people” and later “those whoseparate themselves from the path of the community (rwbye)” are under-stood as sharply pejorative. The individuals characterized in these statementscan be referred to in a single term: perushim, ‘separatists,’ and this is the termthat was eventually included in the benediction against the separatists, theminim, the apostates and the informants. In a fascinating development, thisterm was incorporated into the benediction by the group that was itself calledby its opponents perushim, Pharisees!

These suppositions have been largely substantiated by the publicationof 4QMMT113 (4QMMTd Column C 6-8), where we find: “[And you know

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110. See J. Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim (Jerusalem, 1965), 252.111. See Kobelski, Melchizedek, 6; E. Puech, “Notes sur le manuscript de XIQ Melkisedeq,”

RQ 12 (1987), 483-513.112. See Flusser, “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” 271.113. See Sussman, “The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” esp. 38-39. I want to

thank E. Qimron, who provided me with a personal copy of 4QMMT prior to its publication.

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that] we have separated ourselves from the majority114 of the people and[from their impurity115] and from mingling in these affairs and from associ-ating with them in these things.” The passage in question, like the composi-tion as a whole, survived only in fragmentary form, so it is not possible to de-termine the precise reasons cited as to why the sect separated itself from thepeople as a whole.116 This much is clear: the author of 4QMMT does notmention an ideological impetus for breaking with Israel, but rather refers tohalakhic differences that brought about the rift. In discussing these differ-ences the scroll lists primarily issues of ritual purity, of temple service, and ofpriesthood, with purity playing a central role in the latter two categories aswell — at least in the parts of 4QMMT that survived. In this respect, 4QMMTis similar to the material cited above,117 although there we found an ideologi-cal justification for separating from the people, alongside the ritual. TheQumran community removed itself from the path of the people not only soas not to “take the path that sinners tread” but also so that they not defilethemselves with their idols. Be that as it may, the phrase “separated ourselvesfrom the majority of the people” indicates that the Qumran authors em-ployed the root p-r-sh to cast their separatism in a positive light — the polaropposite of the use in the benediction of those termed perushim, ‘Pharisees,’the sages themselves. Also relevant is the striking similarity between theboastful statement of the sect — based on Isaiah 8:11 — that they separatedthemselves from the path of the people, and the sages’ position that “thosewho separate themselves from the path of the people” will not be forgiven byGod. May we conclude, then, that at some point the sages identified theperushim of the benediction with the separatist Dead Sea community? I sug-gested this possibility already,118 and the phrase “we have separated ourselvesfrom the majority of the people” appears to support it.

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114. Hebrew: bwr. On this term in the Qumran scrolls see Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim,111-112.

115. Sussman (“The History of Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 38) offers a differentreconstruction.

116. The previous halakhic matter states: “And further it is written in the book of Moses:you shall not bring an abomination into your house for abomination is an odious thing” — cit-ing Deuteronomy 7:26. Still, we cannot know the author’s precise intent in adducing this verse,nor the nature of the ‘abomination.’

117. See above, n. 106.118. See Flusser, “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” 271-273.

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VII. Sadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees in the Amidah

In order to better understand the logic behind the hypothesis that Birkat ha-Minim was once aimed against the Essenes, we need to trace the originalmeaning of two of the benedictions in the Amidah: the one that precedesBirkat ha-Minim, and the one that follows it. The benediction precedingBirkat ha-Minim is brief,119 and, according to Rav Saadia Gaon,120 consists ofthe following: “Return our judges as before and our advisors as in earlierdays” (based on Isaiah 1:26). The Palestinian liturgy merely appends thewords “and rule over us, You alone.” Now, the short benediction “Instruct us”(wnnybh), reads: “And regarding those who err in your way, may they judge ac-cording to your knowledge.”121 Even if “Instruct us” is not a reflex of an ear-lier version of the benediction, it clearly represents an early understanding ofthe benediction. Historically speaking, “those who err in your way” — ofwhom it is hoped that in the future they will “judge according to your knowl-edge” — can only be the Sadducees,122 who refuse to follow the Oral Torah inrendering judgment. It stands to reason that this is the thrust of “Restore ourjudges,” which precedes Birkat ha-Minim. Clearly, a petitionary prayer forjudgments to once again be rendered according to the Oral Torah lacks thevitriolic hostility toward the sages’ opponents so evident in Birkat ha-Minim.

The benediction following Birkat ha-Minim, “The Benediction of theRighteous,” will be cited in its Palestinian form:123 “May your mercies stir for

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119. See the discussion in Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 45. I wish to thank my friend S. Safraifor interpreting this benediction.

120. Siddur Rav Saadia Gaon (Jerusalem, 1963), 18.121. The standard prayer books read “let them be judged” (wt•pÌqy) rather than “judge”

(wtwpqy); however, the latter reading is attested in a number of manuscripts of b. Berakhot 29a,where “Instruct us” appears, among them the Munich Manuscript, Rashi’s interpretation adloc., Halakhot Gedolot (Venice) 2a, and the manuscript of Halakhot Gedolot published byA. Hildsheimer (Jerusalem, 1972), 26. That “judge” is the more original reading is evident fromthe opening of the benediction: “Restore our judges . . .”

122. There is another benediction in which ‘those who err’ (fyewo) refers to the Saddu-cees, namely the full version of the benediction recited after the reading of the Torah, a versiontoday found only in the qedusha de-sidra: “Blessed are You our God who created us for Hisglory, and separated us from those who err and gave us the Torah of truth, and planted eternallife in our midst.” This benediction announces the two main pillars of the sages’ theology thatare rejected by the Sadducees: the Torah (as understood by the Pharisees) and the belief in eter-nal life, i.e., in the resurrection of the dead. Those who err, then, are clearly the Sadducees. SeeD. Flusser, “He Has Planted Eternal Life in Our Midst,” Tarbiz 58 (1989), 149.

123. See Mann, “Genizah Fragments of the Palestinian Order of Service,” 206. Anotherversion is cited by Schechter and by Assaf: “May Your mercies stir for the righteous converts andgive us good reward with those who perform Your will. Blessed are you Lord, a safe harbor for

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your righteous and your holy, and for the converts who put their trust in You.Give us and give them a good reward with those who do your will in the Landof Israel, a support and safe haven for the righteous.” The advantage of thisversion is that its first half, that refers to the righteous and the holy, stands asan independent unit, unrelated to the second, which deals with converts —very much in keeping with t. Berakhot 3.25. Nonetheless, this is clearly an ab-breviated version, since it lacks the elders, who are mentioned explicitly in theTosefta, and the scribes, who are mentioned in both the Ashkenazic andSephardic liturgical traditions. The Ashkenazic liturgy employs the phrase“the remnant of their scribes,” which appears already in Megillat Ta}anit: “Onthe seventeenth (of Adar) the nations rose against the remnant of the scribesin the land of Chalcis in the house of Zabdi, and there was salvation,”124 anevent that occurred in the time of Alexander Jannaeus. The benediction ofthe righteous, then, makes mention of the institutions, or better, the groups,that make up the separatist group vis-à-vis the sages.

All this suggests that “Restore Our Judges,” which precedes Birkat ha-Minim, was aimed against the erroneous legal teachings of the Sadducees,while the Benediction of the Righteous, which follows Birkat ha-Minim,sought to elevate the status of the Pharisees. As for the middle benediction,Birkat ha-Minim itself, we have already seen that it attacks a wide range ofseparatists. The material adduced suggests that it was once aimed against theEssenes, among others. The fact that three consecutive benedictions appar-ently refer to the three central groups within Second Temple Judaism — theSadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees — is significant far beyond the purview ofour present study. For it now becomes clear that, contrary to the view of somescholars, the tripartite division into schools employed time and again byJosephus in describing the Jewish world of his day, is not an artificial systemimposed, as it were, to imbue Judaism with an added dimension of Greekspirituality. Indeed, this scholarly position was already refuted by the publica-tion of Pesher Nahum from Qumran,125 which demonstrated that theEssenes too identified the same three groups: Essenes, Pharisees, and Saddu-cees. The discovery of the Qumran documents has demonstrated, then, that

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the righteous.” This is curious, since it deals only with converts and it is hard to believe that wehave here a version of the benediction of the converts prior to its assimilation with the benedic-tion of the elders. For one thing, the Genizah version of the benediction of the elders does notcontain this benediction. On the benediction of the elders, see Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 45-46;Louis Ginzberg, Commentary and Novellae to the Yerushalmi, 337-338.

124. See Lichtenstein, “Die Fastenrolle,” 322, 347-348. Ginzberg already noted the connec-tion between the benediction of the elders and Ta}anit.

125. See my discussion, in “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum.”

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the division is not the result of Josephus’ speculations, but rather anchored inthe social reality of the day. If so, we may assume that the sages too under-stood the Jewish world to be divided into these three groups, and that theirresponse to each found expression in the three benedictions of the Amidah.And if the tripartite division of Israel was self-evident, we must assume thatthe three benedictions — that on this reading reflect this division — were in-corporated into the Amidah at the same time. I believe we are dealing withthe late Hasmonean period, assuming, of course, that “Restore Our Judges”expresses the hope that the Sadducees repent the error of their ways.

Another indication that the three benedictions were incorporated intothe liturgy at the same time — and, indirectly, that they refer to the three Sec-ond Temple “schools” — is their location within the Amidah. They are foundbetween the benedictions whose conclusions are “Who Gathers the Dispersedof His People Israel” and “Builder of Jerusalem,” respectively. Not coinciden-tally, these two conclusions — in reverse order — constitute a verse fromPsalms (147:2): “The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Is-rael.” If we remove the three benedictions, the gap between the two parts of theverse disappears. I have argued elsewhere126 that the hope for the building ofJerusalem and for the ingathering of exiles becomes central to the Jewishworld with the destruction of the First Temple, when Jerusalem is razed andthe people are exiled, the majority not to return even until today. As it becameless probable that both hopes will be realized in the present age, there grew thesentiment — already in the Persian period — that Jerusalem will be restored toits former glory and the exiles gathered in Israel, only in the End of Days.

It should be noted that the yearning for a personal messiah (or messi-ahs) tended to grow stronger only later in the Second Temple period. There isno trace of this view in a number of eschatological texts written during thisperiod. No wonder, then, that the Amidah once prayed for the rebuilding ofJerusalem and the ingathering of exiles without mentioning the messiah.However, as the belief in the messiah’s advent grew stronger, references to hisperson became frequent in Jewish liturgy,127 including the Amidah — a pro-

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126. In “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” 264-294.127. The core Jewish liturgy does not mention the word ‘messiah’ in reference to a future

redeemer, a fact that is not sufficiently recognized. See D. Flusser, “The Reflection of JewishMessianic Beliefs in Early Christianity” (Hebrew), in Z. Baras (ed.), Messianism and Eschatology(Jerusalem, 1983), 113-114, and especially n. 25. Another relevant source is the Palestinian versionof “May It Arise and Come” (awbyw hley) cited in Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy and LiturgicalCustom in the Genizah, 96. Interestingly, Fleischer (ibid, 245) also cites a Palestinian manuscriptthat contains a version of the Kaddish that includes the following addition: “May He cause Hisredemption to grow and bring near His messiah” (hyjyqm brkyw hynkrwp jmxy).

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cess whose genesis is already evident in Tannaitic times. This tendency findsexpression in one of two ways: either the figure of the messiah is incorporatedinto the benediction itself, and it concludes with the words “the God of Da-vid, builder of Jerusalem,” or, a new benediction is added after the Benedic-tion for Jerusalem, i.e., the one that opens “the shoot of David” (dwd jmx). Asthe Tosefta says (t. Berakhot 3.25): “One may include . . . the benediction ofDavid in that of Jerusalem. And if one said each as a blessing unto itself, hehas fulfilled his legal obligation.”128

In considering the benedictions that come before and after the three“political” benedictions — i.e., the benediction of the ingathering of exilesand of Jerusalem — it should be emphasized that these are the only two bene-dictions in the Amidah that openly express Israel’s hope for the End of Days.The other Amidah benedictions are bereft of eschatological significance, eventhough the yearning for redemption caused eschatological elements to be in-corporated into other benedictions as well — though this was a complex andvariegated process that lies beyond the purview of the present analysis. Onesuch change, that occurred at a relatively early stage, is evident in the secondbenediction, the Benediction of Mighty Deeds, or gevurot.129 It appears thatGod was at one time referred to as “master of mighty deeds” (owrwbg leb),

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128. On “The Shoot of David” benediction see Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 35, and my owndiscussion in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 149, in the appendix; see also my article,“Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” 268-269; J. Heinemann, Prayer in the Tannaitic andAmoraic Period (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1964), 48-51. Tosefta Berakhot 3.25 already indicates thatPalestinian liturgy employed both methods: the conclusion of the Benediction for Jerusalemwith “God of David builder of Jerusalem,” or adherence to the original benediction (withoutmention of David) and the addition of the so-called Benediction for David. Over time, the for-mer became customary in Palestinian circles, while the latter in Babylonia and, from there, toJewish communities throughout. A few comments are in order: Tractate Soferim 13.12 brings asthe third section of the benedictions following the haftarah, the conclusion “Who raises a hornof salvation for his people, Israel” — a Palestinian tradition. Now, a hymn found in Luke opens:“He has raised up a horn of salvation for us, in the house of his servant David” (Lk 1:69). Luke’shymn does not of course prove that “The Shoot of David” served as an independent benedic-tion at the time, but it does indicate that already in the first century there were poetic dicta thatwould find their way into the Benediction for David. The conclusions to the Palestinian Bene-dictions for the Psalms are of particular significance for the matter at hand, particularly thosecited in Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy and Liturgical Custom in the Genizah, 181, 190, 191, 203. Tocite one example (p. 190): “Blessed are You Lord, God of David, who raises a horn of salvationfor his people Israel and consoles Zion and builds Jerusalem, amen.” The admixture of differentformulas in the Benediction for Jerusalem is striking, proving once again the relative flexibilityof the language of Jewish liturgy.

129. See Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 39-40, and my article “Jerusalem in Second Temple Lit-erature,” 273.

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while the resurrection of the dead was understood as saving one from a terri-ble disease or danger. Apparently, the mention of the resurrection in thebenediction generated a new conclusion in which God is explicitly called“who resurrects the dead” in an eschatological sense — part of the Phariseepolemic against the Sadducees, who rejected the doctrine of resurrections. Asfor the Benediction of Redemption (hlwagh ocrb), its location indicatesthat it refers to a petition for aid in the case of personal distress, rather thanfor future redemption.130 Indeed, the version we possess today contains onlyone word, “redeem us quickly” (hrhm), with any eschatological meaning.131

Again we see that only the benedictions for ingathering of exiles and for thebuilding of Jerusalem were eschatological (excluding “the Shoot of David,”which was added at some later point).

Shmuel Safrai’s article on “Gathering in the Synagogues on Festivals,Sabbaths and Weekdays” makes a substantive contribution to our under-standing of the history of the Amidah. Safrai shows that synagogues served asplaces of gathering only on the Sabbath and holidays. On these occasions, thecongregation prayed the Amidah with seven benedictions (as is customary tothis day), i.e., the first three benedictions, the last three benedictions, and, inthe middle, the benediction of the day. During all other times, only the twelvestandard benedictions were prayed in the customary fashion, that is, in soli-tary prayer.132 After the destruction of the temple, in the generation of Yavne,daily prayer in congregations was instituted, and it was then that the eighteenbenedictions were fixed as the weekday Amidah — the six benedictions of theSabbath and holidays, together with the twelve weekday benedictions. Safraibelieves — rightly, to my mind — that pre-70 the weekday Amidah containedthe benediction that opens “You grant mankind knowledge” (oed fdal vnwjhoa), through the conclusion “Blessed are You Lord, who hears prayer.” Ithink Safrai’s approach is correct, and that powerful new arguments may beadduced in its favor. For example, it is undoubtedly true that the number ofbenedictions — seven and twelve — has its own internal logic, and that it

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130. See Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 30.131. The word is absent in the Palestinian version cited by Schechter, but does appear in

other Palestinian versions of the Amidah (see Mann, “Genizah Fragments of the Palestinian Or-der of Service,” 305).

132. The testimony of Jesus (Matt. 6:5-6) is critical, and the verses ought to be examinedin their entirety. Jesus warns his audience that they not stand at street corners when they pray,lest people see them; it is better for one to pray in the privacy of his room. Jesus is referring tothe daily prayer, as he himself attended synagogues on the Sabbath (see Safrai, “Gathering in theSynagogues,” nn. 6-9). It appears that the mention of synagogues in Matthew 6:5 is the author’saddition, as the gospel was composed after the destruction of the temple.

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stands to reason that the list of weekday benedictions once ended with the re-quest that God hear one’s prayers. A fascinating parallel is found in Hodayot19.27-34,133 that includes three paragraphs, and opens: “Blessed are you Lord[or: God]”; the next benediction contains, inter alia, thanks to God for having“given your servant the insight of knowledge to understand your wonders”and hope for God’s grace and forgiveness; the content of the third and finalbenediction parallels that of “Who hears prayer.”

Safrai’s discovery is important to understanding the place of Birkat ha-Minim within the Amidah. If we accept his assumptions, during the SecondTemple period, the weekday Amidah was a petitionary prayer consisting ofrequests that God grant one knowledge, cause him to repent, forgive him hissins, and save him from calamities. In addition, there were benedictions forGod to cure ills and bless the year. Finally, there came a cluster of five bene-dictions concerning the Jewish people as a whole, the first and last of whichexpress core eschatological hopes: that the exiles be gathered, and that Jerusa-lem be rebuilt. It is not surprising that the two petitions for Israel’s eschato-logical redemption are located after a series of personal requests, and that therequests conclude with the hope that God hear the prayers just spoken. It isalso clear that the only natural place to situate the three “political” benedic-tions is between the two benedictions that refer to the Jewish people as awhole. Thus it happened that these three benedictions — that I believe referto the three main “schools”: Sadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees — are foundbetween the benediction for the ingathering of exiles and for the rebuildingof Jerusalem.

Since the discovery that Birkat ha-Minim was not established in Yavnein order to exclude the Christians from the Jewish people, scholarship on thetopic has made significant strides. However, this progress has raised a series ofunforeseen challenges. The attempt to overcome them has been fruitful, butas with other scholarly issues, there remain a number of open questions con-cerning Birkat ha-Minim, even as others have been satisfactorily answered.Thus, we have a better understanding of b. Megillah 17b: “Shimon ha-Pakuliarranged the eighteen benedictions in order before Rabban Gamaliel atYavne.”134 In light of the above analysis, this may refer to the arrangement ofthe weekday Amidah so as to combine the twelve benedictions that were cus-tomary at that time with the six benedictions of the Sabbath and holiday lit-

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133. See Safrai, “Gathering in the Synagogues,” 15, n. 54, who cites Hodayot 14.8; 7.6; 19.14as parallels for the benediction “You grant mankind knowledge.” It is unfortunate that the lastlines of column 11 of the Hodayot have been lost.

134. See also Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 24-26.

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urgy — three prior and three subsequent — since it was then that daily con-gregational prayer was established.135 It may be surmised that the Yavneleaders did not stop here, but rather established certain instructions regard-ing the language and the internal structure of the eighteen benedictions. Thusthe question: what did Shmuel the Small contribute to the language andstructure of Birkat ha-Minim? After all, the benediction appears to predatehim by many years! Earlier we proposed the hypothesis that it was here joinedwith the benediction “Restore our Judges,” which precedes it, and “On theRighteous,” which follows it. In light of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the words ofthe sages themselves, we further suggested that at the time it was aimedagainst the Essenes, though clearly its scope was not limited to the Essenes, asthe later, secondary use was aimed against the Christians. Saul Lieberman hasalready established the early provenance of the blessing.136 He writes: “Thebenediction against the separatists existed a long time prior to Shmuel theSmall, however he was the first who established it as a prayer aimed specifi-cally against the minim, as they had begun to pose a threat to the people.”

It is not easy to accept the view that the explicit mention of the minimwas instituted only at Yavne. At the outset of the present discussion we citedthe ancient tradition that has been preserved at the end of chapter three of Se-der {Olam, according to which “those who separate themselves from the pathof the community, for example the minim, the informers, the hypocrites . . .will be locked in hell and they will be judged in it for all eternity, forever-more.” We further saw that this tradition is reflected in additional sources,and that this was undoubtedly the original kernel of Birkat ha-Minim. Wehave already noted that those who separate themselves from the paths of thecommunity, the group cited first in the list in Seder {Olam, are identical withthe “separatists” mentioned in t. Berakhot 3.25 as candidates for the specialbenediction in the Amidah. To be sure, the term perushim, ‘separatists,’ doesnot appear in the extant versions of Birkat ha-Minim, but three of the fourtypes of sinners enumerated in Seder {Olam — apostates, minim, and infor-mants — do. Furthermore, the minim constitute an almost organic part ofthe list in Seder {Olam, so it is clear that their citation in Birkat ha-Minim isjustified. Finally, it is unlikely that the list of separatists in Seder {Olam wasformed under the influence of Birkat ha-Minim. All this suggests that Shmuelthe Small was probably not the first to mention the minim in the benedictiondevoted to them. That said, it is clear that Birkat ha-Minim introduces twodistinct issues: those who separate themselves from the path of the commu-

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135. See Safrai, “Gatherings in the Synagogues,” 11.136. See Tosephta ki-Fshuta, Zera}im, 1.54.

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nity (a group that includes the minim), and the kingdom of evil. Thus wesurmised137 that Birkat ha-Minim was formed through a synthesis of twobenedictions — one against those who separate from the community, andanother against the evil kingdom, i.e., Rome. It was this synthesis that was af-fected, apparently, by Shmuel the Small. Support for this suggestion is foundin the words of the Tosefta (3.25) that “one may include the benediction of theminim in that of the separatists,” or alternately, “in that of the wicked.”138 It ispossible that the heavy burden of Roman rule generated, at one time, a specialbenediction against this evil government. Originally located beside Birkat ha-Minim, the two were joined into a single benediction after the destruction ofthe Temple. This is merely a hypothesis, but one supported by the doubleform of Birkat ha-Minim and the variant readings of the Tosefta.139

VIII. Conclusions

We have traveled a long way in trying to arrive at the origins of Birkat ha-Minim. Along the way, we have had to employ various hypotheses, but thesehave worked to our advantage, as we have managed to uncover certain aspectsof the religious sensibility of the Second Temple period, and to clarify a num-ber of heretofore obscure issues regarding the history of the Amidah. The pri-mary kernel of Birkat ha-Minim lies in the notion that while the God of Israelis a forgiving god, He will not absolve those who speak against Him or Hisglory — neither in this world nor in the next. Despite the long and windingroad traversed by this idea — from its original kernel to the final form ofBirkat ha-Minim — the core notion that sinners who scorn God’s glory “haveno hope” remains constant. This same notion finds expression in the very endof chapter three of Seder {Olam: “[T]hose who separate themselves from thepath of the community, for example the minim, the informers, the hypocritesand the heretics . . . will be locked in hell and they will be judged in it for alleternity, forevermore. . . . On account of what? That they lifted their handsagainst the zevul.” Incidentally, other than the ‘hypocrites,’ the other threetypes of sinner are cited in Birkat ha-Minim.

Both Seder {Olam and Birkat ha-Minim present a single type of sinnerwho scorns God’s glory: these are now defined as those who “separate them-

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137. See notes 58 and 62, above.138. See notes 67-69, above.139. A possible parallel to the development of Birkat ha-Minim is the benediction

“Builder of Jerusalem” in the Amidah, as discussed above.

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selves from the path of the community” and, in so doing, harm the Jewishpeople as a whole. True, the notion that these sinners are irredeemable re-mains, but the center of gravity has shifted from religious or theological defi-nition of their transgression, to a “political” or social one.140 As the two pas-sages from the Dead Sea Scrolls suggest,141 this shift toward a more nationaldefinition likely occurred during the Hasmonean reign.

As noted, the sinners enumerated in Seder {Olam are characterized ashaving separated themselves from the path of the community. Were we to ex-press this concept in a single word it would have to be perushim, ‘separatists,’a word that also refers to the Pharisees. Indeed, t. Berakhot preserves a bene-diction aimed explicitly at these perushim. We may assume, then, the Birkatha-Minim was once called Birkat ha-Perushim, ‘the benediction against theseparatists,’ and that it included this term. However, even though this term el-egantly epitomizes the list of separatists, it disappeared over time for reasonsthat are evident: for one thing, ‘Pharisees’ came to be associated with the Jew-ish sages themselves.

Unlike these ‘Pharisee’ sages, who detested those who sought to divorcethemselves from the Jewish people as a whole, the Essene sectarians atQumran characterized themselves as having removed themselves from “thepath of this people” (a statement based on Isaiah 8:11), and were even willingto state that “we have separated ourselves from the majority of the people”!We may assume, then, that the benediction against the perushim-minim wasonce aimed against the separatist Essene sect, particularly as this hypothesisfinds support from other quarters. It is in this context that we argued that thebenediction preceding Birkat ha-Minim refers to the Sadducees, while thesubsequent benediction undoubtedly refers to the sages. On this reading, thethree benedictions mirror the tripartite division of the Jewish people intoSadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees. As for Birkat ha-Minim itself, we havetried to show that it is made up of two originally independent benedictions,one aimed at the perushim (and the minim), and the benediction against thewicked, that prays for the speedy uprooting of the wicked kingdom.

The final twist in the development of Birkat ha-Minim occurred afterthe destruction of the Second Temple. The historical evidence indicates thatduring the second temple the Jewish congregations came to understand Birkatha-Minim as aimed against the Christians. Ultimately, at some point no later

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140. Seder {Olam mentions that these sinners are damned to hell “for all eternity, forever-more” because they “lifted their hands against the zevul.” Birkat ha-Minim does not explicitlystate that the sinners in question scorn God’s glory, but a benediction need not deal in specula-tive theology.

141. Manual of Discipline 64.6-13, and 4Q270.

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than the fourth century, the word ‘Christians’ was incorporated into the text ofthe benediction — though this occurred only in the Palestinian liturgy.

I have presented an exhaustive and extensive survey, but it could not beotherwise given the subject at hand. It was necessary to trace the developmentof a single Jewish benediction over the course of many generations of growthand development in Jewish religious thought — undoubtedly one of the mostimportant religious worldviews. Ancient Jewish thought was by no meansimpoverished or simplistic, rather sophisticated and sensitive.142 The historyof Birkat ha-Minim is but one of many examples of the intellectual richnessof Jewish religious thought of the time.

Note: The Qumran community considered it a religious obligation to strayfrom the way of the Jewish people as a whole, a people from whom they know-ingly separated themselves. This view helps explain CD 20.22-24: “. . . thehouse of division (glp oyb) who left the holy city and leaned on God in theage of Israel’s unfaithfulness; be defiled the temple and turned back to the pathof the people in some things.” Clearly, the faction who broke with the sect ac-cepted some of the legal teachings of mainstream Judaism. Pesher Nahum alsorefers to this faction when it tells of the tragic end of “the house of division(glp oyb), who consorted with Manasseh” (4.1-3), that is, of those who joinedwith the Sadducees. The entire matter requires additional investigation.

Appendix: Rabbi Yehoshua and Birkat ha-Minim

Shmuel Safrai has called my attention to a formula in chapter four of Mish-nah Berakhot 4.4 (following MS Kaufmann): “He that journeys in a place ofdanger should pray a short prayer, saying ‘Save, O Lord, your people, Israel,but for those separating from the community (rwbye oqrp) — let theirneeds not come before you. Blessed are you, Lord, who hears prayer.”143

Numerous criteria suggest that the reading of MS Kaufmann is the

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142. See J. H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research: A Paradigm Shift for New TestamentScholars,” Australian Biblical Review 38 (1990), 26.

143. See David Henshke, “Birkat ha-Minim” (Hebrew), J. Tabori (ed.), From Qumran toCairo (Jerusalem, 1999), 71-102.

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most original,144 even though it too appears to have been altered over time. Itsuggests that Rabbi Yehoshua’s short prayer takes the place of the eighteenbenedictions. One is to pray for the redemption of the Jewish people, with theexception of those who divorce themselves from the people as a whole; oneprays that the wishes of all Israel be fulfilled, but not of the separatists. Inshort, this is an allusion to Birkat ha-Minim, since those who separate them-selves from the path of the community are, in fact, the minim.

This is undoubtedly the meaning of the second part of RabbiYehoshua’s short prayer. We have here the earliest definite allusion to Birkatha-Minim, and the content of the prayer supports our view in the above arti-cle.145 Here is a synoptic comparison of Rabbi Yehoshua’s benediction andBirkat ha-Minim:

Rabbi Yehoshua Birkat ha-MinimThose separating from the community Those who separate themselves

from the path of the communityLet their needs not come before you May they have no hope.146

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144. Once again we refer to chapter three of Seder {Olam, whose list of sinners beginswith the words: “But those who separate themselves from the path of the community, for exam-ple the minim etc.” In 1994, the Qumran text known as 4QMMT was published (volume X of theDJD series). The key phrase for our purposes is: “And you know that we have separated our-selves from the rest of the people and from [their impurity] and from mingling in these affairs”(4Q397 [= 4QMMTd] fragments 14-17, 7-8). See the comments, ad loc.

145. Henshke, “Birkat ha-Minim,” 94, cites a fascinating parallel to the version of Birkatha-Minim attributed to Rabbi Yehoshua (Midrash Tanhuma [Buber edition], Korakh 12): “‘Payno attention to their offering’ (Num. 16:15): Since these sons of Yours have separated themselves(parshu), do not look to their lot.” The same statement is found in MS Vaticanus 44, 233 q2 ofMidrash Tanhuma.

146. See Henshke, “Birkat ha-Minim,” 95, n. 61.

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10. The ‘Book of the Mysteries’and the High Holy Days Liturgy

To Prof. Ezra Fleischer

I

The writings of the Qumran community — which has been identified, rightlyto my mind, with the Essene sect — include a composition that was apparentlyamong the most important and the most beautiful of works of the Hebrew lit-erature of the Second Temple period. Unfortunately, only a few fragments sur-vive, most of them quite small, though there is one larger fragment that will bediscussed in some detail. The composition has been dubbed ‘The Book of theMysteries’ by scholars.1 The scroll was written by a member of the Qumrancommunity, or by someone who belonged to the religious movement fromwhich Qumran emerged. It is a sectarian work that contains a unique blend ofapocalyptic and eschatological visions (quite common in the Dead SeaScrolls), alongside elements from the Wisdom literature. One example is thefragment2 that speaks of something that is purchased “without wealth, andwill be sold without them paying him” (1QMyst 2.6)3 — a clear reference to

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1. The fragments discovered in cave 1 were published in D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik,Discoveries in the Judaean Desert I (Oxford, 1955), 102-107. The fragment under discussion ap-pears on p. 103. Additional fragments of the Book of the Mysteries were found in cave 4. I havecited and discussed two such fragments in D. Flusser and S. Safrai, “In the Image of the Likenessof His Form,” in the present volume.

2. See Barthélemy and Milik, DJS I, 105.3. These words allude to Isaiah 55:2. The targum to Isaiah understands this verse as a

reference to Wisdom, and see also Ben Sira 51:25: “Gain wisdom for yourselves withoutmoney.”

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morality. Another fragment4 exhorts its readers “Hear you kings of the nations. . . with all the rulers of the earth.” To be sure, the text alludes to Psalm 2:10(“Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth”), but thereis a closer connection to chapter six of the Wisdom of Solomon: “Hear then,you kings, and understand; take note, lords of the far corners of the earth.”5

Our analysis of the extant fragment of the Book of Mysteries will further dem-onstrate the ties between this text and Second Temple Wisdom literature.

It should be noted that the same admixture of views characteristic of theDead Sea community — that were, no doubt, shared by wider circles as well —with Wisdom motifs, is found in the Wisdom of Solomon as well.6 I have al-ready discussed one important parallel between these works elsewhere,7 andthere is a fascinating affinity between the eschatological-apocalyptic descrip-tion in Wisdom of Solomon and the parallel discussion in the QumranHodayot.8 The stylistic and substantive affinity is so great, that we may hy-pothesize that the author of Wisdom of Solomon knowingly imitated the styleof the Hodayot, or perhaps of a similar sectarian composition. In discussingthese parallels it is important to remember that wisdom literature was not auniquely Hebrew genre, and that there are Greek wisdom texts as well, espe-cially since Wisdom of Solomon (which was composed in Greek) is based onGreek philosophical thought. Are there traces of Greek philosophy in the Bookof Mysteries from Qumran? As the following discussion suggests, the answerto this question is most likely positive, providing us with a singular testimonyto the possibility of Greek philosophical influence on the Dead Sea sect. I donot plan on concealing this information from the readers, though the mainthrust of this study is to map out the connection between the Book of Mys-teries and a passage from the Rosh ha-Shanah Amidah liturgy.

Let us begin by citing the Qumran passage, and then examine its mean-ing as well as its significance for the history of pre-70 Jewish literature andthought.

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4. Barthélemy and Milik, DJD I, 106.5. The Wisdom of Solomon, trans. David Winston (New York, 1979); there is also a refer-

ence to “you who rule the earth” in the opening oration of the Wisdom of Solomon.6. For a discussion of the affinity between the Qumran literature and the Wisdom of Sol-

omon see A. M. Dubarle, “Une source de Livre de la Sagesse,” Revue des sciences philosophiques etthéologiques 19 (1953), 425-443.

7. D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” Judaism and the Ori-gins of Christianity, 65-67; D. Flusser, “The Dualism ‘Flesh-Spirit’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls and inthe New Testament” (Hebrew), Gerschom Scholem Festschrift (Jerusalem, 1958), 35-37.

8. See 1QHa 11.10-18, 26-36; 10.12-13, 25-28; 14.29-35. On the sudden ending of one of theHodayot (11.26-36) and its striking parallel at the end of an apocalyptic passage in the Wisdomof Solomon, see J. Licht, Megillat ha-Hodayot, 83.

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2. mysteries of sin3. . . . all their wisdom. And they do not know the mystery of future

events,9 nor understand ancient matters.10 And they do not4. know what is going to happen to them; and they will not save their

souls from the mystery of existence.5. And this will be for you the sign11 that this is going to happen.12

When all that is born of sin is locked up, evil will disappear beforejustice as darkness disappears before

6. light. As smoke vanishes, and no longer exists, so will evil vanishforever. And justice will be revealed like the sun which regulates

7. the world. And all those who support the mysteries of sin13 will nolonger exist. And knowledge will pervade the world, and there willnever be folly there.

8. This word will undoubtedly happen, the prediction is truthful. Andby this he will show you that [his word] will not return[unfulfilled]:14 Do not all

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The ‘Book of the Mysteries’ and the High Holy Days Liturgy

9. The Hebrew hyhn is an important term in the Qumran scrolls, and see Licht’s discus-sion in Megillat ha-Hodayot 163, and in his lexicon there. Here the word means: all future events.To my mind, the Greek translator of Ben Sira 42.19 (and see 48.25) was correct to translate owyhnas things that will occur in the future. See also Y. Yadin, The War Scroll, 340.

10. The language here is based on Isaiah 43:18.11. Following Exodus 3:12.12. The words hyhy yc are written above the line.13. The phrase “mysteries of sin” (eqp yzr) is found in line 2 as well, and we will discuss

its importance in what follows. The reading eqp yzr follows the first publication of the frag-ment (RB 56 [1949], 605-609), Licht’s reading (Megillat ha-Hodayot, 242), and the Vermes trans-lation. Barthélemy and Milik (DJD I, 103) read alp yzr, ‘wonderful mysteries,’ a phrase thatthough attested elsewhere in the scrolls is incorrect here.

14. The formula “it is irrevocable” is of particular interest. The phrase bwqy al rbd isbiblical (Isa. 45:23, and see the similar formula in Isa. 55:11), but the phrase as it appears here is apopular creation. Aside from the passage at hand, the phrase rwja bwqy al Frbdw appears inHodayot 5.24-25, and this was most likely the reading of 1Q35 (1QHb) 1.10. But it is clear that thisis a saying that was used in non-Qumran circles as well. The blessing after the reading of theHaftarah states “No word of Yours returns unfulfilled” (fkyr bwqy al rwja Fyrbdm djarbdw). The last word, fkyr, is, however, an addition based on Isaiah 55:11, and is not attested inthe Siddur of Rav Amram Gaon (see the Goldschmidt edition, 77). According to the Siddur ofRav Saadia Gaon (Jerusalem, 1963), the blessing states “Your word will not return [unfulfilled]”(bwqy al rwja Frbdw) (p. 367), which corresponds to the language of the scrolls. The formula“Your word will not return [unfulfilled]” (bwqy al rwja Frbdw) is, then, quite ancient. Itemerged as a way of expressing a religious truth, and was later used in a secondary sense in Jew-ish liturgy. In this sense, its fate is similar to that of the benediction “. . . that all was madethrough His word” (wrbdb hyhn lchq) (see my Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 267-268), and “Truthful Judge” (omah vyyd), which appears not only in the famous blessing but also

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9. nations loathe sin? And yet, they all walk about under its influence.Does not praise of truth come from the mouth of all nations?

10. And yet, is there perhaps one lip or one tongue which persists withit? What people would wish to be oppressed by another morepowerful than itself? Who

11. would wish to be sinfully looted of its wealth? And yet, which is thepeople not to oppress its neighbor? Where is the people which hasnot

12. looted another of its wealth? . . . and there exists . . .

II

This is a very interesting passage, but unfortunately we can only hypothesize asto the broader context in which these verses originally appeared. What is clearis that up to line 5 the author attacks the sinners who have no understanding,who do not know the mystery of future events nor the meaning of the past.Since they do not know their future fate, they are unable to save themselvesfrom the calamities that will surely come. In lines 5-7 the author addresses hisreaders, informing them of the future disappearance of all evil. This statementis preceded by a headline of sorts: “And this will be for you the sign that this isgoing to happen,” and at the conclusion of this lyrical description he refers to itas a “prediction” (aqm) (line 8). Does this mean that the description was liftedfrom another source, or is the “prediction” also part of the author’s composi-tion? Though the question remains open, even if we were to discover that theroots of this prophetic passage reach back to the ancient past, it is likely that itspresent form was fixed by the author of the Book of Mysteries.

Following the prediction — from line 8 and following — there is, essen-tially, a theoretical-philosophical discourse, whose conclusion is unfortu-nately lost. Its purpose is to persuade the reader that “this word will undoubt-edly happen, the prediction is truthful.” The author then goes on to state:“And by this he will show you that [his word] will not return [unfulfilled],”15

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in the Qumran Psalms Scroll 24.9 (J. A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa)[DJD IV; Oxford, 1965], 70), and in an apocryphal psalm preserved in the Cairo genizah (seeD. Flusser and S. Safrai, “The Apocryphal Psalms of David,” in the present volume).

15. See the previous note. The author means that God’s decisions cannot be changed butalso that the prophetic pronouncement (that is, the prediction just presented) must come true. Wehave already seen that in the benediction following the Haftarah, “No word of Yours returns un-fulfilled” means that the words of the just biblical prophets are all spoken in truth and will be real-ized in future days. The same view is attributed to Tobias the Elder in Tobit 14.4: “Indeed, every-

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referring to the above prophecy concerning the disappearance of all evil fromthe world. The content of the prediction may appear questionable to manyreaders: can one really say that “evil will vanish forever . . . knowledge willpervade the world, and there will never be folly there”? Will there ever arise ahumanity untainted by sin and evil?16 Against those who would argue thatthe seeds of evil are to be found within human nature itself, our author re-sponds that even today human nature is fundamentally good, even thoughman commits many evils.17 Here is the lesson of human history:

Do not all nations loathe sin? And yet, they all walk about under its influ-ence. Does not praise of truth come from the mouth of all nations? Andyet, is there perhaps one lip or one tongue which persists with it? Whatpeople would wish to be oppressed by another more powerful than itself?Who would wish to be sinfully looted of its wealth? And yet, which is thepeople not to oppress its neighbor? Where is the people which has notlooted another of its wealth?

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thing that was spoken by the prophets of Israel, whom God sent, will occur. Not one of their wordswill fail, but all will come true at their appointed times. . . . For I know and believe that whateverGod has said will be fulfilled and will come true; not a single word of the prophecies will fail.” To acertain extent, the view that none of the words of the prophets will fail was viewed by the Phariseesas outdated, since the sages believed that human action can usually alter divine providence. Seewhat I wrote in “The Pharisees and the Sages of the Stoa” (Hebrew), Iyyun 15 (1964), 318-329;Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 536-537; and the appendix, below.

16. This view is compatible with the position of the Qumran community, since our au-thor also holds that the evildoers will be destroyed in the End of Days, “those who support themysteries of sin will no longer exist” (line 7). Thus, only the righteous Sons of Light will remain.The Manual of Discipline also speaks of a purified humanity in the End of Days (4.18-23). Wewill see in what follows that this passage is of importance to the scroll under discussion.

17. As we will see immediately, the author of the scroll is influenced on this point byGreek philosophy, and his view is outside the mainstream of the Dead Sea community. The rab-binic sages express the view that mankind was created for righteousness, not evil: “ ‘[The Rock,his work is perfect . . .] without deceit’ (Deut. 32:4): For men were created not in order to bewicked but in order to be righteous, as it is said, ‘See, this alone I found, that God made humanbeings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes’ (Eccl. 7:29)” (Sifre Deut. §307;Hammer, p. 310). According to the philosophical passage in our scroll, man wants the good, butnonetheless does evil. This view does not contradict the doctrine of the twin urges, but this doc-trine is found only in the writings of the sages and is foreign to the Qumran teachings. Thephilosophic ideas of the author certainly do not fit with the dualism of the Sons of Light, whoare good by their nature, against the Sons of Darkness, who are inherently evil. However, as wewill see below, it is possible to join the idea that man is good by nature but does evil, with theworldview of the Hodayot, i.e., of a flesh-spirit dualism. On the difference between the Hodayotand the other scrolls see “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” in the present volume; Flusser,Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 60-71.

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It is worth noting that this passage thrice contrasts what is and whatought be: each of the first two lines contains this contrast, while the third andfourth lines oppose each other in this manner — no nation wants anothernation, stronger than it, to wickedly loot it, yet all nations loot each other.18

Both the content and the literary quality of this philosophic passage are un-usual, and one can only lament that the remaining text did not survive.

In order to grasp the meaning of this passage within the broader con-text of the sect’s worldview, we must first examine two sources that expresssimilar philosophical ideas, both of which occur in the Pauline letters andprovide a similar explanation for the tension between what is and what oughtto be. In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul writes:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but Ido the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree that thelaw is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwellswithin me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in myflesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good Iwant, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do notwant, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (7:15-17).

According to Paul, then, the spirit that resides within man pushes himto desire the good, but the sin in his flesh prevents him from pursuing thegood and ultimately he does that which he hates. This view informs Paul’s in-struction to his followers (Galatians 5:16-17): “Live by the Spirit, I say, and donot gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to theSpirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are op-posed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.”

According to these passages, Paul argues that the tension between man’sgood intention and his evil deeds lies in the carnal aspect of man that enslaveshim to sin. The dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit — an importantpart of the anthropology of Paul and the Hodayot19 alike — is nowhere to befound in the Qumran Book of Mysteries: here man is assumed not to be fun-damentally evil, for when “evil [will] vanish forever” there will exist a human-ity freed of sin and injustice. As we will see, this perspective distinguishes theBook of Mysteries from the Hodayot, and aligns it with the eschatological vi-

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18. The critical social perspective and clear vision of the Realpolitik of the day accordperfectly with the sober approach of the Dead Sea community, quite unique in the Jewish land-scape of the Second Temple period. See D. Flusser, “The Roman Empire in Hasmonean andEssene Eyes,” in the present volume.

19. See above, n. 17.

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sion of the Manual of Discipline (4.18-23) in which the spirit of holiness willpurify mankind in the end of days.

But first we must examine the philosophical passage. We have estab-lished that the passage serves as a proof of sorts for the correctness of the es-chatological prediction that precedes it (lines 5-7), and that describes the dis-appearance of evil in the end of days: “This word will undoubtedly happen,and prediction is truthful.” But the central concept in this passage — and inPaul’s teachings, cited above — did not emerge from the hamartology and theanthropology of the Essenes, but rather is an independent concept takenfrom Greek philosophy. From a psychological perspective, the state in which aperson hates injustice but does it nonetheless, belongs to the category of ‘am-bivalence,’ a term that here refers to conflicting tendencies or aspirations.20

The words of the Book of Mysteries, “Do not all nations loathe sin? And yet,they all walk under its influence” have a precise parallel in Medea’s words inOvid’s Metamorphoses: “I see the better course and approve, but follow its de-feat.”21 Nor is this a purely psychological matter, rather it concerns the moral-theoretical aspect as well. It is further worth noting the philosophical dimen-sion of Xenophon’s discussion in On the Education of Cyrus,22 where he ex-plains man’s will to good and tendency to evil as rooted in the contrast be-tween man’s good soul and his evil soul. Xenophon suggests that this view istypical of the sophists — and there is reason to think this is so.

Indeed, man’s internal struggle between good intentions and evil deedsis one of the core issues of ancient Greek philosophy. Already Socrates raisedthe question of whether a man who knows the good can act in contrast to hisright knowledge. According to Aristotle,23 Socrates answered this question inthe negative — a man who possesses right judgment will never live a wantonlife.24 Aristotle himself rejected this position, arguing that it contradicts ev-eryday experience. Plato too broke with Socrates on this point. The most

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20. The psychological sense of the term was proposed by the famous Swiss psychiatristEugen Bleuler (1857-1939).

21. Ovid, Metamorphoses 7.21-22 (Brookes, trans.): “Video meliora proboque deteriorasequor.” See also Seneca’s statement (Epistles to Lucilius 21.1): “You prefer to praise the good andthe proper than to adhere to it.” On the distinction between what is and what ought be in the lit-erature of late antiquity, see O. Michel, Der Brief an die Römer (Göttingen, 1963), 176. Michelrightly refers to the Discourses of Epictetus (2.26). For a commentary on Ovid’s statement seeF. Römer, P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphosen Buch VI-VII (Heidelberg, 1976), 204, and the litera-ture cited therein.

22. Book VI, 1.41.23. Nicomachean Ethics 7.3.24. See A. E. Taylor, Socrates (New York, 1953), 140-143. Epictetus held a similar position,

and see the sources cited in n. 21.

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striking parallel to the philosophical position of the Book of Mysteries isfound in the hymn to Zeus25 composed by Cleanthes, the disciple and heir ofZeno, the founder of Stoicism (died 231/232 b.c.e.). According to this hymn,miserable are those who do not live according to reason, for even though theyyearn to reach the good, they neither know nor obey the divine law. Were theyto obey this law, they would live a happy life — yet they pursue that which isopposed to the good.

The similarity between the theoretical position of the Qumran docu-ment, and that of the Greek philosopher, is readily apparent. Moreover, thereis another trait that ties the document to Greek thought: the contrast betweenwill and action occurs in an explicitly political context. It is not the behaviorof the individual that is under discussion, but the behavior of “all nations.”This too accords with the Greek model, according to which a concord of na-tions is one of the key proofs of the correctness of a philosophical position. Afascinating example of this approach is found in the speech given by theGreek philosopher Carneades in Rome in 155 b.c.e., in which he attacks theregnant ethical position — and, indeed, the entire world view — of theStoa.26 The content of this speech is recorded by Cicero in book three of DeRepublica. Carneades argued that there is no reason to think that there is onenatural moral law that is common to mankind. Nations do not pursue justice,but rather their own self-interest. After citing this view, Cicero introduces aninterlocutor who argues against it, suggesting that there is one eternal naturallaw, namely right reason.27 This law is immutable and shared by all, drawingus nearer to desirable action, and distancing us from error. The righteous arethose who obey it, while the wicked cast off its yoke. It applies to all nationsand holds forever, for its roots are in God. Whoever does not obey this lawflees from himself, for he disparages human nature itself, and for this he willsuffer harsh punishment.

A close examination of the rebuttal to Carneades reveals that both itscontent and its terminology mark it as distinctly Stoic. And there is reason tobelieve that this is also the intellectual background to the philosophic passagein the Book of Mysteries. For the Stoics, man is fundamentally good, butnonetheless does evil. Moreover, drawing on the behavior of nations as proofof this statement is itself very much a part of Stoic thought. Thus the conclu-sion that the doctrine of the Jewish Essene scroll reflects the influence of

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25. J. von Arnim, Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (Stuttgart, 1905; reprinted 1964), 1.557(121-123, lines 13, 18-27).

26. On Carneades’ critique of Stoicism see M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa (Göttingen, 1959), 1.175-180.

27. Cicero, De Republica 3.22, 33; and see Lactantius, Inst. 6.8.6-9.

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Greek thought on the Jewish intellectual world of the time, a phenomenonhereto unattested in Qumran literature. This in addition to the timeless sig-nificance of this philosophical passage, for even in our own day all the nationsloathe sin — but “they all walk about under its influence.”28

III

Stoic ethics suggest that the divine natural law causes man to desire the good,but his own folly leads him to sin. This appears to be the fundamental view ofthe Jewish author of the Book of Mysteries. However, there is a marked differ-ence between the two regarding the source of this human tendency to sin:while the Stoa explains this tendency as rooted in mankind’s departure fromthe reason that governs the world, the sectarian author of 1QMysteries, whoapparently belonged to the dualistic faction of Judaism, was convinced that“all that is born of sin” stems from supernatural forces of evil. These forcescurrently wield power within our world, but will not do so forever:

God, in the mysteries of his knowledge and in the wisdom of his glory,has determined an end to the existence of injustice and on the appointedtime of the visitation he will obliterate it forever. Then truth shall rise upforever in the world, for it has been defiled in paths of wickedness duringthe dominion of injustice until the time appointed for the judgment de-cided. Then God will refine, with his truth, all man’s deeds, and will pu-rify for himself the structure29of man, ripping out all spirit of injusticefrom the innermost part of his flesh, and cleansing him with the spirit ofholiness from every wicked deed. He will sprinkle over him the spirit oftruth like lustral water (in order to cleanse him) from all the abhorrences

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28. At the end of the Book of Mysteries we find: “What people would wish to be op-pressed by another more powerful than itself? Who would wish to be sinfully looted of itswealth? And yet, what nation does not oppress its neighbor? Where is the people which has notlooted another for wealth?” The modern reader may interpret this as an argument regarding theselfishness of the individual, but it seems this was not the view espoused by ancient philoso-phers. The fact that no nation would want a stronger nation to exploit and wickedly loot itsproperty, may very well have been another indication of the ethical paradox of yearning for thegood while doing evil, since ancient philosophy held that the desire for the good is teleological.On the difference between the modern approach to ethical perfection — which must be non-teleological — and the ancient, see F. Dirlmeier, Aristoteles: Die Nikomachische Ethik (Berlin,1957), 9-10.

29. Reading hnbm for ynbm, as proposed by Y. Yadin, “A Note on DSD IV20,” JBL 74 (1955),40-43.

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of deceit and (from) the defilement of the unclean spirit [. . .] There willbe no more injustice and all the deeds of trickery will be a dishonor. (1QS4.18-23)

We see, then, that the Qumran community held that not only the evil-doers, but evil itself will ultimately be destroyed, and the spirit of holiness willpurify mankind both in the spirit and in the flesh “from every wicked deed.”30

To be sure, in the present time “by the Angel of Darkness are the corruptionof all the sons of justice, and all their sins, their iniquities, their guilts andtheir offensive deeds are under his dominion in compliance with the myster-ies of God, until his end . . . and all the spirits of his lot cause the sons of lightto fall” (1QS 3.20-24), but in future days man will be freed of the power of in-justice, and the tension between his will to good and his evil action will dissi-pate. But even given this difference in the explanation of the origins of evil,the author of the Book of Mysteries reached similar conclusions to those ofthe Stoa, and thus was able to include in his composition a passage that drawson Stoic philosophy.

Our findings thus far explain why the philosophical passage in1QMysteries serves to justify the eschatological prediction that precedes thepassage (lines 5-7), and discusses the destruction of evil. The content of theprediction parallels the teaching of the Manual of Discipline cited above (4.18-23) concerning the dissipation of injustice, and provides striking details absentfrom that passage.31 Here, once again, is the language of the prediction:

When all that is born of sin is locked up, evil will disappear before justiceas darkness disappears before light. As smoke vanishes,32 and no longerexists, so will evil vanish forever. And justice will be revealed like the sunwhich regulates the world. And all those who support the mysteries of sinwill no longer exist. And knowledge will pervade the world, and there willnever be folly there.

This is clearly an eschatological vision of redemption, quite typical inSecond Temple literature, and the motifs it employs have important parallelsin other apocalyptic writings. The dualism evident in the passage is also typi-cal of Jewish apocalyptic visions, though the concatenation of fixed terms

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30. See my article on the baptism of John In Judaism and the Origins of Christianity.31. The similarity between the two passages — that of the Manual of Discipline and that

of the Book of Mysteries — was noted already by J. Licht, “An Analysis of the Treatise on theTwo Spirits in DSD,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 4 (1958), 96 n. 30.

32. For a discussion of the biblical formula that underlies this image see below, n. 55.

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marking the dichotomy between good and evil is more characteristic ofQumran literature: evil — justice, darkness — light, knowledge — folly.

One of these contrasting pairs is of particular importance to the pres-ent discussion. As we saw above, the Qumran community believed thatGod, “in the mysteries of his knowledge and in the wisdom of his glory, hasdetermined an end to the existence of injustice and on the appointed timeof the visitation he will obliterate it forever” (1QS 4.18-19).33 The “mysteriesof his knowledge” is but one of the formulas used to describe the “mysteriesof God” that are active throughout the world.34 But before evil can be de-stroyed completely in the days of the government of Belial, a counterforcemust be overcome, namely, the “mysteries of enmity” of Belial (1QM 14.9).In other words, there are “mysteries of sin” that oppose the “mysteries ofGod.” This particular term is distributed quite widely in the sect’s writings.It is found in Aramaic (aeqr zr) in the Genesis Apocryphon (1.2),35 in asmall fragment of the Hodayot (1QHa 24[top].5), as well as in the mainbody of the Hodayot (8.36), where we find that the “mysteries of sin . . .have altered the deeds of God.”36 The nefarious activity of the mysteries ofsin will come to an end when God “will refine, with his truth, all man’sdeeds” (1QS 4.20).

The phrase “mysteries of sin” is found twice in the Book of Mysteries.37

The second occurrence states that when evil is destroyed, “all those who sup-port the mysteries of sin will no longer exist.” This statement can be explainedin light of the apocalyptic passage in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12, which discusses

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33. Similarly, the author of the Hodayot exhorts God “All injustice and wickedness oblit-erate forever” (1QHa 6.15-16).

34. See 1QpHab 7.8; 1QS 3.23; 1QM 3.9; 16.9, 14; 17.17. See also Discoveries in the JudaeanDesert IV (Oxford, 1982), 25, 222, and compare 1Enoch 63.3. The phrase “mysteries of God” ap-pears in the original version of Luke 8:10, and its meaning there fits with the Qumran ideology.On this see D. Flusser, Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse (Bern, 1981), 274, and 281 n. 31.

35. See J. A. Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon (Rome, 1966), 42, 70.36. The formula “mysteries of evil . . . have altered” is also found in a remnant of one of

the Hodayot according to Kuhn’s reconstruction (M. G. Kuhn, Konkordanz zu denQumrantexten [Göttingen, 1960], 203). The remnant is made up of two Hodayot fragments thatwere preserved separately, fragment 9 and fragment 50, both found in column 24. Another in-teresting parallel between these texts occurs in Hodayot 13.36-37, where immediately after thephrase “mysteries of sin”, the poet writes: “For I am tied with ropes which can not be untied,with chains which can not be broken” (and see also Hodayot 16.34-35), while in fragment 9 theauthor says that he is in “ropes of the spirit” and that he is “bound until the end of your will”(1QHa 24.7-9). This whole issue requires further investigation. (There may also be some similar-ity between the language of the Hodayot and 2 Thessalonians 2:6-7, where both the mysteries ofsin and “one who restrains” are mentioned.)

37. See note 13, above.

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the ultimate defeat of the antichrist,38 and which contains the phrase “mys-tery of sin” itself (2:7-10). In this epistle, Paul writes of the end of “those whosupport the mysteries of sin” — as they are called in the Book of Mysteries —as follows: The appearance of the antichrist will come “in the working of Sa-tan, who uses . . . every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing,because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason Godsent them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that allwho have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will becondemned” (9-12). The antichrist “may be revealed when his time comes; forthe mystery of sin is already at work” (6-7). The Greek text clearly indicatesthat, as in the Book of Mysteries, the actions of the mysteries of sin are noth-ing less than the actions of the devil. Clearly, then, both the character and theultimate downfall of those who support the mysteries of sin in the Book ofMysteries, are strikingly similar to the apocalyptic doctrine in 2 Thessaloni-ans regarding “all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in un-righteousness.”

As noted, the Pauline epistle holds that the activity of the mystery of sinwill bring about an outburst of absolute evil in the end of days, which willthen be utterly destroyed. The ultimate eradication of evil from the world isdescribed in the visionary passage in 1QMysteries (lines 5-7), which states thatevil will disappear after “all that is born of sin is locked up.”39 For by lockingup “all that is born of sin” evil will no longer have a path into our world, andonly then will the world and its inhabitants be purified “of the unclean spirit”(see 1QS 4.18-23). Does the phrase “all that is born of sin” reflect some sort ofsectarian mythical geography? This would indeed appear to be the case.40 TheManual of Discipline states that “from the spring of light stem the genera-tions of truth, and from the source of darkness the generations of deceit(lweh owdlwo)” (3.19). In other words, the sect holds that truth is born “from

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38. The earliest Jewish text to mention the antichrist was discovered in the Qumran li-brary and published by E. Puech, “Fragment d’une apocalypse en arameén (4Q246 = pseudo-Dan2),” RB 99 (1992), 99-131. I discuss this text in D. Flusser, “The Hubris of the Antichrist in aFragment from Qumran,” Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 213-217. The term ‘antichrist’does not appear in 2 Thessalonians nor in the Qumran passage.

39. The Hebrew is hlwe ydlwm. 1QHa 20.8 contains the phrase oe ydlwm (the births oftime) but its meaning is purely astronomical. See Licht, Megillat ha-Hodayot, 183.

40. For a discussion of this point see D. Flusser and S. Safrai, “The Essene Doctrine ofHypostasis,” Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 311. The sect’s dualism of good and evil,light and darkness, does indeed have a significant ethical component, but its roots are in acosmic-mythic worldview. This does not, of course, exclude the possibility that among themembers of the Qumran community there were those who understood terms such as “all that isborn of sin,” “spring of light,” and “source of darkness” as primarily symbolic.

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the spring of light,” while deceit springs from “the source of darkness.”41 Theformula “all that is born of sin” is similarly derived from the language of par-turition, and presumably in the mythical geography of the sect, those “bornof sin” emerge from “the source of darkness,” from which, again, comes de-ceit. We will see below that “all that is born of sin” most likely emerge fromSheol.

We have already seen that the apocalyptic vision of redemption in theQumran Book of Mysteries complements the eschatological processes de-scribed in Manual of Discipline 4.18-23. However, the mythical force of thephrase “all that is born of sin” becomes clearer through an examination ofone of the Hodayot (11.5-18), which is rightly called ‘birth pangs of the Mes-siah.’42 Notwithstanding the various difficulties in this text, there is nodoubt that the author alludes to the birth pangs and birth of the messiah.43

The author describes the birth of the savior and the birth pangs involved inthe process, and contrasts it to a cosmic process that results in the eruptionof evil into the world. The raging attack of evil in the end of days fits wellwith the general pattern of eschatological and apocalyptic descriptions, andwe have already seen that according to chapter two of 2 Thessalonians evil isabout to attack, for the mysteries of sin — now familiar to us from the Bookof Mysteries — have already begun their activity. Our hymn describes aparallel process, involving the birth pangs and birth of the messiah, on theone hand, and the cosmic eruption of evil, on the other, an eruption that isitself described as a birthing process: “In the woman expectant with himrush all the contraction and the racking pain at their birth; terror (seizes)those expectant with them, and at his birth all the labor-pains come sud-denly, in the ‘crucible’ of the pregnant woman. And she who is pregnant

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41. These phrases are reminiscent of Job 38:17-19: “Have the gates of death been revealedto you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? . . . Where is the way to the dwelling of light,and where is the place of darkness?”

42. For a discussion of this text see O. Betz, “Die Geburt der Gemeinde durch denLehrer,” New Testament Studies 3 (1957), 312-326, and the criticism raised against Betz’s readingby J. Meier, Die Texte vom Toten Meer (München, 1960), 2.72-73. See also my article “At the RightHand of Power,” Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 301-303. Scholars have already notedthe relevance of this text for the apocalyptic tradition in Revelation chapter 12, which also in-cludes a mythical birth of a child-messiah and the simultaneous eruption of evil. See P. Prigent,Apocalypse 12 (Tübingen, 1959); R. D. Aus, “The Relevance of Isaiah 66:7 to Revelation 12 and2 Thessalonians 1,” ZNW 67 (1976), 252-268.

43. On the relationship between this text and the passage from 1QMysteries, seeD. Flusser, “The Reflection of Jewish Messianic Beliefs in Early Christianity” (Hebrew), inZ. Baras (ed.), Messianism and Eschatology (Jerusalem, 1983), 103-134, and especially the discus-sion of the phrase ‘birth pangs of the Messiah,’ 132-133.

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with a serpent44 is with a racking pang; and the breakers of the pit result inall deeds of terror” (1QHa 11.10-12). This terrible process and its ultimateconclusion are depicted at the end of the Hymn: “and the gates of Sheolopen for all the deeds of the serpent. And the doors of the pit close uponthe one expectant with injustice, and everlasting bolts upon all the spirits ofthe serpent” (11.17-18). If so, the matrices through which evil bursts into theworld are mentioned twice in this Hymn. It stands to reason that these ma-trices emerge from Sheol at the place referred to in the Manual of Disci-pline 3.19 as “the source of darkness.” In the end of days, after the greateruption of evil, “the doors of the pit close upon the one expectant with in-justice, and everlasting bolts upon all the spirits of the serpent” (1QHa

11.18). As for what occurs “when all that is born of sin is locked up,” this isdescribed in lines 5-7 of the Book of Mysteries, namely, the absolute exor-cism of evil from the world — that is reflected in the Amidah of the Roshha-Shanah liturgy.45 However, it was necessary to discuss 1QMysteries in itsentirety in order to discuss the full import of the connection between theQumran passage and the liturgy that is still used in synagogues to this day.

IV

When I decided to dedicate this study to the path-breaking scholarship of Prof.Ezra Fleischer, his book on Palestinian liturgy had not yet been published.46 Inlight of his findings,47 a revolution has occurred in our understanding of thedevelopment of the passages “We pray, then, that you place your reverence . . .”(vcbw Fdjp vo) that are today recited by all the Jewish communities on Rosh

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44. The Hebrew hepa appears in Job 20:16 and in Isaiah 30:6 and 59:5, the latter of whichdescribes the birth of injustice: “They hatch adder’s eggs . . . and the crushed egg hatches out aviper.” Thus the author of the Hodayot had before him a literary connection between ‘viper’ andan evil that will erupt in the end of days and will come into existence through something akin toa birth process. In 1QHa “for pains will burst forth the viper and emptiness in the rise of theirwaves” (10.27-28); while the hymn concerning the birth pangs of the Messiah states: “she who ispregnant with a viper” (11.12) and “the gates of Sheol open for all the deeds of the viper” (3.17-18). John the Baptist — who was close to the Essene circles — may have called sinners a “broodof vipers” (Matt. 3:7; Lk. 3:7), but he may also have called them ‘adders,’ also following Isaiah59:5, cited also in CD 5.14.

45. The connection between the Book of Mysteries and the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy wasdiscussed in Flusser, “The Reflection of Jewish Messianic Beliefs in Early Christianity,” 130, n. 73.

46. E. Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy and Liturgical Custom in the Genizah (Jerusalem,1988).

47. Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 125-132.

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ha-Shanah in the third benediction of the Amidah.48 Prior to Fleischer’s work,it was generally held that these passages were remnants of the “Kingshipverses” (owywclm) according to the view of Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri, namely,that the “Kingship verses” should be appended to the third benediction thatdeals with the sanctification of God’s name, i.e., martyrdom. As against thisview, Rabbi Aqiva held (and his view was accepted in practice) that one shouldappend the “Kingship verses” to the fourth benediction. “Scholars concludedthat the ‘Kingship verses’ remained in the third blessing, a relic from the timethat Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri’s position was accepted. However, the argumentgoes, the “Kingship verses” that came after these passages were omitted so asnot to form a redundancy with what had already been fixed in the benedictionof the sanctity of the day.”49 Since these very paragraphs include a passage thatundoubtedly exhibits a close literary connection with 1QMysteries, we canbuild on our earlier conclusions in light of Fleischer’s new book.

The Palestinian Geniza material leads Fleischer to the conclusion that“there is almost no possibility but to state that the passages in question [i.e.‘We pray, then, that you place your reverence . . .’] were not part of the stan-dard Palestinian liturgy in the Geniza period, neither in the prayer of individ-ual nor in that of the congregation.”50 If so, Fleischer concludes, the hypothe-sis that “We pray, then, that you place your reverence . . .” was originallyintended as a preface to the “Kingship verses,” though elegant, is something ofa reach, as it requires that we radically push back the dating of the redactionof this section.51 Today there can be no doubt that these passages belong tothe Babylonian custom, and that from Babylon they spread to the liturgies ofother Jewish congregations. In that case, asks Fleischer, were these passagescomposed in Babylon? He responds that there is no reason to deny this possi-bility, and concludes the discussion as follows: “It is certainly possible that the‘We pray, then, that you place your reverence . . .’ passages are indeed of Baby-lonian origin. However, it is also possible that the Babylonian sages adaptedto their own needs earlier liturgical texts originally intended for other pur-poses — indeed, perhaps the Palestinian preface to the ‘Kingship verses’ ac-cording to the ruling of Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri. This issue is of no real im-portance, and moreover cannot be decided.”52

This is undoubtedly true: there is no way to decide the matter with ab-

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48. For a bibliography of studies dealing with these passages see Fleischer, Palestinian Lit-urgy, 125 n. 127.

49. See Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 129-130.50. Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 126.51. Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 130-131.52. Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 132.

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solute certitude. However, the extant remains of the Qumran Book of Mys-teries strongly suggest that “We pray, then, that you place your reverence . . .”is of Palestinian origins. Here are the opening lines of the relevant part of theHigh Holy Days Amidah:

Then53 the righteous will see and rejoice, while the upright exult,and virtuous sing joyously

And injustice shall shut its mouthAnd all evil54 shall dissipate like smoke55

For you shall pass the government of evil from the earthAnd you alone will rule over all your creatures [. . .]

To fully understand the meaning of this passage it is necessary to exam-ine the biblical passages that underlie it. The language of the benediction,“And injustice shall shut its mouth,” is based on Job 5:16: “And injustice shutsits mouth,” but the opening lines allude to Psalm 107:42: “The upright see itand rejoice; and all injustice shuts its mouth.”56

But what is the precise nature of the evil that will dissipate like smoke?Did the author of the benediction mean the end of the reign of the fourthwicked kingdom? This reading certainly suits the general spirit of the “King-ship verses” and the meaning of the Rosh ha-Shanah holiday itself. For al-ready the ancients understood the phrase ‘wicked kingdom’ as a reference to

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53. The Hebrew here should read zaw and not vcbw, a secondary form that is based on theopening of the previous paragraphs. See Mahzor le-Yamim ha-Nora}im, A. Goldschmidt (ed.)(Jerusalem, 1970), 21 n. 19. Though secondary, vcbw is found in the liturgy of many differentcommunities, and is even attested in the Geniza. See Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 129, and 130n. 149.

54. This phrase, hlwc heqrhw, is to be preferred to the more widely attested hlwcheqrh lc. The latter weakens the force of the blessing, but its origins are clear enough. Theformer is attested in Rabbi Seligman Baer, Seder {Avodat Isra}el (Redelheim, 1933), along with theliturgy of Roma and of Sicily.

55. Two verses from the Psalms are relevant to the benediction and to the Qumran Bookof Mysteries: Psalm 102:3 (“For my days pass away like smoke”) and, especially, 37:20 (“But thewicked perish, and the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish — likesmoke, they vanish away”). In both verses we offer the reading ‘as smoke’ (vqec) rather thanthe generally accepted ‘in smoke’ (vqeb). This appears to be the correct reading on the evidenceof the biblical manuscripts (see the versions cited in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia). More-over, this is the reading attested in the High Holy Days liturgy and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, i.e., inthe Book of Mysteries and in the Pesher to Psalm 33:20 (4QpPsa 3.7-8), both in the cited verseand in the body of the pesher.

56. Other relevant verses are Psalm 32:11: “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous,and shout for joy, all you upright in heart”; Psalm 132:9: “. . . let your faithful shout for joy”; andJob 22:19: “The righteous see it and are glad.”

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Rome,57 as evidenced by the fact that various liturgical traditions (Genizatexts, as well as the prayer books of Aleppo, Persia, and — via Maimonides —Yemen) add “and the rejoicing kingdom will be speedily uprooted” (rkeohrhmb hzyleh owclmw) immediately following “for you shall pass the gov-ernment of evil from the earth” — where “rejoicing kingdom” is a referenceto the Roman Empire.58 This is also the interpretation offered in the prayerbook of the Hasidei Ashkenaz: “Injustice shall shut its mouth: that is, thewicked kingdom that is full of injustice will clench shut its mouth, and therewill be no speech against Israel . . . ‘government of evil’ refers to this wickedkingdom . . . the Roman Empire.”59 The Vitry prayer book offers the same in-terpretation (p. 367): “‘Injustice,’ that is, the wicked kingdom that is injusticethroughout [. . .] that is, you will pass from this world the government of evil,the wicked kingdom.” And it is indeed very easy to interpret the formula ‘gov-ernment of evil’ as referring to the wicked kingdom, since ‘kingdom of evil’referred to the Roman Empire60 as far back as the time that Birkat ha-Minimwas composed.61 However, the connection between ‘kingdom of evil’ and thewicked kingdom existed even prior to Birkat ha-Minim. Already in the wordsof Isaiah (50:21-22) the Babylonian Empire is called ‘evil’, and Ben Sira willlater express the wish (35:22-23) that “God indeed will not delay and like awarrior will not be still; Till he breaks the backs of the merciless and wreaksvengeance upon the nations; Till he destroys the scepter of the wicked andbreaks off short the staff of the sinner.” But even though ‘kingdom of evil’ be-came a political formula par excellence — at least from the time of Birkat ha-Minim — it does not follow that the petition to destroy the ‘government62 ofevil’ in the High Holy Days Amidah service referred to the fourth kingdom in

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57. See Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 129 n. 143, and 130 n. 149.58. See L. Zunz, Die synagogale Poesie (Frankfurt, 1920), 455.59. See Siddur Rabbenu Shlomo, M. Hirschler (ed.) (Jerusalem, 1972), 207-208.60. See Zunz, Die synagogale Poesie, 454.61. See Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 641. The original Ashkenazic ver-

sion is found in }Otzar ha-Tefilot (Vilnius, 1923), 336-337, and see also Siddur Tefilat Isra}el (TelAviv, 1969), 49.

62. The use of ‘government of evil,’ instead of the more common ‘kingdom of evil,’ is pe-culiar. I have not found any indication that the word ‘government’ was used as a pejorative termfor the ‘wicked kingdom.’ However, we do find many instances of ‘government’ with a negativenoun in the Dead Sea Scrolls, referring to the wicked dominion of Satan. For example: ‘the gov-ernment of Belial,’ ‘the government of evil’ (i.e. of the Angel of Darkness [Manual of Discipline3.23]), ‘government of injustice’ (Manual of Discipline 4.19), and the ‘minister of the govern-ment of evil’ (War Scroll 17.5). The term zadon, ‘evil,’ appears six times in the Qumran literature.The most significant for the present discussion is Pesher Nahum 3.4, which refers to ‘the evil of[the] guilt’ (fomqa vwdz) of the Pharisees.

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the end of days. To the contrary, if we examine the entire passage carefully wewill find that it is far more probable that the kingdom that is to be destroyedis understood in cosmic-ethical terms, rather than a political entity. Just as itwill become possible to check the spread of injustice, so too wickedness willdisappear altogether, thus marking the end of the dominion of evil in theworld.63 Then God alone will be king over all creation. This interpretationcan be decisively established by comparing our liturgical passage with the es-chatological section of the Qumran Book of Mysteries. As the following dem-onstrates, even the order of topics is identical:

1Qmysteries PrayerWhen all that is born of sin is locked up And injustice shall shut its mouthAs smoke vanishes, and no longer exists, And all evil shall dissipate like

so will evil vanish forever smokeAnd all those who support the mysteries For you shall pass the government

of sin will no longer exist of evil from the earth

It is noteworthy that the Qumran document serves to elucidate themeaning of the liturgy and not vice versa. Thus, for example, the parallelswith the Qumran material lead us to the conclusion that the phrase ‘govern-ment of evil’ does not refer to the Roman Empire, but rather to the dominionof evil in the world. Similarly, without the scrolls it would be difficult to di-vine the meaning of ‘And injustice shall shut its mouth’ — a phrase that con-tains elements taken from Job and Psalms, as discussed above. The parallel,however, indicates that the author of the prayer understood the biblicalphrase as alluding to injustice closing its mouth, thus preventing further evilfrom bursting into the world; consequently, evil itself will dissipate likesmoke. We are thus forced to admit that there was indeed a literary connec-tion between the liturgical passage and the Qumran Book of Mysteries. Thereis, of course, one major difference between the texts: the radical dualism andthe concomitant terminology, so regular in the Qumran writings, are whollyabsent from the prayer, which makes no mention of the divisions ‘light-darkness,’ ‘wicked-righteous,’ ‘knowledge-folly.’

Does this difference mean that it was the prayer that influenced the for-mation of the parallel passage in the Book of Mysteries? Unfortunately, this

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63. Enoch Zundil’s commentary, {Etz Yosef in }Otzar ha-Tefilot, 1026, rightly states: “Andinjustice shall shut its mouth . . . that is, there will be no more wicked men in the world until themessianic age [. . .] ‘wickedness’ refers to wicked deeds that will dissipate [. . .] for when injus-tice shuts its mouth, wickedness will dissipate of its own agency. And note that this does not re-fer to the wicked kingdom, for this is not the sense of the prayer at this point.”

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hypothesis is quite improbable, since it has just been conclusively demon-strated that, as far as its content is concerned, the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy is aperfect fit with the religious worldview of Qumran.64 This is not the case,however, with the religious worldview of the sages, in which the liturgicalpassage fits much less well. Both the liturgical passage and the Book of Mys-teries express a distinct segment of the Qumran sect’s ideology, complement-ing the material in Manual of Discipline 4.18-23. That is, we have before us anexplanation of what will occur in the desired end of days, namely, the divisionof the world into the forces of righteousness and injustice, for “God, in themysteries of his knowledge and in the wisdom of his glory, has determined anend to the existence of injustice and on the appointed time of the visitationhe will obliterate it forever” (1QS 4.18-19). It is hard to find in the teachings ofthe sages any parallel to the highly distilled theological-metaphysical descrip-tion of the eschatological banishment of evil from the world described inboth 1Qmysteries and the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy. The most appropriate timeto include this theological position into the general Jewish liturgy is the HighHoly Days, a time of sublime spirituality, in which the soul seeks out answersregarding the ultimate purpose of the good and evil found in man and in theworld.

The determination that Essene thought influenced the Rosh ha-Shanahliturgy is not itself particularly difficult; however, the precise channels of thisinfluence remain obscure. We noted above that the Book of Mysteries illumi-nates the language of the prayer, not vice versa,65 even though the liturgicalpassage reflects the religious thought of the Dead Sea community. This liter-ary aspect leads us, willy-nilly, to propose that both this section of the Roshha-Shanah liturgy and our passage in 1Qmysteries emerged from a commonsource, a source that was undoubtedly part of the Qumran literature. Indeed,the author of the Book of Mysteries testifies that the eschatological vision ofthe disappearance of all evil (lines 5-7) did not originate with him: “Thisword will undoubtedly happen, the prediction is truthful” (line 8). However,the precise details that lead to the composition of the Essene Book of Mys-

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64. That is, the religious ideas discussed in the third section of the present essay.65. Again, the issue here is the unique interpretation of the phrase ‘injustice shall shut

its mouth’ found in the Qumran scrolls (without citing the biblical prooftexts): in the End ofDays, the birth channels (the mouth) of injustice (see 1Qmysteries and Hodayot 11.11, 17-18).The subsequent language of the Rosh ha-Shanah liturgy (“And all evil shall dissipate likesmoke”) is closer to that of Psalm 37:20 (“But the wicked perish, and the enemies of the Lordare like the glory of the pastures; they vanish — like smoke, they vanish away”), than to theparallel statement in the Book of Mysteries (“As smoke vanishes, and no longer exists, so willevil vanish forever”).

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teries within the Qumran sect, and of the High Holy Days passage outside it— these remain unknown for want of evidence.

Be that as it may, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has cast a power-ful light on the High Holy Days Amidah prayer. Moreover, the short passageat hand emerges as a key element in the history of Jewish liturgy: this appearsto be the only known instance of discernible Essene influence on the religiouscreation of the sages. It seems to me that any explanation of this tangible in-fluence of Qumran thought on the liturgy, must assume that the contact be-tween these two very different worlds existed very early on. This conclusionpaves the way for a renewed examination (although not in its earlier, simplis-tic form) that the “We pray, then, that you place your reverence” (Fdjp vovcbw) passages of the High Holy Days liturgy did once serve as an introduc-tion to the “Kingdom verses” in the Palestinian liturgy, following the customof Rabbi Yohanan ben Nuri.66

In arriving at this conclusion we have sought to understand the mean-ing of the entire passage from the Book of Mysteries, and in so doing havegained a deeper understanding of the eschatological vision of Qumran and itsinfluence on the New Testament. In addition, we have established 1Qmys-teries as a singular witness to the influence of Greek philosophy on theQumran community. It is our hope that in so doing we have been able to re-veal something of the twists and turns of our Torah in the ancient past, a goalI share with the scholar to whom this study is dedicated.

Appendix: The Book of Mysteries and theHaftarah Blessings (addendum to notes 14-15)

The Book of Mysteries of Qumran states: “This word will undoubtedly hap-pen, the prediction is truthful. And by this he will show you that [his word]will not return [unfulfilled].” A parallel passage appears in the Hodayot(1QHa 5.24-25):

For [you are the truth, and] your word does not return unfulfilled. And I,your servant, have known thanks to the spirit you have placed in me [. . .]and all your deeds are just, and your word does not return unfulfilled.

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66. See Fleischer, Palestinian Liturgy, 132.

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Here the language of the scrolls is very close to that of the blessingsthat come prior to and following the Haftarah reading. This is no coinci-dence since, as Heinemann states, these benedictions “were formulated veryearly on, centuries before the destruction of the Temple.”67 The first ofthese benedictions states that God “chose good prophets and showed favortoward their pronouncements, spoken in truth.” The benediction asserts,then, not only that the words of the prophets are true, but that they aregood and faithful prophets — unlike the false prophets.68 The benedictionfollowing the Haftarah reading similarly asserts that God is faithful in allhis deeds and adds — in language reminiscent of the scrolls — that hisword will not return unfulfilled. The conclusion of the benediction:“Blessed are you Lord, the faithful God in all his pronouncements.” Accord-ing to Amir,69 this conclusion reflects the letter nun verse in the acrosticPsalm 145, a verse that is famously absent from the Masoretic text but is at-tested in the Septuagint and the Peshitta, as well as one Medieval Hebrewmanuscript. There we find: “Faithful is the Lord in all his words and up-right in all his deeds.” Essentially the same verse is found in the Qumranpsalter, with one significant difference: “Faithful is God (Elohim) in all hiswords, etc.” Now, the Qumran scribe took care throughout the psalm topreserve the Tetragrammaton (using the ancient Hebrew script), but in thisproblematic verse he does not do so, but rather replaces it with “Elohim,” asis the custom in the explicitly sectarian compositions! In other words, thescribe knew that the verse in question was a late addition — even thoughthis addition was clearly made at an early time. Incidentally, the discussionthus far demonstrates that the Haftarah blessings are quite ancient.70

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67. J. Heinemann, Prayer in the Tannaitic and Amoraic Period, 144.68. The phrase ‘truthful prophet’ (vman aybn) is found in one Qumran fragment, 4Q375,

as well as in the (presumed) Hebrew original of 1 Maccabees 14.41.69. Y. Amir, “A Trace of a Lost Verse?” (Hebrew), Bet Miqra 38 (1993), 80-82.70. As the galleys of this article went to press fragments 4Q290, 4Q300, and 4Q301 were

published by B. Z. Wacholder and M. G. Abegg, A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished DeadSea Scrolls (Washington D.C., 1992), 2.1-37.

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11. Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll

The War Scroll makes a single explicit reference to the “king of the Kittim,”1

at 15.2, though the biblical term Kittim is mentioned time and again. In orderto understand the historical background of the War Scroll, it is best that wefirst establish the identity of the Kittim and of their king. The term Kittim is,as noted, biblical, mentioned inter alia in Numbers 24:24: “Ships shall comefrom Kittim” (cf. Daniel 11:30). This verse is the primary reason that Jews inlater times tended to refer to nations that arrived in Israel by ship as “Kittim.”Josephus (AJ 1.128) states that the Hebrews call all the islands and many of thelocations along the shore “Kittim.” Thus we find that the term appears in Jew-ish sources in reference to both the Greeks and the Romans. For example,2 theKittim mentioned in 1 Maccabees (1.1; 8.5) are Greek, while other Jewishsources attribute the term to Romans.3 The latter situation consistently holdsin the Qumran Pesharim, texts that reflect the linguistic conventions of theDead Sea community in the post-Pompey era. For example, Pesher Nahumrefers to the Romans as Kittim, as it speaks of “Demetrius, king of Yavan[= Greece]” and “the kings of Yavan from Antiochus up to the appearance ofthe chiefs of the Kittim” (1.2-3). Thus the Kittim of the War Scroll also refer tothe Romans, but could possibly be a reference to the Greeks as well.

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1. Y. Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light, trans. Batya and Chaim Rabin (Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 1962).

2. For a discussion of the Kittim both within the Bible and without, see Yadin, The WarScroll, 22-26.

3. On the identification of the Kittim with Rome subsequent to late antiquity, see mySefer Josippon (Jerusalem, 1979), note to chapter 1, line 25.

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It seems to me there are three factors that brought Yadin to the conclu-sion that the Kittim of the War Scroll are the Romans. First, aside from theWar Scroll, the Kittim appear in the Qumran texts only in the Pesharim, andthere they regularly refer to the Romans. Second, Yadin finds evidence in theWar Scroll that the text was composed subsequently to the Roman conquestof Palestine, but before the end of Herod’s reign.4 To my mind, however, thedetails in question cannot be counted as conclusive.5 Finally, at 1.4 there ap-pears the phrase “the Kittim in Egypt” which Yadin takes as evidence that theKittim were located in Egypt at the time: “Not ‘of ’, as ‘Kittim of Asshur [= As-syria].’ This shows that the Kittim had an army in Egypt, not that they dweltthere.”6 This suggestion does not exclude the possibility that the Kittim inEgypt were Greek, since the Seleucids and the Ptolemies were Greek. How-ever, if the War Scroll does indicate that the Kittim were located in Egypt, it ismore probable that this is a reference to the Romans and that the scroll wascomposed some time after Pompey’s entrance into Egypt, or perhaps JuliusCaesar’s. In any case, whoever these Kittim might be, Yadin’s authoritative in-terpretation of the passage as indicating that they reside in Egypt has led to aproblematic reading of the first column and, subsequently, to implausible re-constructions. The new reconstructions I wish to propose do not in and ofthemselves constitute a new scholarly approach, as Dupont-Sommer has al-ready employed a similar approach.7 My goal is rather to shed new light onthe opening of the War Scroll and in so doing contribute both to the histori-cal background of the scroll and to Jewish apocalypticism as such.

Yadin (p. 18) sees the opening of the War Scroll as a parallel of sorts towhat today would be called a ‘strategic directive,’ arguing (p. 7) that the firstsection of 1QM (1.1-7) defines “the opposing forces in the various phases ofthe war.” According to Yadin, the main stages of the war are as follows: battleagainst “the band of Edom and of Moab and of the sons of Ammon and . . .Philistia . . . who are being helped by the violators of the covenant” (1.1-2);next comes the battle against “the Kittim in Egypt” (1.4), the second stage ofthe war. After the defeat of the Kittim comes the third stage of the war:8 that is

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Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll

4. Yadin, War Scroll, 243-246.5. It is also possible that the minor details on which Yadin bases his argument were in-

serted into the War Scroll at a later date. C. H. Hunzinger, “Fragmente einer älteren Fassung desBuches Milhama,” ZAW 69 (1957), 131-151 even argues that cave 4 fragments of the War Scroll re-flect a pre-sectarian version of the composition. See also the fascinating discussion of 1QM inE. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London, 1977), 248-252.

6. Yadin, War Scroll, 258.7. A. Dupont-Sommer, Les écrits esséniens (Paris, 1964).8. “The war against this part of the Kittim is the second phase, preparatory to the fight

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when the warriors “will go out with great rage to wage war against the kingsof the North” (1.4), and then conquer all the lands of the world. This, then, isYadin’s understanding of the first column — a ‘strategic directive’ of sorts. Inwhat follows, I will argue that this text is best understood as presenting thehistorical background of the eschatological war, as well as a schematic outlineof its course leading up to the victory over the Kittim in seven rounds.

Here are the two relevant passages from the War Scroll:

1. [The Rule of] the War. The first attack by the sons of light will belaunched against the sons of darkness, against the army of Belial,against the band of Edom and of Moab and of the sons of Ammon

2. and . . . Philistia, and against the bands of the Kittim of Assyria,who are being helped by the violators of the covenant. The sons ofLevi, the sons of Judah and the sons of Benjamin, the exiled of thedesert, will wage war against them.

3. [. . .] against all their bands, when the exiled sons of light returnfrom the desert of the nations to camp in the desert of Jerusalem.And after the war, they shall go up from there

4. [against the troops] of the Kittim in Egypt. And in his time, he willgo out with great rage to wage war against the kings of the North,and in his anger wants to exterminate and cut off the horn of

5. [Belial]. And this is a time of salvation for the nation of God and aperiod of rule for all the men of his lot, and of everlastingdestruction for all the lot of Belial. There will be

6. great panic among the sons of Japhet, Assyria shall fall and therewill be no help for him; the rule of the Kittim will come to an end,wickedness having been defeated, with no remnant remaining, andthere will be no escape

7. for any of the sons of darkness.

And further along we read:

11. . . . It will be a time of12. suffering for all the nation redeemed by God. Of all their sufferings,

none will be like this, hastening till eternal redemption is fulfilled.

We have already alluded to the connection between the opening col-umn of the War Scroll and the Book of Daniel. The latter was highly esteemed

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against the ‘kings of the north,’ which is part of the ‘war of separate divisions,” Yadin, WarScroll, 258.

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by the Qumran community: the caves contain fragments of eight copies ofthe book.9 Let us examine the parallel passages in the War Scroll and Daniel:

The War Scroll, Column 1 The Book of Daniel

1-2: the band of Edom and of Moaband of the sons of Ammon and . . .Philistia, and against the bands ofthe Kittim of Assyria, who are beinghelped by the violators of the cove-nant

11:41 Edom and Moab and the mainpart of the Ammonites shall escapefrom his power11:32 violators of the covenant

4: the Kittim in Egypt 11:42-43 He shall stretch out his handagainst the countries, and the landof Egypt shall not escape. He shallbecome ruler of . . . the riches ofEgypt

4: And in his time, he will go outwith great rage to wage war againstthe kings of the North, and in hisanger wants to exterminate and cutoff the horn [of Israel]

11:44 But reports from the east andthe north shall alarm him, and heshall go out with great rage to exter-minate and destroy many

5-6: There will be great panic amongthe sons of Japhet, Assyria shall falland there will be no help for him;the rule of the Kittim will come toan end, wickedness having been de-feated

11:45 He shall pitch his palatial tentsbetween the sea and the beautifulholy mountain. Yet he shall come tohis end, with no one to help him.

11-12: It will be a time of sufferingfor all the nation redeemed by God.Of all their sufferings, none will belike this

12:1 There shall be a time of suffer-ing, such as has never occurred sincethe nation first came into existence.

Two preliminary comments are in order. The War Scroll (lines 1-2) andDaniel both mention Edom, Moab and Ammon in the same order, but theauthor of 1QM appends at the end the “sons . . . of Philistia” and “the Kittimof Assyria.” These nations are also cited — along with other enemies of Israel

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9. See G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls (London, 1977), 201.

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— in Psalm 83:7-9: Edom, Moab and Ammon, Philistia and “Assyria also hasjoined them.” The War Scroll, like Psalm 83, mentions the Philistines andAssyrians at the end of the list, and it is quite possible that this psalm also ex-erted some influence on the scroll, along with Daniel (see also Isaiah 11:14,and note that Assyria is also mentioned in this chapter). But it seems to methat we are dealing here with more than literary influence, but rather a con-scious attempt on the part of the author to enumerate as enemies all the na-tions in whose midst lived Jewish communities. True, the Philistines were nota living nation at the time, but the term Philistia appears in this sense in1 Maccabees (3:41; 4:22; 5:66, 68).10 In both texts the term seems to refer to thegentiles who inhabit the coastline. Daniel 11 also reveals the end of the wickedking in the end of days: “he shall come to his end, with no one to help him.”There is an allusion to this verse in the War Scroll, i.e., in the description ofthe ultimate defeat of the Kittim (1.6): “Assyria shall fall and there will be nohelp for him; the rule of the Kittim will come to an end.” In this statement, theauthor of 1QM merges Daniel 11:42 with Isaiah 31:8: “Then Assyria shall fall bya sword, not of mortals.” This same verse is also cited in the War Scroll (11.11-12), again in an eschatological context. Still later, the War Scroll describes theultimate death of the Kittim — along with the other nations — at God’ssword (19.9-11). Already in the second line of 1QM the author introduces the“Kittim of Assyria,” which suggests he may have understood Isaiah 31:8, withits description of Assyria and “a sword, not of mortals,” as a reference to theend of the reign of the Kittim. We will return to the nexus between “Kittim”and “Assyria” later in the present study.

Other than the formula “violators of the covenant” in line 2, which isfound in Daniel 11:32, all the Daniel parallels in the first column of 1QS arefrom Daniel 11:40 and following, and their order parallels that of Daniel! I be-lieve this fact is of particular importance, not only for understanding theQumran scroll in question. The Hellenistic philosopher Porphyry, in his(lost) book against the Christians, argued that the visions of Daniel werecomposed during the days of Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), but presented asprophecies of future events.11 Modern scholarship has generally acceptedPorphyry’s argument, adding to it an additional assumption: the author ofDaniel indeed describes as prophecies events that he knows to have occurred,but starting at 11:40, he breaks with the historical past and attempts to foresee

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10. See also R. H. Charles, The Book of Jubilees (London, 1902), 154-155. The book of Jubi-lees (24.28) speaks of the Kittim as the wicked among the nations; Charles believes this is a refer-ence to the Macedonians. See also J. Geffcken, Zwei grieschische Apologeten (Leipzig, 1907; repr.Olms, 1970), 299.

11. See, e.g., J. Geffcken, Zwei griechische Apologeten (Leipzig, 1907; repr. 1970), 299.

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the future — though his prophecies do not come true.12 That the author ofthe War Scroll seems to have understood that the historical background ofthe events of the eschaton is described from Daniel 11:40 and following, sug-gests that modern scholarship is in the right. No less than modern scholars,the author of the 1QM knew that the prophecies recounted up to Daniel 11:39had already occurred in the days of Antiochus IV, and that what follows hasnot yet come to fruition. He came to this (correct) conclusion without unduedifficulty, since he was not far removed from these historical events, and un-doubtedly knew more about them than we. Thus he also knew that the finalsection of the prophecy had not yet occurred, and, apocalyptic seer that hewas, he drew the obvious conclusion: the unfulfilled prophecy — Daniel 11:40and following — refers to future time. Thus he uses the statements in Daniel11:40 and following as historical-political background to the eschatologicalwar against the Kittim. That the War Scroll cites its allusions to Daniel in theorder of the biblical verses is further proof of Daniel’s key role for theQumran author.

The unfulfilled prophecies of Daniel are the continuation of the proph-ecy regarding Antiochus IV. There will be another war between him and theking of Egypt, and his campaign will lead him through the Land of Israel, but“Edom and Moab and the main part of the Ammonites shall escape from hispower.” It would appear that the author of 1QM understands that these peo-ple, along with the inhabitants of Philistia, will be allied with this king. Ac-cording to Daniel, the king will then proceed to Egypt and “the Land of Egyptshall not escape,” though “reports from the east and the north shall alarmhim, and he shall go out with great rage to exterminate and destroy many.” Inhis campaign against these enemies (the War Scroll speaks only of “the kingsof the North”) he will again pass through Israel where he “shall pitch his pala-tial tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he shall cometo his end, with no one to help him.” The Book of Daniel does not report theultimate fate of the evil king. The author of the War Scroll, however, assumesthat he will die in the war of seven rounds against the Jewish Sons of Light; inthe seventh round he will be felled by the sword of the Almighty: “Assyriashall fall and there will be no help for him; the rule of the Kittim will come toan end.”

In sketching the general outline of the parts of Daniel’s prophecy thatwere not fulfilled in his lifetime, we referred briefly to the War Scroll’s under-standing of this prophecy. If we take it as an axiom that the first column of

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12. See, e.g., J. A. Montgomery, The Book of Daniel (Edinburgh, 1927), as well as L. F.Hartman and A. A. Di Lella, The Book of Daniel (New York, 1978).

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1QM depends on the content of Daniel 11:40 and following (and not just itslanguage), and that lines 4-7 reflect the prophecy concerning the evil kingfrom the unfulfilled words of Daniel — the task of reconstruction will be eas-ier, and allow us to avoid the problems that arise from Yadin’s suggestions.Moreover, if the opening of the War Scroll is indeed dependent upon Daniel,this will allow for a fuller understanding of the historical and political context— according to 1QM — of the eschatological war.

The War Scroll opens with a description of the tribes of Israel who willparticipate in the war, namely “the sons of Levi, the sons of Judah and thesons of Benjamin.” As for the enemies, they are “the Band of Edom and Moaband of the sons of Ammon and Philistia.” As we have seen, this list is depen-dent upon Daniel 11:41, as well as other verses. All these nations, who inhabitthe land of Israel, will join “the bands of the Kittim of Assyria, who are beinghelped by the violators of the covenant.” The “exiled sons of light” then en-camp in “the desert of Jerusalem. And after the war, they shall go up fromthere.” I propose that this is the end of the sentence — not only because thiswill allow us to propose a reasonable reconstruction of the opening of line 4.If we maintain the proposed reading, “And after the war, they shall go upfrom there,” the sense of the statement is that following the battle at the desertof Jerusalem against the Kittim of Assyria, the Sons of Light will ascend to Je-rusalem. This is quite plausible, since the next stage in the warfare is the con-quest of the entire world by separate divisions:

During the remaining thirty-three years of the war, the men of renown,those called at the assembly, and all the chiefs of the fathers of the congre-gation, shall choose for themselves men of war for all the countries of thenations; from all the tribes of Israel they shall equip for themselves in-trepid men, in order to go out on campaign according to the directives ofwar, year after year. (2.6-8)

The assumption that the Sons of Light will ascend to Jerusalem follow-ing their war against the Kittim does not in and of itself determine whetherJerusalem is to be conquered by them during that war, or only in its wake. Inany case, it appears that the War Scroll (like the other Qumran texts) assumesthat Jerusalem is not originally under their rule, but rather is governed by theviolators of the covenant who have allied themselves with the Kittim. Thus,the Sons of Light are located not in Jerusalem but in the wilderness of Jerusa-lem — which would suggest that Jerusalem is conquered only after the defeatof the Kittim. Nonetheless, we do not have sufficient grounds to reject thepossibility that Jerusalem falls to the Sons of Light in the course of the battles

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against the Kittim, though the community does not enter the city until afterthe outright defeat of the enemy. In either case there arises a problem, for ifthe ascent of the Sons of Light to Jerusalem marks the end of the conflict withthe Kittim, we must conclude that the author of 1QM deals only with twostages of the war: the pseudo-historical eschatological war against the Kittim— which truly interests him — and a second, utopian war in which the twelvetribes of Israel conquer the entire world during “the remaining thirty-threeyears of war” (2.6) — a war in which our author shows little interest.

After surveying the war in its broader context (in the eyes of the Sons ofLight), he turns to the overall political climate of the time, and — drawing onthe unfulfilled prophecy of Daniel — describes the circumstances in whichthe Kittim and their king enter Israel, concluding with an allusion to their ul-timate downfall (1.4-7). To my mind, there is no doubt that the king of theKittim is the central topic, both because of the evident linguistic links to Dan-iel 11:44, and because Yadin’s suggestion that Daniel’s description of the evilking be transposed to the Sons of Light leads to superfluous grammatical dif-ficulties. With this in mind, line 4 should be reconstructed roughly as follows:“Then came the king]13 of the Kittim in [= into] Egypt. And in this time, hewill go out with great rage to wage war against the kings of the North, and inhis anger wants to exterminate and cut off the horn of [Israel].”]]. The use of‘Israel’ is suggested by Lamentations 2:3 (“he has cut down in fierce anger thehorn of Israel”), though there the subject is the Lord. (Dupont-Sommer sug-gests ‘wybya vrk’, that is, ‘the horn of his enemies’). The reading ‘to extermi-nate and cut off the horn of Israel’ is based on Daniel 11:44, where it is re-ported that the evil king “shall go out with great rage to exterminate anddestroy many.” On Yadin’s reading, the extermination in question must be apositive event, and thus he implausibly assumes the phrase refers to the de-struction of Belial. As noted, my own reconstruction finds linguistic supportin Lamentations 2:3, and it seems to me that the word oyrchl (‘cut down’) —Daniel 11:44 reads fyrjhl (‘exterminate’) instead — is so strong that we mustassume that the author of 1QM understood the “many” of Daniel as a refer-ence to Israel. That is, the king sets out “in his time,” departing from Egypt“with great rage to wage war against the kings of the North,” and on his waynorth quite naturally passes through Israel, where “in his anger [he] wants toexterminate and cut off the horn” of Israel. The assumption that the evil kingset out specifically to destroy the horn of Israel finds support in the laterstatement (1.11-12): “It will be a time of suffering for all the nation redeemedby God. Of all their sufferings, none will be like this, hastening till eternal re-

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13. This is how the Dupont-Sommer edition reconstructs.

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demption is fulfilled.”14 While this verse deals with the difficulties brought onby the war, there is also an indirect reference to the dangers of destructionposed by the invasion of the king of the Kittim and his armies.

Daniel 11:44 tells of the evil king’s passage from Egypt to Israel, “but re-ports from the east and the north shall alarm him.” The War Scroll omits anymention of the east, stating that after his departure from Egypt, the king ofthe Kittim “will go out with great rage to wage war against the kings of theNorth” (1.4). The mention of these kings is not dependent solely on Daniel,though this is clearly the main source.15 The “kings of the north” are therulers of Parthia and of Armenia, as well as other traditional enemies of theSeleucid Empire and of their Roman heirs.

Before turning to the end of the king of the Kittim, we must point toone conclusion that may already be drawn from the War Scroll’s employmentof Daniel’s unfulfilled prophecy. According to Daniel 11:42-43, the evil kingwill invade Egypt, and indeed the War Scroll mentions Egypt as well (1.4). Ihave reconstructed this line in light of the remainder of the verse (“he will goout with great rage”), which makes it clear that we are dealing with the evilking from Daniel’s vision. If so, Egypt is the object of the king’s invasion, andit would be an error to read the scroll as stating that the Kittim live in Egypt.Even without the evidence of Daniel it is clear that the War Scroll does notsuggest that the Kittim inhabit Egypt. At the same time, 1QM does refer to“the bands of the Kittim of Assyria” (1.2) — what does this phrase mean?

Genesis 10:22 lists Assyria as one of the sons of Shem. Accordingly, indescribing Israel’s conquest of the entire world, the War Scroll speaks of a warwaged “against all the sons of Assyria and Persia, and the eastern nations upto the great desert” (2.12). That is, Assyria appears here in the proper geo-graphic context. According to Genesis 10:4, however, the Kittim are the sonsof Japhet, and indeed the author of the War Scroll groups the Kittim of As-syria with the sons of Japhet: “There will be great panic among the sons ofJaphet, Assyria shall fall and there will be no help for him; the rule of theKittim will come to an end, wickedness having been defeated” (1.5-6). Thesegroupings are repeated in the summary of the seventh and final stage of thewar against the Kittim, which includes “the call of the holy ones when theypursue Assyria; the sons of Japhet shall fall without rising; the Kittim shall be

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14. See Yadin’s discussion of this verse in his commentary. And see also D. Flusser, “ANew Testament Prophecy Concerning the Liberation of Jerusalem” (Hebrew), Eretz Israel 10(Zalman Shazar volume) (Jerusalem, 1971), 230-231, and the sources cited therein.

15. The phrase “kings of the north” is influenced by “king of the north” which appearsnumerous times in Daniel (including the unfulfilled prophecy at 11:40). However, the plural“kings” in the War Scroll suggests that the influence is primarily linguistic.

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crushed” (18.2). Yadin explains the phrase “Kittim of Assyria” and the appar-ent synonymity of “Assyria” and “Kittim” in a number of places in the WarScroll, since “in at least three places in the Bible in which the Kittim are men-tioned, Assyria also is mentioned and in close proximity.”16 But do these threeinstances of proximity truly explain the War Scroll’s use of “Assyria” as a syn-onym for “Kittim”? And what of the phrase “Kittim of Assyria”? Perhapsthere is a historical reason for this identification.

It is a well-established fact that the Greek and Roman authors referredto the Syrians as “Assyrians.” Grintz already suggested17 that “Assyria” in thephrase “Kittim of Assyria” refers to Syria. As evidence he cites, and rightly so,Jubilees 13.1, a work that is very similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as theteachings of the dorshei reshumot preserved in Midrash ha-Gadol to Numbers21:2.18 The midrashic passage discusses the six kingdoms that will reign overIsrael — the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, and Romans.The order of these kingdoms indicates that “Assyria” here refers to the Syrianempire of the Seleucids. Another list, this time of five kingdoms, has beenpreserved in the writings of Lactantius,19 and is apparently taken from the so-called the “Oracles of Hystaspes” (or: “The Prophecy of Hystaspes”), a Jewishapocalypse from the time of the Second Temple.20 Here we find Egypt, Persia,Greece, Assyria, and Rome, and again it would appear that “Assyria” refers tothe Syrian empire of the Seleucids. Syria is referred to as “Assyria” not only inGreek and Roman sources, but in Jewish writings as well — including He-brew ones (Jubilees and the material preserved in Midrash ha-Gadol). Itwould appear, then, that the War Scroll’s designation of Israel’s primary en-emy as “Assyria,” most likely refers to Syria, so that the Kittim of Assyria infact live in Syria (the biblical verses notwithstanding). This hypothesis findsfurther support from the fact — noted above — that there is no certain indi-cation in the War Scroll that the Kittim lived in Egypt. To the contrary, itstands to reason that the author of the War Scroll assumed that the king ofthe Kittim of (As)syria intended to invade Egypt.

The term “Assyria,” as a reference to the sworn enemy of Israel, pavesthe way for the War Scroll to harness the relevant biblical verses to the ulti-mate, supernatural end of the Kittim and their king. As noted, the author of

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16. Yadin, War Scroll, 25. The verses in question are Num. 24:23-24; Isa. 23:12-13; Ezek. 27:6.17. Y. Grintz, Studies in the Second Temple Period (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1969), 122 n. 39.

The entire issue is discussed in Yadin, War Scroll, 25 n. 4.18. See Midrash Ha-Gadol, M. Margaliyot (ed.) (Jerusalem, 1956), 460.19. Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones, 7.15.13.20. As I have shown in “Hystaspes and John of Patmos,” in my Judaism and the Origins of

Christianity, 390-453.

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1QM states: “There will be great panic among the sons of Japhet, Assyria shallfall and there will be no help for him; the rule of the Kittim will come to anend, wickedness having been defeated” (1.5-6). The phrase “Assyria shall falland there will be no help for him” combines elements from Isaiah 31:8 andDaniel 11:45. In a yet-unfulfilled prophecy — cited as part of the pseudo-historical background of the War Scroll — Daniel describes the king’s depar-ture from Egypt and his ultimate end: “But reports from the east and thenorth shall alarm him, and he shall go out with great fury to bring ruin andcomplete destruction to many. He shall pitch his palatial tents between thesea and the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end, with noone to help him” (Dan. 11:44-45). That is to say, the king will leave Egypt, pass-ing through Israel on his way to battle against his enemies of the east and thenorth. There he will pitch camp “between the sea and the beautiful holymountain” and “come to his end, with no one to help him.” The evil kingfinds his death in the “desert of Jerusalem” (1.3), where the “exiled sons oflight” are located, and where they will engage the Kittim armies. However, theevil king will not die during the battle, for Daniel has already stated that hewill “come to his end, with no one to help him.” This favors the view of thosescholars who understand Daniel’s obscure statement as referring to deathbrought on by divine intervention, as Daniel 8:25 seems to suggest, where theprophet says that the evil king “shall be broken, and not by human hands.”

This appears to be the War Scroll’s understanding of Daniel 11:45, sincethe scroll describes the end of “Assyria” in the following terms: “he shall cometo his end, with no one to help him.” The first hemistich is from Isaiah 31:8:“Then Assyria shall fall by a sword, not of mortals; and a sword, not of hu-mans, shall devour him.” This verse is cited explicitly in the benediction at11.11-12: “From of old you foretold us the appointed time of the power of yourhand against the Kittim saying ‘Assyria will fall by a sword, not of mortalsetc.’” If Daniel 11:45 suggests that the king of the Kittim will die a miraculousdeath due to divine intervention, Isaiah 31:8 teaches that not only the king,but his entire army will be felled “by a sword, not of mortals.” This, then, willbe the supernatural conclusion of the war with the Kittim, in its seventh andfinal round. At that time,21 when the persecution of the Kittim had begun,the sons of light will have to give up the chase “when the sun travels towardsits setting on that day” (18.5). They return to camp and “they shall gather inthe camp on that night to rest until the morning. And in the morning theyshall go out to the place of the battle.” There they witness God’s wondrous in-tervention: “[T]he heroes of the Kittim, the horde of Assyria and the army of

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21. So Yadin, War Scroll, 348-349.

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all the peoples that had gathered together, (to see) the slain . . . which hadfallen there by God’s sword” (19.9-11). Indeed, there was an earlier mention of‘God’s sword’: “All those who are ready for the war shall go and camp oppo-site the king of the Kittim and opposite all the army of Belial, assembled withhim for the day of vengeance by God’s sword” (15.2-3) — a clear allusion tothe miraculous end of the battle with the Kittim. This passage is the only ex-tant text of 1QM to contain the phrase ‘king of the Kittim.’ (The occurrence at1.4 is a reconstruction based on the context.) It also states explicitly that boththe king and the armies of the Kittim will be destroyed together, as the sol-diers are “assembled with him for the day of vengeance by God’s sword.”

In both its occurrences, the Hebrew phrase translated as ‘God’s sword’appears as a single word, labrj, indicating it was an established eschatologi-cal term in Qumran circles.22 As an eschatological motif, however, God’ssword has currency beyond the Qumran community. 1 Enoch, a work com-posed during the days of Judah Maccabee, teaches (1 Enoch 90.19, 34) that inthe end of days Israel will be given a great sword that will be wielded as theygo to war against the nations. With the battle won, the sword will be returnedto the Temple and set before God. This suggests that the sword was previouslylocated (or appeared) in the Temple. A few decades later, the author of thethird Sibylline oracle states (lines 781-782) that when peace comes, in the endof days, the prophets of the great God will guard the sword, for they will bethe judges of man as well as their righteous kings. And while Enoch has thesword taken from the temple, in the “Oracles of Hystaspes,” another Jewishapocalyptic work from the time of the temple, the sword will suddenly de-scend from the heavens at midnight on Passover eve. This descent announcesto the righteous, that is to Israel, that the messiah, who heads the holy army,will himself descend from the heavens accompanied by angels, with a burningfire before him.23 The apocalyptic motif of God’s sword at the end of days nodoubt grew out of Isaiah 31:8: “Then Assyria shall fall by a sword, not of mor-tals; and a sword, not of humans, shall devour him.” We saw above that thisverse is cited in the War Scroll (11.11-12). The author of 1QM, unlike 1 Enoch,learns from the verse that the sword of God, not a human hand, will fell theenemy. The author buttresses this interpretation with the unfulfilled proph-ecy from Daniel (11:45, and compare 8:25), according to which the evil king“shall come to his end, with no one to help him.”

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22. In the 1QHa 14.29 reads: “Then the sword of God will pounce, in the ear of judgment,”and the two words (la brj) are separate.

23. On this motif in medieval Jewish apocalyptic literature see my “Hystaspes and Johnof Patmos.”

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But let us return to the beginning of the war. I have no doubt thatYadin’s reconstruction of line four of the War Scroll is wrong and, moreover,that a correct understanding of the opening is key to interpreting the scroll asa whole. Yadin (p. 10) rightly points to two passages in the War Scroll fromwhich we may infer the overall structure of the battles against the Kittim. Thefirst occurs in the opening of the scroll, 1.12-14: “And on the day of their waragainst the Kittim, they shall go out to destruction. In the war, the sons oflight will be the strongest during three lots, in order to strike down wicked-ness; and in three (others), the army of Belial will gird themselves in order toforce the lot of light to retreat. There will be infantry battalions to melt theheart, but God’s might will strengthen the heart of the sons of light. And inthe seventh lot, God’s great hand will subdue . . .” This description indicatesthat there will be seven lots or rounds, the seventh of which will witness thedownfall of the Kittim by the hand of God, without human warfare. The endof the Kittim is couched here in terms reminiscent of the destruction withoutbattle of the Egyptians at the crossing of the Red Sea, when “Israel saw thegreat hand that the Lord brought against the Egyptians” (Ex. 14:31). As for theprevious six rounds of battle, these are described elsewhere, i.e., 17.16–18.3.The sons of light find themselves alternately victors and vanquished, butagain the seventh lot brings ultimate victory, “when the mighty hand of Godis raised against Belial and against all the army of his dominion for an ever-lasting blow” (18.1).

The series of battles with the Kittim is relatively clear. However, as seenabove, a novel interpretation of the scroll’s opening calls for a new under-standing of the precise relationship between the Kittim war and the subse-quent conquest of the world. If 1.4 refers to the Kittim’s invasion of Egypt —and not, as Yadin holds, to the war of the sons of light against the Kittim ofEgypt — then it is no longer possible to speak of this as “the second phase,preparatory to the fight against the ‘kings of the north,’ which is part of the‘war of separate divisions’” — a war of conquest. In fact, there are only twostages or, more accurately, two wars: the seven lots of war fought against theKittim, and the war of separate divisions that begins after God’s sword hasdestroyed the Kittim. The latter begins when the “exiled sons of light” marchfrom the wilderness of Jerusalem to the city itself (see 1.3). There is anotherimportant difference between the first war (against the Kittim in the wilder-ness of Jerusalem), and the ‘war of separate divisions’ for world domination.The battle against the Kittim and their allies will be waged by the “sons ofLevi, the sons of Judah and the sons of Benjamin, the exiled of the desert”(1.2) — apparently a reference to the sons of light; in the ‘year of release’(shemitah) following the Kittim war, “the chiefs of the tribes, and after them

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the fathers of the congregation, shall take their positions in the gate of thesanctuary in perpetuity” (2.3). As for the conquest of the world — slated tobegin after that year of release — we learn: “During the remaining thirty-three years of the war, the men of renown, those called at the assembly, and allthe chiefs of the fathers of the congregation, shall choose for themselves menof war for all the countries of the nations; from all the tribes of Israel theyshall equip for themselves intrepid men, in order to go out on campaign . . .”(2.6-8). Clearly, the author of the War Scroll believes that after the Kittim war,perhaps in the beginning of the first year of release, the remaining tribes of Is-rael will return as functioning members of the nation already in the course ofthat year. Perhaps there was a reference to the ingathering of the tribes of Is-rael in the now lost end of the first column.

As for the division of the different stages into clusters of years, Yadin’sdiscussion and calculations (pp. 20-21, as well as 36-37) are a brilliant scholarlyachievement. The war will last forty years, the first six of which are foughtagainst the Kittim. As noted, Yadin divides the latter period into two stages: thefirst against the Kittim of Assyria, followed by battle against the Kittim ofEgypt. However, it appears that this six-year period constitutes a single stage inthe war during which the sons of light do battle against the Kittim and theirevil king in the wilderness of Jerusalem. The scroll suggests that the battleagainst the Kittim will begin in a year following a year of release, shemitah. Ifso, the year of release mentioned in the second column is the first to follow thedestruction of the Kittim and their king by God’s sword. After the first seven-year period, during “the remaining thirty-three years of the war” (2.6) Israelwill conquer the world, with each enemy requiring a single year of battle — ex-cept for the sons of Arpachshad, who are battled for two years, the fourth andthe fifth (2.11). We have already established that the Kittim war will occur dur-ing the first six years of the first shemitah cycle, and that it will contain sevenlots or rounds. During the first six, Israel will experience intermittently victoryand defeat, but during the seventh lot the Kittim and their allies will be de-stroyed through divine intervention, the sword of God. All this suggests thateach of the first six rounds is allotted a single year, each of which contains asingle decisive battle. The sixth year is, apparently, exceptional inasmuch asthat at its end there will be a second, ultimate and supernatural battle. Were itnot for the fact that the end of the scroll speaks of the sons of light girdingthemselves for battle and of their surprise in the face of the miracle, it mighthave been assumed that the divine intervention will occur in the seventh, i.e.,shemitah, year. However, wars are generally not permitted during shemitah, soit appears that the battle could occur in the seventh year only if the sectarianhalakhah would allow warfare during the shemitah in cases of a religiously

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sanctioned war — very unlikely in light of their generally strict halakhic rul-ings. Thus it is more probable that the seventh stage of the Kittim war is to oc-cur at the very end of the sixth year. Moreover, the ultimate and absolute vic-tory over the Kittim, achieved as it is through divine intervention, represents aworthy opening to the year of release. That said, our discussion of the timelineof the Kittim war and of the ingathering of the tribes of Israel, remains a con-jecture, albeit one that suits the schematic and almost mechanistic schematicsof the Dead Sea community.

Before concluding our discussion we must ask what, if anything, can belearned regarding the time of the War Scroll’s composition. We saw that thepolitical situation, a prerequisite for the Kittim war, accords with the unful-filled prophecy of Daniel, that is, that Daniel’s vision was made to fit with thehopes and fears of Second Temple Jewry in general, and of the Qumran com-munity in particular. As noted, the word “Kittim” could refer either to Greeksor to Romans, and it was plausible in the eyes of 1QM’s author that the Kittimking be located in Syria, from which he would invade Egypt. But he will leaveEgypt, for “in his time, he will go out with great rage to wage war against thekings of the North” (1.4), i.e., the Parthians and their allies. In traversing thispath, he will cross through Israel, seeking “in his anger” to destroy the Jews.Such is the hypothetical political situation preceding the eschatological warwith the Kittim. If we assume that the War Scroll was composed after theRomans conquered Syria, but before they conquered Egypt, then the identifi-cation of the Kittim as Romans is quite plausible. If, however, the phrase“Kittim of Assyria” (1.2) and the verse “Assyria shall fall and there will be nohelp for him; the rule of the Kittim will come to an end” (1.6) suggest a stron-ger link between the Kittim and Syria, then the Kittim of Assyria would be theSyrian Greeks and their king one of the Seleucid rulers, suggesting that thescroll was composed before Pompey annexed Syria to the Roman empire. Thedate of composition would be some time during the Hasmonean rule prior to83 b.c.e., when Tigranes II of Armenia conquered Syria, ending the Seleucidrule. During the Seleucid rule it was the north that presented the danger, theParthian regions, and there was a constant enmity between the SyrianSeleucids and the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt. It is possible, then, that duringa period of particularly elevated tension between the two kingdoms, the au-thor of 1QM might well prophesy that Daniel’s vision is near fulfillment, andthe Kittim king will invade Egypt.24 The phrase “king of the Kittim” also sug-

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24. In “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview” I dated the War Scroll to the time of Alex-ander Jannaeus, when a civil war raged, and the sect may have hoped to seize political power byforce. The opening paragraph of 1QM (1.1-7) serves to describe the political situation that will

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gests a Seleucid era composition, since the scrolls published thus far speak ofthe Roman leaders as “rulers of the Kittim (fyoc ylqwm),” rather thankings.25 In any case, whether we identify the Kittim as Romans or as SyrianGreeks, it appears that the scroll was composed prior to the Roman annex-ation of Egypt. In an earlier study, I tried to trace the chronological develop-ment of the Qumran ideology.26 I suggested that the War Scroll was com-posed in the early stages of the sect.

In presenting our concluding statement, it is worth citing the principalstatement from the opening of the War Scroll, as I reconstruct the text:

The first attack by the sons of light will be launched against the lot of thesons of darkness, against the army of Belial, against the band of Edo andof Moab and of the sons of Ammon and the a[rmies of the inhabitantsof] Philistia, and against the bands of the Kittim of Assyria, who are beinghelped by the violators of the covenant. The sons of Levi, the sons of Ju-dah and the sons of Benjamin, the exiled of the desert, will wage waragainst them [. . .] against all their bands, when the exiled sons of light re-turn from the desert of the nations to camp in the desert of Jerusalem.And after the war, they shall go up from there. [And the king] of theKittim [will come to] Egypt. And in his time he will go out with great rageto wage war against the kings of the North, and in his anger wants to ex-terminate and cut off the horn of Israel. . . . There will be great panicamong the sons of Japhet, Assyria shall fall and there will be no help forthem; the rule of the Kittim will come to an end, wickedness having beendefeated, with no remnant remaining, and there will be no escape for anyof the sons of darkness. (1.1-7)

Yadin’s error is, I believe, fundamentally optical: since the beginning ofline 4 is not extant, the first Hebrew words that present themselves to thereader’s eye are fyrxmb fyoch, which can naturally be understood as refer-ring to Kittim who reside in Egypt. The first scholar who made this assump-

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precede the outbreak of the apocalyptic battle. Though the text of this paragraph is tattered andincomplete, I believe it reflects the political reality of 89 b.c.e., the invasion of Demetrius III(Eucaerus), with the support of the “violators of the covenant” (1.2), i.e., the Pharisees. Since thepublication of the article, my hypothesis concerning the negative view the Qumran sect took ofthe alliance between Demetrius and the Pharisees was proven correct. I am referring to thestatement in Pesher Nahum (1.2) concerning “Demetrius, king of Yavan, who wanted to enterJerusalem on the advice of those looking for easy interpretations [dorshei halakot].”

25. See Yadin’s comment regarding the king of the Kittim at 15.2, that “from 44 b.c. on-wards Caesar was to all intents and purposes a king” (p. 331).

26. In “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview.”

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tion was E. L. Sukenik,27 and Yadin, his son, follows in his footsteps. This er-ror was then compounded with an implausible reconstruction of thebeginning of the line, forcing Yadin to argue that the subject of “And in histime he will go out with great rage” is either the sons of light or God Himself.In fact, this is almost a verbatim repetition of Daniel 11:44, whose subject isthe evil king of the end of days. Yadin’s error changed the original opening ofthe scroll, which is nothing more than an attempt to apply the unfulfilledprophecy of Daniel to contemporary times.

We have been able to address a number of aspects of the War Scroll, toresolve a few difficulties and raise hypotheses regarding the eschatological vi-sion of the Qumran community. It appears that if we gain a better under-standing of the first column, we may gain meaningful insights into the es-sence of Jewish apocalypticism. The author of Daniel gave an account of pastevents as though they were to occur in the future, but when he needed to pre-dict future events he fabricated them full cloth. Modern scholars are not theonly ones who have been able to ascertain the difference between the histori-cal “prophecies” and unfulfilled predictions — the author of the War Scrolldistinguished between these two categories as well. This is apparently the rea-son he took Daniel’s unfulfilled prophecy to be a reference to the backdropfor the eschaton. This shift was possible, because the political situation of hisday reminded him of the visions of Daniel.

In other words, the eschatological vision of the War Scroll is predicatedon an actualizing interpretation of Daniel’s unfulfilled prophecy. The authorrightly understood that the obscure verse from Daniel means that the evilking will die as a result of divine intervention, and it is this understandingthat guides the War Scroll’s interpretation of Isaiah 31:8: “Then Assyria shallfall by a sword, not of mortals; and a sword, not of humans, shall devourhim.” It is likely that this verse generated a Jewish apocalyptic motif that hasthe wicked enemies of Israel falling before God’s sword in the end of days. Butwhile some interpreters held that Israel will be given the sword of God anduse it in their battles, the War Scroll interpreted this motif in light of Daniel’svision. That is, the Kittim and their king will be killed by God’s sword withouthuman intervention. Then will the mighty hand of God be revealed, just as atthe time of the Exodus from Egypt, and so the ultimate redemption will belike the first.

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27. He writes: “I consider the phrases ‘the Kittim of Assyria’ and ‘the Kittim of Egypt’ theterminus post quem of the War Scroll. These are, in my opinion, references to the Ptolemies andthe Seleucids . . . ,” Otsar ha-Megilot ha-Genuzot, E. Sukenik (ed.) (Jerusalem, 1954), 31-32, n. 14.If so, Sukenik identifies the Kittim as Greeks, while Yadin sees them as Romans.

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It is fairly clear, then, how and why the Dead Sea community incorpo-rated into its eschatological and redemptive vision both the prophecy of Dan-iel and the motif of God’s sword. The motif of seven lots or rounds in theKittim war is another utopian motif added to the two just discussed. I knowof only one parallel to it, namely in the apocalypse known as the “Oracles ofHystaspes.”28 According to this account, on Passover eve at midnight, a swordwill descend from the heavens, followed by the Messiah accompanied by an-gels, and they will wage war against all the armies of the evil king. The armieswill be defeated, but the king will escape and renew the war several times untilfinally he too will be defeated in the fourth battle and taken captive. Then heand all his armies will stand in judgment before the Messiah-King for theircrimes. In this text, then, we find a preliminary victory for Israel, followed byfour additional rounds, or five in total. It stands to reason that in the “Oraclesof Hystaspes” the rounds ended alternately in victory and defeat for Israel.29According to both Hystaspes and the War Scroll, then, there will be an oddnumber of rounds (five and seven, respectively) and Israel will be victoriousin the first — thus ensuring Israel’s ultimate victory.

But we do not yet have a full picture of the eschatological vision of theWar Scroll, as the Kittim war is only the first stage in a forty-year conflict. Itappears that it will commence in the first year of the shemitah cycle, and thefirst six battles will occur in intervals of one year, up until the final divine in-tervention that will occur near the first shemitah year of the war.30 Duringthat same shemitah year all twelve tribes will apparently gather in Israel, andwith the passing of the year the tribes will establish Jerusalem as their base

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28. See the discussion in “Hystaspes and John of Patmos.”29. In the epitome of the “Oracles of Hystaspes” found in Lactantius, we are told that af-

ter the victory of the righteous “deletisque omnibus copiis impius solus effugiet . . . et victuseffugiet et bellum saepe renovabit et saepe vincetur, donec quarto proelio confectis omnibusimpiis et captus tandem scelerum suorum luat poenas.”

30. The eschatological pattern of seven-year cycles — from the end of the first shemitahyear to the beginning of the next — is not unique to the War Scroll or the Qumran texts morebroadly, as Yadin rightly indicated (see p. 37, nn. 1, 3). The sages too know of seven years of hard-ship followed by eschatological redemption. Thus, b. Sanhedrin 97a: “in the fifth great plenty,when men will eat, drink and rejoice, and the Torah will return to its disciples; in the sixth[heavenly] sounds; in the seventh, wars and at the conclusion of the seven-year cycle the son ofDavid will come.” And in b. Megillah 17b we find the following explanation for why the benedic-tion of redemption is the seventh of the eighteen benedictions: “What was their reason formentioning redemption in the seventh blessing? Raba [MSS read: Hiya bar Abba] replied: Be-cause Israel are destined to be redeemed in the seventh year, therefore the mention of redemp-tion was placed in the seventh blessing.” Thus we find that the sages too counted the seven es-chatological years from the year following the shemitah.

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and wage the war of separate divisions from it, eventually conquering the en-tire world. The War Scroll seems to be building on a sophisticated eschatolog-ical doctrine. Despite all the contemporary scholarship on this topic, and de-spite the similar phenomena in our own day, it is not easy to understand theminds of apocalyptic authors, especially with regard to their systematic con-structs — completely groundless — that they believe will come to be realized.And it is that much more difficult when it comes to certain of the Qumrantexts, such as the War Scroll: not only did they believe their fantastic planswould come to fruition, they allotted themselves a central and active role ineffecting a chain of events that they themselves fabricated. In order to con-vince his readers that these are not mere fantasies, the author of the WarScroll added to his schematic plan detailed discussions on the laws of war,tactics, liturgical rules, and more. Indeed, these make up most of the scroll. Inthis, the War Scroll is similar to the descriptions of Jerusalem in the end ofdays and to the Temple Scroll — while the purely apocalyptic elements aremarginalized. Reading the War Scroll, one cannot help but wonder if the au-thor assumed the readers’ familiarity with the broad outlines of the eschato-logical scheme, thus allowing him to touch on them only briefly, and some-times, perhaps, not at all. This style makes it difficult for today’s scholars toextract from the War Scroll a clear picture of its redemptive schema, and, asshown, some of the details remain obscure. Are we to assume that the WarScroll was based in part on an apocalyptic text from Qumran that focused ex-clusively on the events and the structure of the end of days, and that this wasthe starting point of our text? But even if we assume that the apocalypticframework predates the War Scroll, it is nonetheless clear that the author ofthe scroll enriched and reworked the material according to his taste and to hisunderstanding. In any case, the apocalyptic elements in the War Scroll consti-tute a fascinating and important link in the ongoing chain of Jewish apoca-lyptic thought. It is important to address the schematic dimension of the text— one that has nothing to do with Realpolitik — in trying to categorize theWar Scroll of Qumran.

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12. The Death of the Wicked King

Jacob Licht, in memoriam

One of Jacob Licht’s fields of expertise was, of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls.Any scholar who approaches these texts faces two main obstacles: our knowl-edge of the sect’s history is in most cases sketchy and wanting, and even thewell-preserved scrolls usually contain lacunae, to say nothing of the manyfragments that have reached us, which are notoriously difficult to decipher.The present study deals with a group of such fragments, in light of the para-mount importance of one of them.1

The fragments are of what scholars refer to as the “War Rule,” marked as4Q285. The content is very similar to the “War Scroll” (1QM); that much isclear. There is also reason to believe that the War Scroll fragments may origi-nally have been the sectarian continuation of 1QM, but that they were notpreserved in the main copy because they deal with the final stage of the war ofthe sons of light against the evil kingdom — a part not covered by the“whole” scroll. The following fragment is of particular importance:

[. . . as] the Prophet Isaiah said (10:34-11:1): “He will hack down the thick-ets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon by a majestic one will fall. A

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1. The fragments of the War Scroll were published in Ben Zion Wacholder and M. G.Abegg, A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls, Fascicle 2 (Washington, D.C.,1992), 223-227, and see also the discussion at p. xv. The relevant fragment (4Q285) is also dis-cussed in G. Vermes, “The Oxford Forum for Qumran Research Seminar of the Rule of Warfrom Cave 4 (4Q285),” JJS 43 (1992), 85-95; B. Nitzan, “Benedictions and Instructions fromQumran for the Eschatological Community (11Qber, 4Q285),” RQ 16 (1993), 77-90. I have dis-cussed the War Scroll in “Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll,” in the present volume.

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shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse [. . .] the bud of David. Andthey will judge [. . .] and the Prince of Congregation will kill him [. . .]and with wound. And the High Priest will command [. . .] the slain of theKittim. (4Q285, fragment 5)

The Jewish apocalyptic texts we will cite below show just how incorrectit is to suppose that this fragment deals with the death of the messiah. It isclear that the evil ruler will be judged and executed by the prince of the con-gregation, that is, the messiah who is born of the Davidic line. The other frag-ments shed some light on the circumstances of this trial. We learn that priorto the trial the king is brought before the prince of the congregation where hewill be judged, a procedure that follows some sort of naval war, in which theprince of the congregation plays a major role. The enemies — the Kittim ofthe War Scroll — will flee before Israel. Will the Kittim drown in the sea? Nodefinitive answer can be given, but it is nonetheless clear that there is somelink between the narrative of the War Rule and the biblical death of the Egyp-tians at the Red Sea.

If so, the identity of the judge is known, and as for the identity of theman to be judged and executed, he is most likely the king of the Kittim. Theproblem is that we know nothing of his character or his role in the eschato-logical drama. He is mentioned explicitly only once in the War Scroll (15.2),and according to my reconstruction he is mentioned a second time in theopening of the scroll (1.4), a reconstruction that is almost definite.2 Theopening of the scroll indicates that the king of the Kittim will fulfill the roleof the evil king mentioned in Daniel 11:40.3 The downfall of this king is de-scribed by Daniel as follows: “He shall pitch his palatial tents between the seaand the beautiful holy mountain. Yet he shall come to his end, with no one tohelp him” — a description sorely lacking in details. The scroll does not de-scribe the chief of the armies of evil in terms of his involvement in the fight-ing, an omission that is, to be sure, somewhat odd. However, in consideringthe overall character of the composition, we may see this omission as part andparcel of the marginalization of the purely eschatological elements. Thereader of the War Scroll cannot but wonder if its author assumes that his au-dience is familiar with the basic eschatological stages, and thus there is noneed to elaborate, or even dwell on them. Is it possible that one of the War

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2. This is the conclusion of a recently published fragment from the War Scroll (4Q496),and see DJD VII (Oxford, 1982), 58. This fragment demonstrates that I was correct in suggesting‘Israel’ at the opening of 1.5 (rather than ‘Belial’), and it follows that line 4 refers to the king ofthe Kittim.

3. See my discussion in “Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll.”

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Scroll’s sources was an apocalyptic sectarian composition that dealt solelywith the nature and order of the eschatological events, and that this was, infact, the starting point of the War Scroll?4

Whether or not this is the case, the new fragments help fill in a numberof lacunas regarding the death of this evil leader, as well as elements that shednew light on the events of the War Scroll — particularly once we read the WarRule in light of the various Jewish apocalyptic traditions.

However, before we turn to this task, we must address the sectarian au-thor’s interpretation of Isaiah 10:34–11:1. Isaiah 10:34 speaks of ‘the Lebanon,’ aterm whose typological significance in Jewish sources has been recognized byscholars.5 What of the Qumran writings? Pesher Habakkuk (11.17–12.6),6which discusses Habakkuk 2:17, cannot be directly adduced for the matter athand, since ‘Lebanon’ appears there (12.3-4) in a positive light: “Lebanon isthe Council of the Community.” On the other hand, it is clear that PesherNahum does contain a relevant passage, namely 2.1-8.7 Unfortunately, thecondition of the text will not allow any definitive conclusions. It has alreadybeen established that the Kittim in Pesher Nahum are the Romans. One partof the composition — the relevant part to our discussion — is a sectarian in-terpretation to Nahum 1:3-4, dealing with God’s will to “carry out judgmentagainst them and eliminate them from the face of the earth” (1.4-5), and thereis no doubt that the author understood the biblical phrase “the bloom of Leb-anon” in the same negative sense. Another Qumran passage (4Q161) — a sec-tarian interpretation of Isaiah 10:33-34 — may also be relevant (i.e., 3.1-13),8but here again the text is poorly preserved.9 This fragment interprets thesame verse in Isaiah that we find in the fragment of the War Rule under dis-cussion. In Pesher Isaiah (4Q161) there is a clear connection between theKittim and Lebanon: the Kittim will “be placed in the hands of Israel” (1.3);there are also references to “the soldiers of the Kittim” and “the war of theKittim.” Of particular significance is the statement that “‘and Lebanon by a

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The Death of the Wicked King

4. See the discussion in my “Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll.”5. See G. Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (Leiden, 1973), 26-39; W. Backer, Die

Agada der Tannaiten (Strasbourg, 1903), 1.23, and n. 2; Vermes, “The Oxford Forum,” 89, 92-93;Nitzan, “Benedictions and Instructions,” 43, n. 44.

6. See Nitzan, The Pesher Habakkuk Scroll (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1986), 194-195.7. See the discussion in Horgan, Pesharim, 46, 168-170; J. Strugnell, “Notes en marge du

volume V,” RQ 26 (1970), 204-207.8. The text appears in Horgan, Pesharim, 17-18, and is discussed at 82-85.9. J. D. Amusin, “The Reflections of Historical Events,” HUCA 48 (1977), 124-134, suggests

that when this pesher speaks of the Valley of Acre (at 2.27, interpreting Isaiah 10:32), it alludes tothe invasion of Ptolemy Lathyrus.

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majestic one will fall,’ they are the commanders of the Kittim, who will beplaced in the hand of great ones . . .” (3.7-8), though the rest of the pesher toIsaiah 10:33 did not survive. The orthographic conventions of the scrolls allowfor a reading of the last Hebrew word as wylwdg, ‘great ones’; however, the sin-gular form, wlwdg, ‘a great one,’ precisely glosses the words of the prophet:“and Lebanon by a majestic one will fall.” Here the majestic one is the shootof David, the Messiah. As we will see, the War Rule interprets Isaiah 10:34–11:1to similar effect.

Like Pesher Isaiah (4Q161), the War Rule (4Q285) discusses the end ofIsaiah 10 and the opening verse of 11, interpreting messianic prophecy of thelatter as a continuation of chapter 10. Thus, if Isaiah 10:34 states that “the Leb-anon by a majestic one will fall,” the prophet’s words indicate that the princeof the congregation, the shoot of David, will kill the wicked one, who is un-doubtedly the king of the Kittim.10 First, the prince of the congregation par-ticipates (as a general?) in the naval battle, at the end of which the enemies“will flee from Israel.” The wicked one, however, is caught and “they shallbring him before the Prince of the Congregation” (4Q285, fragment 4), wherehe is judged and executed. The Pesher Isaiah fragment too refers to thewicked king’s “. . . flight before Israel” (4Q161 3.9), and this may be a referenceto the flight of the king of the Kittim. The fragments of the War Rule are fewand do not provide a clear picture of the naval battle,11 nor of the executionof the king’s death sentence. It is possible, however, that two other apocalyptictexts do provide additional details concerning the end of the ultimate waragainst the armies of evil.

Did the remnants of the War Rule once belong to the end of the WarScroll, now lost, or perhaps they originate in another composition that coversthe same material? Though no definitive answer is possible at this time, it isundoubtedly significant that not one of the details discussed in the War Scrollconflicts in any way with the views expressed in the fragmentary remains ofthe War Rule. I once suggested, in light of Daniel 11:45, that the evil king willultimately be killed with his armies: “Assyria shall fall and there shall be nohelp for it” (1QM 1.6).12 True, it would be reasonable to assume that the kingof the Kittim would also be killed on this occasion, but that part of the narra-tive was lost, along with all the concluding section of the War Scroll.13 Ac-cording to 1QM, the enemies of Israel will be completely annihilated, appar-

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10. Incidentally, we find here the same negative sense of ‘Lebanon’ — the wicked fromamong the gentiles — that we find elsewhere.

11. Who is the subject of 4Q285 (fragment 4), “they shall return to dry land”?12. See “Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll.”13. See Yadin, The War Scroll, 13.

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ently based on Daniel 11:45, which tells the following of the evil king: “Heshall pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain.Yet he shall come to his end, with no one to help him.” How exactly all this isto come about, however, remains unclear. The War Scroll states: “From of oldyou foretold us the appointed time of the power of your hand against theKittim, saying ‘Then Assyria shall fall by a sword, not of mortals’” (11.11-12).Apparently the author held that this prophecy will come to fruition in itsmost literal sense, i.e., that the enemy will come to a supernatural end byGod’s sword, though even here we are lacking information on the death of theking of the Kittim.

There is no doubt that the description of Israel’s enemies coming to anunnatural end was influenced by the story of Sennacherib’s army’s defeat,14

though it should be noted that here too Sennacherib himself survives. Thepublication of the War Rule fragments suggests that the ultimate destructionof the armies of the Kittim may also be related to the drowning of the Egyp-tians in the Red Sea.15 When the armies of the Kittim are destroyed, then thewords of Scripture will be fulfilled: “Israel saw the great work that the Lorddid against the Egyptians” (Ex. 14:31), and the final redemption will be likeunto the first. All this will happen in the seventh round of battles, “And in theseventh lot, God’s great hand will subdue Belial and all the angels of his do-minion and all the men of his lot” (1QM 1.14) by supernatural means. It isduring the seventh lot, that “the mighty hand of God is raised against Belialand against all the army of his dominion for an everlasting blow . . . the sonsof Japhet shall fall without rising; the Kittim shall be crushed without [re-main] . . . when the hand of the God of Israel is raised against the whole hordeof Belial” (1QM 18.1-3). The newly published fragments clarify that the allu-sion to Exodus 14 is no literary flourish. The War Scroll states that the seventhround of battle will see Israel chasing after the Kittim, but the sons of lightwill have to give up the chase “when the sun travels toward its setting on thatday” (18.5). Instead, they will return to their camp, “on that night to rest untilthe morning. And in the morning they shall go out to the place of the line”where they will see God’s miraculous intervention, as “the heroes of theKittim, the horde of Assyria and the army of all the peoples that had gatheredtogether, (to see) whether the slain . . . had fallen there by God’s sword” (1QM19.9-11).16 How, then, will the words of Exodus 14 be fulfilled — “Israel saw

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14. See Yadin, The War Scroll, 25. The miracle of Sennacherib’s defeat is also mentioned in1 Macc. 7.41; 2 Macc. 8.19; 15.22; 3 Macc. 6.5.

15. As I noted in “Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll.”16. See my “Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll.”

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the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great work that the Lorddid against the Egyptians” (Ex. 14:30-31)? Now it becomes clear that in the fi-nal redemption as well the sea plays an important role (though of course notthe Red Sea).17 The dearth of texts on this matter makes it impossible to de-termine whether the “naval” stage occurs before or after the death of theKittim by God’s sword, or perhaps it is one and the same, and Israel will againsee their enemies “dead on the seashore.” In any event, the Prince of the Con-gregation, the Messiah from the lineage of David, plays a decisive role here: hewill come “as far as the great sea”; then the enemy forces “will flee from Israel”(fragment 4).18 In all probability the next statement, “they shall return to dryland,” refers to Israel. Then the fleeing wicked king will be seized and “theyshall bring him before the Prince of the Congregation.” He will be judged“and the Prince of the Congregation will kill him.” The fact that the king es-capes the wrathful events does not detract from the parallel with Egypt, asthere are those that hold that Pharaoh did not die in the Red Sea.19

The discussion thus far suggests that the few extant fragments from theWar Rule continue the narrative of the War Scroll, recounting the events ofthe part of 1QM that did not survive. The details of these events remain un-clear, but we can reconstruct them to a certain extent using two other Jewishapocalyptic works that have preserved the same tradition concerning the es-chatological end of the wicked king. The first is the (Syriac) Apocalypse ofBaruch.20 It is possible that one of the roots of the apocalyptic tradition pre-served in this text reaches back to an interpretation of Isaiah 10:34, in which“Lebanon by a majestic one will fall” is understood as a reference to the vic-tory of Israel’s messiah over the wicked king.21 Chapter 36 recounts the visionof the forest, which is said to be swept away by a fountain (which is identified

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17. To what extent is all this connected to 4Q161 (2.23): “from the plain of Akko”? See thediscussion in Amusin, “The Reflection of Historical Events.”

18. Perhaps Pesher Isaiah (4Q161) refers to this: “in his flight before Israel” (3.9).19. See also the Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael (Horovitz-Rabin ed., 111 and the note to line

13); Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1946), 2.29-30, and 6.10, n. 54.20. See “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” translated by A. F. J. Klijn, in The Old Testa-

ment Pseudepigrapha, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (New York, 1983), 1.615-652.21. On this tradition, which predates the Apocalypse of Baruch, and on the connection

between the Lebanon and the wicked from among the gentiles, see P. Bogart, Apocalypse deBaruch (Paris, 1969), 1.84-86. The apocalypse ties the symbolic spring in the forest vision (36.3-5) with the kingdom of the messiah, an interpretive move found also in the apocryphal Apoca-lypse of Mordechai (in the opening of the Greek translation of Esther). I have already noted thatthe Apocalypse of Mordechai may have originally appeared as the opening of the Oracles ofHystaspes. See D. Flusser, “Hystaspes and John of Patmos,” Judaism and the Origins of Christian-ity, 394-396.

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as the messianic kingdom in 39.7), with only one cedar remaining. But ulti-mately this cedar too will be consumed by fire. Chapter 40 explores the sym-bolic meaning of this cedar, which is as follows:

The last ruler who is left alive at that time will be bound, whereas the en-tire host will be destroyed. And they will carry him on Mount Zion, andmy Anointed One will convict him of all his wicked deeds, and will as-semble and set before him all the works of his hosts. And after thesethings he will kill him.

It is clear that the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch preserves the same storyas we find in the small fragments of the War Rule: following the destructionof his armies in the end of days, the wicked king manages to escape, but is ul-timately brought before the messiah of Israel, who tries him and sentenceshim to death.

Before turning to the second apocalyptic source, another examinationof the War Scroll’s description may be in order. As noted,22 in the final roundof the Kittim war, they come to a supernatural end: “Then Assyria shall fall bya sword, not of mortals.” The armies of the sons of light witness God’s mirac-ulous intervention: “the heroes of the Kittim, the horde of Assyria and thearmy of all the peoples that had gathered together, (to see) whether the slain. . . had fallen there by God’s sword” (1QM 19.9-11). The special orthographyof ‘God’s sword’ — written as a single Hebrew word, labrj — suggests weare dealing with a mythological object.23 According to the War Scroll, God’ssword will act on its own; in Jewish apocalyptic sources outside of Qumran,the sword is wielded by Israel. 1 Enoch, which was written in the days of JudahMaccabee, teaches that in the end of days Israel will be given a great sword,which they will use in their battles against the nations; the sword will then bereturned to the Temple (1 Enoch 90.34). The third book of the Sibylline Ora-cles (781-782) tells that the prophets will be entrusted with the sword wheneternal peace reigns. Of particular importance is the account in the Oracles ofHystaspes,24 which discusses the sword within a context that is much closer tothe narrative in the War Rule than is the Apocalypse of Baruch.

The Oracles of Hystaspes is a Jewish apocalyptic work whose hero is,supposedly, a prominent figure in the Persian religious tradition. It wascomposed prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, at some point after

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22. See my discussion in “Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll.”23. The War Scroll also mentions God’s sword at 15.2-3, while Hodayot 14.29 reads: “Then

the sword of God will pounce in the era of judgment.”24. See my discussion in “Hystaspes and John of Patmos,” 390-453.

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the establishment of the Maccabean dynasty, as the influence of the Book ofDaniel is apparent. In his Divinae Institutiones, the church father Lactantiusprovides a detailed analysis of the oracles of Hystaspes (Book VII, from theend of chapter 15 through chapter 19).25 Here we find a description of asword descending from heaven at midnight on Passover eve. This serves toannounce to the righteous, that is, Israel, that the messiah is soon to arriveand lead the holy armies — descending accompanied by angels and beforehim a flaming sword. Lactantius’ survey does not fully clarify what role thesword will play in destroying the armies of wickedness. It is clear, however,that just like the War Rule (and 2 Baruch 40.1), Hystaspes prophesies that thewicked king will survive the destruction of his armies, but will lose all hispower.26 According to all three sources, he will be captured and brought be-fore the messiah, who will “convict him of his wicked deeds . . . and killhim.”27 Both the Oracles of Hystaspes and 2 Baruch describe the messiah’srebuke of the imprisoned king, an element that is not found in the extantfragments of the Qumran War Rule. And none of the sources speak of themanner in which the king is executed. Lactantius’ Epitome, however, statesthat the wicked king will be burned along with his fellow criminals, thoughthis may be the product of the author’s imagination.28 It is also possible thatthe Epitome is influenced by the Apocalypse of John 19:19-21.29 I have shownelsewhere that one of the sources of the Apocalypse of John is the Oracles ofHystaspes.30 In that study, I assumed that the author of the Apocalypse ofJohn received the figure of the false prophet from the Jewish text. But nowwe find that according to the Apocalypse of John, the kings of the land andtheir armies gather to fight against the messiah and his army, but “the beastwas captured, and with it the false prophet . . . [and] these two were thrownalive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. And the rest were killed . . .”

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25. The passage that bears directly on our discussion is at VII 19.2-8; and 67.1-2, in theEpitome. See also “Hystaspes and John of Patmos,” 430-433.

26. Deletisque omnibus copiis inpius solus effugiet et peribit ab eo virtus sua(Lactantius, VII, 18.5).

27. 2 Baruch 40.1-2, and compare also his dream at 36.7-11. See also Lactantius VII, 18.5:“sed et ceteri principes ac tyranni, qui contriverunt orbem, simul cum eo vincti adducentur adregem, et increpabit eos et coarguet et exprobrabit iis facinora ipsorum et damnabit eos acmeritis cruciatibus tradet.” Compare also 4 Ezra 13.37-38.

28. Epitome, 67.1.29. Unlike the Institutiones, Lactantius’ Epitome was composed at a later period and is

influenced by the Apocalypse of John. 2 Baruch (chapter 37) dreams that the cedar — whichsymbolizes the wicked king — is consumed by fire; however this may not be significant since itis only natural for a tree that comes to a bad end to be burned.

30. See “Hystaspes and John of Patmos.”

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(Rev 19:19-21). If this is another reflection of the Oracles of Hystaspes, itwould provide additional support to the notion that these oracles describedthe wicked king’s execution by fire.

More important still is the fact that the Qumran writings, 2 Baruch, andthe Oracles of Hystaspes all recount that the armies of the wicked king will bedestroyed and only then will he be captured, brought before the messiah-king, tried and executed. It is unclear what verses (or other considerations)contributed to the formation of this ancient apocalyptic tradition. Anotherstriking similarity is the appearance of God’s sword in both the Qumran WarScroll and the Oracles of Hystaspes — albeit in a different sense.

Another striking affinity between the War Scroll and the Oracles ofHystaspes involves the order of events.31 The oracles teach that, following thedestruction of his armies, the wicked king will escape and renew the war. Af-ter several rounds of fighting, he will be decisively defeated in the fourth bat-tle. Then all the wicked will be annihilated, and the wicked king himself fallcaptive and be executed by the messiah. Hystaspes’ order of events is notidentical with that of the War Scroll, but it is so similar that we can use the de-tailed account of the latter to understand the details of Hystaspes. The Ora-cles of Hystaspes tell of Israel’s first great victory, followed by four additionalrounds, for a total of five rounds of battle. It appears that on Hystaspes’ ac-count, these will involve intermittent defeats and victories for Israel. A similarpicture emerges from the War Scroll, though here we find seven rounds, notfive, and they are called ‘lots’: “And on the day of their war against the Kittim. . . the sons of light will be the strongest during three lots, in order to strikedown wickedness; and in three (others), the army of Belial will gird them-selves in order to force the lot of light to retreat. There will be infantry battal-ions to melt the heart, but God’s might will strengthen the heart of the sons oflight. And in the seventh lot, God’s great hand will subdue . . .” (1QM 1.12-14).Both apocalypses, then, have Israel victorious in the first battle and the num-ber of total rounds is odd — a fact that guarantees Israel’s ultimate victory. Itappears that the War Scroll locates the sequence of the wicked king’s escape,capture, and execution, following the final victory, while Hystaspes (accord-ing to Lactantius) has the king escaping after the first defeat, but being cap-tured and executed only after his final defeat.

We find, then, that despite differences in detail, we are dealing with asingle apocalyptic tradition involving the death of the wicked king, shared by

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31. I have discussed this issue in “Hystaspes and John of Patmos,” 446, 450-451. The rele-vant passage from Hystaspes is found in Lactantius, Divinae Institutiones VII 19.6-7, and Epit-ome 67.1-2.

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the War Scroll, 2 Baruch, and the Oracles of Hystaspes. The relevant motifsmay be summarized in the following chart:

Baruch Hystaspes QumranGod’s Sword32 — X XRounds of War — X XDestruction of the Wicked King X X XFlight of the Wicked King X X XBrought Before the Messiah X X XMessiah Prosecutes King X X Not ExtantExecution of Wicked King X X X

The striking resemblance between our three sources leads to the conclusionthat this is a distinct apocalyptic tradition that has been largely forgotten. Atthe same time, it should be noted that 2 Baruch does not include God’s sword,and that the sword plays a different role in Hystaspes and the War Scroll — thelatter describing the ultimate defeat of the armies of evil as an act of divine in-tervention, much like the destruction of the army of Sennacherib or the Egyp-tians at the Red Sea. It is also apparent that the Qumran account is closer to theOracles of Hystaspes than to 2 Baruch. Now, in principle one might supposethat the Qumran texts were influenced by the Oracles of Hystaspes, but thereare substantive differences between the two, and so it is more likely that we aredealing with a common source, one that also gave rise to the description in2 Baruch. An additional conclusion is that the fragments of the War Rule pre-serve the continuation of the War Scroll, not a parallel account.

The poor condition of many of the Qumran scrolls has forced us totravel a difficult and circuitous route to our destination, and even so many ofthe details surrounding the eschatological death of the wicked king — theAntichrist in Christian traditions33 — remain obscure. In reconstructing theapocalyptic narrative we have been greatly aided by two ancient Jewish works:the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Oracles of Hystaspes. Like the WarScroll from Qumran, both these texts present visions of eschatological re-demption, and employ the same Jewish apocalyptic tradition as we find in the

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32. The Apocalypse of John says of the messiah that “from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword” (Rev. 1:16), but this is not relevant to our discussion.

33. On a Qumran fragment dealing with the Antichrist see my “The Hubris of theAntichrist in a Fragment from Qumran,” Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 207-213. Thefragment has been published in E. Puech, “Fragment d’une apocalypse en Araméen (4Q246 =pseudo Dand),” RB 99 (1992), 48-131. Puech is of the opinion that the fragment deals with thewicked king.

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War Rule in describing the downfall of the wicked king. The present study,then, has yielded two results: we have gained new insights into the structureof the Qumran War Scroll, and uncovered a neglected chapter in the eschato-logical teachings of Second Temple Judaism.

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13. A Comment on a Prayer for theWelfare of King Jonathan

A Qumran fragment, 4Q448, has recently been published and discussed inTarbiz.1 The fragment contains at least two distinct literary genres. The topsection records remnants from the apocryphal Psalm 154, while the bottomcontains a prayer for the welfare of King Jonathan, a clear reference to Alex-ander Jannaeus.2 The following are merely preliminary remarks, meant tosupplement this important and fascinating publication. My comments arelimited to the prayer for the welfare of King Jonathan.

The remains of the prayer are preserved on columns 2 and 3 of the frag-ment. Column 2 is fully preserved, and though column 3 is incomplete, itclearly continues the prayer as Jonathan is mentioned on line 8. Here is theentire text of column 2:

Arise, Holy One on behalf of King Jonathan, and the whole assembly ofyour people, Israel, who are in the four winds of heaven. May they all havepeace. And on behalf of your kingdom3 may your name be blessed.

As noted, there is no question that the King Jonathan in question is Al-exander Jannaeus, who ruled over Israel from 103 to 76 b.c.e. A prayer for the

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1. E. Eshel, H. Eshel, and Ada Yardeni, “A Qumran Composition Containing Part of Ps.154 and a Prayer for the Welfare of King Jonathan and his Kingdom,” Tarbiz 60 (1991), 295-324.

2. On Alexander Jannaeus see M. Stern, “Judea and Its Neighbors in the Days of Alexan-der Jannaeus,” in M. Stern et al. (eds.), Studies in Jewish History: The Second Temple Period (Jeru-salem, 1991) (Hebrew); E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ (Edin-burgh, 1973), 1.219-228.

3. On the Hebrew word for ‘kingdom,’ hclmm, see below, n. 14.

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welfare of this king would not have sat well with the Qumran community,though it was preserved on a scroll from its library.4 However, I think thiscontradiction may not be as great as it first appears. Today too one can find invarious sectarian libraries books that are quite removed from the strict dog-matism of their adherents. Moreover, the fragmentary remains of the scrolldo not correspond to the orthography and the language that characterize thedistinctly sectarian compositions, so it may not have been copied by aQumran scribe. This is a distinct possibility, as the Qumran Psalms scrollcontains non-sectarian apocryphal psalms, including Psalm 154, parts ofwhich are extant in our scroll.5 It appears, then, that hymnal poetry after thefashion of the Psalms was dear to the Qumran community, and this may bethe reason the scroll was deposited in the Qumran library. It is possible thatthe librarian or scribe did not even note that the hero of the prayer — KingJonathan — was detested by the sect.

When was the prayer for the well-being of King Jonathan — that is, Al-exander Jannaeus — composed? One suitable opportunity was the year 80b.c.e.6 That was the year that Alexander Jannaeus returned home, after anuninterrupted series of victories and accomplishments.7 After three years ofmilitary campaigns, Alexander Jannaeus returned home and received an en-thusiastic welcome from his people.8 It may be that this event is reflected in

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A Comment on a Prayer for the Welfare of King Jonathan

4. The scroll in question does not deal with the question of whether the wicked priestdiscussed in the Qumran literature is, in fact, Alexander Jannaeus. Irrespective, the Qumraniteswere quite hostile toward this king, just as they were toward the ‘last priests of Jerusalem’ in-cluding Alexander Jannaeus, who is referred to in Pesher Nahum as the “lion of wrath,” a titlethat bespeaks the sect’s very negative view of the ruler. For a more detailed discussion seeFlusser, “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum,” in the present volume, and Stern,“Judea and Its Neighbors in the Days of Alexander Jannaeus,” 147 and n. 97. On the keen politi-cal vision of the Qumran community see Flusser, “The Roman Empire in Hasmonean andEssene Eyes,” in the present volume.

5. See J. Sanders (ed.), The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (Oxford, 1965). A discussionof Psalm 154 is found on pp. 64-70.

6. On this year see Schürer, A History of the Jewish People, 226 and n. 25, as well as thecomments of R. Marcus, Josephus (Cambridge, Mass., 1943), 7.425.

7. See Stern, “Judea and Its Neighbors in the Days of Alexander Jannaeus,” 149.8. Josephus, BJ 1.105; AJ 13.394. Sefer Josippon, a medieval Jewish work based on Josephus,

describes the event as follows: “Then [Alexander Jannaeus] came and settled in Jerusalem afterthree years of war, and the Jews received him with great honor and honored him greatly, andthey praised him for his bravery, as was the custom of the Greeks” (Sefer Josippon, edited byD. Flusser [Jerusalem, 1979], 1.136). S. Safrai has called my attention to the following from theBabylonian Talmud: “It happened that King Yannai went to Nahlit, in the desert, where he con-quered sixty cities. When he returned he was in good cheer and he gathered all the sages of Is-rael . . .” (Kiddushin 66b). See also Schürer, A History of the Jewish People, 213-214, and n. 30, as

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the prayer for the well-being of the king discovered in the Qumran library, orperhaps that this was the occasion of its composition.

This would not be the first time that the Jewish people’s sympathy for theheroic king would overcome its antipathy for the same cruel king. Thus, e.g., incirca 88 b.c.e.,9 after Alexander Jannaeus suffered a crushing defeat at thehands of Demetrius III of Syria, six thousand Jewish soldiers abandoned theSyrian army and enlisted with Jannaeus’ forces, having taken pity on their de-feated king. The prayer for the well-being of King Jonathan was obviouslycomposed during his lifetime. Later, when the king lay on his deathbed,Jannaeus convinced his wife to reconcile with the Pharisees.10 And, indeed, alavish funeral was held during which the Pharisees praised the deeds of the lateking to the Jewish masses, claiming that Israel had lost a righteous king, thuscausing the people to mourn his death. If so, despite the heavy shadow hang-ing over the biography of this king, Alexander Jannaeus did occasionally elicitsympathy in the hearts of his subjects. Thus, the most fitting date for the com-position of the prayer for the well-being of King Jonathan is, as noted, 80 b.c.e.

There is no question that the prayer for King Jonathan is not only fasci-nating in its own right, it meaningfully contributes to our understanding ofthe history of Jewish thought during the Hasmonean period. Referring to theJewish people as a whole, the prayer speaks of “the whole assembly of yourpeople, Israel, who are in the four winds of heaven.” The phrase “four windsof heaven” occurs in Zechariah 2:6 and Ezekiel 37:9 (“from the four winds”).Another relevant source for the present discussion is the early Christian work,Didache, composed circa 100 c.e.11 There (10.5) we find the very same lan-guage inserted into the Christian grace after meals: “Remember, Lord, yourcommunity . . . and gather it from the four winds, into the kingdom that youhave prepared for it.” Here the Jewish hope for the ingathering of exiles hasbeen transferred to the young Christian community (see also Didache 9.4).12

The same hope for complete Christian redemption finds its expression in the

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well as 223, n. 16. But even if we assume that the story deals with Alexander Jannaeus rather thanJohn Hyrcanus, the Talmudic tale seeks to explain the rift between the king and the Pharisees,while the enthusiastic welcome of Jannaeus which Josephus reports occurred long after the hos-tilities began between Jannaeus and the Pharisees.

9. See Schürer, A History of the Jewish People, 224; Stern, “Judea and Its Neighbors in theDays of Alexander Jannaeus,” 147 and n. 97.

10. See Josephus, AJ 13.399-406; B. Sotah, 22b.11. On the Didache see my “Which Is the Right Way That a Man Should Choose for Him-

self?” Tarbiz 60 (1991), 163-178, and the bibliography cited at p. 163, n. 1.12. On the concept of the ingathering of exiles and its function in the early church see

Flusser, “A New Testament Prophecy Concerning the Liberation of Jerusalem” (Hebrew), EretzIsrael 10 (Zalman Shazar volume) (Jerusalem, 1971), 263-268.

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Gospel of Mark (13:27), which states: “Then he will send out the angels, andgather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends ofheaven” (and see also Matt. 24:31).

The prayer for the well-being of King Jonathan refers to the hope of aningathering of exiles only obliquely. The prayer speaks of Jerusalem, the HolyCity, on the one hand, and of the Jewish people as a whole — “the whole as-sembly of your people, Israel, who are in the four winds of heaven” — on theother. There is a linkage between Jerusalem and the Jewish diaspora already inthe epistle of Judah Maccabee, written shortly before the dedication of theTemple (2 Macc 1.1-2, 18), and preserved in 2 Maccabees,13 which was writtenby “the people in Jerusalem and in Judaea and the Council of the Elders andJudah” and sent to “the Jews in Egypt” (2 Macc. 1.10). The epistle seeks to in-clude the Egyptian Jews in the celebration of Judah Maccabee’s dedication ofthe Temple. He addresses them as follows:

We write you inasmuch as we are about to celebrate the Purification.Please celebrate the days. God has saved His entire people and restoredthe heritage to us all, and also the kingdom14 and the priesthood and thesanctification, as He promised in the Torah. For we hope in God, that Hewill speedily have mercy on us and gather us together from the lands un-der the heavens to His holy Place, for He has indeed delivered us fromgreat evils and has purified His Place. (2 Macc 2.16-18)

This is not the place to discuss all the important aspects of JudahMaccabee’s address, but it is worth noting that he asks the Jews of Egypt toparticipate in the celebration because he saw the purification of the Temple asa historic event for all Israel, throughout the Jewish diaspora: “God has savedHis entire people and restored the heritage to us all.” The salvation was notconfined to Jerusalem or the Land of Israel, but a salvation of the entire peo-ple, including those living in the diaspora, e.g., in Egypt. The lot heritage ofGod belongs to the Jewish people as a whole, wherever they may be, and inthe future God will “gather us together from the lands under the heavens toHis holy Place.”

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A Comment on a Prayer for the Welfare of King Jonathan

13. On the epistle of Judah Maccabee, see D. Flusser, “Jerusalem in Second Temple Litera-ture,” 277-280. A more detailed discussion is found in my article “The Dead of Masada in TheirEyes and in the Eyes of Their Contemporaries” (Hebrew) in A. Oppenheimer, I. Gafni, andM. Stern (eds.), Jews and Judaism in the Days of the Second Temple, the Mishnah, and the Talmud(S. Safrai Festschrift) (Jerusalem, 1995), 130-134.

14. The Greek reads bas¾leion, which is used in the sense of ‘kingdom’ three times in theSeptuagint. More importantly, the Hebrew hclmm, ‘kingdom,’ appears twice in the fragmentaryremnants of the benediction for the welfare of King Jonathan (2.8 and 3.6).

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The prayer for the well-being of King Jonathan indicates that the sameideological orientation found in the epistle of Judah Maccabee remained cur-rent in the days of Alexander Jannaeus, at least in the circles closest to theHasmonean family. The prayer expresses not only the Maccabean ideology ofinclusive Jewish nationhood,15 but (in keeping with the spirit of JudahMaccabee’s epistle) mentions both Jerusalem as God’s “holy Place” and thediaspora, “the whole assembly of your people, Israel, who are in the fourwinds of heaven” (though without mentioning the ingathering of exiles). Tothe best of my knowledge, there is no other ancient prayer that mentions theJewish diaspora in such a simple and self-evident way. This is no coincidence.Following the establishment of the Maccabean dynasty, the ties between Is-rael and the diaspora were strengthened, thus fortifying the sense of Jewishnational identity both in Israel and outside it.

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15. See the phrase “And on behalf of your kingdom may your name be blessed.” Thus, thekingdom of the king of Israel is also the kingdom of God! This duality is typical of the Judaismof the day and appears also in the words of Judah Maccabee from 2 Maccabees cited above. Ju-dah states that “we are about to celebrate the Purification” but a few verses on we find that God“has purified His place.”

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14. The Roman Empire in Hasmoneanand Essene Eyes

To Yigael YadinRemota itaque iustitia quidSunt regna nisi magnaLatrocinia? (Augustine, Civitas Dei 4.4)

I

The scholar of literature and art has the right, even the obligation, to judgethe artistic merits of the works he discusses. The historian too is obliged tojudge and evaluate, albeit in a different fashion. He must judge the moralquality of his written sources, and of the historical processes he encounters inhis work. At the same time, his judgment must remain objective. If he fails toabide by both demands, he will not be a full-fledged historian. As a result, thematerial that he delves from the past will be a dead aggregate of facts, failingto demonstrate even the objective facts he wishes to uncover. But before thehistorian proceeds with an axiological analysis of the trends and forces atwork in human history, he must first understand those groups with whomempathy is difficult — be it in terms of their moral standing, the internallogic that guides them, or their ultimate utility. Such an understanding isprior to any evaluation, and must consider the circumstances of that histori-cal era. After all, while those who thought as they thought and acted as theyacted considered — whether rightly or wrongly — the circumstances of theirday, they could not know the future with any certainty, and so could not fore-see the shifting historical and political landscape, and the ultimate outcomeof their actions and ideologies — for better or for worse. The historian whoseeks to draw conclusions from his work, must, then, provide a human-axiological assessment, while tracing the results of thoughts and actions inhuman history. This is not the place to discuss the practical use of good andevil in the life of the individual and of humanity; there are, of course, differ-

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ent views regarding this question. That said, there are undoubtedly manycases, both for individuals and throughout human history, where the absenceof moral considerations, along with an inability to foresee future events, hasbeen detrimental. The following study represents, I believe, an outstandingexample of this phenomenon, drawn from Jewish history.

II

This is not the place to discuss the amazing historical phenomenon usuallyreferred to by the general term ‘imperialism.’ This phenomenon has alwayshad two aspects in all its historical manifestations: the relationship betweenthe good and the monstrous in an empire that spans continents, dependsboth on the nature of the imperial idea and on its realization. There are hugeempires of cruel conquest, while other empires play a positive role. Still, eventhe empires of the most enlightened cosmocrats contain frightening ele-ments, particularly for those who are subject to their might.

The Roman empire was the first to develop a positive ideology that seeksto explain — with a fair degree of truth — its important role in uniting theworld under its rule, in terms of civilization, security, and peace. That said,there was also a negative aspect to the empire, and from the time of its imperialexpansion on, there were those who hated it very much — both among the na-tions that it fought, and those who suffered under its yoke. Throughout its ex-istence, the Roman empire faced unceasing wars and rebellions against its ex-pansion. The battle raged not only on the battlefield, but in the ideologicalarena as well. Against the pax Romana ideology of the empire was the anti-imperialist ideology — and both camps had a basis for their claims.1

The earliest testimonies of an anti-Roman ideology appear in the begin-ning of the second century b.c.e., when the Seleucid king, Antiochus III — thefather of Antiochus Epiphanes and host to Rome’s great enemy, Hannibal —was defeated by Rome. In those days Rome faced east, but the move toward di-rect rule over the eastern Mediterranean was complicated, and did not come tofruition until many years later. The difficulty was not only one of amassing thenecessary military strength, but also because in the early stages of the expan-sion east, the Roman empire did not have a clear goal, a clear purpose. Its lead-ers, like the ruling classes, entertained various and sometime contradictorynotions as to the political goals of the eastern expansion. There was even somehesitation with regard to Greece, eliminated only when Greece as a whole

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1. See H. Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom (Berlin, 1960).

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came under Roman rule. Early on, the Romans sought local allies in Asia (andEgypt), including the Hasmonean dynasty. With time, however, they becamemore involved in the east and a growing number of eastern regions becameRoman provinces. The Roman conquest of the east proceeded at a dramati-cally more rapid pace after Pompey’s victory over Mithridates, the king ofPontus. This victory marked, inter alia, the end of the Seleucid kingdom. Thisperiod, 63 b.c.e., marks the beginning of a heavy-handed Roman interventioninto Jewish affairs, as Jerusalem was conquered by Pompey. However, even af-ter these conquests, the Romans focused on the Parthian danger, and allowedmany of the vassal kingdoms to stand — most important of which for thepresent discussion was Herod’s kingdom. Apparently the Romans saw the ex-istence of these kingdoms, dependent as they were on Rome’s good will, as abuffer zone of sorts. However, over the course of the first century c.e., thesekingdoms too became Roman provinces, a process that met with almost no ac-tive resistance on the part of the eastern population. The notable exceptionwas the Jews, who maintained the memory of the independent Hasmoneandynasty, and whose Torah taught them to love freedom and hate the yoke offoreign rule. It is no coincidence that the Jewish resistance to Rome emerged astheir land was becoming part of the Roman empire.

III

Ties between Israel and Rome were established during the reign of JudahMaccabee, who initiated the contact.2 However, Rome’s rapacious and aggres-sive plans were known decades prior to that, during the reign of Antiochus theGreat (III), and many an eastern heart yearned for vengeance against Rome, afeeling that found its expression in an ideology of hatred. Despite this, and de-spite the fact that Judah Maccabee was apparently aware of the dark andthreatening side of Roman power,3 he did not consider this reason enough toforego the opportunity to establish ties with Rome. In those days, Rome hadnot yet conquered the east — indeed, Israel was out of their reach and Rome

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The Roman Empire in Hasmonean and Essene Eyes

2. The documents pertaining to the Hasmonean-Roman ties have been collected inM. Stern, Documents on the History of the Hasmonean Revolt (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv, 1965), whichincludes introductions and commentary.

3. On which, see E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums (Stuttgart, 1921),2.236-241 (anti-Roman sedition in Asia up to the rise of Judah Maccabee), 246-247 (the contactbetween Judah and Rome). On the political ties between Judah and the Romans see also Stern,Documents on the History of the Hasmonean Revolt, 74-83; Schürer, A History of the Jewish People,1.171-173.

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was willing to play the role of a distant ally against the Hellenistic states. Thesituation was largely the same in the days of John Hyrcanus, during whosereign 1 Maccabees was composed, though the shadows cast by Rome hadgrown darker. Already in 145 b.c.e., well before the days of John Hyrcanus, theRoman army utterly razed Corinth. Three years prior, the Roman province ofMacedonia was established, and Roman customs officials diluted the indige-nous population of Bithynia in Asia Minor, though it remained outside Ro-man direct rule. In 129 b.c.e., during the reign of John Hyrcanus, the Romansestablished a province, ‘Asia,’ heir to Pergamum, annexed the region of Caria,and included all of western Asia Minor and the adjoining isles. However, twoevents occurred following John Hyrcanus’ reign that fortified Rome’s power inthe region: first, the war against Mithridates of Pontus resulted in Pompey’sconquest of Jerusalem, and then, in the first century c.e., the Asian vassal king-doms lost their questionable independence. It was this step that led to the zeal-ots’ revolts and to the great rebellion against Rome.

Judah Maccabee was not the only one to forge ties with the Romans; hisHasmonean successors maintained these ties and, indeed, fortified them.4What was the Jewish populace’s view of these diplomatic ties before JohnHyrcanus? One possible indication is the ‘declaration of independence’ fromthe time of Simon, John Hyrcanus’ father, found in 1 Maccabees (14.38-40).There we find the following in praise of Simon: “King Demetrius in view ofall this has confirmed him as high priest and admitted him to the ranks of hisFriends and conferred great distinction upon him; indeed, he heard that theRomans had given the Jews the title ‘Friends and Allies’ and that they hadtreated Simon’s ambassadors with honor.” There is no question thatDemetrius II’s treatment of the Jews was influenced by the renewal of theirfriendship with the Romans, and by the activity of the Jewish embassy inRome. The relations with Rome are, then, noted in the ‘declaration of inde-pendence’ within the context of Demetrius’ positive attitude toward the headof the Jewish state. In other words, Simon’s ties with Rome are presented inthis document as a critical step on the road to Israel’s political independence.

Judah Maccabee strove for political independence from the outset. Thisapproach finds expression in the epistle5 — preserved in the opening chap-ters of 2 Maccabees — that he sent to the Jews of Egypt, during the prepara-tions for the dedication of the temple. This is how he describes the politicaland religious condition of the Jews in Israel to their brethren in Egypt:

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4. See the relevant documents and analysis in Stern, Documents on the History of theHasmonean Revolt.

5. See Flusser, “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature,” 277-280.

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As we said, we write you inasmuch as we are about to celebrate the Purifi-cation. Please celebrate the days. God has saved His entire people and re-stored the heritage to us all . . . also . . . the kingdom and the priesthoodand the sanctification, as He promised in the Torah. For we hope in God,that He will speedily have mercy upon us and gather us together from thelands under the heavens to His holy Place, for He has indeed delivered usfrom great evils and has purified His Place. (2 Macc. 2.16-18)

Judah Maccabee’s words provide an indirect vista into what he consid-ered to be one of the main goals in purifying the temple. In stating that Godhas given the kingdom to his people, Judah is suggesting that, following thededication of the temple, Israel has achieved partial independence. The desirefor political independence guided Judah Maccabee’s actions for the rest of hislife. He saw that the Lord had saved Israel from great evils, but that the dangerhad not fully passed, and thus he turned to the Romans for support.

There are, of course, many differences between Judah Maccabee and Al-exander Jannaeus, both in terms of their character, and in terms of their ac-tions. Analysis of the relevant sources clearly shows that these differences arenot merely the result of differences in the character of the two Hasmoneanleaders, but rather reflect a historic shift. Lack of evidence prevents us fromsurveying every step in the process that saw the shift from a religious-nationalwar of liberation to a policy tantamount to the worship of the power and au-thority of “that family of men to whom it had been granted to be the agentsof Israel’s deliverance” (1 Macc. 5.62). It is possible that there were individualsin the Hasmonean family who already adhered to a weaker version of thisview at the outset of the rebellion — the first seeds of a bitter harvest.6 Thereare some who suggest that the turning point was the death of Judah Maccabeeand the policies of his brother, Jonathan.7 Changing circumstances broughtthe latter into a much more active engagement with the Seleucid kingdom,and he eventually was appointed to the high priesthood by the Hellenisticking. We have already noted the ‘declaration of independence’ granted Si-mon, Jonathan’s brother and heir. There are scholars who argue that Simon is

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6. The author of Daniel writes of the rebellion in its early days: “When they [i.e., the wiseamong the people] fall victim, they shall receive a little help, and many shall join them insin-cerely” (11:34). To whom was he referring? The most plausible interpretation identifies the peo-ple who provide only “a little help” as individuals who joined in the rebellion not out of a desireto resist the decrees of Antiochus, but out of intentions that had nothing to do with the sacredgoals of the revolt. Did he have careerists in mind? Or was he perhaps leveling this accusation atthe Hasmonean dynasty itself?

7. See E. Bickerman, Die Makkabäer (Berlin, 1935), 42-44.

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referred to in the document as “commander and prince of God’s nation”(1 Macc. 14.47).8 In any case, the original Hebrew version of 1 Maccabees wascalled la-ynb rq oyb rps, ‘The Book of the House of the Commander andPrince of God’s Children.’9 This title already indicates a great admiration forthe members of the Hasmonean dynasty. Moreover, already in the ‘declara-tion of independence’ we find that it was resolved “by the Jews and the priests,that Simon be commander10 and high priest in perpetuity11 until a trueprophet shall arise” (1 Macc. 14.41). The double role of chief and high priestwas given to Simon and to his sons after him, but with a proviso: it wouldcontinue “until a true prophet shall arise” — a prophet who can decide thematter.12 Within the court of Simon’s son, John Hyrcanus, there were thosewho argued that the proviso was annulled and that the Hasmonean rule wasno longer temporary: John, the priest to God most high, who had beengranted the ability to prophesy, united the three crowns in his person: thecrown of kingship, the crown of priesthood, and the crown of prophecy.13Now, John never dared to call himself ‘king,’ but his son, Aristobulus I, had nosuch compunctions, nor indeed did the rulers who succeeded him. JohnHyrcanus himself ultimately shifted his allegiance to the Sadducee camp — afateful move for the Hasmonean dynasty — and there is no need to discussthe problematic figure of his other son, Alexander Jannaeus. It is also difficultto view in a favorable light the forced conversion of the local Gentile popula-tion by these commanders of the sons of God. As for their policy of allyingthemselves with political and military might, one can only wonder whetherRealpolitik usually represents the pragmatic path in politics. Be all that as itmay, beginning with Judah Maccabee, through the days of John Hyrcanus,

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8. See Stern, Documents on the History of the Hasmonean Revolt, 134.9. Origen of Alexandria knew this name, and he is cited by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical His-

tory, 6.25.2.1. There we find the name “Sarbethsa[r]banaiel,” but in the same list we find theBook of Psalms referred to as ‘Spharthelleim.’ In other words, Origen heard the Semitic wordsefer, ‘book,’ in its Aramaic pronunciation, thus ‘Sphar” (the book of) ‘thelleim’ (tehillim,Psalms). The same holds for the Hebrew name of 1 Maccabees, i.e., the beginning is a corrup-tion of the ‘book’ and ‘sarbaniel’ (la ynb rq), the title itself. There is no need for far-flung hy-potheses, certainly not since the discovery of the scrolls. See Yadin, War Scroll, 44 n. 6, who dis-cusses the epithet ‘commander of the nation of God.’

10. See also the variant readings on this verse. The Greek word strathgÌv, which is alsofound in 14:35 and 13:42, regularly translates rq, and occasionally ayqn.

11. An allusion to Psalm 110. The Greek translation of 1 Maccabees reads: High Priest.12. See Stern, Documents on the History of the Hasmonean Revolt, 138-139.13. See Josephus, BJ 1.69; AJ 13.300. The Essenes transformed these three crowns into

three eschatological figures. See O. Michel and O. Bauernfeind, Der jüdische Krieg (Darmstadt,1959), 1.406, n. 35.

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and down to Pompey’s calamitous conquest of Judah, there occurs a gradualshift within the Jewish leadership.

IV

This brief historical survey was necessary for understanding the ideologicalbackground to the praises heaped on Roman might in 1 Maccabees 8.1-16 as jus-tification for the establishment of diplomatic ties between Judah Maccabee andRome. The question presents itself as to whether the praises of Roman might in1 Maccabees (cited in full below) were written during the time of JudahMaccabee, or at a later date, when the book was composed (by the hand of theauthor?). Careful analysis suggests the latter. For instance, the passage statesthat the Romans had reduced the Greeks to servitude “down to the present day”(1 Macc. 8.10), suggesting the author lives after the death of Judah Maccabee.Moreover, the description reflects later stages of Greek servitude to the Romans.The inaccuracies regarding the world outside the borders of Israel, and espe-cially the account of Roman imperial history, are no guarantee that the passageis early, since in other parts of the book as well we find that the authors knowl-edge of the outside world is rather limited. Thus, for instance, he believes thatthe Elam region is one of the cities of Persia (1.10).14

Those scholars that argue that 1 Maccabees was composed during the reignof John Hyrcanus are undoubtedly correct,15 as the conclusion of the bookclearly indicates (and it is hard to imagine that it was written after his death).‘The Book of the House of the Commander and Prince of God’s Children,’ asit was called, reflects a great admiration for the Hasmonean dynasty and itsrulers.16 This admiration, alongside the praises of Roman power, demonstratesthe author’s fondness for military and political might. A very different spiritualenvironment is evident in another document that praises Roman might, namely

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14. See Stern, Documents on the History of the Hasmonean Revolt, 13-18.15. Stern, Documents on the History of the Hasmonean Revolt, 13.16. Though this florid title is undoubtedly ancient, there is evidence to suggest it was not

the original title. Interestingly, aside from the reconstructed epithet ‘commander of the nation ofGod’ (see above, n. 9), found in a document preserved in 1 Maccabees, the book never mentionsthe various names of God (}el, }elohim, }adonai). The avoidance of God’s titles is quite marked, e.g.,in 1 Maccabees 4.24: “they sang hymns of thanksgiving to Heaven for It is good, its mercy enduresforever.” The author avoids citing the first hemistich of the verse, referring to God as ‘heaven’ — afairly common occurrence. The author of 1 Maccabees knew that prophecy had ceased, and this isprobably the reason for the similar reticence of the Scroll of Esther. Incidentally, based on the BenSira text discovered at Masada, it seems Ben Sira used the name }adonai rather than the explicitname of God, though not so in the medieval Ben Sira manuscripts.

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Jonathan’s epistle to the Spartans (1 Macc. 12.13-16). The letter states that John’semissaries will spend time in Sparta on their way to Rome, seeking to establish afriendship alliance with the Spartans. He writes: “As for us, many troublesand many wars have beset us, as the kings in our vicinity waged war upon us.Now, we did not wish to bother you or our other allies and friends with thesewars, for we have the help of Heaven coming to our aid, so that we have beensaved from our enemies and our enemies have been brought low.” These wordsare similar in spirit to those of Judah Maccabee, Jonathan’s brother, preserved in2 Maccabees. There too (2 Macc. 2.16-18) Judah emphasizes the religious faithin “God, who saved His entire people and restored the heritage to us all . . . forHe has indeed delivered us from great evils.” Both epistles, then, are aware ofthe dangers hanging over Israel, but nonetheless note their faith in God.

It appears the atmosphere in the Hasmonean court changed, as it isclear that the author of 1 Maccabees comes from the circles of John, priest ofGod most high. As it happens, this Hasmonean ruler ultimately joined theSadducee camp — a shift brought about, no doubt, by more than just theo-logical considerations. According to the Essene sources, the Sadducee forcesincluded a number of “mighty warriors” (Pesher Nahum 3.11), as indeed weknow of the military leaders of Alexander Jannaeus, the Sadducee king andson of John Hyrcanus. A number of these military figures would go on toserve Aristobulus and Alexander Jannaeus.17 Who knows if it was not a coldassessment of the military and political utility of the Sadducee officers —utility both for the Jewish state and for its ruler — that caused John Hyrcanusto turn his back on the Pharisees and transfer his allegiance to the Sadducees?

It is difficult to establish with any degree of certitude that the author of1 Maccabees — a confidant of the Hasmonean dynasty — was a Sadducee, but itis certainly clear that he was no Pharisee. This becomes clear from the markedomission — relative, in any case, to 2 Maccabees — of any mention of the resur-rection of the dead or life everlasting, though the narrative materials, which in-clude stories of bravery and death, certainly lend themselves to such discus-sions. Like his predecessor, Ben Sira, our author speaks only of eternal glory, notof life after death. Thus, just prior to his death, Mattathias turns to his sons andsays: “Remember the deeds of our ancestors, which they did in their genera-tions, and win for yourselves great glory and undying renown” (1 Macc. 2.51).18Later in the same chapter he adds: “Have no fear of the words of a wicked man,

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17. See Flusser, “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum,” in the presentvolume.

18. The words of Ben Sira are apropos: “One wise for his people wins a heritage of glory,and his name lives on and on” (37:26).

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for his glory is destined for dunghills and worms. He will spring up today, buttomorrow he shall not be found, for he shall have turned back into dust, and hisplotting shall perish” (1 Macc. 2.62-63). The phrase “undying renown” is re-peated in the description of how Simon, following Jonathan’s death, constructsa glorious monument over the family graves “for undying renown” (13.29).Similarly we find the phrase “forever shall his memory be blessed” (3.7) inpraise of Judah Maccabee.

We find, then, that the author avoids speaking of eternal life, eventhough the narrative content invites him to do so: the honor of the wickedperishes, while the righteous and the brave are heirs to eternal fame andhonor.19 This approach is quite different from that of the Pharisees, situatinghim closer to the Sadducees and perhaps even identifying him as one of theiradherents. At the end of the book (1 Macc. 16.23), the author refers to “the re-mainder of the history of John, his wars and his valorous deeds and his wallbuilding and his other accomplishments.” While this does not demonstratethat 1 Maccabees was written after the death of John Hyrcanus, it clearly ante-dates the first years of his reign. Gathering together all these elements, we findthat the author of 1 Maccabees, who was associated with John Hyrcanus andhis court, held opinions similar to those of the Sadducees, and composed thework toward the end of John Hyrcanus’ rule. The book, then, gives voice to thechanges in the Hasmonean court, to the conceptual shift whose roots are, to besure, more ancient, but reaches its apex when the great leader, John the priestof God most high, now toward the end of his life, shifts his allegiance to theSadducee camp. The book may also have been written slightly before this deci-sive event, when the processes leading up to it were in full swing. This datingmay help explain the naked praise of Roman might expressed in 1 Maccabees,praise that is, to my knowledge, unique, and, removed from its historical con-text, not flattering to the character and goals of the Roman empire.

V

Here is the passage in 1 Maccabees that praises Rome:20

(1) Judas had heard about the Romans: that they were a great power whowelcomed all who wished to join them and established ties of friendship

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19. This somewhat poetic passage is based on Psalm 37, vv. 10, 35-36, and Psalm 146:6.Strikingly, the author of 1 Maccabees inserts the word ‘glory’ here, which is apparently quite im-portant to him.

20. See also Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom, 46 n. 50.

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with all who approached them. (2) As for their being a great power, Judas’informants told him of the Romans’ valor in war: they had fought andconquered the Galatians and imposed tribute upon them. (3) They hadfought in the land of Spain, conquering the silver and gold mines there.(4) They had conquered the whole region through their sagacity and per-severance,21 though it was large and far removed from Rome, and thusthey had also overcome the kings who had come against them from re-mote quarters of the earth, defeating them heavily so that the survivorswere still paying them annual tribute. (5) They had defeated in battle andconquered King Philip and King Perseus of the Macedonians,22 who hadattacked them. (6) Even Antiochus the Great, King of Asia, was defeatedby them when he went to war against them though he had one hundredand twenty elephants and cavalry and chariotry and a very large infantryforce. (7) The Romans captured him alive and decreed that he and hissuccessors on the throne should pay the Romans a heavy tribute and givehostages and be barred from the fairest of their domains, (8) the Indianland and Medea and Lydia.23 These domains the Romans took from himand gave to King Eumenes. (9) The Greeks of mainland Greece, too, hadplanned an expedition to destroy the Romans, (10) but when their plotbecame known to the Romans, they sent a single general against theGreeks and waged war on them, so that many of the Greeks fell slain, andthe Romans took captive their wives and children, plundered their prop-erty, conquered their land, destroyed their fortresses, and reduced themto servitude down to the present day. (11) As for the remaining kingdomsand the islands, the Romans had reduced to ruin and servitude all whohad ever opposed them. (12) With their friends, however, and with thosewho relied on them, the Romans had maintained their ties of friendshipand had conquered the kings both near and far, and all those who heardof the Romans feared them. (13) Those whom they chose to aid to bekings, were kings; those whom they chose to, they deposed. Thus theRomans had risen to great heights of power. (14) Nevertheless, not one ofthem had sought self-glorification by putting on a diadem24 or wearingpurple. (15) They had instituted a senate for themselves, in which every

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21. The same language appears in Ben Sira 5.11. In both places the Greek makrothymia is atranslation of fyypa Fra.

22. The “Kittim” in question are the Greeks, on which see Yadin, War Scroll, 22-26.23. That is, the vanquished king was forced to relinquish these lands.24. This particular statement makes it highly unlikely that this passage was composed af-

ter the reign of John Hyrcanus, since his heir, Aristobulus I, had himself become king. It is hardto imagine that a pro-Hasmonean author would praise the Romans for not appointing kingsany time after Aristobulus.

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day three hundred twenty sat to deliberate continually over how to main-tain the people’s good order. (16) They entrusted their government andthe ruling of all their territory to one man each year, everyone obeyinghim, without any envy or jealousy among themselves. (1 Macc. 8:1-16).

This praise of the Romans is both unique and inherently problematic,although its author surely was not aware that most of the points in his surveymay be interpreted as a criticism of Roman imperialism. For one thing, theabsence of any mention of the Roman justice system is quite striking. Alreadyat this time Rome saw this as one of the foundations of its empire, indeed onethat foreign nations occasionally appreciated as well.25 The author only re-counts — with a number of historical errors — the unity and discipline char-acteristic of the Roman regime, the absence of hubris on the part of its lead-ers, and that its senators meet daily for the good of the republic (vv 14-15).The absence of any reference to the Roman justice system is particularlymarked in light of statements such as: “Those whom they chose to aid to bekings, were kings; those whom they chose to, they deposed. Thus the Romanshad risen to great heights of power” (13). True, the author notes that the im-petus for Roman conquest occasionally came as a response to an outside at-tack, as Rome was attacked by kings from the world over (3-11). But this ‘justi-fication’ is not mentioned with regard to the Galatians (2), or the conquest ofSpain (3) — where the Romans are said to have conquered “the silver andgold mines there.” Similarly, the author repeatedly notes the heavy taxes im-posed by Rome on the vanquished nations (vv. 2, 4, 7). As far as the author isconcerned, the Roman conquest is the result of their great military might, butat the same time “they had conquered the whole region through their sagac-ity and perseverance” (4). Through might and sagacity, they succeed in con-quering regions very distant from their homeland, looting the conqueredlands, destroying their fortifications, capturing the women and children, andenslaving the residents. In short, all who hear of them are afraid (12).26 But let

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25. See Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom, 3 and 28, n. 9.26. Fuchs notes a striking resemblance between the praise of Rome in 1 Maccabees and in

the Third Book of the Sibylline Oracles, 175-178, 190, 194-195 (Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstandgegen Rom, 46 n. 50 and 30 n. 18; Fuchs follows earlier scholars who see lines 179-189 as a late ad-dition made by an anti-Roman Jewish author). Fuchs argues that this Jewish oracle was com-posed in the middle of the second century b.c.e. The broader context is as follows: the house ofSolomon will rule, then the other nations of Asia, and finally the great and wily Macedonians,“but then will be the beginning of another kingdom, white and many-headed from the westernsea. It will rule over much land, and will shake many, and will thereafter cause fear to all kings. . . in many places, but especially in Macedonia. . . . And then the people of the great God willagain be strong who will be guides in life for all mortals” (trans. J. J. Collins in Charlesworth’s

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not the Hasmonean rulers fear Roman expansion! To the contrary: JudahMaccabee was right to forge a treaty of friendship with them, and his heirs arewise to maintain it. For the Romans possess a redeeming quality: the powerthey use to vanquish many nations is not turned against their allies. Indeed,their friends can count on Roman fidelity: “they were a great power who wel-comed all who wished to join them and established ties of friendship with allwho approached them (1) . . . [w]ith their friends, however, and with thosewho relied on them, the Romans had maintained their ties of friendship” (12).It appears, then, that Roman propaganda had succeeded in establishing thisimage in the Hasmonean court at the time that 1 Maccabees was composed.Already in the days of Judah Maccabee, however, this image was dubious. It ismore questionable still if the book was indeed composed in the latter years ofJohn Hyrcanus, when he had turned to the spiritual and political world of theSadducees. Indeed, the appreciation of force on the domestic front led toblind admiration of the unfettered power of the Roman ally. The author,however, could not see the impending danger: when the time was right, i.e.,after amassing the force needed for direct rule and other conditions havingripened, Rome would abandon its Jewish allies. For naught will “the lastpriests of Jerusalem accumulate riches and loot from plundering the nations,”for “in the last days their riches and their loot will be given into the hands ofthe army of the Kittim” (Pesher Habakkuk 9.4-7; see also Pesher Nahum 1.11-12). This is precisely what happened in 63 b.c.e., during the reign of Pompey.The Sadducee circles within the Hasmonean court were dealt a deadly blow. Ifin the days of John Hyrcanus the author of the encomium to Rome admiredtheir victory over Greece, during which “many of the Greeks fell slain, and theRomans took captive their wives and children,” now the shoe was on the otherfoot. It is of the house of Aristobulus II and his followers that it is said, “hiswomen, his children and his babies will go into captivity, his warriors and hishonored ones [will perish] by the sword” (Pesher Nahum 4.4). These tragicresults reveal the dangers inherent in blind admiration for the might of theevil kingdom, casting a dark shadow over 1 Maccabees’ praises of Rome.

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The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1.366). Scholars have noted the similarity between this pas-sage and the praises of Rome in 1 Maccabees. Both allude to the Roman victory over the Mace-donian kingdom, to Rome’s dominance over many nations, and to the fear it strikes in the heartof all kings. If the reconstruction of this oracle is accurate, the text contains neither praise norblame of Rome; only the Roman victory over the Macedonians — a great and wily nation, wellversed in the art of war — merits the author’s blessings (170-174, 190), and this for obvious rea-sons. Immediately following, however, is an allusion to the lofty role of Israel in the end of days,when it shall be a light unto the nations (194-195).

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VI

A great scholar long ago noted the similarity between the encomium to Romein 1 Maccabees 8.1-16, and the description of the Kittim in PesherHabakkuk.27 As in all the Qumran pesharim, the Kittim of Pesher Habakkukare undoubtedly the Romans. He writes:

The pesher’s account of the Kittim reads as a forceful protest on the partof the author against the policy of the Maccabees, from Judah to JohnHyrcanus, who sought the love and protection of the Roman conquerorsagainst the Seleucid rulers in Syria. The members of the Yahad, theQumran community, who were enemies of the Hasmonean dynasty, givevoice in this interpretation of Habakkuk to the hatred they felt toward theRoman-Hasmonean alliance. . . . Habakkuk’s words about the cruelAssyrians they applied to the Kittim-Romans, thereby hinting that theseallies of the Hasmoneans will soon raze Judah, just as the Assyrians de-stroyed Judah and burned the Temple. . . . This description, that is dia-metrically opposed to that of 1 Maccabees, is also based on hearsay —hearsay that has been greatly exaggerated for the worse.28

It is clear that this scholar is right on most counts; however, I questionwhether the words of Pesher Habakkuk were intended as a protest against thefriendship alliance between the Hasmoneans and Rome. The passage cer-tainly makes no mention of such a protest. There is, however, an explicit at-tack on Roman imperialism as cruel and rapacious. It is hard to imagine thatthe author of Pesher Habakkuk was familiar with 1 Maccabees and engaged itin a polemic. We find, then, surprisingly similar descriptions of Rome, butthrough opposing lenses, since 1 Maccabees admires the might of Rome,while the Essene author abhors it and sees in it a threat to Israel. Indeed, heforesees future events when he writes that “their riches and their loot will begiven into the hands of the army of the Kittim” (Pesher Habakkuk 9.4-6), forit appears these words were written prior to Pompey’s conquests, that is, priorto the realization of the Roman threat.29 That said, Pesher Habakkuk wasmost likely not written during the time of John Hyrcanus himself, and should

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27. M. Z. Segal, “On the History of the Sect Yahad,” Tarbiz 22 (1951), 137-152, and see par-ticularly 138-143.

28. Segal, “On the History of the Sect Yahad,” 138, 140.29. The description of the wicked priest most closely suits one of the heirs of John

Hyrcanus. Pesher Nahum, on the other hand, reflects the situation after Pompey and his calami-tous conquest; see, e.g., 4QpNah 4.4.

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be located several decades after the admirer of John Hyrcanus so lauded Ro-man might in 1 Maccabees.

Let us now cite the Pesher Habakkuk passages dealing with the Kittim-Romans, in order, keeping in mind that the order is not a product of the au-thor’s argument, but rather determined by the order of the prophet’s verses.For our part, we will not explore the interpretive practices of PesherHabakkuk, nor indeed the scroll’s concern with other historical events of thetime supposedly alluded to in Habakkuk’s prophecy, but rather focus on theresulting portrait of Rome. Here are the relevant statements:

Its interpretation concerns the Kittim who are swift and powerful in battle,to slay many [. . .] in the kingdom of the Kittim; they will take rule30 [manycountries] and will not believe in the precepts of [Go]d (2.12-15) . . . theKittim, the fear and dread of whom are on all the peoples; all theirthoughts are premeditated to do evil, and with cunning and treachery theybehave towards all the nations (3.4-6) . . . the Kittim, who trample the landwith their horses and their animals and come from far off, from the islandsof the sea, to devour all the nations, like an eagle, insatiable. With fury theyare heated and with burning wrath31 and livid faces they will speak to allthe nations (3.9-13) . . . they deride the powerful and despise the honoredmen; at kings and princes they jeer, and sneer at a huge nation (4.2-3) . . .the leaders of the Kittim despise the fortresses of the peoples32 and withderision laugh at them, they surround them with a huge army to capturethem. And through dread and fear they surrender into their hands, andthey demolish them because of the wickedness of those who dwell in them(4.5-9)33 . . . the leaders of the Kittim who on the advice of a house of theguilty34 go by, one before the other. Their leaders, one after another, will

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30. The reading “will take rule” is based on the reconstruction owbr owera wqrw, ratherthan owbr owera wqryw. The latter, proposed by Maurya P. Horgan, Pesharim (WashingtonD.C., 1979), 27, is linguistically impossible. The root hqr appears in this sense in the War Scroll12.4-5, “to have the upper hand” (dw owqrl) (and see Yadin, The War Scroll, 315), and in theManual of Discipline 10.15: “with the dominion of fear and dismay, when distress and grief areestablished” (hkwb fe hre vwcmbw ,hmyaw djp oyqrb). See also Yadin’s proposals (but seeJ. Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim [Jerusalem, 1965], 208). See also the phrase jwr ywnebw yqwk bblowqr in DJD 7, p. 21 (1Qm 14.7).

31. The reconstruction of the text here is similar to that proposed by Horgan, Pesharim,30.

32. The Hebrew text, fymeh yrebm le wzby, is similar to Habakkuk 1.10: kjqy rxbmlcl awhw (“They laugh at every fortress”).

33. A conceptual and linguistic parallel is found in the phrase hb ybqwy oerm (“thewickedness of those who live in it”) in Jeremiah 12:4, and Psalm 107:34.

34. Most scholars take this to be a reference to the Roman senate.

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come to raze the earth (4.10-13) . . . the Kittim gather their wealth with alltheir loot like fish of the sea. And what it says: “Therefore he sacrifices tohis net and makes offerings to his seine” (Hab. 1:16) Its interpretation: theyoffer sacrifices to their standards and their weapons are the object of theirworship35 (6.1-5) . . . they distribute their yoke and their burden, which istheir food, among all the peoples, year after year, ravaging many countries(6.6-8) . . . the Kittim will cause many people to die by the end of thesword, youths, adults and old people, women and children; not even chil-dren at the breast will they pity (6.10-12)

What we have here is a severe critique of the Romans, and their cruelmethods of attaining world domination. The Romans who come to devourall nations will not abide by the laws of God. And yet, this very dark portrait— critically important to the history of the hatred toward the Romanconquerors-destroyers — is strikingly similar to the praises of Rome sung in1 Maccabees. Here are some of the more apparent parallels:

1 Maccabees 8 Pesher Habakkuk

1-2: they were a great power . . .valor in war

2.12-13: the Kittim who are swift andpowerful in battle

4: They had conquered the whole re-gion through their sagacity and per-severance

3.5-6: all their thoughts are premedi-tated to do evil, and with cunningand treachery they behave towardsall the nations

4: it was large and far removed 3.10-11: [they] come from far off,from the islands of the sea

4: the survivors were still payingthem annual tribute (and see also vv.2 and 7)

6.6-8: they distribute their yoke andtheir burden, which is their food,among all the peoples, year afteryear, ravaging many countries

10: the Romans took captive theirwives and children, plundered theirproperty

6.10-11: the Kittim will cause manypeople to die by the end of thesword, youths, adults and old people,women and children; not even chil-dren at the breast will they pity

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35. This phrase is taken as proof that the Kittim in question are the Romans, as this wastheir custom.

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10: . . . destroyed their fortresses 4.5-6: the leaders of the Kittim de-spise the fortresses of the peoples

12: [they] conquered the kings bothnear and far

4.2-3: they deride the powerful anddespise the honored men; at kingsand princes they jeer, and sneer at ahuge nation

12: and all those who heard of theRomans feared them

3.4-5: the Kittim, the fear and dreadof whom are on all the peoples4.7-8: And through dread and fearthey surrender into their hands

15: They had instituted a senate forthemselves16: They entrusted their governmentand the ruling of all their territoryto one man each year36

4.10-13: the leaders of the Kittimwho on the advice of a house of theguilty go by, one before the other.Their leaders, one after another, willcome to raze the earth

Despite the polar opposition in their overall tone, the two descriptionsof Roman might are very similar in detail. Of course, this similarity may beattributed to their addressing the very same historical phenomena. And yet,we must not overlook the different interpretations offered to parallel phe-nomena. For instance, it is clear that the Essene author, who deeply opposesRoman might and cunning, cannot compliment Rome for its ability to van-quish kingdoms near and far, while maintaining love and friendship withthose that rely on it (1 Macc. 8.12).37 Similarly, the view that Roman policy is

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36. Stern, Documents on the History of the Hasmonean Revolt, 14, notes that 1 Maccabeesstates that a different person ruled Rome every year and thus is clearly unfamiliar with the exis-tence of the two consuls. Stern suggests the reason for this error is that only one consul negoti-ated with the Jews, and his name alone appeared on the official documents. However it is alsopossible that the confusion arose as a result of the senate’s custom of sending a different gover-nor to the provinces each year, as reflected in Pesher Habakkuk: “the leaders of the Kittim whoon the advice of a house of the guilty [i.e. the senate] go by, one before the other. Their leaders,one after another, will come to raze the earth” (4.10-13).

37. The same idea is found in the poetic works of Virgil, the Roman ideologue from thetime of Augustus. In a famous passage of the Aeneid, Virgil states that the role of the Romanpeople is to rule over the nations and bring them peace, as well as “have mercy over those whosurrender, but destroy those who rise up” (851-853). The world had changed since the days of1 Maccabees: the Roman empire had become a historical fact — covering the whole of the civi-lized world, and, as a result, the emphasis on Rome’s virtues shifted. No longer an emphasis onRoman loyalty to their allies outside the empire, but rather the ideal of just treatment for thenations that had surrendered to Rome and were part of the empire. Needless to say, both the

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founded on law and justice — a view shared by a number of foreign nations38

— is not mentioned in Pesher Nahum, nor, as noted, in 1 Maccabees. Indeed,the Essene author not only rejects the notion that Rome is based on law andjustice, he holds that they persecute many nations and “will not believe theprecepts of God” (1QpHab 2.14-15). The two authors recognize the Romans’cunning use of negotiations in the service of their imperial expansion, butcast it in a completely different light! 1 Maccabees states that the Romans con-quered “the whole region through their sagacity and perseverance” (1 Macc.8.4), while the Essene author argues that “all their thoughts are premeditatedto do evil, and with cunning and treachery they behave towards all the na-tions” (1QpHab 3.5-6). Not only does he take Rome to task for its scheming asit sets out on additional conquests, he adds that “with fury they are heated,and with burning wrath and livid faces they will speak to all the nations”(1QpHab 3.12-13) and “. . . they deride the powerful and despise the honoredmen; at kings and princes they jeer, and sneer at a huge nation” (1QpHab 4.1-3). Here we can make out the distant echoes of the Roman emissaries, andtheir brutal behavior in negotiating with national leaders.

Roman conquest and domination often involved acts of cruelty, whichPesher Nahum describes with no small revulsion: “[T]he Kittim will causemany to die by the edge of the sword, youths, adults and old people, womenand children; not even children at the breast will they pity” (1QpHab 6.10-11).The author of 1 Maccabees knows of such events as well, but he recounts themwithout aversion: the Romans act thus in retaliation. Thus, when the Greeks“had planned an expedition to destroy the Romans,” the latter learned of theplot and “many of the Greeks fell slain, and the Romans took captive theirwives and children . . . and reduced them to servitude down to the presentday” (1 Macc. 8.9-10). The author goes on to describe how the Romans de-stroyed the Greek fortresses, a motif that appears in Pesher Habakkuk, but ina ghastly context: “[T]he leaders of the Kittim despise the fortresses of thepeoples and with derision laugh at them, they surround them with a hugearmy to capture them. And through dread and fear they surrender into theirhands, and they demolish them because of the wickedness of those who dwellin them” (1QpHab 4.5-9). The Pesher presents us here with a full descriptionof Roman military aggression, based on the allusion in Habakkuk 1:10 (“Theylaugh at every fortress”). Inter alia, he describes from a particularly Jewishpoint of view, why the Romans are allowed to conquer the fortresses of the

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image of Rome as loyal allies and the later claim of Roman clemency and fairness are productsof Roman propaganda and not an accurate historical portrayal.


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nations (referring, no doubt, to fortified cities as well): they surround the for-tresses with “a huge army” and destroy them “because of the wickedness ofthose who dwell in them.”39 He even states that these sites fall to the Romans“through dread and fear.” Elsewhere Pesher Habakkuk states generally thatthe “fear and dread” of the Kittim are on “all people.” 1 Maccabees also knowsthat the world is terrified of Rome: the Romans “had conquered the kingsboth near and far, and all those who heard of the Romans feared them”(1 Macc. 8.12). But while the author of 1 Maccabees reports that there is fearfrom the unfettered power of Rome, he himself feels no such qualms. To thecontrary: the great might of Rome strikes fear in the hearts of those who hearof the empire, but Rome’s allies stand to gain from its power, as they are “theirfriends . . . those who relied on them” (1 Macc. 8.12).

Rome’s greed, particularly with regard to the heavy taxes it imposed,was well known. 1 Maccabees mentions the Roman taxes three times in thecourse of the passage (vv. 2, 4, and 7): once in connection with the victoryover the Galatians; a second time in more general terms, as the result ofRome’s victory over “the kings who had come against them from remotequarters of the earth”; and a third time as punishment meted out toAntiochus III after his defeat. The author does not decry Rome’s greed in theleast; indeed, he speaks admiringly of the brave battles waged by the Romanswho defeated Spain, “conquering the silver and gold mines there” (1 Macc.8.3). Our Essene author takes a very different view of the economic destruc-tion and heavy taxation visited upon the nations that fall before Rome. TheRomans “distribute their yoke and their burden, which is their food, amongall the peoples, year after year, ravaging many countries” (1 QpHab 6.6-8);they “trample the land with their horses and their animals and come from faroff, from the islands of the sea, to devour all the nations, like an eagle, insatia-ble” (1 QpHab 3.9-12). The Roman forces “gather their wealth with all theirloot like fish of the sea” (1QpHab 6.1-2), while the provincial rulers “one afteranother, will come to raze the earth” (1QpHab 4.12-13).

One author looks on in admiration, the other in horror! And despitethis difference, the two accounts agree on so many details that it is possible totake whole passages from one and transfer them smoothly to the other. Theauthor of 1 Maccabees would undoubtedly agree to include in his descriptionof Roman might sentences such as: “[they] are swift and powerful in battle”(1QpHab 2.12); “the fear and dread of [them] are on all the people” (3.4-5);“[they] trample the land with their horses and their animals and come fromfar off, from the islands of the sea, to devour all the nations” (3.9-11). Similarly

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39. See n. 33, above.

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he would agree with the view that the Roman leaders “despise the fortressesof the peoples and with derision laugh at them . . . and they demolish them”(4.5-9), and that the Romans “distribute their yoke and their burden which istheir food, among all the peoples, year after year” (6.6-7). All these statementsemphasize the might of Rome and contain a number of motifs that do, infact, appear in 1 Maccabees. The author of Pesher Habakkuk, however, mightagree with some of the statements in 1 Maccabees, but would see them as crit-icism. He might, for example, write that the Romans conquered “the wholeregion through their sagacity and perseverance” (1 Macc. 8.4), and recognizethat they defeated Spain for “the silver and gold mines there” (1 Macc. 8.3) —but all this only serves as proof of Rome’s greed, and should be grouped to-gether with the heavy yoke of Roman taxation (1 Macc. 8.2, 4, 7). In short, theauthor of Pesher Habakkuk would approve of most of 1 Maccabees’ laudatorydescription of Roman might — but with two important qualifications: theRomans are not loyal allies, and their attacks are not usually provoked by out-side aggression (e.g., as when the Greeks planned “to destroy” them [1 Macc.8.9]). The curious overlap between praise and blame is, in fact, only apparent.As noted, the same phenomena that the Essene author takes as evidence ofRome’s mendacity, the Hasmonean author interprets as signs of its greatness.If the author of Pesher Habakkuk had known of 1 Maccabees’ praise of theRomans, he would no doubt have seen it as an exemplary expression of theviews of “the last priests of Jerusalem, who will accumulate riches and lootfrom plundering the nations. However, in the last days their riches and theirloot will be given into the hands of the army of the Kittim” (1QpHab 9.4-7).

We see, then, two one-sided views of Roman imperialism: the one,Essene, is blind to its positive aspects, since it serves as a manifest of sorts forthe victims — both actual and potential — of Roman power. 1 Maccabeestoo, for all its praise, omits the truly positive traits of the Roman empire, e.g.,the rule of law and the pax Romana. Instead it cites Rome’s egalitarian regimethat looks after the needs of its subjects without hubris (1 Macc. 8.14-16). Asfor Rome’s loyalty to its allies (1 Macc. 8.1, 12) — this was largely a façade puton by Rome so as to further its imperial ambitions; what succor they pro-vided their friends was motivated by Roman self-interest. Pesher Habakkuk,1 Maccabees, and the history of the period all indicate that Rome’s goal wasalmost always to expand its conquests: “all their thoughts are premeditated todo evil, and with cunning and treachery they behave towards all the nations”(1QpHab 3.5-6). The Hasmonean author presents other Roman qualities aspositive: they are ruthlessly efficient in battle, destroy very distant nations,conquer many lands, raze fortified sites, capture women and children, enslavethe vanquished and impose onerous taxes, and appropriate the conquered

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nations’ wealth and resources. Rome crowns and deposes kings as it sees fit,casting fear and dread into the hearts of all who hear of their deeds. To besure, this is faint praise indeed, and we have shown that the Essene authorcites very similar descriptions as a mark of Rome’s shame.

Rome is not a unique case. Throughout history, the terrifying might ofa great and seemingly invincible empire has elicited wonder in many people,especially rulers (and their immediate circles) who viewed a policy based onpower as their only true support. So long as the empire’s might was seen asworking in their favor, the rulers supported imperial brutality. True, the au-thor of 1 Maccabees attributes to Judah Maccabee a very different view, whenhe attributes to him the following oration: “It is easy for the many to be deliv-ered into the hands of few. Heaven sees no difference in gaining victorythrough many or through a few, because victory in war does not lie in theweight of numbers, but rather strength comes from heaven” (1 Macc. 3.18-21).But when the same author, giving voice to the political views of his historicalcontext, addresses the political might of Rome, an empire conceived — andthis point is key — as an ally to the Jews, he worships the might of the greatempire. The description is, then, necessarily ambivalent: the author wishes topraise, but an attentive ear will hear in his words the very opposite. All thesame, the praise of Roman power in 1 Maccabees is a precious and fascinatinghistorical document, as it demonstrates that not all of Rome’s admirers wereinfluenced by Roman propaganda; there were those who were simply smittenwith its imperial might. The Essene texts, including Pesher Habakkuk, aremore important still: they represent a unique expression of the hatred towardRoman imperialism in the heart of those threatened by it.

VII

Essene anti-imperialism is, in and of itself, a complicated and even contradic-tory phenomenon, but one that is easily understood within its particular so-cial context.40 The Essene ideology was fundamentally revolutionary and in-deed — to speak anachronistically — ‘socialist,’ but at the same timeapocalyptic. However, the Qumran community did not only expect a socialand universal revolution that they would effect in the end of days with the aidof divine intervention. They began to implement some of these ideas in their

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40. I have discussed a number of aspects of Essene ideology in “The Dead Sea Sect andIts Worldview,” in the present volume; and “The Social Message from Qumran,” Journal ofWorld History 9 (1968), 107-115.

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daily life. They formed, after all, a distinct social organization, separate fromthe rest of the Jewish population. One of the best-known features of the com-munity was its commitment to shared wealth, a policy that was in part due tothe Essene valorization of poverty as a religious ideal: they were, to be sure,“the select of righteousness” (kdx yryjb), but also “poor in spirit” (jwr yyne)and “poor in grace” (ynwyba dsj). The Essene author thanked God that “Youhave not placed my support in robbery, nor in wealth” (1QHa 18.22-23). Thecommunity set itself apart from the wealth of the rapacious, hating “the menof the bending of the law, those who point the finger and speak evil and arekeen on riches” (1QS 11.2). They believed that wealth breeds moral corrup-tion, as indeed happened to the Wicked Priest, who was one of the Hasmo-nean rulers, for the Wicked Priest

was called loyal at the start of his office. However, when he ruled over Is-rael his heart became proud, he deserted God and betrayed the laws forthe sake of riches. And he robbed and hoarded wealth from the violentmen who had rebelled against God. And he seized public money, incur-ring additional serious sin.41 (1QpHab 8.8-12)

The Essene opposition to all wealth that involves injustice was categori-cal. We saw above that the author of Pesher Habakkuk cries out against “thelast priests of Jerusalem, who will accumulate riches and loot from plunder-ing the nations. However, in the last days their riches and their loot will begiven into the hands of the army of the Kittim” (1QpHab 9.4-7). And if theEssenes opposed ill-gotten riches in general, and looting from other nations,in particular, it is evident that they would be sensitive to the economic abusesvisited upon other nations by the Romans, who “gather their wealth with alltheir loot like fish of the sea” (1QpHab 6.1-2).

Incidentally, like other revolutionary groups, the Essene opposition tocapital was inconsistent. True, they referred to themselves as the poor and im-poverished, but new members were required to contribute their personalwealth to the community coffers, and all were allowed to profit from theirwork. They could not, however, enter into partnership with people outsidethe community. Regarding “the goods of the men of holiness who walk inperfection, their goods must not be mixed with the goods of the men of de-ceit who have not cleansed their path to separate from injustice and walk in aperfect behavior” (1QS 9.8-9). Not only did the community possess capital,the Manual of Discipline promises that “my soul shall not crave wealth by vi-

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41. The Wicked Priest also “plundered the possessions of the poor” (1QpHab 12.10), andit appears the poor in question are the members of the Qumran community.

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olence, nor shall I be involved in any dispute with the men of the pit until theday of vengeance” (1QS 10.19). It appears, then, that the members of theQumran community are enjoined not to accumulate wealth from the men ofthe pit only on a temporary basis; this will change on the eschatological dayof judgment, with the outbreak of the war of the sons of light against the sonsof darkness. Then the sons of light will conquer all of Israel, indeed all of theworld, and then, “the congregation of his chosen ones . . . will be chiefs andprinces over the whole people like shepherds among their flocks,” for theirs is“the inheritance of the whole,” and “they will inherit the high mountain of Is-rael and delight in his holy mountain” (4Q171 [= 4QPsa] 3.5-11).42

Like the resistance to wealth, there are problematic aspects to the fa-mous Essene pacifism as well — perhaps even more so.43 We have alreadyseen that they are preparing themselves for the war of the sons of light againstthe sons of darkness, a war that will end with the conquest of the entire world,and the destruction of all the wicked. We may assume that as the day of judg-ment tarried, the Essenes did not wholly relinquish their expectations forvengeance. The Essene pacifism, then, was conditional: for the while, theEssene is commanded “everlasting hatred for the men of the pit in clandes-tine spirit; to them he should leave goods and hand-made items like a servantto his master and like one oppressed to one domineering him,” while at thesame time remaining “enthusiastic for the decree and for its time, for the dayof revenge”44 (1QS 9.21-23). In this manner, the pacifist and aggressively anti-imperialist Essenes were able to submit to any imperial master,45 and evenfound common cause with the hated King Herod.46 Similar paradoxes occurin other pacifistic revolutionary groups, as well as a variety of religious sectsand secular political movements. Still it should be noted that the Essene ide-ology — whether understood as actively revolutionary, or as a conditionalform of pacifism that preaches “everlasting hatred for the men of the pit in

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42. The Pesher interprets Psalm 37:22, “For those blessed by the Lord shall inherit theland.” The Essene exegete concludes his interpretation with the word ‘delight’ which is takenfrom verse 11: “But the meek shall inherit the land and delight themselves in abundant prosper-ity.” The Qumran pesher (2.11-12) to this verse is only partially preserved, but ‘the meek’ arecharacterized as following: “Afterwards, all who inherit the land will enjoy and grow fat with ev-erything enjoyable to the flesh.” See the discussion in Horgan, Pesharim, 2.208-209. I do not seeany reason not to reconstruct the lacunae so as to suggest that the meek will enjoy earthly plea-sures in the end of days.

43. See my “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” in the present volume.44. This reading follows Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim, 198.45. See D. Flusser, “The Jewish Origins of the Early Church’s Attitude Toward the State,”

in the present volume.46. See Josephus, JA 15.371-372.

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clandestine spirit” — is classically anti-imperial through and through. It is nocoincidence that the Essenes valorized poverty and opposed — in a form of‘anti-capitalism’ — the accumulation of wealth generally, and political rulerswho “accumulate riches and loot from plundering the nations” in particular.

The Essenes consciously sought out a coherent yet flexible worldviewthat set them apart from any other group in the ancient world. They are out-standing representatives of the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, which was basedin no small part on a combination of anti-imperialism and fierce social cri-tique. (One need only read the book of Revelation for proof). It would appearthat the revolt against the corrupt norms of our world provides the main im-petus for the formation of Jewish apocalypticism, and for similar movementsin other nations. These fervent adherents of eschatological redemption hopedfor the destruction of this evil world and the immediate advent of redemp-tion. But they did not look only toward the eschaton. Sensing the crisis oftheir day, their historical senses grew sharp and over-eager and they widenedtheir gaze beyond the present to the broader horizon of humanity’s genesisand meaning and ultimate telos. They believed that theirs was a time of tran-sition — an end to the old era and the beginning of the new, and so they cameto believe that history consists of a shifting sequence of eras.47 The Book ofDaniel contains the doctrine of the four kingdoms,48 but this is not the onlypossible apocalyptic division of history. The overarching view of human his-tory and its periodization are the outstanding achievements of apocalypti-cism. Through this critical issue, apocalyptic thought (and not biblicalprophecy) — with the Book of Daniel and the New Testament as conduits —exercised a decisive influence on a wide range of historiographic systems, be-ginning with the Church Fathers and down to the present.49

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47. On this subject see the fascinating study by J. Licht, “The Qumran Doctrine of Histori-cal Epochs and Other Eschatological Speculations,” Eretz Israel 8 (1967; Sukenik volume), 63-70.Licht rightly mentions G. Leisersohn, Estrutura y sentido de la historia según la literaturaapocalíptica (Santiago de Chile, 1960). A fragment of 4Q180 opens with the words “Interpretationconcerning the ages which God has made: An age to conclude all that there is and all that will be.”

48. D. Flusser, “The Four Empires in the Fourth Sibyl and in the Book of Daniel,” IsraelOriental Studies 2 (1972), 148-175. Fragments of the Book of Daniel were found at Qumran, andthe author of the War Scroll takes Daniel’s teachings as his point of origin in describing the polit-ical context of the war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness (see my “Apocalyptic Ele-ments in the War Scroll” herein). Despite all this, the doctrine of the four kingdoms is not re-flected in the Qumran literature published thus far. Moreover, it is not found in the apocalypticliterature that emerged from the Essene circles, nor, indeed, in other major apocalyptic corpora.

49. Aside from Licht, “The Qumran Doctrine of Historical Epochs,” and Leisersohn,Estrutura y sentido, see A. Sabatier, “L’Apocalypse juive et la philosophie de l’histoire,” REJ 40(1900), 65-86, who discusses the importance of the apocalyptic for historical thinking.

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EERDMANS -- Judaism of the Second Temple Period (Flusser) final textFriday, September 28, 2007 4:25:22 PM


The Essenes reached important theoretical and ideological conclu-sions from the existence of preordained historical periods, not least ofwhich is their belief in predestination. More generally, the periodization ofhistory is one of the keys to the Qumran community’s worldview: every pe-riod requires its own distinct approach, an approach to be determined bywhat is revealed to the community.50 It was incumbent upon the Essenes,then, to “fulfill the will of God in compliance with all revelation for everyperiod, to acquire all the wisdom that has been gained according to the pe-riods and the decree of the period” (1QS 9.13-14). In other words, each indi-vidual Essene must constantly formulate a new position toward the eventsof his day. The members of the Qumran community were undoubtedly ea-ger to gather information about the historical events affecting Israel and theworld as a whole, in part due to their revolutionary and anti-imperialistorientation, with its aversion to repression and injustice. Their lively inter-est in political and social developments marks them as important witnessesto the internal clashes within the Jewish people, as well as the power strug-gles between different nations. This information finds its way into theEssene pesharim, which thus become an important and even unique toolfor the historical study of the era. Through the Essenes’ firm and unwaver-ing anti-imperialist position, the pesharim convey to us not only the voiceof a Jewish sect, but the insistent protests of all the masses across the globewho suffered, or were at the risk of suffering, from Rome’s conquests andaggression.

VIII

Pesher Habakkuk appears to have been composed while Israel was under seri-ous threat from the Roman empire, but before its realization with Pompey’spolitical intervention and military conquest of Jerusalem. Pesher Nahum,however, was written after this terrible trauma, and in it we find that theEssenes — like the rest of the Jewish people — hope that the wicked Romanregime will eventually pass away. Thus the Essene interpreter of Nahum 1:4(“He rebukes the sea and makes it dry, and he dries up all the rivers”) suggeststhat the first hemistich indicates God will “carry out judgment against themand eliminate them from the face of the earth,” while the rivers refer to “theirchiefs, whose rule he will end” (1QpNah, fragment 2, 2-5). Pesher Habakkuk,

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50. See Licht, “The Qumran Doctrine of Historical Epochs,” 65, and Flusser, “The DeadSea Sect and Its Worldview,” 2-3 above.

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in contrast, makes no mention of the end of Rome, but rather looks toward adifferent historical event, namely that the wealth amassed by the last priests ofJerusalem will be given to the Romans (1QpHab 9.4-7). Pesher Habakkuk,then, concentrates on its hostile description of the Roman empire and of itsconquests; aside from the one issue just cited, the scroll contains no specifi-cally Jewish perspective on Rome. In this respect, Pesher Nahum may be seenas an uninterrupted series of the anti-Roman arguments dating from the firsthalf of the first century b.c.e., and voiced across the globe by those threatenedby Rome.51 The discovery of the pesher, then, provides us with another wit-ness to the resistance toward — and criticism of — Rome.

The great advantage of the Pesher is that it provides us with criticism ofRome directly from those formulating it. As Jewish history and the history ofother nations teach, the opposition to Rome was not merely verbal and ideo-logical, but at times quite active, in the form of rebellions and wars instigatedby the conquered people. These actions were motivated by the hope that theRoman threat could be removed, its yoke tossed off, or perhaps outright de-stroyed. Needless to say, such hopes did not always lead to outright war andrebellion, and hatred for the Romans found expression in ideologies thatwere transmitted orally or in writing. Many a prophecy was sounded con-cerning the downfall of Rome among the nations it dominated from the eastto the west. In addition, apocalyptic treatises were composed, fueled by thehope for revenge, announcing the downfall of Rome and redemption of itsvictims. However, these texts have not reached us directly.52 This was, after all,revolutionary literature, the samizdats of the day, and the reading or dissemi-nation of such writings was prohibited; Augustus even commanded that twothousand such works be burned.53 It would appear that some non-Jewishprophecies against Rome are reflected in the Greek Sibylline Oracles,54 but intheir final form these are Jewish-Christian works,55 so it is difficult to ascer-

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51. See Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom, 36 n. 19; 66 n. 77; and p. 5.52. On the Egyptian prophecy see S. K. Eddy, The King Is Dead (Lincoln, NE, 1961), 292-

294. This prophecy is only extant in Greek fragments from a translation dating to the first cen-tury b.c.e. It probably is not relevant to our discussion since most scholars date its compositionto the third century b.c.e.

53. See H. Windisch, Die Orakel des Hystaspes (Amsterdam, 1929), 31-33.54. I discussed the anti-Greek prophecy in the fourth book of the Sibylline Oracles in

“The Four Empires in the Fourth Sibyl and the Book of Daniel.” It appears the oracle was com-posed by a Jew.

55. Fuchs (Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom, 7-8 and 35 n. 20) discussed the famousprophecy found in the third book of the Sibylline Oracles, lines 350-361. This prophecy reflectsthe eastern nation’s desire for revenge against conquering Rome. A. Kurfess (Sibyllinische Weis-sagungen [Heimeran, 1951], 294) suggests that lines 350-355 reflect a pagan prophecy, but lines

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tain whether the gentile oracles are preserved in them “as is” or have under-gone Jewish or Christian adaptation. It appears, then, that the only directtestimonies of opposition to the Roman empire, expressed by nations underRome’s rule and whose authenticity is not in question, are Jewish — be theypart of rabbinic literature or from other Jewish sources.56 Most of thesesources crystallized after the destruction of the Second Temple, so that thepre-70 testimony of the Essene Pesharim — including Pesher Habakkuk — isof particular importance. Not only do they provide a context in which to ex-amine the broader, non-Jewish resistance to Rome, they also shed light on thequestion, To what extent does the post-destruction hatred of Rome have itsroots in earlier religious tendencies?

To the direct and indirect evidence for Rome-hatred we may add onemore literary genre. As early as the second century b.c.e. there is evidencethat the Romans were aware of the universal ire they provoke. Cicero refers to“the almost justified hatred against our kingdom,” on account of the rapa-cious behavior of the Roman provincial rulers. He goes on to say that the Ro-man people can no longer bear the tears, the moaning, and the complaints ofall the other nations.57 Indeed, Roman history books provide informationconcerning the complaints of these nations, citing them in the epistles andorations of Rome’s enemies.58 To be sure, these epistles and orations were infact written by the Roman authors themselves. Nonetheless, the literary docu-ments in question express their lethal criticism of Rome’s rapacity in an accu-rate and undistorted manner. One of the great contributions of PesherHabakkuk lies in its demonstration of the great similarity — to be discussedbelow — between the Roman historical writings and the hostile descriptionof the Roman empire in an authentic Jewish text. In what follows we steerclear of the “messianic” element of the hatred toward Rome, instead focusingon Pesher Habakkuk’s critique of Roman imperialism — this being both thecore topic of the Pesher, and the main theme of the present study.

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256-261, concerning the future debasement of the “virgin of Rome,” were composed by a Jewishauthor. Lines 257-259 contain a motif similar to that found in Revelation 18:3.

56. For a discussion of these sources see Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom, 62-73,and n. 77. Needless to say, Fuchs’s analysis is not exhaustive. We are still waiting for a thoroughand penetrating study of Jewish resistance to Rome, not from a Jewish perspective, but rather aspart of a broader anti-Roman sentiment shared by Jews and non-Jews alike.

57. See Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen Rom, 44-45 n. 45.58. These are the Roman historical sources relevant to our discussion: C. Iulius Caesar,

Bellum Gallicum, ed. O. Seel (Leipzig, 1968); C. Sallustius Crispus, Catalina, Iugurtha, fragmentaampliora, ed. A. Kurfess (Leipzig, 1972); Cornelius Tacitus II, ed. E. Köstermann (Leipzig, 1970);M. Iuniani Iustini, Epitoma historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi, ed. O. Seel (Leipzig, 1972).

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Clearly, persistent motifs of outrage are not simply the products of ideol-ogy, since this ideology grew in a desperate soul. Still, these particular com-plaints, voiced by one and all, are also the result of a selection process that in-volves both the given reality and the hatred felt toward Rome. These sourcesmake no mention of the positive influence of Rome.59 There are a number ofanti-Roman arguments preserved in the Latin literature that largely parallelthe criticism of Pesher Habakkuk. According to one Roman author, Demetriusking of Illyria complained to Philip of Macedon concerning Rome: they arenot content to remain within the borders of Italy and are driven by evil aspira-tions to conquer the entire world, as if the existence of a king outside their em-pire were a sin.60 In Julius Caesar’s account of the Gallic war, the author attrib-utes to a fiercely anti-Roman warrior a speech in which he claims that jealousyof noble warriors drives Rome to try to conquer their cities and enslave themfor all time. When the Roman historian Tacitus describes the Roman conquestof Britain, he places in the mouth of a British warrior a fascinating diatribeagainst Rome: the Romans are robbers stealing from the whole world, but afterdestroying the earth they scurry for the seas as neither east nor west can satetheir terrible appetite.61 They call raids, robbery, and murder by the euphe-mism ‘kingdom,’ and once they have razed a country they call this ‘peace.’ Hethen goes on to mention the Roman taxes and the harsh labor the vanquishedmust endure in the fields, the mines and the ports that have fallen into Romanhands. The great Roman author, Sallust, has King Jugurtha convince anotherAfrican king to become his ally against Rome by arguing that the Romans arescoundrels, greedy to the very core of their being, and the common enemy ofall mankind. Rome fights against foreign nations because they hunger for po-litical power, seeking out the wealthy and making of them Rome’s enemies.

The same Sallust also composed a text that sheds light both on the anti-imperialist criticism of Rome in Pesher Habakkuk, and on the praise of Ro-man power in 1 Maccabees. I am referring to the epistle of Mithridates theKing of Pontus, the sworn enemy of Rome. The epistle is supposedly intendedfor the Parthian king:62

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59. See, however, the account of Pompeius Trogus, whose book preserves many echoes ofthe anti-Roman polemic. He concludes his book with the statement that when Augustus con-quered the world, the wild and barbaric Spaniards were finally transformed by Roman law intoa more cultured way of life (Justine, Book 44, 5.8).

60. Justinian, Book 29, 2.1-4.61. Caesar, The Gallic War, Book 7, 77.15. See also Fuchs, Der geistige Widerstand gegen

Rom, 47 n. 52.62. The epistle is preserved in Sallust’s great historical work, only small parts of which

survive. Modern editions mark it as “F. IV 69.”

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The Romans have one ancient reason for fighting against all nations, peo-ple, and kings, that being a deep lust for power and wealth . . . since theocean blocked their westward progress, they have turned their arms to-ward us [i.e. eastward]. From the outset they amassed all their wealth byrobbing homes, women, fields and kingdom . . . they were created as aplague upon the world. Nothing, neither man nor god, can stop themfrom looting and corrupting their friends and allies, be they weak orpowerful, be they near or far. They see all who refuse to willfully submitto them as enemies — especially the kingdoms . . . the Romans aim theirweapons against one and all, and with terrible aggression turn on thosewhose defeat promises Rome the greatest reward. They reached theirglory by their daring and their deceit, and an endless chain of wars.63

This is the closest and fullest parallel to the Pesher Habakkuk criticism of theRomans. Especially noteworthy is that Mithridates’ epistle states explicitlythat the Romans gained their power by deceit, or, as Pesher Habakkuk wouldhave it (3.5-6): “all their thoughts are premeditated to do evil, and with cun-ning and treachery they behave towards all the nations.” In 1 Maccabees thisrather questionable mode of conquest is transformed into a positive trait:“They had conquered the whole region through their sagacity and persever-ance” (8:4). The author of 1 Maccabees further praises Rome as a faithful ally,while the epistle of Mithridates describes them as robbing and destroyingtheir friends and allies, both near and far.

Past Roman conquests appear in parallel lists in both 1 Maccabees andthe epistle of Mithridates, but serving opposite purposes. Both 1 Maccabeesand Sallust64 mention Philip and Perseus, the Greek kings, as well asAntiochus III of Syria and Eumenes King of Pergamum. According to theformer source, the Romans defeated Philip and Perseus who rose up againstthem, while Antiochus led a great army against Rome but was vanquishedand many of his lands were given to Eumenes. Thus, the Romans defeatthose who attack them (see also verses 9-11) and the transfer of lands is proofof Rome’s beneficence toward its allies.65 How very different is the portraitin the epistle of Mithridates! There the list serves as proof of Rome’s unfet-tered desire for power, of its greed, and more than anything else of its faith-lessness. When the Romans were concerned by the threat from Carthage,

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63. 5.17.64. Sallust, §§5-9.65. The praises of Rome are reminiscent of King Agrippa’s speech in Josephus’s Jewish

War 2.361-387. There, however, the topic is Rome’s might and the speaker hopes to show that therebellion does not stand a chance.

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they pretended to be friends of King Philip of Macedon; when the dangerpassed, they waged war against him. When Antiochus rushed to Philip’s aid,they tempted him with concessions in Asia, but after defeating Philip theytook many of Antiochus’s lands and stole great riches from him. When theydefeated Philip’s son, Perseus, they promised to spare his life, but ultimatelyused deception to cause his death. As for Eumenes, king of Pergamum, theRomans first offered him to Antiochus as a prize for keeping the peace, thenentrusted him with some of the lands of the vanquished Antiochus, thenthey humiliated and robbed so that he went from being a king to the mostwretched of slaves, ultimately taking Asia Minor for themselves through de-ceit and machinations. And this is the man in whose friendship Rome glo-ries! There is no question that the Essene author of Pesher Habakkuk was ofa piece with the arguments that Sallust attributes to Mithridates, sworn en-emy of Rome, both with regard to Rome’s treatment of other nations and toits motivations.

Clearly, then, there is a correlation between the claims against Romevoiced by Pesher Habakkuk, and those that Latin authors attribute to the ene-mies of Rome. The similarity indicates that the Roman writers accuratelyconveyed the complaints of Rome’s victims, as the author of PesherHabakkuk is himself an important representative of the anti-Roman ideologyas such. But the significance of Pesher Habakkuk — and Pesher Nahum aswell — is particularly great inasmuch as they provide evidence for a pre-70Jewish polemic against Rome.

The period after the destruction of the Second Temple provides usmany anti-Roman Jewish texts, from the sublime to the ridiculous. And whilethese texts — all of which are dated after the Essene pesharim — clearly ex-press the particularly religious aspect of Jewish resistance to Rome, they alsorepresent the general hostility of the peoples under Roman domination. Thecontinuity between Pesher Habakkuk’s vicious critique of Rome and later,post-70 voices, is demonstrated by a parallel passage in 4 Ezra, written somethirty years after the destruction of the Second Temple:

You, the fourth that has come, have conquered all the beasts that havegone before; and you have held sway over the world with much terror,and over all the earth with grievous oppression; and for so long you havedwelt on the earth with deceit. And you injured the peaceable; you havehated those who tell the truth, and have loved liars; you have destroyed allthe dwellings of those who brought forth fruit, and have laid low the wallof those who did you no harm. And so your insolence has come up beforethe Most High, and your pride to the Mighty One. And the Most High

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has looked upon his times, and behold, they are ended, and his ages arecompleted. (4 Ezra 11.40-44)

To be sure, this is a more abstract description than the rich and detailed lan-guage of Pesher Habakkuk — but it follows the same blueprint. A key elementhighlighted in Pesher Habakkuk but absent in 4 Ezra is the economic aspect ofRome’s wickedness. Both texts speak of the “fear and dread” Rome strikes inthe hearts of “all the peoples” (1QpHab 3.2-5 and 4.7-8), since they “held swayover the world with much terror” (4 Ezra 11.40); Rome rules through schem-ing, for “all their thoughts are premeditated to do evil, and with cunning andtreachery they behave towards all the nations” (1QpHab 3.5-6). The Essene au-thor also states that they “despise the fortresses of the peoples and with deri-sion laugh at them, they surround them with a huge army to capture them.And through dread and fear they surrender into their hands” (1QpHab 4.5-8),a motif that recurs in 4 Ezra: “you have destroyed all the dwellings of thosewho brought forth fruit, and have laid low the wall of those who did you noharm” (4 Ezra 11.42). It is certainly possible that the author is recalling the de-struction visited upon the land of Israel and the temple some thirty years ear-lier,66 but the Jewish seer does not speak here for Israel alone; he identifies withall the victims of Roman imperialism. The fourth kingdom rules the land withinjustice, torments the poor and distresses the peaceful, hates men of truth andloves the liars. 4 Ezra expresses its compassion for all the victims of the wickedkingdom more explicitly than does Pesher Habakkuk.

IX

We have just seen the affinity between Pesher Habakkuk and the anti-Romanpolemic in 4 Ezra. From the outset, then, when it first suffered under Romanaggression, Israel became the chief spokesman against the empire. It was not,however, unique, as other sources attest. Pesher Habakkuk is an importantwitness to the anti-Roman ideology that had spread through these nations asearly as the second century b.c.e. It faithfully reflects the arguments againstRome voiced by those who experienced the dreadful cruelty of Roman impe-rialism. The work is of particular importance inasmuch as it is apparently theearliest witness to a Jewish polemic against Rome, as well as the first witnessto a Jewish expectation of the future downfall of the empire.

Pesher Habakkuk fits well with the chorus of voices crying out against

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66. See the discussion in J. Licht, Fourth Ezra (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1968), 70.

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the suffocating power of Rome, a striking exemplar of the resistance to impe-rialism as such, voices that are still heard to this day.67 Needless to say, theseexpressions of protest were one-sided, just as the pro-empire ideology propa-gated by Rome itself focused exclusively on the light while ignoring thereadily apparent dark sides of Rome’s world dominance. In this context itshould be noted that the Roman empire played a positive role in advancingcivilization, establishing peace and developing the legal system. The Jews rec-ognized these achievements, as we see from the Babylonian Talmud, wherethe cultural and judicial contributions of Rome are recognized, even though,as Rabbi Isaac says: “What is the meaning of the verse ‘If favor is shown to thewicked they will not learn righteousness’ (Isa. 26:10)? [The patriarch] Isaacsaid to the Holy One Blessed be He: ‘Master of the Universe, show grace uponEsau [the rabbinic symbol of Rome].’ God said to him, ‘He is wicked.’ [Isaac]said, then he ‘will not learn righteousness.’ Said God, ‘In the land of upright-ness [= Israel] they deal perversely’ (ibid.). Said Isaac, If so, let them ‘not seethe majesty of the Lord’ (ibid.)” (Tractate Megillah 6a).68

But even if we recognize the positive aspects of this great kingdom, wecannot but feel sympathy for those who long ago rose up against the injusticethis superpower visited upon so many nations, but aversion to the praise of

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67. Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1949 play Romulus der Grosse takes up the same theme. In it,the last emperor knowingly causes the collapse of the empire since Rome has become a worldkingdom, i.e., an institution that has committed “public murder, robbery, oppression and loot-ing at the expense of other nations” (Zurich, 1980; Act 3, p. 77, and see also pp. 91-92).

68. W. Z. Bacher, Die Agada der palästinensischen Amoräer (Strasbourg, 1896), 2.230, pro-vides a penetrating discussion of Rabbi Isaac’s dictum, and see also 226 n. 3. On the statement ofRabbi Hama bar Hanina concerning the Germanic tribes threatening Rome (b. Megillah 6b —immediately following Rabbi Isaac’s comments), see Bacher, Agada der palästinensischenAmoräer (Strasbourg, 1892), 1.455 n. 4. Bacher believes that the more original version of thisstatement is found in Genesis Rabba 75 (p. 887 in the Theodor-Albeck edition). There is a fasci-nating polemic against Roman imperialism, very much in the spirit of Pesher Habakkuk, in theMidrash Psalms to Psalm 104:25-26: “‘Yonder is the sea, great’ — this refers to the kingdom ofEdom; ‘and wide’ — that it widens its dominance of the world; ‘creeping things innumerableare there’ — they reproduce like insects; ‘living things both small and great’ — this refers to theRoman military commanders, the duces, the prefects, and the generals; ‘There go the ships’ —these are the ships they send to Israel with their destructive decrees; ‘the Leviathan that youformed to sport in it’ — whoever allies himself with them will be sported with, in the time tocome” (Midrash Tehillim, Buber edition 445-446). Buber rightly notes that the Hebrew word forships, }oniyot, is midrashically read as though it were derived from the Greek ân©, meaning a re-ceipt of sale, and see Jacob Lewy’s Wörterbuch, s.v.: ynwa. The midrash itself is written in thepesher format, and, interestingly, its author interprets “the sea” as referring to Rome, just asPesher Nahum did previously. See the discussion of Pesher Nahum at the beginning of sectionVIII, above.

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Roman might in 1 Maccabees. It is striking that the laudatory words of1 Maccabees are so similar to the rebuke of Pesher Habakkuk, failing to men-tion the very issues for which the Roman rule truly deserved praise. The au-thor of this questionable passage seems to assume that it is better to forge analliance with the unfettered, aggressive and rapacious power of Rome, sincethis is an empire that is faithful to its allies. As such, Roman might will notharm the Jewish people, but to the contrary: its terrific force will be chan-neled solely for their benefit. Future events will show just how fundamentallyand tragically mistaken this view really was.

Be all that as it may, the description of Rome’s greatness in 1 Maccabeesis the oddest such praise to reach us. To my mind, it proves that the power ofworship, detached from any moral consideration and clear sense of futureevents, is a losing proposition. Pesher Habakkuk, on the other hand, wascomposed by a group with an acute sense of justice, very sensitive to social in-iquities, and a deep disdain for looting under the auspices of the state. It isclear, then, why the Essenes could rightly recognize the dark underbelly ofRoman imperialism, which would threaten all. Pesher Habakkuk, then,stands out as an important historical attestation of the anti-Roman ideologywithin the Jewish people and, indeed, within the ancient world.69

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69. The Essene sensitivity to justice among nations finds its expression in 1Q27, knownas the Book of Mysteries: “Do not all nations loathe the yoke? And yet, they all walk about un-der its influence. Does not praise of the truth come from the mouth of all nations? And yet, isthere perhaps one lip or tongue which persists in it? What people would wish to be oppressedby another more powerful than itself? Who would wish to be sinfully looted of its wealth? Andyet, which is the people not to oppress its neighbor? Where is the people which has not lootedanother of its wealth?” (1Q27 1.8-12). The same paradox is found in “I see the better course andapprove, but follow its defeat” (Metamorphoses 7.20-21; Brookes translation). Similarly we findin Paul’s epistle to the Romans: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what Iwant, but I do the very thing I hate. . . . For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is,in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but theevil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, butsin that dwells within me” (Rom. 7:15, 18-20). Paul’s view is quite similar to that of the Essenes,and may reflect the influence of classical Greek thought, and Stoic philosophy in particular.For a discussion, see my “The ‘Book of the Mysteries’ and the High Holy Days Liturgy,” in thepresent volume.

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15. The Eschatological Temple

Dedicated to my friend Shmuel Safrai,on the occasion of his 80th birthday

The last chapter in my book on Jesus deals with two Jewish approaches to theend of days: one found in Jewish apocalyptic literature, the other in the writ-ings of the rabbinic sages. Both describe the world to come in fundamentallysimilar terms: it will be a post-historical era, the time of a new creation, theresurrection of the dead and the great day of judgment; in the end of days, anew Jerusalem will be established, in which God himself will construct a newand everlasting temple.1 Judaism is not, of course, based on binding dogmas,so not all Jews accepted this conceptual construct in its entirety.2

A concise summary of the Jewish view of the eschaton is found in theopening of the Qaddish “Who Renews” (aodj yd), which I cite here accord-ing to the prayer book of Rav Sa}adia Gaon (p. 350):3 “Who will renew the

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1. See D. Flusser, “The Stages of Redemption History,” in Jesus (Jerusalem, 1998), 258-275;idem, “Two Notes on the Midrash on 2 Sam vii,” in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, 88-93. The Qumran writings contain an entire scroll dedicated to the temple, including the escha-tological temple, i.e., the Temple Scroll. See Elisha Qimron, The Temple Scroll (Jerusalem, 1996),44. Other relevant material is found in the Qumran Hodayot, and see also volume I of AbrahamKahana’s Hebrew edition of the apocrypha (ha-Sefarim ha-Hitzonim [Jerusalem, 1978]);D. Flusser, “Jerusalem in Second Temple Literature.”

2. See the Shavel edition of Nachmanides’ works (Jerusalem, 1964), 306.3. After the blessing Rav Sa’adia Gaon writes: “There are those who recite this qaddish af-

ter a burial service, but this is not the core meaning.” Nonetheless, the custom has taken root inJewish communities, except those that say this qaddish after the completion of a Talmud tractate.Aside from Rav Sa’adia Gaon, the custom is attested in the prayer book of Maimonides and of theYemenite community, and see D. Goldschmidt, “Maimonides’ Prayer Book ,” in Studies in Prayerand Piyyut, 203: “A quorum of ten or more Jews who studies the Oral Law, or even biblical exege-

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world and resurrect the dead,4 he will establish the city of Jerusalem andbeautify the temple, and uproot the worship of idols [literally: createdthings], then bringing about a love for the worship of God.”

Another description of what Israel can expect after the new creation iscited in the name of Rabbi Elazar of Modi{in (early second century c.e.), inhis interpretation of Exodus 16:25: “If you will succeed in keeping the Sab-bath, the Holy One, blessed be He, will give you six good portions: The landof Israel, the future world, the new world, the Kingdom of the house of David,the priesthood, and the Levites’ offices. Thus [Scripture] states, ‘eat it today’.”5

True, the list does not explicitly mention the new Jerusalem and the recon-structed temple, but they are undoubtedly included in ‘the Kingdom of thehouse of David,’ and ‘the priesthood.’

On the other hand, the list in the “Who Renews” qaddish does not de-scribe the act of new creation (but rather states it as something that will hap-pen in the future), an act that is necessary for all the events it enumerates. Anew creation is already mentioned as early as Isaiah 65:17: “For I am about tocreate new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remem-bered or come to mind” (and see also 66:22). This idea gained wide currencyin the apocalyptic and eschatological literature in both the Second Templeperiod and post-70.6 A survey of the relevant sources indicates that the con-cept of a new Jerusalem and an eschatological temple developed in the wakeof the destruction of the first temple and the return of the Babylonian exiles.7

The sages recognize three distinct temples: the first temple, the secondtemple, and the eschatological temple, which will be built by God’s own hand,as it is written: “the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established”(Exod. 15:17). The Qumran community also recognized three temples; how-ever the second of these did not correspond to the temple that stood in theirday, since they considered it a fundamental error, an impure place that could

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sis or homiletic teachings, when they complete their study one of them stands and recites qaddishas follows . . .” This qaddish is also recited following the reading of the Torah in S. Tal, The Liturgyof the Jews of Persia (Jerusalem, 1981), 236; and in the text of the Aleppo Codex.

4. The Essenes, and affiliated groups, believed that individual souls do go on to the worldto come where they receive their reward or punishment, according to the final judgment; theydid not, however, believe in a physical resurrection. On the Essenes’ eschatological beliefs seeJosephus, BJ 2.154-158, and the important article by G. Grelot, “La géographie mythologiqued’Enoch au pays des aromates,” Revue Biblique 65 (1958), 33-69.

5. Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, trans. J. Z. Lauterbach (Philadelphia, 1933), 2.120.6. See 1 Enoch 45.4-6; 91.15-17; 17.28-29; Jubilees 1.15-17, 26-29; 2 Baruch and 4 Ezra (and

see my book on Jesus, 270-272); 1QHodayot 19.14; 21.11-14.7. See my article, “The Stages of Redemption History.” The concept is also attested in the

New Testament: 2 Peter 3.10-13; Revelation 20:11–21:14, and see also 2 Corinthians 5:17.

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not house the divine spirit.8 In its stead, they offer a proper temple, i.e., theone whose structure and cultic rituals are described in the Temple Scroll. Andindeed, we find in this text mention both of the proper temple that is in-tended to replace the corrupt structure in Jerusalem, and of the eschatologicaltemple:

7. I shall accept them. They shall be for me a people and I will be forthem forever; and I shall dwell8. with them for ever and always. I shall sanctify my temple with myglory, for I shall make my glory reside9. over it until the day of creation,9 when I shall create my temple,10. establishing it for my self for all days, according to the covenantthat I made with Jacob at Bethel. (11Q19 [= 11QTemple] 29.7-10)10

This passage is very similar to the opening chapter of the Book of Jubi-lees, so much so that there may be a literary connection between the two:11

Write for Moses from the first creation until my presence rests in theirmidst12 forever and ever. And the Lord will appear in the sight of all. Andeveryone will know that I am the God of Israel and the father of all thechildren of Jacob and king upon Mount Zion forever and ever. And Zionand Jerusalem will be holy. . . . From the day of the new creation when theheaven and earth and all of their creatures shall be renewed according tothe powers of heaven and according to the whole nature of earth, untilthe sanctuary of the Lord is created in Jerusalem upon Mount Zion, andall of the lights will be renewed for healing and peace and blessing for allthe elect of Israel and in order that it might be thus from that day andunto all the days of the earth. (Jubilees 1.27-29)13

There are two elements common to this passage from Jubilees and theTemple Scroll: an ideal temple in the present, and a new creation in whichGod himself will forge the ultimate, eternal temple. Incidentally, these ele-ments are also cited in the qaddish “Who Renews.”

But what then happens with the proper temple, the one that replaces

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The Eschatological Temple

8. See Flusser, Jesus, 268 n. 27, and 139 n. 12.9. Compare 4Q225 (= 4QpsJuba), fragment 1.7: “until the [new] creation.”10. See also Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll (New York, 1985), 112-115.11. Already noted by K. Berker, Das Buch der Jubilaen (Gutersloh, 1981), 310 n. e.12. See the Temple Scroll 29.7-8: “I shall dwell with them.”13. Translated by O. S. Wintermute in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseud-

epigrapha (New York, 1985), 2.54.

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the one now standing (assuming it does not perish with the world)? 1 Enoch90.28-29 proposes one answer:14 the temple and all its vessels will be trans-ported to a southern location, while God builds a bigger and better temple inJerusalem. This solution is reminiscent of the account in 1 Maccabees 4.43-46,regarding the impure altar stones that were removed from the temple duringits dedication, and placed in an appropriate location on the Temple Mount.

In the Temple Scroll, God says: “I shall make my glory reside over [thepresent temple] until the day of creation, when I shall create my temple, es-tablishing it for myself for all days, according to the covenant which I madewith Jacob at Bethel” (29.9-10). Clearly the reference here is not to Jacob’s sec-ond visit to Bethel (Gen. 35:6-7),15 when Jacob says of the site: “How awesomeis this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate ofheaven” (Gen. 28:17). This verse is the basis for the midrashic interpretationaccording to which Jacob saw the first temple in his vision at Bethel.16 Themidrash builds on the opening of Jacob’s blessing to Benjamin, since the tem-ple would be located in the latter’s tribal territory. The midrash opens: “‘[TheHigh God] surrounds him’ — this refers to the First Temple; ‘all day long’ —this refers to the Second Temple; ‘[the beloved] rests between his shoulders’— built and beautified in the future.” The Sifre then turns to discuss the threepatriarchs, though it is evident that Abraham and Isaac are a secondary inser-tion, since it was Jacob who had a vision of the future temple while at Bethel.Unfortunately, all three midrashim concerning the patriarchs have been re-worked into a uniform mold, in which each in turn “saw it built, saw it de-stroyed, and saw it rebuilt.” Only the last segment retains its original form,namely, the construction of the eschatological temple following the new cre-ation, “he saw it built and beautified in the future.” This is the same templereferred to in the Qumran Temple Scroll. The original shape of the midrash ispreserved only in the discussion of Benjamin. Note that the language here re-fers to a temple to be beautified for the future time, much as the qaddish“Who Renews” tells that God will, in the future, “beautify the temple.”

In the text of the Sifre Deuteronomy we have before us today we find:“Similarly you find that Jacob saw it built, saw it destroyed and saw it rebuilt,

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14. I do not know if the Enoch passage refers to the same issue, since it does not mentiona new creation.

15. God’s covenant with Jacob is not mentioned by this name in either of his two excur-sions to Bethel. Perhaps the reference is to God’s words in Genesis 21:13-15? Whatever the an-swer, it appears that this is the covenant to which the Temple Scroll refers at 30.1-2, where theword qdkaw is still legible.

16. Sifre Deuteronomy §352, to Deuteronomy 33:12 (Hammer edition, p. 365). See alsoGenesis Rabba 4.5 (Theodor-Albeck edition, p. 18).

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as it is said: ‘and he was afraid,’ and said ‘How awesome is this place’ — indi-cating that it was built — ‘there is none’ — indicating that it was destroyed —‘other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven’ — indicating thathe saw it built and beautified in the future.” However, I believe we can recon-struct with a fair degree of accuracy the original statement concerning Jacob,using the midrash on Benjamin: “And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesomeis this place’ — this is the first temple, ‘This is none other than the house ofGod’ — this is the last [= second] temple, ‘and this is the gate of heaven’ —built and beautified in the future.” In any case, it is worth noting that both theEssenes and the sages speak of three temples — the first, the second, and thebeautified eschatological temple. The difference between the two groups liesin their attitude toward the second temple: the Essenes considered it illegiti-mate and proposed an ideal temple in its stead. The most striking aspect of allthis is that both the Essenes and the sages believed that after the new creationGod himself would build a beautiful temple. Here, then, is one of the reasons— though certainly not the only one — that the destruction of the first tem-ple was not experienced as such a trauma.

Let us return now to the Temple Scroll. As noted,17 the scroll does notexplicitly discuss the nature of the covenant forged between God and Jacob,perhaps because this is an issue discussed in a subsequent section that is nolonger extant. It stands to reason that the scroll did not limit its discussion tothe ideal temple that is slated to replace the Jerusalem structure (29.9-10), butreferred also to the temple that will come about after the new creation. None-theless, I suspect that the author assumed that Jacob’s vision included the firsttemple as well.

In order to more fully understand the meaning of the three templesboth for the sectarian, Essene thought and for the rabbis, we should examinechapter 32 of 2 Baruch, which was composed circa 100 c.e., and is similar to4 Ezra in time and in literary form. 2 Baruch was putatively composed byBaruch the scribe prior to the destruction of the first temple. Baruch an-nounces that the temple in Jerusalem will soon be destroyed, but later rebuilt.However this second building too will fall, but rather be abandoned andrazed until the end of days. God will then bring about a new creation andonly then will the temple be renewed and formed as the most beautiful edificein the world. There is a great similarity between this account and the descrip-tion in the Qumran Temple Scroll, on the one hand, and the discussion of thethird temple in the rabbinic midrash (as discussed above), on the other. Notethat the Qumran scroll has God speaking of a new creation, “when I shall cre-

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17. Above, n. 2.

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ate my temple, establishing it for my self for all days,” echoing the well-knownrabbinic view that God would construct the eschatological temple with hisown hands.

Our study points to a number of conclusions. For one thing, we havehere further evidence for a position that should have been clear long ago,namely, that many issues that are attested only post-70 need to be dated toSecond Temple times. An example would be the sentence for the Jewish graceafter meals: “The Merciful will see us to Messianic era and to the days of theworld to come.” This is by all accounts a late addition to the grace after meals,but it is nonetheless significant in that it reflects the tripartite division intothis world, the messianic era, and the world to come. This same division is at-tested at least as early as the first century c.e., and is found in the teachings ofJesus18 and the rabbinic sages; indeed, it is common down to this very day. Inthe eschatological and apocalyptic literature — including the Essene writings— we find the view that this world to come will emerge from a new creation— as stated in the qaddish “Who Renews”: “Who will renew the world andresurrect the dead,19 he will establish the city of Jerusalem and beautify thetemple.” Column 29 of the Temple Scroll is the final proof that the belief in aneschatological temple was already circulating during Second Temple times.What is unique about the Essene perspective is their belief that the SecondTemple was illegitimate, so they described an ersatz earthly temple and thenused their rich (and utopian) imagination to describe this edifice in the Tem-ple Scroll. However, we must also keep in mind that the Essenes formulatedan obligatory set of dogmas, while other Jews were not committed to a strictand consistent set of beliefs.

Addendum

In chapter 17 of Seder {Olam we find: “And in the second year of Ahaziahu,Elijah was hidden away and is not seen until the Messiah comes, and in themessianic era he is seen but then hidden a second time and not seen until theadvent of Gog. And now he writes the events of all the generations.” This mys-terious statement was discussed by Meir Friedmann in the introduction to his

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18. See also my Jesus.19. The Essenes, and affiliated groups, believed that individual souls do go on to the

world to come where they receive their reward or punishment, according to the final judgment;they did not, however, believe in a physical resurrection. On the Essenes’ eschatological beliefssee Josephus, BJ 2.154-158, and the important article by G. Grelot, “La géographie mythologiqued’Enoch au pays des aromates,” Revue Biblique 65 (1958), 33-69.

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edition of Tanna de-Bei Eliyahu, p. 25. It seems to me that dual advents are theresult of some vacillation that came about from the combination of two es-chatological views, when the messianic age was inserted between this worldand the world to come.20 The same doubling is found in the Book of Revela-tion (20:8), which describes Gog and Magog after an intermediary millen-nium, but prior to the final judgment and new creation of chapter 21. An-other fascinating passage is found in Acts 3:20-23, though this is undoubtedlyrooted in an Elijah tradition, as other scholars have duly noted.21

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20. See my Jesus.21. See O. Bauernfeind in H. Conzelmann, Die Apostelgeschichte (Tübingen, 1963), 30. See

also the words of Jesus concerning Elijah in Matthew 17:12 and Mark 9:11. In all these verses theGreek word for “restore” is found in the Septuagint to Malachi 3:24.

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16. Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenesin Pesher Nahum

I

Usually when a new discovery is made that provides heretofore unknown his-torical information, the scholarly world is surprised by the new data and thelight it sheds on the past, even though the discoveries tend to affirm the fidel-ity of the sources that had been known up to that point. This paradoxical re-sponse is the result of a consistent tendency within scholarly circles to under-estimate the accuracy of historical sources, particularly those composed byancient historians — even historians who have their own goals and agendas.The central challenge of analyzing secondary sources is not, then, the need todiscount their often tendentious viewpoint as such, but rather that absent theprimary sources it is difficult to identify the author’s perspective on the real-ity reflected in his writings.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are one of the most interesting proofs for theabove statement. There are, to be sure, a number of scholars who argue thatthe members of the Qumran community are not Essenes, and these views dosometimes find favor in the broader public. However, this is largely becausethose who see the Qumran community as Essenes are so confident in theidentification that they no longer bother to gather supporting evidence. Asone scholar has rightly noted, in the early days of Qumran scholarship,Josephus’s description of the Essenes was used to clarify the Qumran scrolls,but today, with the publication of additional scrolls and advances in research,the Qumran scrolls shed light on Josephus’s account of the Essenes. Indeed,the Essene writings demonstrate just how accurate Josephus was in describ-

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ing the community, what aspects of their life he passed over in silence, andhow lacking such precision is in Philo’s historical writings. The scrolls indi-cate that Josephus writes as a responsible historian, while Philo is more of anapologetic midrashist.

But while the discovery of the scrolls has provided answers for most ofthe questions raised by Josephus’s description of the Essenes, one major issueremains unanswered: is the division of Second Temple Jewish society intothree schools a schematic construct invented by Josephus, or a more or lessaccurate reflection of the historical reality of the day? The publication of theDead Sea Scroll known as Pesher Nahum indicates that it was not justJosephus who divided Jewish society into three schools — the Pharisees, theSadducees, and the Essenes — but the Essenes themselves adhered to thisview.

The central aim of this essay is to demonstrate the concord betweenJosephus and the Scrolls. In addition I will try to lay bare some of the inter-pretive tools the Essenes employed in dividing the Jewish landscape intoPharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes.

What follows is the extant text of Pesher Nahum.1

Column 11. [. . .] residence for the wicked of the nations. “Where the lion goes,

and the lion’s cubs2. [with no one to disturb them” (Nahum 2:11) Its interpretation

concerns Deme]trius, king of Yavan, who wanted to enter Jerusalemon the advice of those looking for smooth interpretations (dorsheihalakot).

3. [But he did not enter, for God had not given Jerusalem] into thehand of the kings of Yavan from Antiochus up to the appearance ofthe chiefs of the Kittim. But later, it will be trampled.

4. [. . .] “The lion has torn enough for his whelps and strangled preyfor his lioness,

5. he has filled his caves with prey and his dens with torn flesh”

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Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in Pesher Nahum

1. The text was first published by J. Licht, “Additional Pages of Pesher Nahum” (Hebrew),Molad 19 (1961), 454-456, and see also my comments, 456-458. The following year, Allegro pub-lished the text along with a facsimile reproduction in “More Unpublished Pieces of a QumranCommentary on Nahum,” JSS 7 (1962), 304-308. A. Dupont-Sommer has published three arti-cles on Pesher Nahum: One in Journal des Savants (1963), 201-227; a second, “Le commentaire deNahum découvert près de la Mer Morte (4 QpNah). Traduction et notes,” Semitica 13 (1963), 55-88; and a third in Eretz Israel 8 (Sukenik Volume) (Jerusalem, 1967), 25-36. See also the excellentstudy by Amusin, “Ephraim et Manasse dans le pesher de Nahum (4QpNah),” Revue de Qumran4 (1963), 389-396.

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(Nahum 2:12). [The interpretation of the matter] concerns theAngry Lion who struck (together) with his nobles and the men ofhis council

6. [the simple folk of Ephraim. And concerning what he says: “he hasfilled] his caves [with prey] and his den with torn flesh,” itsinterpretation concerns the Angry Lion

7. [who filled his cave with a mass of corpses, carrying out rev]engeagainst those looking for smooth interpretations, who hangedliving men

8. [from the tree, committing an atrocity which had not beencommitted] in Israel since ancient times, for it is [hor]rible for theone hanged alive from the tree. “See, I am against [you],

9. says the [Lord of hosts, and I will burn your chariots in smoke,]and the sword shall devour your young lions. [I will] cut off yourprey [from the earth],

10. [and the] voice [of your messengers] shall be heard no more”(Nahum 2:13). Its interpretation: “Your chariots” are his gangs ofsoldiers [. . .]; “his young lions” are

11. his nobles [and the members of his council . . .] and “his prey” isthe wealth which [the priests] of Jerusalem accu[mulated] which

12. they will deliver [. . . E]phraim, will be given Israel [. . .]

Column 21. And his messengers are his emissaries, whose voice will no longer

be heard among the nations. “Ah! City of bloodshed, utterly[deceitful], full of booty” (Nahum 3:1).

2. Its interpretation: it is the city of Ephraim, those looking forsmooth interpretations, in the final days, since they walk intreachery and lies.

3. “No end to the plunder! The crack of whip and rumble of wheel,galloping horse and bounding chariot! Horsemen charging, flashingsword and glittering spear,

4. piles of dead, heaps of corpses, dead bodies without end — theystumble over the bodies!” (Nahum 3:1-3). Its interpretationconcerns the rule of those looking for smooth interpretations,

5. from whose assembly the sword of the gentiles will not be lacking,nor captivity or looting, nor fire among them, nor exile for fear ofthe enemy; a mass

6. of guilty corpses will fall in their days; there will be no end to thetally of the wounded and they will even trip over their bodies offlesh because of their guilty counsel.

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7. “Because of the countless debaucheries of the prostitute, gracefullyalluring, mistress of sorcery, who enslaves nations through herdebaucheries, and peoples through her sorcery” (Nah 3:4).

8. [Its] interpretation concerns the misleaders from Ephraim, whowith their fraudulent teaching and lying tongue and perfidious lipmisdirect many:

9. kings, princes, priests and people together with the proselyteattached to them. Cities and clans will perish through their advice,nobles and leaders

10. will fall [due to the fero]city of their tongues. “I am against you,says the Lord of hosts, you will lift up

11. [your] skirts over your face; and I will let the nations look on yournakedness and kingdoms [on your] shame” (Nah 3:5). Itsinterpretation [. . .]

12. [. . .] the cities of the east, because “your skirts” [. . .]

Column 31. The nations with their uncleanness and with their detestable

abominations. “I will throw filth at you and treat you withcontempt and make you

2. a spectacle. Then all who see you will shrink from you” (Nah 3:6-7).3. Its interpretation concerns those looking for smooth

interpretations, whose evil deeds will be exposed to all Israel in thefinal time;

4. many will fathom their sin, and will hate them and loathe them fortheir reprehensible arrogance. And when the glory of Judah isrevealed

5. the simple people of Ephraim will flee from among their assemblyand desert the ones who misdirected them and will join themajority of Israel. “They will say:

6. Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoan her? Where shall I seekcomforters for you?” Its interpretation concerns those looking for

7. smooth interpretations, whose council will die and whose societywill be disbanded; they shall not continue misdirecting theassembly and simple folk

8. shall no longer support their council. “Are you better than Amonthat sat surrounded by rivers?” (Nah 3:8).

9. Its interpretation: Amon is Manasseh and the rivers are the greatmen of Manasseh, the honorable [people who surround] Manasseh.

10. “Water around her, her rampart a sea, water her wall” (Nah 3:8)11. Its interpretation: they are her men at arms, her mighty warriors.

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“Ethiopia was her strength, Egypt too, and that without limit” (Nah3:9).

12. [Its interpretation:] . . . “Put and [the Libyans were her helpers]

Column 41. Its interpretation: they are the wick[ed ones of Judah], the house of

division (oyb glp), which consorted with Manasseh. “Yet shebecame an exile, she went into captivity;

2. even her infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street;lots were cast for her nobles, all her dignitaries were bound in

3. fetters” (Nah 3:10). Its interpretation concerns Manasseh, in the lasttime, in which his dominion over Israel will weaken [. . .]

4. his women, his children and his babies will go into captivity, hiswarriors and his honored ones [will perish] by the sword. [“youalso will be drunken]

5. you will go into hiding” (Nah 3:11). Its interpretation concerns thewicked of E[phraim who . . .]

6. whose cup will come after Manasseh [. . . “You will seek]7. a refuge from the enemy” (Nah 3:11). Its interpretation concerns

[. . .]8. their enemies in the city, [. . . “All your fortresses are like9. fig trees wi[th young fruit” . . .]

II

Even before the publication of Pesher Nahum there were scholars who sug-gested that Qumran scrolls use dorshei halakot, “those looking for smooth in-terpretations,” as a reference to the Pharisees. The people referred to in thisway are presented as hypocrites, lacking integrity. Elsewhere in the Dead SeaScrolls there is repeated reference to the deceptive ways of the dorshei halakot,and in particular the lies they use when speaking to the people. Within PesherNahum their doctrines are referred as “fraudulent teaching” (2.8). And we findother Second Temple sources that refer to the Pharisees — or at least some ofthem — as hypocrites. This charge is leveled by Alexander Jannaeus, the Sad-ducee king (b. Sotah 22b), in rabbinic literature, and in the teachings of Jesus.2It is not the goal of the present study to examine the historical circumstancesthat gave rise to this accusation. I will only note that the rabbis adhere to thePharisee teachings, and that Jesus too says that the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat

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2. See my comments appended to Licht, “Additional Pages,” 458.

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(Matt. 23:2-3), that is, that one is to abide by their teachings though not bytheir actions. The Qumran community, in contrast, is vehemently opposed tothe Pharisee doctrines, to their “fraudulent teaching.” The Scrolls generally,and Pesher Nahum in particular, confirm the accounts of Josephus and thelater rabbis, according to whom the Pharisees held the allegiance of the major-ity of the Jews3 — though this is seen as a terrible calamity. The Pharisee sagesare characterized as involved in misdirection: “the misleaders from Ephraim,who with their fraudulent teaching and lying tongue and perfidious lip misdi-rect many: kings, princes, priests and people together with the proselyte at-tached to them. Cities and clans will perish through their advice, nobles andleaders will fall due to the ferocity of their tongue” (2.8-10). The tremendousinfluence of the Pharisee sages on mainstream Jewish society is seen by theQumran community almost as the ancient enticements to idolatry in biblicaltimes: the author of Pesher Hosea laments that Israel “listened to those whomisdirected them and they acclaimed them, and feared them in their blindnesslike god” (4Q166 [= 4QpHosa] 2.5-6). As for Pesher Nahum, it voices the hopethat “in the final time,” the “evil deed” of the dorshei halakot “will be exposedto all Israel” and the people will simply abandon them.

In light of all that has been said, it appears the phrase dorshei halakotserves in the Qumran writings4 to indicate the hypocrisy of the Pharisees intheir preaching to Israel. It stands to reason, then, that the basic sense of thisappellation is that the Pharisee doctrine is “fraudulent teaching,” that is, that

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3. See my comments appended to Licht, “Additional Pages,” 457.4. See Licht, Megillat ha-Hodayot, 74, as well as Dupont-Sommer’s argument in his arti-

cle in the Eretz Israel 8 (E. L. Sukenik Memorial Volume), 30. See also “all those who seek deceit”(1QHa 10.34), “[for speaker]s lure them, and mediators of deceit misdirect them” (1QHa 12.7),and “But they are mediators of fraud and seers of deceit, they have plotted a devilish thingagainst me . . . to change your Law . . . for flattering teachings for your people” (1QHa 12.9-11).The Qumran community interpreted Isaiah 30:10 — “speak to us smooth interpretations,prophesy illusions” — as a reference to the Pharisees, and similarly “They utter lies to eachother; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak” (Ps. 12:2). See also the phrase dorsheihalakot, ‘the seekers after smooth interpretations’ as well as “the assembly of futility” (1QHa 14.5and 15.34), “the Preacher of Deceit, who has misdirected many, building a useless city withblood and erecting a community with lies for his own glory, wearing out many by useless work”(1QpHab 10.9-11), “they search you with a double heart” (1QHa 12.14), and below, n. 10. In theopening of the War Scroll, the Jewish enemies of the Qumran community are referred to as “theviolators of the covenant” (1QM 1.2). As Yadin notes in his edition, the phrase is taken fromDaniel 11:32-34: “He [LXX, Theodotian, and Vulgate: they] shall seduce with intrigue those whoviolate the covenant . . . and many shall join them insincerely.” It appears, then, that the phrase“the violators of the covenant,” which has its origins in Daniel, refers in the War Scroll to thesame group that is elsewhere in the Scrolls called “those who seek after smooth interpretations,”that is, the Pharisees.

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they interpret the Torah hypocritically or smoothly. The Hebrew word mid-rash appears frequently in the Qumran writings, and indeed “midrash ha-torah,” ‘the study of the Law,’ is the goal of their journey into the desert (1QS8.15). Similarly we find in the Manual of Discipline “And in the place inwhich the ten assemble there should not be missing a man to interpret theLaw day and night always” (1QS 6.6-7). The heir of the Teacher of Righteous-ness is called ‘the interpreter of the Law’ (doresh ha-torah), and this is alsothe title of the Aaronite messiah in the future time.5 In light of these phrasesit would appear that the Pharisees are characterized as “looking for smoothinterpretations” because they study and preach the Torah using easy orsmooth interpretations.

All this makes the identification of the Scrolls’ dorshei halakot with thePharisees almost certain,6 since they are the religious party that is suspectedof hypocrisy and whose preaching is heard throughout the Jewish society ofthe day. However, the clearest proof of this matter appeared with the publica-tion of the first column of Pesher Nahum, which discussed the fact that“Deme]trius, king of Yavan, . . . wanted to enter Jerusalem on the advice ofthose looking for smooth interpretations (dorshei halakot)” (1.2). In additionthe column speaks of the Angry Lion, who sought “[. . . rev]enge againstthose looking for smooth interpretations, who hanged living men [from thetree, committing an atrocity which had not been committed] in Israel sinceancient times” (1.6-8). There is no question but that these lines refer to the in-vasion of the Hellenistic king Demetrius in 89 b.c.e., who was invited by thePharisees to do battle against Alexander Jannaeus. After the foreign king de-parted, Jannaeus hanged eight hundred Pharisees from a tree.

To the evidence of the first column we must add the following from thesecond: “the rule of those looking for smooth interpretations, from whose as-sembly the sword of the gentiles will not be lacking, nor captivity or looting,nor fire among them, nor exile for fear of the enemy; a mass of guilty corpseswill fall in their days; there will be no end to the tally of the wounded and theywill even trip over their bodies of flesh because of their guilty counsel” (2.4-6). This is a clear allusion to the rule of the Pharisees during the days ofQueen Alexandra Salome. The dark description of the “rule of those lookingfor smooth interpretations” is not substantively different than Josephus’s de-scription of the period. The pesher itself was undoubtedly composed when

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5. CD 6.7; 7.18; 4QF 1.11. The designation is also part of the reconstruction of 4QPatr, line5. On the “Interpreter of the law” (doresh ha-torah) as a historical and messianic figure, see my“Two Notes on the Midrash of 2 Sam vii,” IEJ 9 (1959), 104-109.

6. Support for this assumption is found in my Hebrew article published in Kiryat Sefer 33(1958), 456-460.

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Israel was under Roman rule, since it speaks of the period from “the kings ofYavan from Antiochus up to the appearance of the chiefs of the Kittim” (1.3),the latter being a reference to the Romans.

The founder of the Essene movement was a priest famously referred toas the “Teacher of Righteousness” (see the Pesher to Psalm 37 3.15-16; CD1.11).7 Who then headed the Pharisees, those looking for smooth interpreta-tions? The answer to this question is found in the Damascus Document,which speaks of the time when “the scoffer arose, who poured out over Israelwater of lies and made them stray into the wilderness without path . . . so thatthe curses of his covenant would adhere to them . . . for they sought smoothinterpretations . . .” (CD 1.16-18).8 The individual known by the Essenes as“the scoffer” is also referred to as “the man of deceit” and “the Preacher ofDeceit.” This catalogue of appellations, which suits the usual pejorative tone,allows us to uncover the Essene polemics aimed specifically against the Phari-sees. In Pesher Habakkuk (the relevant passages are 2.1-4; 5.8-12; 10.5-13), inPesher Micah,9 and in the Damascus Document (namely, 1.12; 2.1; 4.19-21;5.11-6.2; 8.12-13, 18; 20.10-12, 14-15), mention of the so-called Preacher of De-ceit and his followers, while the other polemic passages do not mention thisPharisee leader.10 The Hodayot include polemical statements against “media-tors of deceit . . . the congregation of the seekers after flattering things(dorshei halakot)” (1QHa 10.31-32; see also 10.14-19, 22-23, 31-37; 12.7-12, 14-20;14.5; 15.34).11 The Pesher Isaiah12 speaks of “the congregation of those lookingfor smooth interpretations who are in Jerusalem” (4Q163 [= 4QpIsac] 2.10-11),who are also referred to as “the arrogant men,”13 as in “the arrogant men whoare in Jerusalem. They are the ones who ‘have rejected the instruction of the

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7. Even though only the Damascus Document was known at the time, E. Meyer sug-gested that the Essenes — like all such orders — were founded by a prophetic individual, whoproclaimed the teachings of the community, as well as the inspired interpretation of Scripture,and established the ordinances of the order. The name of this individual was, however, forgot-ten. See E. Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge des Christentums (Berlin, 1921), 2.395.

8. See also my Qiryat Sefer article, 458.9. See D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik, Qumran Cave 1 (Oxford, 1955), 78.10. The Dead Sea Scrolls apply to the Preacher of Deceit the words of Ezekiel 13:8-12. See

also CD 4.19; 8.12-13, 18; Hodayot 12.6-7 (following Licht’s correct reconstruction), and perhapsalso Pesher Habakkuk 10.9-14.

11. In the last two, the pejorative phrase regularly applied to the opponents of theQumran community designates Jewish society in general. Thus it would appear that at the timethe Hodayot were composed, the majority of the Jewish world was affiliated with the group’sopponents.

12. A. M. Habermann, The Judean Scrolls (Hebrew), (Tel Aviv, 1959), 171-172.13. This phrase is also applied to Pharisees in CD 20.11.

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Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel’ (Isa.5:24)” (4Q162 [= 4QpIsab] 2.6-8). The author of Pesher Nahum speaks of thecongregation of those looking for smooth interpretations (1.2, 7-8, 12; 2.1-3.8;4.5), though in this text (as in the pesher to Psalm 37 2.16-20) the Pharisees arealso referred to as ‘Ephraim.’ Parts of Pesher Hosea (2.3-6) also appear aimedat the Pharisees.

Paralleling the Teacher of Righteousness, who founded the Qumrancommunity, stands the “Preacher of Deceit,” depicted in the Dead Sea Scrollsas the founder of the congregation of those who seek after smooth interpreta-tions: he has “misdirected many . . . erecting a community with deceit”(1QpHab 10.9-10). As Pesher Habakkuk clearly indicates (see 2.1-4; 5.9-11;10.9-13), the “Preacher of Deceit” is a contemporary of the Teacher of Righ-teousness. It stands to reason that during the sect’s exile in Damascus,14

which apparently occurred after the death of the Teacher of Righteousness,15

it was persecuted by the community of the Preacher of Deceit, the latter beingpersonally involved in this affair.16 All this, however, remains speculative.

Another contemporary of the Teacher of Righteousness and thePreacher of Deceit is the man referred to as the Wicked Priest.17 Pesher

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14. Contrary to a number of scholars, there is no doubt in my mind that ‘Damascus’ is tobe understood literally, and certainly does not refer to Qumran. After all, the members of thecommunity are “the converts of Israel, who left the land of Judah and lived in the land of Da-mascus” (CD 6.5, and see also 4.2-3), and Qumran is in “the land of Judah.” F. M. Cross arguesthat the paleographic data decisively prove that the Damascus Document was composed nolater than the first half of the first century b.c.e. (The Ancient Library of Qumran [New York,1961], 81-83). Moreover, he suggests that both the textual and archaeological evidence prove thatthe Qumran community was established between 150 and 100 b.c.e. (120-122), that is, betweenthe reigns of Jonathan and Alexander Jannaeus.

15. It would appear that the Teacher of the Community, who was no longer alive whenthe Damascus document was composed (8.21–20.1, and 20.13-15), is in fact the Teacher of Righ-teousness. The latter is also mentioned in the Damascus Document (1.11; 20.28, 32). During thesect’s sojourn in Damascus, there emerged a new leader, an heir to the Teacher of Righteousness,who is referred to as the “Interpreter of the law” (doresh ha-torah).

16. The Damascus Document says the following regarding this matter: “For them thereshall be no part in the house of the law. They shall be judged according to the judgment of thecompanions, who turned round with insolent men, for they spoke falsehood about the just reg-ulations and despised the covenant . . . and the pact which they established in the land of Da-mascus, which is the new covenant. And neither for them nor their families shall there be a partin the house of the law. And from the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community,until the end of all the men of war who turned back with the Man of Lies, there shall be aboutforty years” (CD 20.10-15). It appears, then, that the Man of Lies also spent some time in the Da-mascus diaspora.

17. The Wicked Priest is mentioned in Pesher Habakkuk, as well as the Pesher to Psalm 37(4.8).

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Habakkuk relates that this figure “ruled over Israel” (1QpHab 8.9-10), andfrom the reports it is clear that the Scrolls are describing a high priest. He“pursued the teacher of righteousness” (1QpHab 11.5), and even sent to havehim killed (4Q171 [= 4QpPsa] 4.8) — though the Essene leader survived theattempt (4Q171 [= 4QpPsa] 2.18-20; 4.9). We further are told that “he seizedpublic money” (1QpHab 8.12), and thus is one of “the last priests of Jerusa-lem, who will accumulate riches and loot from plundering the nations. How-ever, in the last days their riches and their loot will be given into the hands ofthe army of the Kittim” (1QpHab 9.4-7), i.e., the Romans. We may conclude,then, that the Wicked Priest was one of the priests of the Hasmonean dynasty,prior to the Roman invasion of Israel. Moreover, it seems that his persecu-tions were not limited to the Essenes, but included the Pharisees as well, forhe is described as having “robbed and hoarded wealth from the violent menwho had rebelled against God” (1QpHab 8.11).18 If we could be sure that theWicked Priest is another name for the Angry Lion of Pesher Nahum, the onewho exacted “revenge against those looking for smooth interpretations, whohanged living men from the tree,” then we could identify the Wicked Priestwho persecuted the Teacher of Righteousness as Alexander Jannaeus. Thisidentification, however, is far from certain.

We may infer, then, that from the time of its founding, by the Teacher ofRighteousness, the Qumran sect was in a constant state of ideological conflictwith two other parties: the Hasmonean priests, who sided with the Saddu-cees, and the Pharisee dorshei halakot. At times, tensions boiled over into out-right hostilities and persecutions. After the Sadducees suffered two major set-backs — one in the days of Alexandra Salome, another in the days of Pompey— they became much less of a threat to the sect, and the Pharisees becametheir main opponents. The latter sought “to pour out [the Hodayot author’s]blood, because he was at your service” (1QHa 10.32-33), even demanding thathe “desert your service from fear of destruction by the wicked and exchange afirm purpose for follies” (1QHa 10.36; see also 12.10-11).19

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18. See also 1QHa “from the assembly of futility and from the council of violence” (14.5).The Wicked Priest also “plundered the possessions of the poor” (1QpHab 12.10), that is, of themembers of the Qumran community.

19. We have already established that the Teacher of Righteousness, the founder of thecommunity, was persecuted by Pharisees and Sadducees alike. To be sure, Pesher Nahum, whichwas composed under Roman rule, speaks of the evil deeds of the “angry lion,” that is AlexanderJannaeus. However, it also expresses its hate and disdain for the rule of those who seek aftersmooth interpretations. Pesher Isaiah attacks “the seekers after smooth interpretations that arein Jerusalem” while Hodayot includes reports of persecution at the hand of Pharisees.Paleographic analysis suggests the published Hodayot manuscript belongs to a relatively late

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It is almost definite that later on, apparently beginning with Herod andcertainly during the Roman rule following Herod’s death — the Pharisee perse-cutions ended. In the days of Jesus the Pharisees were ashamed of their forefa-thers’ religious persecution, saying: “If we had lived in the days of our ancestors,we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets”(Matt. 23:30). It appears the Essenes too converted their earlier activism (see,e.g., the War Scroll) into a qualified pacifism, adopting a passive and accommo-dating stance toward the forces governing this inherently corrupt world.20 Thuswe find that both Philo and Josephus (a Pharisee) are able to praise the Essenesas wholly righteous men, whose fame has spread the world over.21

Thus far we have concentrated on the anti-Pharisee polemic within thescrolls. Now we must examine whether the Sadducees discussed in theQumran texts are seen as a separate community, like the Pharisee dorsheihalakot.

III

As noted, there have for some time been scholars who recognized an anti-Pharisee polemic in the Dead Sea Scrolls,22 a hypothesis verified with thepublication of the first column of Pesher Nahum. This text demonstrates thatthe community referred to as those “looking for smooth interpretations” isundoubtedly the Pharisees. Pesher Nahum also refers to this group as“Ephraim” (1.12; 2.2, 8; 3.5; 4.5-6), but alongside there appears another group,Manasseh (3.9; 4.1, 2, 6). To whom does this biblical epithet refer?

Yigael Yadin was the first to suggest the straightforward explanationthat if the Pharisees are referred to as “Ephraim,” then Manasseh marks theSadducees.23 Part of his argument was the phrase “the great men of

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group of scrolls that were copied between the middle of the first century b.c.e. and the destruc-tion of Qumran by the Romans (see N. Avigad, “The Paleography of the Dead Sea Scrolls” [He-brew], Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls [Jerusalem, 1961], 123). Needless to say, the copying of thetext is later than its composition, but we have argued elsewhere that the Hodayot are relativelylate, and this view is confirmed by the material published thus far. And see “The Dead Sea Sectand Its Worldview,” in the present volume.

20. See “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview.”21. The Essenes never completely abandoned the notion of an eschatological battle be-

tween the sons of light and the sons of darkness, and thus were able — at least some — to jointhe war against Rome.

22. See M. Z. Segal, “On the History of the Sect Yahad,” Tarbiz 22 (1951), 146; K. Schubert,Die Gemeinde vom Toten Meer (München, 1958), 11.

23. In a letter written toward the end of 1961.

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Manasseh,” which suggests a defined, hierarchical group, perhaps with somemilitary power. This view was later accepted by the Russian scholar Amusin,as well as by the French Dupont-Sommer.24 The latter assumed that“Ephraim” and “Manasseh” refer to two individuals, since the correspondingbiblical figures are Joseph’s two sons, and only secondarily the names oftribes. Dupont-Sommer identified the “Manasseh” of Pesher Nahum withAristobulus II, and, more generally, his Sadducee followers, while “Ephraim”refers to his brother, John Hyrcanus, and his Pharisee cohorts. Since Dupont-Sommer identifies — wrongly, to my mind — the Wicked Priest with the“Preacher of Deceit,” he naturally associates both epithets with JohnHyrcanus. As a result he must identify “the city of Ephraim, those looking forsmooth interpretations” (2.9) with Jerusalem, where John Hyrcanus was lo-cated, even though he admits this is problematic. He further argues that Jeru-salem is referred to as “Nineveh,” in keeping with the terminology of theprophet Nahum. We will see below to what extent Dupont-Sommer’s posi-tion can be accepted, but he was surely right to identify Ephraim with thePharisees and Manasseh with the Sadducees.

The Russian scholar Amusin came to the same conclusion in an excellentarticle. His identification of Ephraim and Manasseh in Pesher Nahum is basedon two assumptions: First, that the Qumran community understood thesenames as referring to two tribes, rather than the two sons of Joseph. Indeed,the overriding importance of these tribes in biblical and later Jewish history al-most requires this interpretation. The biblical account itself presents Ephraimand Manasseh not as two well-defined fraternal figures, but, as it were, as indi-viduals whose entire raison d’être lies in the tribes that will arise from them.Amusin’s second assumption — in a sense an outgrowth of the first — is thatthe Qumran scrolls do not employ biblical names in a straightforward man-ner, but always as part of a typological schema. The Qumran community wasdeeply engaged in Pesher literature, a subspecies of a broader hermeneutic ap-proach familiar from the Second Temple biblical interpretations of Philo andthe New Testament. The Qumran sect accepted as a given that ancient eventswere signs for later generations, and that Scripture contained allusions to theevents of the final era, the era of the formation and existence of the commu-nity itself. Only an approach that is sensitive to the interpretive assumptions ofthe Qumran community will properly recognize the historical events alludedto in the Scrolls generally, and in the Pesharim in particular.

The Scrolls’ typological understanding of the tribal division of biblicalIsrael clearly reflects the separatist ideology of this sect, which set itself apart

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24. See the articles cited above, n. 1.

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from mainstream Jewish society. They justify their separation from the rest ofIsrael and their retreat into the desert with Isaiah 40:3: “And when these havebecome a community in Israel, in compliance with these arrangements, theyare to be segregated from within the dwelling of the men of sin to walk to thedesert in order to open there his path. As it is written, ‘In the wilderness pre-pare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God’(Isa. 40:3)” (1QS 8.12-16; see also 9.19-20). Elsewhere, the Qumran author usesanother verse, Psalm 1:1, to justify the sect’s separation: “Midrash of ‘Happyare those who do not follow the advice of the wicked’ (Psalm 1.1). The inter-pretation of this word: they are those who turn aside from the path of thewicked as it is written in the book of Isaiah, the prophet, for the last days: “theLord spoke to me while his hand was strong upon me, and removed me fromthe path of this people” (Isa. 8:11)” (4Q174 [= 4QFlorilegium] 1.14-16). Thethird verse interpreted to indicate that departure from sinning Israel wasGod’s will is Isaiah 8:11. Now, the Masoretic reading of the verse states that theLord “warned me (ynrsyw) not to walk in the way of this people,” but a num-ber of Greek versions25 reflect ynrysyw, ‘he removed me’ rather than ynrsyw,‘he warned me,’ and this is also the reading in the Isaiah scroll: “while hishand was strong upon me, he removed me from walking in the way of thispeople.”26 This non-Masoretic reading, then, could serve the Qumran com-munity as a biblical prooftext for their separatist ideology, defining them-selves as “the priests and the men of their covenant who have turned awayfrom the path of the nation” (1Qsa [= 1QRule of the Congregation] 1.2-3), oras “those returning from among Israel who turned aside from the path of thepeople” (CD 8.16),27 or again as “the congregation of all the sons of justice,those who established the covenant, those who avoid walking on the path ofthe nation” (11Q13 [= 11QMelchizedek] 2.24).

But there is still another verse in Isaiah that the Qumran communityused to justify its separation from sinful Israel. As the Damascus Documentstates:

But all those who despise: when God visits the earth in order to emptyover them the punishment of the wicked, when there comes the word

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25. Namely, those of the Hexapla.26. See the discussion in Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim, 252; Barthélemy, Qumran Cave 1,

111-112.27. Similarly, the Damascus Document speaks of the wicked who “have not left the path

of traitors” (CD 8.4-5), and “did not keep apart from the people and have rebelled with inso-lence, walking on the path of the wicked ones” (CD 8.8-9). The latter is a particularly clear allu-sion to Isaiah 8:11, according to the non-Masoretic reading.

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which is written in the words of Isaiah son of Amoz, the prophet who said“The Lord will bring on you and on your people and on your ancestralhouse such days as have not come since the day that Ephraim departedfrom Judah — the king of Assyria” (Isa. 7:17). When the two houses of Is-rael separated, Ephraim detached itself from Judah, and all the renegadeswere delivered up to the sword: but those who remained steadfast escapedto the land of the north. (CD 7.9-14)

The discussion that follows indicates that this escape refers to the sect’smove to Damascus while it was being persecuted.28 This event was seen by theauthor as the day that “Ephraim detached itself from Judah” as described inIsaiah 7:1729 (a verse cited again in CD 13.23-14.1).30 If, then, the members ofthe sect were removed “from walking in the way of this people” (following Isa-iah 8:11), then they fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah regarding Ephraim detach-ing itself from Judah. Moreover, if we are dealing here with the separation ofthe two houses of Israel, then the Qumran community are not the separatists— it is the rest of the Jews of the day are the true separatists: “Ephraim de-tached itself from Judah.” We see here a typological understanding of the bibli-cal break between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdomof Judah,31 cast in terms of contemporary Jewish polemics. There is no ques-

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28. See above, n. 14.29. The phrase “When the two houses of Israel separated” (CD 7.12) is reminiscent of

“both houses of Israel” in Isaiah 8:14. Indeed, there was a tradition linking Isaiah 7:17 with Isaiah8:14 outside the Damascus Document as well. The relevant words in the former are renderedoyb le larqy oyb wgylpoab amwyml hdwhy in Aramaic (‘from the day that the house of Is-rael separated from the house of Judah’). Now, “both houses of Israel” in the latter is translatedlarqy ybrbr yob vyrol (‘for the two houses of the great ones of Israel’), but the end of theverse, “for the inhabitants of Jerusalem,” is vyboyd hdwhy oybd le larqy oyb wgylpoad leflqwryb (‘on account of the house of Israel separating from the house of Judah, that resides inJerusalem’).

30. The Damascus Document 7.9-14 clearly indicates that the opening hemistich of Isa-iah 7:17 (“The Lord will bring on you and on your people” etc.) was understood as an eschato-logical prophecy of divine punishment that will be visited on the impious Israel in the end ofdays. The second half of the verse (“since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah”), however,is applied to the sect’s escape to the north, that is, to Damascus. This in any case is the sense ofthe beginning of the relevant CD passage: “When God visits the earth in order to empty overthem the punishment of the wicked, when there comes the word which is written in the wordsof Isaiah, son of Amoz, the prophet, who said, etc.” (CD 7.9-10). The second passage in the Da-mascus Document that cites Isaiah 7:17 opens in a similar manner: “. . . in the appointed timewhen God visits the earth, when the word will be fulfilled which said, etc.” (CD 13.23-14.1) — anabbreviated version of the sect’s interpretation of Isaiah.

31. My friend Michael Stone has called my attention to the “Testimony of Naphtali” andits relevance to the negative treatment of Ephraim in the Scrolls. See T. Gaster, “The Hebrew

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tion where the allegiance of a Second Temple Jew would lie, when reading thebiblical account of this tragic event: the Essenes undoubtedly identified them-selves with the kingdom of Judah,32 i.e., “the House of Judah, whom God willfree from the house of judgment on account of their toil and of their loyalty tothe Teacher of Righteousness” (Pesher Habakkuk 8.1-3). Similarly, we find inthe Qumran Scrolls reference to a group that accompanies the Essene sect(“the Council of the Community”33), a group known as “the simple folk of Ju-dah, those who observe the Law” (Pesher Habakkuk 12.3-5) — apparentlyEssene sympathizers in the broader populace. This same terminology, express-ing a different ideological position, is also found in the Damascus Document:“But when the period corresponding to the number of these years is complete,there will no longer be any joining with the house of Judah but rather each onestanding up on his watchtower. The wall is built, the boundary far away” (CD4.10-12). Is this a later eschatological stage than Pesher Nahum (3.4-5), or per-haps a different, stricter approach? Whatever the answer, it is clear that theCommunity saw itself as “Judah” or “the house of Judah.”34

The epithet “Manasseh” does not appear in the Damascus Document,

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Text of One of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Ar-chaeology (1893-94); R. H. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs(Oxford, 1908), li-liii and 239-244. Two Hebrew versions have been published by A. Wertheimer,Batei Midrashot (Jerusalem, 1950), 1.187-202; the first version is the more original, the second aless faithful reworking. The Hebrew version of the Testament of Naphtali is without a doubt atranslation or reworking of an earlier (most likely Greek) text, which is itself not identical withthe testament of Naphtali preserved in the Greek Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs — a matterI hope to discuss elsewhere. For our purpose it is important that this version — unlike the stan-dard testaments — reflects real resistance to the figure of Joseph, resistance that is indeed themain motif of the story. Thus, for instance, Jacob says to his sons: “I fear for the future lest yougo astray after foreign idols . . . have, then, no part with the sons of Joseph, save the sons of Leviand the sons of Judah . . . for I know that the sons of Joseph will stray from the path of the Lord,the God of their forefathers, leading Israel to sin and to exile from the good land into a land thatis not ours, just as we were led on his account into the exile of Egypt.” It is hard to imagine thatsuch a starkly hostile attitude toward Joseph and his descendents — an attitude, as noted, com-pletely at odds with the rest of the testament literature — is limited to narrative motifs.

32. There may be a connection to the typological role of the kingdom of Judah in the WarScroll, where the sons of light are characterized as “the sons of Levi, the sons of Judah, and thesons of Benjamin” (1QM 1.2).

33. On this definition of Qumran community see Licht, Megillat ha-Serakhim, 8, 29, 109-110.

34. Kosmala argued that the Qumran community referred to itself as ‘Ephraim’ and to itsenemies as ‘Judah’ or ‘house of Judah.’ However, the Scrolls published since then demonstratethat this view is without merit. See H. Kosmala, Hebráer — Essener — Christen (Leiden, 1959),345-347; and see also his article in the Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1961),183-190.

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and as we will see below, in the Scrolls that contain “Manasseh” and“Ephraim” the latter refers to the Pharisees,35 the former to the Sadducees. Wehave already noted that the only persecutors of the sect mentioned in the Da-mascus Document are the Pharisees, and their leader, the Preacher of Deceit.Does this mean that the two mentions of “Ephraim” in the Damascus Docu-ment (7.9-14; 13.23-14.1) refer only to the Pharisees? If verified, this assertionwould be highly significant historically, since it suggests that in the eyes of thesect, the separation of the two houses of Israel resulted from the fact that“Ephraim detached itself from Judah” (CD 7.12-13), i.e., that the Essenes cameabout following a break with the Pharisees! However, it is more likely that theDamascus Document reflects an earlier, simpler typology that that of PesherNahum (and the Pesher to Psalm 37). For it was the break between the king-doms of Israel and Judah in the First Temple period — “the day that Ephraimdeparted from Judah” (Isa. 7:17) — that gave rise to Qumran’s tribe typology.As a result, the Qumran community could refer to itself as the “house of Ju-dah” and to the rest of the Jewish world, the sinning Jews, as “Ephraim.” It isthis simple typology, I believe, that we find in the Damascus Document.36

Only later, when they sought an epithet for the hated Sadducees, they chosethe second major tribe of the northern kingdom of Israel, “Manasseh,” thuslimiting the denotative field of “Ephraim” to the Pharisees. In any case, theepithets “Judah” for the Essenes, “Ephraim” for the Pharisees, and “Manas-seh” for the Sadducees, are rooted in a typological understanding of the sepa-ration of the biblical nation into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

Scholarly discussions of the Qumran epithets have rightly cited Isaiah11:1337 and 9:19-20,38 both of which contain references to Manasseh, Ephraim,and Judah. It is quite possible that the Qumran interpreters used these verses,applying them to the sectarian polemic against the Pharisees and the Saddu-cees. So far, however, no interpretation of these verses has been uncovered inthe Dead Sea Scrolls. Be all that as it may, I do not think the Isaiah verses arethe source of the Qumran community’s typological vocabulary: the Essenessaw themselves as the kingdom of Judah and their enemies as the corruptkingdom of Israel, leading to the designation of the Pharisees and the Saddu-cees as Ephraim and Manasseh, respectively.

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35. The meaning of ‘Judah’ and ‘Ephraim’ in 4Q175 [= 4Qtestimonia] is unclear. We findthere (line 27), “[. . .] in Israel, and a horror in Ephraim and Judah.”

36. This does not mean, however, that the Damascus Document was not composed afterpart of the Qumran community had already narrowed the meaning of ‘Ephraim,’ using it exclu-sively in reference to the Pharisees.

37. See Amusin, “Ephraim et Manasse dans le pesher de Nahum (4QpNah),” 390.38. See Dupont-Sommer’s article in the Sukenik memorial volume, 32.

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How does the identification of Qumran as “Judah,” the Pharisees as“Ephraim” and the Sadducees as “Manasseh” contribute to our understand-ing of the dynamic between these three groups in the Second Temple period?We turn first to a short passage from Pesher Hosea, identified as fragment 2 of4Q167 (= 4QpHosb).39 The fragment contains the phrase “angry lion” and“lion,” and goes on to refer to “the last priest who will stretch out his hand tostrike Ephraim” (line 3). This is a fragmentary pesher to Hosea 5:14: “For I willbe like a lion to Ephraim, like a young lion to the house of Judah.” PesherNahum teaches us that this was the name used to refer to Alexander Jannaeus— the historical figure to whom Pesher Nahum attributes the prophet’swords, “The lion has torn . . .” (Pesher Nahum 1.4). Jannaeus, then, is the An-gry Lion both in Pesher Nahum and in Pesher Hosea, and also “the last priest”(vwrjah vhc, which is phonetically similar to vwrjh rypc, the Angry Lion),that is, one of “the last priests of Jerusalem” referred to in Pesher Habakkuk.According to Pesher Hosea, then, Jannaeus — the Angry Lion who is also thelast priest — will “stretch out his hand and strike Ephraim,” i.e., the Pharisees.This event is known to us both from non-Qumran sources and from the firstcolumn of Pesher Nahum, which recounts how the Angry Lion carried out“revenge against those looking for smooth interpretations . . . hanged livingmen from the tree” (Pesher Nahum 1.7-8). Pesher Hosea does not describe ac-tions taken by Jannaeus against the Essenes, but the biblical verse in question— “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a young lion to the house of Judah”— suggests that the pesher, only fragments of which are extant, went on todescribe how the Angry Lion, having struck Ephraim (the Pharisees), turns topersecute the house of Judah, i.e., the Essenes.

The fact that Pesher Hosea calls Alexander Jannaeus “the last priest”makes it somewhat more likely that the Sadducee king is also the figure re-ferred to as “the wicked priest.” We have already noted that “the wickedpriest” persecuted the Pharisees, and “robbed and hoarded wealth from theviolent men who rebelled against God” (Pesher Habakkuk 8.11). This is aplausible description even if the wicked priest is not Jannaeus, in light of thedispute between the last Hasmonean priests and the Pharisees.40 That thewicked priest persecuted the Teacher of Righteousness and his followers ismade clear in Pesher Habakkuk. The Pesher to Psalm 37 describes the wickedpriest’s attempt to kill the Teacher of Righteousness. The latter survives andthe author notes that God will repay the wicked priest in kind, “deliveringhim into the hands of ruthless nations so that they can carry out vengeance

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39. Allegro, “Further Light on the History of the Qumran Sect,” JBL 75 (1956), 93.40. The sole exception being Hyrcanus II.

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upon him” (4Q171 4.8-10)” — an apparent reference to the Romans. Is this aprophecy of future events, or a past occurrence? According to PesherHabakkuk (9.9-12, and see also 9.1-2), the latter is the more likely, since therewe find an account of “the Wicked Priest, whom, for the wickedness againstthe Teacher of Righteousness and the members of his council, God deliveredinto the hands of his enemies to disgrace him with a punishment, to destroyhim with bitterness of soul for having acted wickedly against his elect.” Doesthis passage refer to the bitter end of Aristobulus II?41 If so, he and not Alex-ander Jannaeus is the Wicked Priest of the Scrolls.

Setting aside these speculations, we turn now to a critical moment inthe history of the Qumran community, a moment that only becomes appar-ent in light of Pesher Nahum’s indication that the community referred to thePharisees and Sadducees as Ephraim and Manasseh, respectively. The keypassage is as follows:

“The wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poorand needy, to kill those who walk uprightly; their sword shall enter theirown heart, and their bows shall be broken” (Ps. 37:14-15). Its interpreta-tion concerns the wicked of Ephraim and Manasseh who will attempt tolay hands on the Priest and the members of his council in the period oftesting which will come upon them. However, God will save them fromtheir hands and after they will be delivered into the hands of ruthless na-tions for judgment. (4Q171 2.16-20)

Here we find that “the wicked of Ephraim and Manasseh” sought to “layhands on the Priest and the members of his council” — language reminiscentof Pesher Habakkuk 9.9-10 (“the Wicked Priest, whom, for the wickednessagainst the Teacher of Righteousness and the members of his council, God

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41. Dupont-Sommer has long identified the Wicked Priest with Hyrcanus II, brother ofAristobulus, but this hypothesis is based on the very difficult assumption that the ‘WickedPriest’ and the ‘Preacher of Deceit’ are one and the same person. Now, it is true that no text hasthus far linked the Wicked Priest with Manasseh, that is, with the Sadducees, but he is also neverconnected with the Pharisees. To the contrary, Pesher Habakkuk 8.11 suggests that he persecutedthe Pharisees. The main motivation for identifying the Wicked Priest with Aristobulus II lies inthe Scrolls’ allusions to the death of the Wicked Priest. The difficulty with this identification isthat it forces a later date for the establishment of the sect, unless we assume that its founder, theTeacher of Righteousness, was persecuted by the Wicked Priest in his latter years. Aside fromAristobulus II, the only historical figures to meet an end like that of the Wicked Priest are Jona-than and Simeon, the Hasmonean rulers, though it is hard to imagine that the Pharisees alreadyexisted as a distinct party in their days. The identification of the Wicked Priest remains, then, amatter of speculation; perhaps the publication of additional material will clarify the matter.

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delivered into the hands of his enemies”). The statement that Manasseh andEphraim will be punished for their persecution of the Priest, i.e. the Teacherof Righteousness, by being “delivered into the hands of ruthless nations forjudgment,” is very similar to the later section of the pesher that describes theWicked Priest’s punishment as God “delivering him into the hands of ruthlessnations so that they can carry out vengeance upon him” (4Q171 4.9-10). Bothpassages describe the Teacher of Righteousness escaping the plots of theWicked Priest or, alternately, from the hand of the wicked of Manasseh andEphraim.

A comparison of the Pesher Psalms passage with parallel statements inthe Scrolls suggests that a straightforward interpretation is apposite: “thewicked of Ephraim and Manasseh” refers to the Pharisees and the Sadducees,both of which persecuted the sect while the Teacher of Righteousness wasalive,42 seeking — but ultimately failing — to “lay hands on the Priest and themembers of his council.” It would appear, then, that the Teacher of Righ-teousness was not killed, but rather died a natural death. The “ruthless na-tions” in Pesher Psalms (2.20; 4.10) are most likely the Romans, though this isnot the only possible interpretation. The author may be expressing his cruelwish that the Sadducees and Pharisees be handed over to Rome, but it is alsopossible these statements allude to past events from the trying times follow-ing Pompey’s invasion of Israel. The most important piece of information isthat both the Sadducees and the Pharisees persecuted the Teacher of Righ-teousness. It is unlikely that the Pharisees were able to attack anyone whilethey were persecuted by the Sadducee authorities, so the Teacher of Righ-teousness and his followers were subject to Pharisee persecution only fromthe time of the Pharisee rise to power. In other words, the Teacher of Righ-teousness was still alive during the reign of Alexandra Salome.43

We saw above that the Qumran scrolls describe the Pharisees as havingused their hypocrisy and deceitful teachings to win over most of the Jewishpopulace: “the misleaders from Ephraim, who with their fraudulent teachingand lying tongue and perfidious lip misdirect many: kings, princes, priestsand people together with the proselyte attached to them. Cities and clans willperish through their advice, nobles and leaders will fall [due to the fero]cityof their tongues” (Pesher Nahum 2.8-10). As a number of scholars have noted,“the rule of those looking for smooth interpretations” — that is, the Pharisee

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42. This contradicts my earlier assumption that the members of the Qumran communitywere only persecuted by the Pharisees after the death of the Teacher of Righteousness, as I ar-gued in Qiryat Sefer 1948, p. 458.

43. The sequence “the wicked of Ephraim and Manasseh” in Pesher Psalms (2.18) doesnot mean that the sect was first persecuted by the Pharisees and only later by the Sadducees.

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government during the reign of Alexandra Salome — is portrayed verygrimly.44 Though the pesher is composed under Roman rule, the Phariseesstill wield great influence over the people, and the author can only hope for“the final time . . . when the glory of Judah is revealed” (Pesher Nahum 3.3-8).This section of Pesher Nahum does not recount historical recollections, butrather a fervent hope for what will yet transpire. The phrase “final time” isused in the Qumran literature to designate the end of the present eschatologi-cal epoch.45 Then will the “glory of Judah” be revealed, in other words, all willsee that the Dead Sea community alone is legitimate and just. This hope,however, remained unfulfilled, just like the second wish of the Community— that the Pharisees and their deleterious influence on the Jewish populacedisappear altogether.

We saw above that “Manasseh” is mentioned in the pesher to Psalm 37(2.18-20), but it is only Pesher Nahum that provides insight into the nature ofthis group. If the Pharisees, “Ephraim,” are portrayed as a religious commu-nity made up of dorshei halakot, whose deceiving teachers have misled themajority of the Jewish populace, the Sadducees, “Manasseh,” are character-ized by grandeur, honor, and a bellicose character. The Pesher (3.9) speaks of“the great men of Manasseh, the honorable [people who surround]Manasseh” and further notes that the men of Manasseh are “mighty warriors”(3.11). These details remind us of the military leaders of Alexander Jannaeus,the Sadducee king, who went on to serve under his son, Aristobulus.46 Andthough the pesher refers to “the rule of those looking for smooth interpreta-tions” (2.4) — the Pharisee reign under Alexandra Salome47 — it actually hasthe “rule” of Manasseh in mind. For Nahum 3:10, with its graphic descriptionof military destruction, “concerns Manasseh, in the last time, in which his do-minion over Israel will weaken [. . .] his women, his children and his babieswill go into captivity, his warriors and his honored ones [will perish] by thesword” (4.3-4). The Qumran author speaks of the “warriors” of Manasseh,even though the biblical verse does not mention warriors at all. What histori-cal event is here invoked? Amusin is of the opinion that Pesher Nahum al-

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44. The pesher itself was undoubtedly composed after Pompey (see Pesher Nahum 1.3:“up to the appearance of the chiefs of the Kittim”), and could thus reflect the situation in thedays of Hyrcanus II, following Pompey’s exile of Aristobulus. Nonetheless, the overall descrip-tion fits with what we know of the Pharisee government in the days of Queen AlexandraSalome.

45. For a discussion see J. Licht, “The Qumran Doctrine of Ages,” in Eretz Israel 8 (E. L.Sukenik Memorial Volume), 63-70, and especially p. 64, column A.

46. See Dupont-Sommer in the Sukenik Memorial Volume, 26*, 33*.47. And see above, n. 44.

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ludes to the persecution of the Sadducees, the allies of Alexander Jannaeus, bythe hand of the now-dominant Pharisees under Alexandra Salome.48

Dupont-Sommer suggests that Pesher Nahum hints at the fate of Aristobulusand his followers in 63 b.c.e., when Pompey captured Aristobulus and hisfamily, and his troops fell before the advancing Roman army.49 As noted, thePesher was undoubtedly composed after the Roman conquest under Pompey,and the language of the passage in question seems to support Dupont-Sommer’s view. Finally, the Pesher prophesies regarding “the wicked ofEphraim . . . whose cup will come after Manasseh” (4.5-6). Dupont-Sommertakes this as a reference to the bitter end of Hyrcanus II,50 but as mentionedabove (and we will return to this point in what follows), Pesher Nahum’s ac-count of the disappearance of the Pharisees represents a hope for the future— never to be fulfilled.51

The publication of Pesher Nahum provides important details for Sec-ond Temple Jewish history. The Pesher confirms the general portrait found inJosephus concerning the internecine struggles during the days of the lastHasmonean priests, and provides new information regarding the history ofthe Essenes, about whom we knew next to nothing prior to the discovery ofthe Scrolls. We now know that the Essenes were persecuted both by the Phari-sees and the Sadducees already from the time the Teacher of Righteousnessfounded the community. It stands to reason, then, that the Teacher of Righ-teousness lived under the Pharisee government — the reign of AlexandraSalome — and escaped the plottings of his enemies.52 Interestingly, Josephusdescribes the time of Pharisee rule in similar terms, even though he was aPharisee himself, while the Essenes were sworn enemies of the Pharisees.Typically for the Scrolls, Pesher Nahum describes the Pharisees as a religiousgroup that wields great influence over the Jewish populace, and this seems tobe historically accurate. The Pesher characterizes them as hypocrites — a

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48. See Amusin, “Ephraim et Manasse dans le pesher de Nahum (4QpNah),” 395.49. See Dupont-Sommer, Sukenik Memorial Volume, 33*-34*.50. Dupont-Sommer, Sukenik Memorial Volume, 34*.51. The phrase “house of division” (bet peleg) is familiar from CD 20.22, but the reference

there is opaque. Dupont-Sommer’s suggestion that this is a reference to the Hasmonean dynastyis baseless.

52. The Scrolls’ reports regarding the Essene persecution at the hands of the Wicked Priestand others stand in sharp contrast to Philo’s account in “Every Good Man Is Free” (Omnis ProbusLiber Sit) §§89-91. Philo enthusiastically describes the moral perfection of the Essenes, notingthat even the most wicked rulers of Palestine were helpless before the moral power of the com-munity. These tyrants did not persecute the Essenes, and indeed admitted their moral superior-ity. F. H. Colson argues that Philo knew of Herod’s favorable treatment of the Essenes and pro-jected this situation on to all previous rulers. See Colson, Philo (London, 1954), 9.515-516.

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charge echoed in other sources, including the Talmud. The Sadducees, in con-trast, are described as warriors, again very much in keeping with Josephus’saccount of the reigns of Alexander Jannaeus and his son Aristobulus II. Ofparticular importance is the tribal typology: the Essenes are Judah, the Phari-sees Ephraim, and the Sadducees Manasseh. This typology suggests a tripar-tite division within the Jewish people, precisely as Josephus says. In light of allthis, it appears this division reflects the historical reality of the day and is nota product of Josephus’s literary imagination.

IV

G. E. Lessing, the 18th century German writer, is best known for his literarywork, including the play “Nathan the Wise.” Few people know that he wasalso an important scholar of early Christianity. In one of his theological trac-tates,53 Lessing writes that the Jews interpret Scripture in various ways andbelieve that different interpretations may be equally valid. Every verse, in fact,is open to various readings. Lessing is undoubtedly overstating his case. It istrue that there is a wide range of possible interpretations in Judaism, but eachapproach is bound by certain rules, rules that are determined by the biblicaltext, on the one hand, and the clues that guide the reader’s search for deepertruths within the text, on the other.

The first column of Pesher Nahum nicely demonstrates that despite therelative freedom enjoyed by Jewish interpreters, the interpretation itself re-sponds to elements found within the biblical text itself. Thus Nahum 2:12-14refers to a lion’s den, to which the lion brings prey for his whelps with impu-nity. Already the Targum understood that this lion’s den, which will soon feelGod’s wrath, is a symbol for Nineveh and its kings. Pesher Nahum too under-stands the words of the prophet as a symbolic reference to kings and rulers.Thus, both the Targum and the Qumran authors interpret the lion’s prey as“wealth” (Pesher Nahum 1.11), or as “loot” and “goods” (Targum to Nahum2:13 and 2:14, respectively). Unlike the Aramaic translator, however, theQumran interpretation takes Nahum’s account of the lion as a unit unto it-self, divorced from the question of Nineveh. Moreover, the pesher provides adetailed account of Nahum’s prophetic words, interpreting them as an ac-count of the lives of contemporary kings.

In the following chapter, Nahum speaks openly of Nineveh, prophesy-ing its downfall. The fate of this “city of bloodshed” will recall the past con-

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53. G. E. Lessing, Thesen aus der Kirchengeschichte, §§31-35.

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quest of Amon, that is, Thebes: “Are you better than Amon that sat sur-rounded by rivers?” (Nah. 3:8). The author of Pesher Nahum follows theprophet’s lead, but transforms the two cities into symbols for the leading Jew-ish parties of his day: Nineveh is the city of Ephraim, of “those looking forsmooth interpretations” (Pesher Nahum 2.2) — i.e., the Pharisees — while“Amon is Manasseh” (Pesher Nahum 3.9), i.e., the Sadducees. If, then, theprophet foresees that Nineveh will fall just as Amon fell, our author reads thisas an indication that the Pharisees will meet their end, just as the Sadduceesmet theirs. The dominion of Manasseh has already weakened (Pesher Nahum4.3), but in the future it will be “the wicked of Ephraim . . . whose cup willcome after Manasseh” (Pesher Nahum 4.5-6). The pesher, then, offers a con-sistent typological interpretation of the two cities: when Nahum turns awayfrom Amon to discuss Nineveh (Nah. 3:11), the author of the pesher likewiseends his discussion of the Sadducee “Manasseh” and turns to the “wicked ofEphraim.”

Pesher Nahum contains, then, a two-fold typological model. One is thetribal typology that is known from other Qumran texts, according to whichthe Qumran community is Judah and its enemies are the northern kingdomof Israel: the Pharisees are Ephraim, the Sadducees Manasseh. The other, dic-tated by the biblical words of Nahum, identifies the Pharisees with Ninevehand the Sadducees with Amon.54 The Qumran community often describes it-self as an edifice or a temple,55 and as “a fortified city” (1QHa 14.25). PesherIsaiah to 54:11-12 (“I am about to set your stones in antimony, and lay yourfoundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gatesof jewels, and all your wall of precious stones”) assumes that the prophet’s de-scription of eschatological Jerusalem is in fact a symbol of God’s chosengroup, that is, the Essenes.56 The same logic guides the author of 11QMel-chizedek, who interprets Isaiah 52:7 (“Who says to Zion, ‘your God reigns’”)as referring to “those who establish the covenant, those who avoid walking onthe path of the people” (11QMelch 2.24-25). We have already encounteredsuch language, which characterizes the Qumran community as breaking withthe Jewish society of the day; eschatological Zion too, then, symbolizes the

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54. Pesher Nahum states only “Its interpretation: Amon is Manasseh” (3.9), but the au-thor undoubtedly understood the biblical text to be referring to the city Na-Amon, that is,Thebes.

55. On this image see D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” inScripta Hierosolymitana 4 (1958), 229-236; B. Gärtner, The Temple and Community in Qumranand the New Testament (Cambridge, 1965). See also, the Damascus Document 3.19-4.4.

56. See D. Flusser, “The Isaiah Pesher and the Notion of Twelve Apostles in the EarlyChurch,” in the present volume.

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Essenes in 11QMelchizedek. The typological association of the communitywith Jerusalem is easily understood as a conflation of the edifice and citysymbolism prevalent in the Qumran writings, with their self-identity as thekingdom of Judah. The combination of the two would seem to indicate thatthe Qumran community ought to be seen as the chief city of Judah, as holyJerusalem herself. The identification of the sect with Jerusalem is not attestedin the extant text of Pesher Nahum, though it is possible that it was made insome of the now lost parts of the composition. In any case, it is clear that ifNineveh symbolizes the Pharisees, and Amon the Sadducees, then the Essenescan only be symbolized by Jerusalem.57

In the symbolic vocabulary of Qumran, the Teacher of Righteousness isthe community’s founder, “the priest, the Teacher of Righteousness, whomGod chose to stand . . . he installed him to found the congregation” (4QPsa

3.15-16). His counterpart is the “founder” of the Pharisees, the Preacher ofDeceit. The prophet Habakkuk cries out, “Alas for you who build a city onbloodshed and found a city on iniquity. Is it not from the Lord of hosts thatpeoples labor only to feed the flames, and nations weary themselves for noth-ing?” (Hab. 2:12-13), and the Qumran author glosses these words as follows:“The interpretation of the word concerns the Preacher of Deceit, who hasmisdirected many, building a useless city with blood and erecting a commu-nity with deceit for his own glory, wearing out many by useless work andteaching them acts of deceit, so that their labors are for nothing;58 so thatthose who derided and insulted God’s chosen will go to the punishment offire” (Pesher Habakkuk 10.9-13). The pesher clearly interprets the building of“a city on bloodshed” as reference to the establishment of a false community.The image of laboring “for nothing” recurs in other Qumran texts, consis-tently in reference to the Pharisees (Hodayot 15.34; 10.22).

The phrase “you who build a city on bloodshed” in Habakkuk 2:12 isvery similar to the words of Nahum (3:1): “Ah, city of bloodshed, utterly de-

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57. Dupont-Sommer suggests that Nineveh in Pesher Nahum refers to Jerusalem; how-ever it should be noted that there is only one instance in the Scrolls of a biblical word being in-terpreted as referring to Jerusalem: “And as for what he says: ‘because of human bloodshed andviolence to the earth and to cities’ (Hab. 2:8). Its interpretation: the city is Jerusalem in whichthe Wicked Priest performed repulsive acts and defiled the sanctuary of God” (PesherHabakkuk 2.6-8).

58. Compare the Essene position with the famous statement in the rabbinic Fathers Ac-cording to Rabbi Nathan (version 1, chapter 5): “The Sadducees state, the Pharisees maintain anoral tradition that they suffer in this world and have nothing in the world to come.” This was theview of the Sadducees, who did not believe in the world to come. The Essenes, who believe thereare reward and punishment after death, argued that the Pharisees’ labors were in vain, “as theywill be judged with fire.”

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ceitful, full of booty.” Pesher Nahum has strong linguistic grounds to inter-pret “city of bloodshed” as referring to the Pharisees: “Its interpretation: it isthe city of Ephraim, those looking for smooth interpretations, in the finaldays, since they walk in treachery and lies” (Pesher Nahum 2.2). It should benoted that while the Sadducees (i.e. “Manasseh”) are also identified with acity — Amon, that is, Thebes — the Scrolls do not describe them as a congre-gation. Pesher Nahum speaks of the great men and the honorable men ofManasseh, and also of the dominion of Manasseh, but never of their teach-ings or their sages. It may well be that the Sadducees were not a full-fledgedreligious congregation in the mold of the Pharisees and the Essenes, but moreof a political party. Their religious positions undoubtedly carried someweight, but it appears the Qumran community did not find it necessary toengage these positions overtly. This may be due to the factors mentionedabove, and also to the relatively minor influence of the Sadducees on Jewishsociety as a whole.

Though Pesher Nahum does not define the Sadducees as a religiouscongregation (rightly, it seems), it nonetheless employs city symbolism indiscussing them. Historically, the position of the author of Pesher Nahumtoward the Pharisees and the Sadducees is akin to that of Nahum toward As-syria and Egypt: Amon had already fallen, just as the Sadducees had beenlaid low — their “infants were dashed in pieces at the head of every street;lots were cast for her nobles, all her dignitaries were bound in fetters”(Pesher Nahum 4.1-4). And just as the biblical prophet looked toward the fu-ture fall of Nineveh, so too the Essene author rejoices at the prospects of thePharisees’ decline. The key difference, of course, is that the biblical prophecycame to pass, but not that of Pesher Nahum. The moment when “the gloryof Judah is revealed” never came, the Pharisees never disappeared, and thepeople did not abandon the Pharisee misleaders and align themselves withthe Essenes.

The hopes of the Qumran community were ultimately dashed, but thedetails of their eschatological vision concerning the end of the Pharisees arefascinating, both as a reflection of the spirit of Second Temple Judaism, andas an element of the Qumran eschatology. Consider Pesher Nahum’s state-ment in this regard: “‘They will say: Nineveh is devastated; who will bemoanher? Where shall I seek comforters for you?’ (Nah. 3:6-7):59 Its interpretationconcerns those looking for smooth interpretations, whose council will dieand whose society will be disbanded; they shall not continue misdirecting

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59. On the reading of Nahum in the scroll see Raphael Weiss, “A Comparison betweenthe Masoretic and Qumran Texts of Nahum iii.1-11,” Revue de Qumran 4 (1963), 433-439.

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the assembly and simple folk shall no longer support their council” (PesherNahum 3.6-8).

How, then, does the author envision the end of days, when “the glory ofJudah is revealed” and the single abiding truth of the Essene community willbe made known to all, in accordance with the will of God? Many of the Jewishcommoners will realize that they erred in their blind obedience to the Phari-sees, and turn away from those who misdirected them. Then the Pharisees’“council will die” and their society “will be disbanded.” Ultimately, the con-gregation of those who look for smooth interpretations will cease to exist. In-terestingly, the Pesher uses the same terminology for the Pharisees as for theQumran community: ‘congregation’ (hde), ‘assembly’ (lhk),60 ‘council’(hxe), and ‘assembly’ (osnc).61 Outside of “council” in the sense of congre-gation, which is otherwise unattested in the Scrolls, these terms are not par-ticular to the Essenes, but rather appear to be part of the common SecondTemple lexicon for religious congregations.

The section describing the downfall of the Pharisees in the end of daysincludes another set of technical terminology, which may shed light on thesocial reality of Second Temple Judaism. The Essene author proclaims, “whenthe glory of Judah is revealed the simple people of Ephraim will flee fromamong their assembly and desert the ones who misdirected them and willjoin the majority of Israel.” After the Pharisees pass from the world, “theyshall not continue misdirecting the assembly and simple folk shall no longersupport their council” (Pesher Nahum 3.4-8). Who are these “simple folk”(fyaop)? The Hebrew term appears a number of times throughout theScrolls in reference to the Qumran members, indicating their simple faith.Thus the author of the Hodayot writes: “I became a trap for offenders, but amedicine for all who turn away from offense, a wit for simple folk, and astaunch purpose for the timorous at heart” (1QHa 10.8-9). However, the wordhas a technical sense as well, as when Pesher Habakkuk interprets Habakkuk2:17 (“For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you; the destructionof the animals will terrify you”) as: “Because Lebanon is the Council of theCommunity and the animals are the simple folk of Judah, those who observethe Law” (Pesher Habakkuk 12.3-5). The ‘Council of the Community’ refers tothe Qumran community and its organizing principles, and alongside it are

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60. Pesher Nahum 2.5; Pesher Habakkuk 10.10; Hodayot 10.22, 32; 14.5; 15.34; Pesher Isaiah2.17; 4.36; Damascus Document 1.12 (?); 2.1; 8.13.

61. The term ‘assembly’ (osnc) appears in the Scrolls once in reference to the Pharisees:“whose assembly will be disbanded” (Pesher Nahum 3.7), and once in reference to the Qumrancommunity: “[. . . the Interpreter of] the Law with the men of the Community, for [. . .] it is theassembly of the men . . .” (4Q252 5.5-6).

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the ‘simple folk of Judah, those who observe the law’ (the Qumran gloss of‘the animals’ in the biblical verse). We established above that Judah is a typo-logical name for the Essene movement; thus the ‘simple folk of Judah’ are in-dividuals who “observe the Law,” i.e. the Torah according to the Essene inter-pretation, but are not part of the “Council of the Community” and do notobey its special ordinances. Particularly relevant is the very poorly preservedpassage from Pesher Micah:62 “‘I shall make Samaria a heap in the opencountry, a place for planting vineyards’ (Mic. 1:6). Its interpretation concernsthe Preacher of Deceit who has misdirected the simple folk. ‘And what is thehigh place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?’ (Mic. 1:5). Its interpretation con-cerns the Teacher of Righteousness who teaches the law to his council and toall those volunteering to join the chosen of God, observing the law in thecouncil of the Community, those who will be saved on the day of judgment”(1QpMic [= 1Q14] fragments 8-10).

This passage reflects a picture already attested elsewhere in the Scrolls:two communities face each other — the Pharisees led by the Preacher of De-ceit, and the Essenes led by the Teacher of Righteousness. Both are symbol-ized by cities — Samaria for the Pharisees, who are called ‘Ephraim’ (and “thehead of Ephraim is Samaria” [Isa. 7:9]), while Jerusalem, the Judean capital, isthe symbol of the Essenes, who refer to themselves as the house of Jerusalem.The pesher takes Micah’s words “I shall make Samaria a heap in the opencountry, a place for planting vineyards” and applies them to the Preacher ofDeceit. It is possible that there is a play on the Hebrew phrase “grape vine-yards” (frc yetm) and the homonymous root h-e-o, to mislead or misdi-rect. Pesher Nahum speaks of the Pharisees who “misdirect Ephraim” (2.8;and see also 3.7; Pesher Hosea 2.5; CD 5.20), while Pesher Habakkuk states ex-plicitly that the Preacher of Deceit “misdirected the many” (10.9; and see alsoCD 1.14-15). It would appear, then, that the reconstruction of Pesher Micah as“the Preacher of Deceit who has misdirected the simple folk” is indeed war-ranted. The Preacher of Deceit misdirected Israel (the vineyard being a com-mon symbol for Israel, following Isaiah 5:7).

We already know the “simple folk” of Pesher Micah from Pesher Nahum;they make up the majority of the Jewish people who, while not part of thePharisees proper, obey their rulings. The author of Pesher Nahum believes thatin the end of days the Pharisees “shall not continue misdirecting the assemblyand simple folk shall no longer support their council” (3.7-8), and then “thesimple people of Ephraim will flee from among their assembly and desert theones who misdirected them and will join the majority of Israel” (3.5).

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62. D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik, Qumran Cave 1, 78.

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Pesher Micah, then, sets Samaria, the evil kingdom of the north that isthe symbol of the Pharisees and the Preacher of Deceit, against Jerusalem, thecongregation of the Teacher of Righteousness. The latter are, he suggests, thetrue subject of Micah 1:5: “And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusa-lem?” For Pesher Micah, “Its interpretation concerns the Teacher of Righ-teousness who teaches the law to his Council and all those volunteering to jointhe chosen of God, observing the law in the Council of the Community, thosewho will be saved from the day of judgment” (Pesher Micah fragments 8-10).63Milik, who edited Pesher Micah, rightly refers to a parallel passage in PesherHabakkuk, interpreting Habakkuk 2:17 — “For the violence done to Lebanonwill overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals will terrify you” — as fol-lows: “Because Lebanon is the Council of the Community and the animals arethe simple folk of Judah, those who observe the Law” (Pesher Habakkuk 12.4-5). It appears that Pesher Micah offers related readings of two terms in Micah1:5. “Jerusalem” refers to the Council of the Community, while “the high placeof Judah” refers to “all those volunteering to join the chosen of God . . . in theCouncil of the Community.” The volunteers here clearly refer to individualsupporters of the Qumran community who are not current members butmight become members at a future time. The term ‘volunteers’ appears in theScrolls in a number of different meanings.64 The Manual of Discipline echoesthe sense of Pesher Micah when it speaks of “anyone from Israel who freelyvolunteers to enroll in the Council of the Community” (6.13-14), that is, peoplelocated outside the sect but considering membership. (See also “those whofreely volunteer,” 1QS 1.7, 11.)We find, then, a clear correlation between PesherHabakkuk 12.1-5, on the one hand, and Pesher Micah, on the other. Pesher Mi-cah interprets “the high place of Judah” as “all those volunteering to join thechosen of God . . . in the Council of the Community,” while Pesher Habakkukinterprets “animals” in Habakkuk as “the simple folk of Judah, those who ob-serve the Law.” These constitute a distinct group from “Lebanon which is theCouncil of the Community.” Indeed, both these passages appear to make up asingle midrashic interpretation, and it’s possible that other points of contactexisted, but cannot be recovered due to the poor condition of Pesher Micah. Bethat as it may, both the fragmentary Pesher Micah and Pesher Habakkuk speakof two affiliated groups — the structured sect, “the Council of the Commu-nity,” and those who are not full members.

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63. With regard to the last phrase, Milik rightly cites Pesher Habakkuk 8.1-3: “. . . all ob-serving the Law in the house of Judah, whom God will free from the house of judgment on ac-count of their toil and of their loyalty to the Teacher of Righteousness.”

64. See Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim, 108-109.

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Those “volunteering” for the congregation of the Teacher of Righteous-ness in Pesher Micah are the “simple folk of Judah” discussed in PesherHabakkuk. However, Pesher Micah explicitly links the “simple folk” with thePreacher of Deceit, the leader of the Pharisees, suggesting these are the “sim-ple folk of Ephraim” mentioned in Pesher Nahum (3.5, and see also 3.7). It ap-pears, then, that the Qumran authors saw the Pharisee movement as parallel-ing its own: both the Pharisees and the Essenes were made up of a religiouscongregation and of its supporters. Its own “simple folk of Judah” are also re-ferred to as those “who accompany,” as when the Damascus Document de-scribes “the converts of Israel who left the land of Judah, and those who ac-company them” (CD 4.2-3). The Essene movement is described in the Manualof Discipline as a structured group of “those who freely volunteer for holinessin Aaron and for the house of truth in Israel and . . . those who join them forcommunity, lawsuit, and judgment to proclaim as guilty all those who tres-pass the decree” — again, the full members and those who join them (1QS5.5-7).

It was the structural parallel between the two movements that allowedthe Qumran authors to transfer the technical term “simple folk” from theEssenes to their Pharisee rivals. The former were the “simple folk of Judah,”the latter the “simple folk of Ephraim.” True, the phrase does not have a pre-cise parallel within the Pharisaic-rabbinic corpus, but it is employed by theScrolls to mark the Pharisees, not only the Essenes.

It is well established that both the Pharisaic and the Essene movementwere centered around a particular group, who maintained a fixed way of lifeand various purity strictures.65 The Pharisees numbered some 6000 mem-bers, the Essenes 4000. However, there were significant differences betweenthe two congregations. The religious legislation of the Essenes reflected thecentrality of the Yahad, the sectarian community, and its separatist ideology.As a result, the “simple folk of Judah” are ultimately nothing more than fellowtravelers. Ideally, all those who volunteer to join the community will becomemembers of the Council of the Community (as in Pesher Micah), which ex-plains the requirement that every member of the Qumran community “wel-come those who freely volunteer to carry out God’s decrees into the covenantof kindness, in order to be united in the council of God” (1QS 1.7-8). ThePharisees, in contrast, were not a separatist or missionary community, butrather sought to influence the Jewish people as a whole. This tendency is evi-denced by the polemic attack of Qumran writers against the Pharisees as

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65. For a comparison between the Qumran community and Pharisaic havurah see Licht,Megillat ha-Serachim, 294-303.

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“misleaders from Ephraim” who lead astray the people as a whole (see espe-cially Pesher Nahum 2.7-10). Given this historical context, we cannot butwonder to whom the Scrolls refer when they speak of “the simple folk ofEphraim”? The term that most closely parallels “the simple folk” in rabbinicliterature is am ha-aretz, often translated as ‘ignoramus’ or ‘unlearned.’ It canbe used to identify an individual who is not a sage, but it also means one whois not a member of the Pharisee community, and it is in the latter sense that itapproximates Qumran’s “simple folk,” i.e., individuals who accept the com-munity but are not part of it. Was this the only distinction invoked by theterm “simple folk of Ephraim,” or does it have a broader sense that includesthe distinction between the am ha-aretz and the Pharisee sage? It appears thatthe author of Pesher Nahum had this aspect in mind too, as he writes that inthe last days “when the glory of Judah is revealed the simple people ofEphraim will flee from among their assembly and desert the ones who misdi-rected them” (Pesher Nahum 3.4). The simple folk will, in other words, breakwith the Pharisee sages. In any case, historically speaking the “simple folk ofEphraim” constituted the vast majority of Jewish society — sympathetic tothe teachings of the Pharisees, and thus they could be referred to with the un-marked “simple folk” (as in Pesher Nahum 3.7 and Pesher Micah).

Thus far, we have concentrated on the Essene prophecy regarding theend of Pharisee influence within the broader context of Pharisee-Essene rela-tions in Second Temple times. However, part of the prophecy provides fasci-nating insights into the eschatological teachings of the Qumran community.One of the central doctrines of the community posits that the world is di-vided into the lot of light and the lot of darkness, and an accompanyingdesire to destroy the evil — indeed, evil itself — in the end of days. The dual-ism of good and evil, along with the belief in predestination, is the foun-dation of Qumran’s separatist ideology, an ideology that finds expression inthe very structure of this community that seeks to set itself apart from Jewishsociety. It is no surprise, then, that the Qumran authors would promote theidea that in the end of days all the wicked Jews, i.e., those who do not belongto the community, will be destroyed: “. . . for futile are those who do not knowthe covenant. And all those who scorn his word he shall cause to vanish fromthe world” (1QS 5.19). However, the sect’s ideology could be understood in amore radical fashion, as arguing that some of the Jewish population may nothave been predestined into either the lot of light or the lot of darkness, butrather has been misled by the wicked and may yet repent and be saved. It maybe in this context that the Scrolls speak of those who misdirect the people, aphrase that invariably points to the Pharisees and their leadership. Thus theHodayot speak of those who seek after smooth interpretations: “You placed

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. . . the source of knowledge for all those who understand, but they havechanged them for an uncircumcised lip and a weird tongue of a people with-out understanding, and so they will be ruined by their mistake” (1QHa 10.18-19). Pesher Nahum speaks in the same vein of “their fraudulent teaching”(Pesher Nahum 2.8-10). The author then goes on to enumerate the varioussocial strata that have been misled by the Pharisees and their fraudulentteaching, beginning with kings and moving all the way down to “the proselyteattached to them.” If a significant percentage of the Jewish populace is merelyvictims of these misleaders, in the future time, when the truth will be re-vealed, the cheated masses will abandon their erroneous ways and join withthe Qumran community. I take this to be almost certainly the original view ofthe sect. For it was ever thus in separatist movements: one tendency seeks tobreak with the majority, eventually transforming the religious movement intoa sectarian group, alongside a second tendency to convince the majority thatthis new movement represents the only true interpretation of the religion as awhole. One of the key factors in the formation of a new religious group is thebelief that its views will eventually be accepted by their co-religionists. How-ever, their failure to convince the majority of their views is, so to speak, a fe-cund tragedy, at least when the separatist elements in the movement arestrong and represent a novel ideological perspective. The theological dualismof the Qumran community, so clearly evident in the doctrine of predestina-tion, paved the way for its break with broader Jewish society. However, unlikeChristianity which turned toward the Pagan world, the Qumran communitynever fully divorced itself from the Jewish people. We may assume, then, thatthe desire to convince mainstream Judaism (or part of it) engendered stron-ger pan-Jewish feelings in the early days of the Qumran community, feelingsthat weakened as it grew clearer that the group had failed to establish itself asa dominant force in the Jewish world. Nonetheless, even when the group sep-arated itself physically, it did not cease to hope that eventually, even the Jew-ish masses who could not accept the strictures of life at Qumran would jointhe Essene movement. After all, they knew empirically that there were “simplefolk of Judah, those who observe the law” who could not attain the religiousobservance of Qumran members, but still were sympathetic to the move-ment. Thus, even while stating that “futile are those who do not know thecovenant,” the very same section describes the Essene movement as “a foun-dation of truth for Israel . . . [to] make atonement for all who freely volunteer. . . and for those who join them . . .” (1QS 5.5-7). The same putative dichot-omy is set forth (albeit in milder terms) in Pesher Psalms,66 which speaks of

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66. On what follows see Licht’s important article “An Eternal Planting and Nation of

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“all who converted to the law, who do not refuse to convert from their wick-edness, for all those who resist to convert from their sin will be cut off”(4QpPsa 2.4-5). But while this does not mean that only the members of thecommunity will be counted among those who “convert,” there is a clear ten-sion between this statement and later language concerning “the congregationof his chosen ones who will be chiefs and princes . . .” of Israel (4QpPsa 3.5).

There are, then, two distinct aspects to Qumran eschatology. One posi-tion holds that ultimate redemption applies only to the Qumran communityitself, while the other describes the redemption of all non-wicked Jews. Thelatter will turn away from their wrongdoings, recognize the truth of theQumran teachings, and live under the rule of the community. This is the viewpromulgated in the Rule of the Congregation,67 as it is “the rule of all the con-gregation of Israel in the final days, when they gather in community to walkin accordance with the regulation of the sons of Zadok, the priests, and themen of their covenant” (1QSa [= 1Q28a] 1.1-2). This is also the approach ofPesher Nahum, who provides a fuller social picture of the eschatologicalhopes outlined in the Rule of the Congregation. Pesher Nahum does not dis-cuss the fate that will befall the Sadducees in the end of days, perhaps becausethey are relatively few. We do, however, learn that the Pharisees will disinte-grate, losing all popular support once their wicked deeds are made known.“When the glory of Judah” — that is, of the Qumran community — “is re-vealed,” the simple folk of Ephraim will turn away from those who misledthem and join with the true Israel. Clearly, this series of events accords with apan-Jewish approach (at least as far as the future is concerned), since not onlythe simple folk of Judah, but those of Ephraim as well will side with the com-munity. The author of the Rule of the Congregation was, it seems, acutelyaware of the tension between the present separatism and the future integra-tion, and so he presents the composition as dealing with “all the congregationof Israel in the final days,” a time when all will “walk in accordance with theregulation of the sons of Zadok, the priests, and the men of their covenant.” Ifthe Qumran community departed from the path of the people, choosing in-stead to maintain their covenant with God despite the surrounding depravity,in the future the members of the community will be the chiefs and princes ofthe Jewish people as a whole, now purified of evil.

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God’s Redemption” (Hebrew) in Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Jerusalem, 1961), 49-75. PesherNahum confirms the assumptions Licht makes at 58, 73, 74.

67. Licht, “An Eternal Planting,” 71-74.

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V

We have seen, then, that the Scrolls verify that there were three main partiesin Second Temple Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. But whileJosephus describes them as philosophical schools, the Qumran writings clas-sify the three in accordance with a scripturally based typology. Thus theEssenes are “the house of Judah,” that is, the portion of Israel that remainedfaithful to the Lord, while their enemies are described as the two main tribesof the northern kingdom of Israel: the Pharisees Ephraim and the SadduceesManasseh. Alongside this view we find another typological vocabulary inwhich the groups are likened to cities. The Qumran community was, needlessto say, Jerusalem, the capital of Judah. The Pharisees, conversely, are identifiedin Pesher Micah with Samaria, the capital of Ephraim, while Pesher Nahumidentifies the Pharisees with Nineveh and the Sadducees with Amon(Thebes), cities discussed in the words of the prophet.

The use of Jerusalem as a symbol in the Essene writings is of particularinterest since the early church too defined itself symbolically as Jerusalem. InPesher Micah,68 we identified the typological association of Jerusalem withthe Council of the Community founded by the Teacher of Righteousness,while Pesher Isaiah links an interpretation concerning Jerusalem in theeschaton to the Essene community (Isaiah 54:11-12).69 Another importantpassage comes in the very end of 11Q13 (11QMelchizedek),70 in which the es-chatological Zion prophecy of Isaiah 52:7 is read as an allusion to the DeadSea sect.

Elsewhere, I have discussed the great importance of Pesher Isaiah 54:11-12 to understanding the Christian institution of the twelve apostles. Here thekey issue is that the author interprets Isaiah’s words regarding eschatologicalJerusalem as reference to existing or future institutions of the Qumran com-munity in the end of days. Thus Isaiah’s “[I will] lay your foundations withsapphires” is interpreted as “they will found the council of the Community”and later the fragmentary text refers to the priests and to “the assembly oftheir elect, like a sapphire stone in the midst of stones” (4Q164 1.3). Similarlythe phrase “[I will make] all your wall of precious stones” is taken to refer to“the chiefs of the tribes of Israel.” This fragment is poorly preserved and not

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68. D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik, Qumran Cave 1, 18.69. See my article in the Sukenik Memorial Volume, 52-62.70. On the text and interpretation of this midrash see M. de Jonge and A. S. Van der

Woude, “11QMelchizedek and the New Testament,” New Testament Studies 12 (1966), 301-326;J. A. Fitzmyer, “Further Light on Melchizedek from Qumran Cave 11,” JBL 86 (1967), 25-41;Y. Yadin, “A Note on Melchizedek and Qumran,” IEJ 15 (1965), 152-154.

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sufficiently clear, but enough has survived to demonstrate that the interpreta-tion is based on the twofold approach of the community: representing thecommunity as an edifice or a city, and they typologically linking it to Jerusa-lem, the Holy City. These views converge in interpreting Isaiah’s propheciesconcerning the different elements of eschatological Jerusalem as symbols forthe institutions of the community.

The Jerusalem typology of Qumran generally, and the interpretation ofPesher Isaiah in particular, are illuminated by the description of eschatologi-cal Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation.71 Here, the author sees “the holy cityJerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God anda radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, highwall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are in-scribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites. . . . And the wall of thecity has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelveapostles of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:10-14). The foundation stones of the city, more-over, are studded with the same precious stones that adorn the breastplate ofthe high priest (Rev. 21:19-21). The symbols point to an eschatological visionof Jerusalem, with its twelve tribes, while the reference to the foundationstones bearing the names of the twelve apostles clearly indicates that eschato-logical Jerusalem symbolizes the Christian community in the end of days.This is further demonstrated by the fact that Jerusalem of the eschaton, as de-scribed in Revelation, is betrothed as a wife to the Lamb,72 that is, to JesusChrist (Rev. 21:2, 9), just as Knesset Israel, the Community of Israel, is repre-sented in rabbinic literature as the beloved of God. It is worth noting that theapocryphal 4 Ezra (9.38-10.28) contains the figure of a grieving woman whoeventually turns into a city — Zion, that is, the eschatological Jerusalem(10.40-49). In 4 Ezra, however, the woman, i.e., eschatological Jerusalem, hasno typological meaning.

We have already noted that both the Qumran community and the earlychurch link the city as a symbol of the community with the typology of“congregation-edifice.”73 This view finds expression, e.g., in Paul’s epistle tothe Ephesians (2:19-22): “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, butyou are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesushimself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together andgrows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together

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71. For further discussion see my article in the Sukenik Memorial Volume.72. See also 4 Ezra 7.26, according to the Latin and Syriac texts.73. See above, n. 55.

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spiritually into a dwelling-place for God.” Though never stated explicitly, it isclear that city in Ephesians is Jerusalem in the end of days, the “heavenly” city.It should be further noted that the passage in question combines the two keyaspects of the city: on the one hand, it is a symbol of the community, on theother, the residence of the Christian select, who are its citizens. A very similarsituation holds in Revelation, where the wondrous vision of eschatological Je-rusalem takes center stage, while the symbolic allusions to the Christian com-munity merge seamlessly into this portrait.74 The belief in a new and won-drous Jerusalem is already found among the biblical prophets, and continuesin the apocalyptic literature of the Second Temple and down to the rabbiniccorpus.75 It is not surprising then, that alongside the early church, theQumranites used eschatological Jerusalem to symbolize their community. Anumber of the Scrolls contain detailed descriptions of the new Jerusalem,though these are not symbolic so much as explicit visions of the eschaton.76

Another important passage that combines an apocalyptic vision withthe typological import of heavenly Jerusalem is Hebrews 12:18-24. Here Pauladdresses his Christian readers, saying that they have not been part of theawesome events of Mt. Sinai, but rather “you have come to Mount Zion andto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable an-gels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolledin heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous madeperfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.” The terminology usedto describe Mt. Zion and heavenly Jerusalem is clearly apocalyptic. Nonethe-less, the author of the epistle speaks enthusiastically of a divine communitymade up of angels and men alike. We have already noted that Pesher Micahcompares the Essenes to Jerusalem and that the pesher to Isaiah 54:11-12 inter-prets the biblical prophecy of eschatological Jerusalem as referring to theQumran community. The same is true of 11QMelchizedek,77 which describesa trial that will take place in the end of days:78 Melchizedek will be the judgeand he will “carry out the vengeance of God’s judgments . . . [and] to his aidshall come all the gods of [justice]” (11Q13 2.13-14). The elect are “the sons oflight . . . the men of the lot of Melchizedek” (11Q13 2.8). The author then inter-

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74. The unity of the new Jerusalem, which descends from the heavens as a real eschato-logical event and as a symbol of the community, is affirmed in Revelation 3:12.

75. See, e.g., P. Volz, Die Eschatologie der jüdischen Gemeinde (Tübingen, 1934), 371-376.76. See D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik, Qumran Cave 1, 134-135; Les Petites Grottes de

Qumran (Oxford, 1962), 84-89 and 184-193.77. See above, n. 70.78. For a discussion see my “Melchizedek and the Son of Man,” Christian News from Is-

rael 17 (1966), 23-29.

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prets Isaiah 52:7 — “who says to Zion ‘your god reigns’” — as applying tothese elect. “Zion is . . . those who establish the covenant, those who avoidwalking on the path of the people” (11Q13 2.23-24).

Who is this figure, whom the text associates with the phrase “yourgod”? This daring interpretation attributes to Melchizedek the verse “god hastaken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judg-ment” (Ps. 82:1). It appears, then, that those scholars are in the right who holdthat “your god” in Isaiah 52:7 is also interpreted as signifying Melchizedek, theheavenly judge of all creatures in the end of days. This hypothesis becomeswell nigh definite if we recall that the biblical Melchizedek was the king of Sa-lem, traditionally associated with Jerusalem or Zion, of whom Isaiah states“who says to Zion ‘your god reigns’” (Isa. 52:7). For it is “Zion” that is inter-preted as “those who establish the covenant, those who avoid walking on thepath of the people,” that is, as the Essene sect itself. Indeed, we have alreadyseen that the phrase “avoid walking on the path of the people” defines theseparatist tendency within Qumran. The Qumran community, then, is Zion,which will, in the end of days — apparently after the final judgment in whichevil will be defeated — be ruled by Melchizedek, King of Salem. The latter, itshould be noted, is represented in the text as something of a “son of man,”both human and superhuman.

The fragmentary condition of the Melchizedek passage precludes un-equivocal conclusions regarding the image of Zion as the Community. Thus,there is no way to determine just how similar this image is to that found inthe Epistle to the Hebrews. Nonetheless, both Hebrews and the Qumran au-thor call eschatological Jerusalem ‘Zion,’ and it may be significant that bothtexts refer to the covenants that constitute the respective communities —both of which are famously referred to as ‘new covenants’ or ‘new testa-ments,’79 following Jeremiah 31:31. Already the words of the prophet containthe idea that this new covenant is to be the eschatological replacement of thefirst, Sinaitic covenant made by God and Israel. And this is indeed the mean-ing of ‘new covenant’ in the early church and the Damascus Document (CD1.1-11; 2.14-3.21; 9.20-10.3). The dual covenant theology explains the discussionof Sinai in Hebrews 12:18-24, where he turns to his audience and states thatthey no longer need the awesome elements of the Sinai theophany, since thenew testament of Christ contains no fear and trembling, but only glad tidings.Though not mentioned explicitly, Sinai here symbolizes the old covenant,while Mt. Zion and heavenly Jerusalem — the new.

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79. See my “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” 236-242. To the sourcescited therein, Sifra to Leviticus 26:9 should be added.

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We know that both the Christians and the Essenes distinguished be-tween the first covenant at Sinai and the new covenant that constituted theirrespective communities. We have further seen that both groups saw Jerusa-lem and Mt. Zion as symbols of their communities. And though none of theQumran texts published thus far ties the Zion or Jerusalem typology with thetwo covenants by associating the first with Mt. Sinai and the second with Mt.Zion,80 it is quite possible that the Essenes did, in typical fashion, link the two.Indeed, the early church may have inherited these images from the Essenesand developed them in their own particular manner. Support for this view isfound in Paul’s letter to the Galatians 4:21-31, which contains the same imagesas Hebrews 12:18-24, but in a distinctly Pauline reworking. The Epistle to theHebrews was not composed by Paul, and there is evidence to suggest thatsome of the theological motifs common to the Pauline epistles, the other NewTestament epistles, and the Gospel of John — originate in the theologicalworldview of the Essenes.

In his campaign to keep Gentile followers of Jesus from observing theJewish commandments, Paul writes to the Galatians, “it is written that Abra-ham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman. One,the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child ofthe free woman, was born through the promise. Now this is an allegory: thesewomen are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai,bearing children for slavery. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corre-sponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. Butthe other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she isour mother. . . . Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac. . . we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman” (Gal. 4:22-31).

We have cited this passage at length in order to emphasize Paul’s com-plex symbolism, and to draw attention to the extreme conclusions he drawsregarding the Torah from a conceptual framework that was, it appears, origi-nally Essene. As in the Epistle to the Hebrews, with its softer tone towards theTorah, Paul situates Mt. Sinai and the heavenly Jerusalem as symbols of theold and new covenants, respectively. We have already noted that Jerusalemserves as a symbol of congregation first for the Qumran community and thenfor the nascent church. In Galatians, Paul notes explicitly that he is referringto the heavenly Jerusalem, not the terrestrial city. True, his opposition to Jeru-

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80. On the eschatological Mt. Zion see Jubilees 1.28-29. According to Jubilees 2.26, duringthe new, eschatological creation, holiness will descend onto four places: the Garden of Eden, theEastern Mount, Mt. Sinai, and Mt. Zion. On the sanctity of the Garden of Eden, Mt. Sinai, andMt. Zion, see also Jubilees 8.19. The key issue for our purposes is that the eschatological templewill be located on Mt. Zion.

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salem revolves around the tension between mainstream Jewish society, whichdoes not believe in Jesus, and the young Christian community. But for theQumran community too Jerusalem is the base of their enemies, the WickedPriest, the Angry Lion, and those who seek after smooth interpretations,along with the impure temple. For this group too, then, it is not the existingcity of their day that is an ideal, but only the symbolic or typological Jerusa-lem; in two of the three passages discussed — Pesher Isaiah and 11QMelchize-dek — it is eschatological Jerusalem that stands as a symbol. Overall, then, wefind that heavenly Jerusalem plays a role in the eschatological schemata ofboth the Qumranites and the New Testament.

We have addressed the complex typologies of Hebrews and Galatians,and their similarity to the Essene typology. We have also identified a greatsimilarity in the descriptions of Jerusalem found in Revelation 21 and PesherIsaiah. It is significant in this context that the heavenly Jerusalem of Revela-tion 21 is also the bride of the lamb, that is, a female symbol of the Christiancommunity and a key to the symbolic language of Galatians. The personifica-tion of women as cities is an established motif in the Hebrew Bible: Jerusalemis, of course, the daughter of Zion or the maiden of Zion, but cities like Baby-lon and Nineveh are described as whores and the like. The same approachtransforms Jerusalem into a female figure in 4 Ezra, and — given the typo-logical identification of Jerusalem and the congregation — the woman sym-bolizes the congregation, as in Revelation. Thus, Paul’s teachings to theGalatian community — Mt. Sinai “in Arabia” is likened to Hagar, the maid-servant, while Zion, i.e., heavenly Jerusalem, is Sarah the free woman — arean original reworking of a symbolic vocabulary attested in the Scrolls and inSecond Temple Jewish sources more generally. It is true that Paul uses thetechnical Greek term ‘allegory’ to characterize his interpretation, and absentcontemporary Jewish sources we might think that this was an instance ofGreek allegory;81 however the non-Greek Jewish parallels teach us that Paul’sallegory is rooted in indigenous Palestinian Jewish discourse.

We have surveyed a number of issues not directly related to PesherNahum or even the Dead Sea Scrolls, with the intent of providing a particu-larly fascinating example of the process by which the religious thought of this

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81. See E. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa (Darmstadt, 1958), 673-674. Norden discussesPhilo’s allegorical interpretation of Hagar the handmaiden and Sarah the free woman, an inter-pretation that is apparently tied to the Stoic allegories on the Odyssey. Norden distinguishesPhilo’s allegory from that of Paul’s in Galatians, arguing that the latter is Palestinian Hellenistic.The material adduced in this article, however, indicates that the roots of Paul’s allegory inGalatians are not Hellenistic, though this is not to deny that Paul’s allegory was influenced bythe Hellenistic environment, in Galatians and elsewhere.

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sectarian Jewish group was gradually transformed in a novel Christian frame-work into a doctrine that is hostile to the Torah and to Judaism. It is the sepa-ratist zeal of the Essenes, their willingness to break with the path of main-stream Judaism that led to their self-perception as the true Israel, or as thekernel of a future, eschatological Israel. Their separatism was presented interms of the separation of Judah from the wicked northern kingdom of Israel,which led, in turn, to the identification of their enemies with Ephraim (thePharisees) and Manasseh (the Sadducees) and themselves with Jerusalem,and especially eschatological Jerusalem. The separatism of this typology isquite pronounced, and it is no coincidence that the same city that is the site ofthe criminal Wicked Priest and of those seeking after smooth interpretations,becomes the typological symbol of the community. In Galatians 4:25, Paul ex-plicitly states that the symbolic Jerusalem is not identical with “the present Je-rusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.”

For the rabbinic sages, to the contrary, the holy city of Jerusalem couldnot be merely a pale allegory, devoid of the great emotional resonance thatthe eternal city evoked throughout Jewish history. The same is true of thetribal typology according to which the Qumran community identified itselfwith Judah and the other Jewish groups with Manasseh and Ephraim. Thetribal typology, then, is fundamentally separatist. The Pharisees, who by allaccounts — mainstream and sectarian alike — were seen as leaders by mostof the Jewish populace, developed an opposing ideology. “All Israel have ashare of the world to come,” teaches the Mishnah (m. Sanhedrin 10.1). Natu-rally, there were those among the Pharisees who sought to weaken the force ofthis rallying cry, and believed that some groups, be they wicked or in error,have no part in the world to come. Nonetheless, the core statement that all Is-rael will be redeemed remained a great Jewish principle even down to thepresent day. The Essene ideology was altogether different. In some passagesthey are willing to admit that a sizable portion of the people are not evil butrather have been misled by the Pharisees. Even so, their central ideologicalline shows no mercy to the Jewish people as a whole. As noted, this separatisttendency found expression in the tribal typology. But as far as the rabbis areconcerned, it is well known that they identified Rome with Edom, but it ishard to believe that they would identify their enemies with the children of Ja-cob, the Jewish patriarch.

The rabbinic sages knew of the new, eschatological covenant that Godwould establish with Israel from Jeremiah 31:31: “‘And I will maintain my cov-enant with you’ (Lev. 26:9), not as the first covenant, which you broke, as it iswritten: ‘a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says theLord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after

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those days, says the Lord’ (Jer. 31:32-33)” (Sifra to Leviticus 26:9). This mid-rash — quite unusual in rabbinic literature — notwithstanding, the Phariseesdid not believe that the first Sinaitic covenant was transgressed by most of thenation. The members of the Qumran community, on the other hand, be-lieved themselves to be the only group faithful to the spirit and the letter ofthe covenant with God. They were, moreover, convinced that their own con-gregation, with its unique lifestyle and religious observance, is the new cove-nant of which Jeremiah prophesied. Thus their view that “futile are all thosewho do not know the covenant, and all those who scorn his word he shallcause to vanish from the world” (1QS 5.19).

The early church similarly adhered to a dual-covenant ideology: thefirst at Sinai and the second with the advent and death of Jesus.82 Christianitycould not annul the first covenant without becoming Gnostics, but with theparting of the ways the tension toward the first covenant — the Mosaic Torahand its commandments — grew progressively stronger. Jesus himself is theguarantee of a better covenant (Heb. 7:22), that is, a more perfect covenantsince it “has been enacted through better promises. For if that first covenanthad been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one”(Heb. 8:6-7). According to the author of Hebrews, then, Jeremiah taught thatthe first covenant was obsolete, and the obsolete and the old is destined todisappear (Heb. 8:13).83 Still, the Epistle to the Hebrews does not present anabsolute break between the obsolete old covenant and the new Christian one,as the former stands in relation to the latter as the flesh to the spirit.84 This,moreover, is the relation that holds in Hebrews 12:18-24, in which the two cov-enants are likened to Sinai and heavenly Jerusalem, respectively. The authorof Hebrews does not present this as a dichotomy but rather two levels, withthe later, Christian covenant inhabiting an immeasurably higher positionthan the terrible and awesome covenant at Sinai.

As the above discussion demonstrates, both the dual-covenant theologyand the Epistle to the Hebrews’ use of Zion as a symbol for the communityhave counterparts in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The entire passage, then, representsan interesting Christian development of motifs from the Essene writings. Thenovelty of this approach lies in the greater tension toward the first, Sinaiticcovenant, which Hebrews represents as a concrete mountain (12:18), whereasthe symbol of the new community is heavenly Jerusalem. In the parallel pas-

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82. Norden, Die antike Kunstprosa, 100.83. Needless to say, no such tension between the old and new covenants exists in the

Essene writings.84. See O. Michel, Der Brief an die Hebräer (Göttingen, 1966), 284-286.

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sage in Galatians (4:21-31), Paul takes this view so far as to develop a symbolicvocabulary that is inherently offensive to Judaism itself: the symbol of the Jew-ish people and their faith is Ishmael and Hagar, his mother, while Mt. Sinai isreferred to as a ‘mountain in Arabia.’ The symbol for the nascent Christiancommunity, however, is Isaac and Sarah, his mother, along with the heavenlyJerusalem: Judaism bears children into slavery, Christianity into freedom.

Paul’s complex relation to the Jewish people and the Torah lies beyondthe purview of the present discussion. It should be noted, however, that it isby no means as negative as the above passage from Galatians might suggest.In invoking it I have only sought to indicate the potential dangers of the sepa-ratist typology of the Essenes, as we know it from Pesher Nahum and theother Qumran Scrolls.

In summary: the Dead Sea Scrolls shed new light on Josephus’s state-ment regarding the three Jewish “schools”: the Pharisees, Sadducees, andEssenes. Though some scholars thought Josephus’s division was artificial, wesaw that the Qumran community divides the Jewish populace into the samethree religious groups. The accord between Josephus and the Scrolls in thisregard serves as further proof that the Dead Sea community is Essene. To besure, Josephus describes the groups as philosophical schools, while the Essenescribes employ a tribal typology: they are none other than the faithful houseof Judah, while their enemies are the two main tribes of Israel who betrayedthe Lord — the Pharisees Ephraim, the Sadducees Manasseh. The elucidationof these appellations paves the way, moreover, to an important insight regard-ing a key element in the Dead Sea community’s history, namely, that thewicked priest may be Aristobulus, the son of Alexander Jannaeus and brotherof John Hyrcanus. Furthermore, the Teacher of Righteousness, who foundedthe community, was still alive during the reign of Alexandra Salome, but sur-vived the persecution of the Sadducees and Pharisees.

Alongside the tribal, the Qumran texts employ a second typology thatinvolves cities. Jerusalem, or Zion, which historically served as the capital ofJudah, symbolized the Essene community, while other cities designated theiropponents. Thus Pesher Micah identifies Samaria with the Pharisees, while inPesher Nahum Nineveh symbolizes the Pharisees and Thebes the Sadducees.All these typologies can ultimately be traced back to the separatist ideology ofthe Qumran community. Only a group that takes pride in having broken withthe way of mainstream Judaism could associate their rival contemporarieswith the names of the northern tribes. Similarly, the group’s self-identificationwith Jerusalem — though superficially an expression of radical fidelity to thesacred values of Jewish teachings — is in fact the result of the annulment of thepositive link between earthly Jerusalem and the Jewish people as a whole. One

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possible result of this approach is evident in the New Testament appropriationof these typologies, which arguably hastened the break between nascent Chris-tianity and Judaism, as the church became predominantly gentile.

Appendix

While this article was in press, Allegro published the texts from Cave 4, someof which had already been published elsewhere.85 These new fragments gen-erally buttress our conclusions. With regard to Jerusalem, it appears that de-spite their separatist ideology, the Qumran community could not break withtheir love of the holy city, as two texts that deal with the fall of Jerusalem at-test. The first is 4QTanhumin (= 4Q176), the so called Consolations Scroll,whose author cries out to God: “See the corpses of your priests . . . there isno one to bury them” (4Q176 1.3-4; based on Psalm 79:2-3).86 It stands to rea-son that this is a sectarian text,87 while the other, 4QApocryphal Lamenta-tions (= 4Q179), contains no sectarian characteristics but only lamentationsover Jerusalem very much in keeping with the biblical Book of Lamenta-tions. The question, then, is whether these two texts reflect Pompey’s con-quest of Jerusalem.

The following is a list of the occurrences of the various topics discussedin the present article: Sadducees: 4Q174 1.17-19; The Evil Priest: 4Q174 4.4;Pharisees: 4Q162 2.6-7, 10; 4Q163 Frag. 23, 2.10-11; 4Q166 2.4-6; 4Q171 1.25-27;2.13-15, 17-19; 4Q177 2.12; The Man of Deceit: 4Q171 1.25-27; 4.14; The Teacherof Righteousness: 4Q171 1.25-27; 2.17-19; 3.15-17, 19; 4.27; 4Q173 Frag. 1.4.

Allegro’s texts also include an important addition to Pesher Nahum,which contains a prophecy regarding God’s destruction of the Romans. Afterciting Nahum 1:3-4 (up to “he rebukes the sea and makes it dry”), the authorstates: “Its interpretation: the sea are all the Kittim . . . to carry out judgmentagainst them and to eliminate them from the face of the earth . . . with alltheir chiefs whose rule he will end” (4Q169 fragments 1-2).

We stated that the Scrolls use “house of Judah” to designate the Qumran

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85. John M. Allegro, Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford, 1968).86. Thus in 4Q176, fragment 22.1: “And how much more in the temple. . . .”87. And especially 4Q176, fragments 8-11.15: “Belial to oppress his servants by.”

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community. A newly-published passage from Pesher Tehillim, however, sug-gests otherwise: “Its interpretation alludes to the ruthless ones of the cove-nant who are in the House of Judah, who plot to destroy those who observethe law, who are in the Community Council. But God will not surrenderthem into their hands” (4Q171 2.14-16). The phrase “ruthless ones of the cove-nant” recurs at 3.12 (and see also Pesher Habakkuk 2.6). If the reference here isto a group that was never part of the Qumran community, then the passagemust be a scribal error, since there is no question that “house of Judah” and“those who observe the law” belong together, as both refer to the Essenes.Thus the Scrolls speak of “all observing the Law in the House of Judah”(1QpHab 8.1-2), while those who side with the community are “the simplefolk of Judah, those who observe the Law” (Pesher Habakkuk 12.3-5).

The Psalms Pesher published by Allegro also contains an importantpassage concerning the Man of Lies, the leader of the Pharisees: “‘Be still be-fore the Lord, and wait patiently for him; do not fret over those who prosperin their way, over those who carry out evil devices’ (Ps. 37:7): Its interpretationconcerns the Man of Lies who misdirected many with deceptive words, forthey have chosen worthless things and did not listen to the Interpreter ofKnowledge. This is why they will die by the sword, by hunger, and by plague”(4QpPsa 1.25-2.1). Note that the Pharisee leader is associated not only with thebiblical phrase “who carry out evil devices” but also “who prosper in theirway,” since indeed the majority of the nation supported the Pharisees. He“misdirected many with deceptive words,” a phrase reminiscent of the “fraud-ulent teaching” of the “misleaders from Ephraim” by which they “misdirectmany,” as discussed in Pesher Nahum (2.8-10). It is interesting that the newpassage of Pesher Psalms accuses the Pharisees of having “chosen worthlessthings.”88 The Hebrew owlk, ‘worthless things,’ may also be translated as ‘le-nient matters’ and opposed with the stricter owrwmj, a division familiar fromthe rabbinic corpus. The halakhically stricter Essenes89 may have seen thePharisees (with a good degree of justification) as having “chosen lenient mat-ters.” Against the Man of Lies, “who misdirected many with his deceptivewords,” we find the Interpreter of Knowledge,90 whose words were not

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88. The Damascus Document states that the Pharisees “sought smooth interpretationsand chose illusions” (1.18; cf. Isaiah 30:10).

89. On the Sabbath laws of the Essenes see Josephus, BJ 2.147.90. The author of the Hodayot says of himself: “You have set me like a banner for the

elect of justice, like a knowledgeable mediator of secret wonders” (1QH 10.13). But the entiremembership of Qumran is similarly referred to as “mediators of knowledge” (1QH 23.6), whilethe Pharisees are “mediators of error” (1QH 10.14), “mediators of deceit” (1QH 10.31), “media-tors of deception” (1QH 12.7), and “mediators of fraud and seers of deceit” (1QH 12.9-10).

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heeded. This is the Teacher of Righteousness, a figure whose centrality is rec-ognized by all students of the Scrolls. The new texts confirm a particular de-tail concerning his life. The sectarian Pesher Psalms says of the verse “mytongue is like the pen of a ready scribe” (Ps. 45:2), “Its interpretation concernsthe Teacher of Righteousness . . . [granted by] God with the reply of thetongue” (4QpPsa 4.27), an apparent reference to the literary work of theTeacher of Righteousness.

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17. The Apocryphal Psalms of David

Written with Shmuel Safrai

The Psalms of Israel’s King, DavidDedicated to Tzvi ben Yohanan Flusser,By his grandfather, David Flusser

Some time ago we published in memory of our friend, Meir Grintz, twodouble-sided pages from the Cairo Genizah containing apocryphal “Psalmsof David.” As we will see, these are probably the remnants of a large apocry-phal work composed during the Second Temple period, and that made itsway from Qumran to the Genizah in the same way as did the Damascus Doc-ument and the Aramaic Testament of Levi, fragments of which were found atQumran.

The nature of the texts was pointed out to us by the workers of themanuscript department at the Jewish National and University Library whenthey received a facsimile of the manuscript. E. E. Urbach, of the Talmud De-partment at the Hebrew University, discovered that the text had already beenpublished by A. Harkavy in the ha-Goren 3 (1902), 82-85. Harkavy describesthe manuscript as “two attached parchment pages, containing the prayersand praises of a man who apparently thought of himself as a prophetic andmessianic figure.” They are housed in the Antonine collection of the Genizah,in Leningrad. We used both the facsimile copy and Harkavy’s published text,with some minor corrections:

I.Revealed before you are the righteous and the evil;

you want not for human witnesses:Judge of generations, your rulings are just,

Knowing in the ways of all living things:You desire justice and despise injustice;

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The boastful will not stand before your glory:You divided the world into darkness and light,

into pure and impure, justice and lie:5 You cast off from your nation all aliens,

purifying your flock of impure beasts:You bestow upon your servant your mighty wisdom;

he understands all according to your desire:You have planted righteousness in the land of truth,

multiplying justice throughout eternity:All who worship your name are learned of song,

all those who believe the words of your servant:Their righteousness is increased in the sight of all the land

and of those who do justice, whom they love in their hearts:10 You have set their path toward your commandments,

extending their might through your wondrous deeds:For all eternity they worship your name,

glorifying it forevermore:Who is like you in deeds, who in exploits,

who is like you in your many great feats:You have forgiven and absolved us our sins,

lovingly exonerated all our transgressions:Your spirit prophesies through your servant;

for you draw the end near, it will tarry no more:15 You vowed of old to your servant David,

mercifully anointing the shoot of Jesse:You sustained his authority in your sanctity

for he spread your praise to the ends of the earth:You set his name as an eternal pillar;

he repairs the breach and rebuilds the ruins:A cornerstone despised by the builders

you have raised to the headstone above all nations:Joyfully you crown him with glory,

calling him the splendor of all nations:20 You multiplied justice and righteousness in his day,

peace and blessings forever beyond counting:All the elect of justice rejoice before you

for they glory in the beloved land:You have sanctified through him the holy name,

and he recounts daily the songs of your might:You made him greater than all the angels,

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The Apocryphal Psalms of David

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establishing him as king of all nations forever:You broke before him all the kings of Midian,

drowning in the abyss all those who hate him:25 You sustain his right arm, bearing the sword,

giving strength to his arm over all the warriors of Kedar:His leg will not stumble for he trusts in your name;

his power will not wane for you lovingly aid him:Blessed is the man whose faith is in your teaching

for he shall not be shamed forevermore:

II.My soul trusts in you, answer me in your grace;

blessed are you, O Lord God, who answers his servant at the timethat he calls unto him:

Merciful God, have mercy upon us;blessed is the name of the glory of his kingdom forever:

Blessed is the name of his glory forever;blessed are you, O Lord God of Israel, for all eternity;

And the entire people said Amen: On the second day of Iyar I beheld avision and all his prophecies, and I prayed before the Lord, saying:

5 May your mercy, O Lord our God, rest upon the flock doomed toslaughter;

the shepherds have killed it without mercy:Mercifully bind the crushed bones;

heal lovingly the wounds of your lot:For you have placed me before you for the sake of the world;

you have placed me in your might as a light to the nations:10 Let the rulers gather, all the kings of the earth,

the lords of the world and the rulers of man:That they may see the might of your right hand

and understand the mystery of your holy teachings:Let the righteous man be gladdened when he sees this,

rejoicing before you with hymns and gratitude:Let all the inhabitants of the earth learn from me,repenting their ways to worship you in faith:

15 They will greet your presence with thanksgiving,with hymns and songs and giving thanks:

Magnifying your glory within their encampmentlet them know that you, O Lord, created them:

All who worship idols shall be shamed

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for they will come to recognize their statues:No longer will they worship idols

nor bow down to artifacts:The idols will utterly pass away,

their delights lost forever:

20 All your creatures will glorify and sanctify youfrom now and for all eternity:

Your servant will speak of your wondrous deedsaccording to his strength and the spirit of his words:

For I take joy in nothingsave your teachings and the appearance of your glory:

For the sake of your great mercies, do not hide yourself from me;do not cause me to die for their love:

For I have loved your residencemore than all the palaces of kings:

25 The teachings of your mouth are better for methan a myriad of gold bullion:

Your sacred words are better for methan any fine garment:

The commandments of your will are better for methan the precious stones and pearls, the desire of kings:

III.

Blessed is he who finds glory in the wishes of your will;for your sake I shall indeed request of you:

This is my desire and my only wishthat I reside in your presence forever:

To walk in your righteousness without sin and pursueyour truth every day, as is right in your eyes:

Do not deny me this request;fulfill my request as though it were the wish of your will:

5 I will set myself in them for all eternity,knowing the paths of your righteousness:

Blessed be God who does this,blessed the one who performs these feats:

Blessed be he who selected his servantand who fulfills all the wishes of my heart:

Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom forever and ever,blessed be the name of his glory forever:

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Blessed is the Lord God of Israel for all eternity,and the people respond: Amen:

10 On the third day of Iyar I beheld a vision and all his prophecies, andI prayed before the Lord, saying:

Blessed be he who impoverishes and enriches,blessed be he who lays low and raises on high:

For he had raised the lowly from the dust,the poor man from the refuse heap:

He made his throne greater than all ministers,his power mightier than all rulers:

15 He gave all that kings desire,the might of nations and treasures of kings:

Kings’ daughters for his glory,daughters of Jerusalem for the glory of his kingdom:

His blessed ones speak for all eternity;all the mighty of the earth will bow before him:

They will put their trust in the Lord for he has done mighty deeds,no longer going astray after vanity and error:

For all will know the Lordfrom the mightiest man to the most humble:

20 For the Lord is judge over the entire world;he sets one on high while laying the other low:He gives to whom he will,providing an inheritance for the poorest of men:For the soul of every man is in his power,and the spirit of all flesh will bow down to him:Sing to him, raise your voices in song,speak all his great deeds:Sing to his name at all timesfor splendor and might are befitting him:

25 He saved the soul of his beloved from the straitsand the spirit of his righteous ones from all harm:

For he trusts in his name and in the glory of the visionand in his holy words, in all the paths of life:

Forever will we worship his name,speaking his might for all eternity.

IV.For he heals the brokenhearted,

bandages the bones of the downtrodden:

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He turns sorrow to joy,fear and trembling to refuge:

For his is the earth and all that is in it,the universe and all its inhabitants:

He has commanded his servant before him,the splendor and brilliance and glory of his kingship:

5 He wills the good of his people,sending the healer to heal their flesh:

He made weighty his teaching upon his servant,his commands by the agency of his trusted messenger:

He magnified wisdom and understanding in his heart,great sanctity without measure:

Who is like him, who compares to himwho has not forgotten the cry of the poor?

He recalled in his abundant mercies the poor and the downtrodden;I too recalled the mighty deed and power of his kingship,the splendor of his power:

10 Night and day I stand before him,blessing his memory for all his creatures:

May you be blessed and glorified, master of the generations,sanctified and glorified, the governor of all creatures:

May the mouths of all your servants speak your unity,righteous and true judge:

Blessed are you LordGod, who kindly recalls his servant’s covenant forever:

Blessed is the name of the glory of his kingship forevermore,blessed is the name of his glory forever:

15 Blessed is the Lord God of Israel for all eternity, and the people say:Amen.On the fourth day of Iyar I beheld a vision and all his prophecies, and Iprayed before the Lord, saying:Blessed is he for he has broken the wicked

and raised up the horn of the righteous:His knowledge and wisdom are in my heart,

for you are the righteous judge:20 No false judgment will you proclaim

but only truth and faithfulness:You give to all according to their ways,

according to the fruit of their doings:There is no deceit in your actions,

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no falsity in your words:Your action is wholly pure,

no injustice in your deeds:You have multiplied your judgment like a flowing river,

growing your righteousness like a blessed seed:25 Blessed is he who receives your holiness;

he will speak of your glory every day:My support lies in the presence of your glory

for eternity to stand in your will:For yesterday and today

blessed are they that keep your commandments:

This is the end of the fourth page; no more is extant. Who is the true authorof these psalms, and who is the assumed author? Or, in Harkavy’s words, whois this prophet and messiah? The poet speaks as though he lives in the time ofthe temple, and is intimately tied to the temple, saying “For I have loved yourresidence more than all the palaces of kings.” The author also appears to be aprophet, for “I take joy in nothing save your teachings and the appearance ofyour glory.” He writes his psalms after seeing “a vision and all his prophecies,”and then he prays and recites the next poem. Prior to the final extant psalmhe provides a more precise definition: “On the fourth day of Iyar I beheld avision and all his prophecies, and I prayed before the Lord, saying.” Accordingto this statement, then, his psalms are the result of a vision he experiencesthrough the divine spirit. But the poet does not just cast himself as a poetfrom the time of the temple; he is nothing less than the king of Israel. God haselevated “his throne greater than all ministers; his power mightier than allrulers. He gave all that kings desire; the might of nations and treasures ofkings. Kings’ daughters for his glory; daughters of Jerusalem for the glory ofhis kingdom.” Our author, then, likens himself to the king and ancientprophet of Israel, living alongside the temple. Moreover, he writes all this inthe style of the psalms, which leads us to the conclusion that this is the rem-nant of pseudepigraphal psalms attributed to David himself. Confirmationthat this view comes from the author’s desire to be associated with a biblicalcharacter is evident in his decision to write out the tetragrammaton, a deci-sion dutifully followed by the copyist of the Genizah manuscript, who appar-ently recognized the special nature of this text.1 Needless to say, the copyist

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1. The employment of the tetragrammaton cannot be counted as definitive proof that theauthor sought to attribute his text to the biblical period. The author of Sefer Josippon, whowrote in 953 c.e. and did not deny his authorship, similarly uses the tetragrammaton. He was,

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shared the common view that the biblical psalms were written — largely orexclusively — by David, so there is no difficulty with the fact that the author,who uses the name David, speaks of the temple as if it existed during hisreign, while speaking of ‘David’ in the third person: “You vowed of old toyour servant David.” Both phenomena, after all, are attested in the biblicalpsalms.2 In trying to piece together the image of David in the apocryphalpsalms, we can, then, make use both of what the psalmist says of himself andof what is reported of David in the third person. As we will see, these elementsform a complete and fascinating portrait.

But before we turn to this question, we must first examine when thiscollection was composed. As noted, the Cairo Genizah contains copies ofQumran compositions. And, indeed, we have reports of medieval discoveriesof ancient Hebrew manuscripts, the most important of which for the presentdiscussion is found in a Syriac epistle by the Nestorian Bishop Timotheos.3Timotheos recounts that he has heard from reliable Jews who were about toconvert to Christianity, that ten years earlier a trove of biblical and otherscrolls, all written in Hebrew, had been discovered outside Jericho and hadfound their way to the Jewish community in Jerusalem. One of his Jewishsources even told Timotheos: “Among these scrolls we found more than twohundred psalms of David.” Needless to say, there is no way to assess the natureof this discovery. We can only hypothesize that these Hebrew scrolls discov-ered near Jericho originated in Qumran and that they found their way fromthe Jewish community of Jerusalem to Cairo, thus explaining their presencein the famous Genizah. It is particularly noteworthy that one of the Jews re-ferred to more than two hundred psalms from the cave, though we cannotknow that these are in any way related to the text whose remnants are hereunder discussion. Be that as it may, there are Qumran psalms attributed toKing David: the Psalms Scroll published by Sanders includes apocryphal

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however, an unusual character for his day. See D. Flusser (ed.), Sefer Josippon (Jerusalem, 1981),Vol. 2, n. 496.

2. For the third person see 2 Samuel 22:51; 23:1; Psalm 132 and Psalm 18:51: “Great tri-umphs he gives to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his descen-dants forever.” David is also referred to in the third person in Psalm 89 (heading: “A Maskil forEthan the Ezrahite”), which was an important source of inspiration for our author. The psalmtells of David’s election and anointing, and of his kingship over the entire world. The phrase “donot hide yourself from me” at II.23, may be akin to Psalm 89:47, “How long, O Lord? Will youhide yourself for ever?”

3. See M. Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York, 1955), 41. On similar medieval discov-eries see pp. 117-118. Otto Eissfeldt recognized the importance of the epistle for Dead Sea Scrollscholarship. The epistle itself was originally published by O. Braun, “Ein Brief des KatholikosTimotheos I über biblische Studien des 9. Jahrhunderts,” Oriens Christianus 1 (1901), 300-313.

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psalms alongside the biblical, so it is clear that the Essenes preserved the latteras well.4 As far as we could ascertain, however, the Qumran texts do not con-tain so much as a single fragment of our text. If these apocryphal psalms didin fact originate in the Qumran library, it may be that they simply did notsurvive though it is also possible that they were removed in their entirety andthus found their way into the hands of medieval Jews. If so, they simply wereno longer there when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.

Interestingly, the Qumran Psalms Scroll contains an inventory of David’scompositions,5 including the prima facie fantastic number of four thousandfive hundred psalms. Yet we see here that even far-flung statements should notbe rejected out of hand. For while it is difficult to imagine that there existed aworkgroup able to compose such a great corpus and attribute it to King David,it would appear that at least some portion of this work was in fact completed.For the Psalms Scroll states that David composed “four thousand and fifty”songs (11Q5 27.10)! And indeed we find in the two Genizah pages psalms ofDavid composed for the first, second, third and fourth of Iyar. Thus, theQumran text complements the results of the internal analysis of the Genizahtexts, a strong argument in favor of an early dating of our Genizah Psalms.Only clear internal evidence belying the possibility that these psalms werecomposed while the temple still stood could indicate that the complementaryrelationship between this text and the Qumran psalms is mere coincidence. If,however, the Psalms Scroll does indicate that there were psalms attributed toDavid during its composition, then the Genizah Psalms were written beforethe Qumran text, that is, following Sanders, before the first half of the firstcentury c.e. Moreover, if these are the psalms referred to in the Dead SeaScrolls, then they were produced in the same milieu as the Qumran commu-nity, in other words, they are also Essene. The Essene origins of the Qumranpsalm inventory are evident in the number of daily psalms mentioned, 364,corresponding to the number of days in the calendar shared by the Scrolls, theBook of Jubilees, and 1 Enoch — the latter two works composed within thebroader group that gave rise to the Qumran community.6 As noted, the

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4. J. A. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (Oxford, 1965).5. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll, 91-93.6. Sanders, The Psalms Scroll, 91, and n. 1. The particular calendar is attested in the fol-

lowing: “and for the Sabbath offerings: fifty-two songs” (11Q5 27.7) — referring to the numberof Sabbaths in the year. At the same time we also find “for the offerings of the first days of themonths, and for all the days of the festivals, and for the Day of Atonement: thirty songs” (11Q527.7-9). This number corresponds to the standard “festivals” and does not refer to the additionalfestivals in the Temple Scroll. At the end of the inventory we find: “And songs to perform overthe possessed (fyewgph le): four” (11Q5 27.10). This phrase is also known from a baraita pre-

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Genizah contains only two pages of the composition. However, even if we hada way of ascertaining that the entire corpus was completed, that is, that 364daily psalms were composed,7 there would be no way to determine that the en-tire composition came into the possession of medieval Jewish communities,i.e., that these are two extant pages of a once complete work. Be all that as itmay, these speculations have no effect on the discussion at hand.

It is noteworthy that apparently the Psalms Scroll from Qumran notonly mentions our composition, but that it discusses the divine inspirationthat rested upon David in his writing. The passage opens with the statement:“And David, son of Jesse, was wise, and a light like the light of the sun” (11Q527.2), while the Genizah psalms read “you have placed me in your might as alight to the nations” (2.8; based on Isaiah 42:6; 49:6). The Qumran psalmsthen state that “YHWH gave him a discerning and enlightened spirit” (11Q527.4), and conclude with the words, “All these [David] spoke through thespirit of prophecy which had been given to him from before the Most High”(11Q5 27.11). The same position is attested in the Genizah psalms, at the open-ing of each and every psalm: prior to composing the psalm, David is allowed

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served in the Palestinian Talmud Eruvin 10.23c, as well as Shabbat 6.8b: “We learn from aTannaitic source: they say there was a song of the possessed (fyegp lq ryq) in Jerusalem . . .what is ‘a song of the possessed’? ‘How many are my foes’ and the rest of the psalm [= Psalm 3],‘You who live in the shelter of the Most High’ (Ps. 91:1) until ‘For you, Lord, are my refuge’ (Ps.91:9).” Compare Yalkut ha-Makhirit to Psalm 3:8 (p. 24 in the Buber edition), as well as RabbenuHananel’s commentary to b. Shevuot 15b and HaMeiri to Sanhedrin, p. 328. See furthermoreNumbers Rabbah 12.3, and B. Uffenheimer, “Psalm 152 from Qumran” (Hebrew), Molad 22(1965), 1-12.

7. As noted, it is hard to imagine that there were ever 4,500 psalms. The statement “Andhe wrote psalms: three thousand six hundred” (11Q5 27.4-5) is, in all likelihood, a figment of theauthor’s imagination. However, the two Genizah pages do suggest that the rest of the enterprisewas completed, despite the great number of poems involved. The Qumran text states: “And hewrote . . . songs to be sung before the altar over the perpetual offering of every day, all the daysof the year: three hundred and sixty four; and for the Sabbath offerings: fifty-two songs; and forthe offerings of the first days of the months, and for all the days of the festivals and for the Dayof Atonement: thirty songs” (11Q5 27.4-8). This amounts to four hundred and fifty psalms in to-tal, a large number but — unlike 3,600 psalms — not fantastic. The Genizah text suggests thatthere were 364 daily psalms, to which would be added psalms for the Sabbath sacrifices, for thenew months, for all the festivals and for Yom Kippur. If we add four more psalms “to performover the possessed,” we add 86 psalms to the 364. It is worth noting that the psalm for the first ofIyar is unique in that it is written in acrostic. The letters aleph and bet are no longer extant, andthe new page begins with gimel (“Revealed [galui] before you . . .”) and ends, on line 25, with tav(“You support [tamakhta] . . .”). The letters kaf, mem, nun, pe}, and tzadik begin two verses each.Instead of the letter he}, our acrostic has a het. The substitution of these letters is a common-place in rabbinic literature, as the Palestinian Talmud (Shabbat 7.9b) states that the sages con-sider these letters interchangeable in their exposition of the text.

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to see “a vision and all his prophecies.” Indeed, the poet states that he “take[s]joy in nothing save your teachings and the appearance of your glory” (2.22).The phrase “appearance of your glory” is taken from Exodus 24:17, where itrefers to the Sinai epiphany, and appears in the same framework in a Qumrandiscussion of the Ten Commandments: “And you have renewed your cove-nant with them in the vision of glory, and in the words of your holy spirit, bythe works of your hand” (1Q34 Frag. 3, 2.6-7). The parallel between theQumran corpus and the Genizah psalms is significant, as their author attrib-utes to himself the gift of prophecy: “Your spirit prophesies through your ser-vant for you draw the end near, it will tarry no more” (1.14). This last phraserecalls Ben Sira’s eschatological prayer (36.10): “Hasten the day and remem-ber the appointed time.” Both these later verses are ultimately dependentupon Isaiah 60:22: “I am the Lord; in its time I will accomplish it quickly.”Clearly, then, the author of the Psalms of David presents himself as a prophetprophesying regarding the end of days.

We just mentioned the transition passages between the psalms. Theyare quite similar, with minor differences at their end. The connection be-tween the previous psalm and the transition is regularly created by the word‘blessed’ (barukh), which opens the final doublet of the psalm and then is re-peated in the transition doxology.8 The first is: “Blessed is the name of theglory of his kingdom forever,”9 a phrase that has its origins in the Temple. Thesecond doxological statement is quite similar: “blessed is the name of hisglory forever,” which recalls the end of the second book of the Psalter (Ps.72:19): “Blessed be his glorious name forever; may his glory fill the wholeearth.” The third transition statement is “Blessed are you, O Lord God of Is-rael, for all eternity, and the entire people said Amen.” This very statementconcludes the fourth book of the Psalter (Ps. 106:48, and see the similar verseat the end of the first book, Ps. 41:14). The three doxological statements are,then, an imitation of the concluding verses of the biblical Psalter, but also thefirst statement once uttered in the temple. After the three statements, the au-thor introduces the date of the next psalm and reaffirms that he is writing iton the basis of a vision and prophetic inspiration.

We are working on the assumption that these apocryphal psalms wereattributed to David, the king, prophet, and poet, and that they were com-

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8. This is also true of the second book in the Psalter (Ps. 72:18-19): “Blessed be the Lord,the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; mayhis glory fill the whole earth. Amen and Amen.”

9. On this phrase and its meaning, see D. Flusser, “Sanktus und Gloria,” O. Betz,M. Hengel, and P. Schmidt (eds.), Abraham unser Vater: Festschrift für Otto Michel (Leiden,1963), 138-139.

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posed during the Second Temple period and were part of the same movementfrom which the Qumran community emerged. In what follows we will pro-vide evidence that we believe points to the historical setting in which thesePsalms of David were composed. There are, however, a number of potentialcounterarguments to be addressed, e.g., that the fragments speak of themonth of Iyar, since the Babylonian months are attested in rabbinic literaturebut not in the apocalyptic and visionary texts of the apocrypha (to say noth-ing of the biblical David). However, the Babylonian month names made theirway to Israel following Cyrus’s decree and are attested in the biblical bookscomposed after the return to Zion.10 If so, there is no reason to think that thenames of the months were interpolated by medieval copyists: they were fa-miliar to the author, who did not see them as anachronistic since they appearin the Hebrew Bible. A more serious problem is the form hoet, rather thanhoetn at 1.7 — undoubtedly chosen because the acrostic required a line be-ginning with tet. It is true that this form is only known from much later He-brew poetry, but why would we assume that it could not be used in an earlieracrostic text? Especially since there are so few reliable witnesses to the Hebrewpoetry of the period. It is worth noting the hymn in 2 Samuel 22:41, “Youmade (hoo) my enemies turn their backs to me,” which contains a similarform in the middle of the verse, i.e., not motivated by the formal requirementof the acrostic. The same hymn repeats in Psalm 18, but there (v. 41) the formhoo is replaced with the more regular hoon.11

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10. See the Entziklopedia Miqra}it 3.39. The rabbinic names of the months are also foundin Megillat Ta}anit.

11. The early dating of the apocryphal psalms is also challenged by 2.25-27: “The teach-ings of your mouth are better for me than a myriad of gold bullion. Your sacred words are betterfor me than any fine garment. The commandments of your will are better for me than the pre-cious stones and pearls, the desire of kings.” This passage is based on Psalm 119:72, “The law ofyour mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” Now, according to m. Avot6.9, Rabbi Yosef ben Qisma cites this verse in response to a man who offered him “thousands ofdenarii of gold and precious stones and pearls” if he would come to live in the man’s town. Theword margaliyot, ‘pearls,’ is Greek. Are these verses dependent on chapter six of m. Avot, or per-haps the phrase “precious stones and pearls” precedes the Avot passage? It is also possible thatthe words “pearls, the desire of kings” were added by a medieval scribe familiar with the Avotpassage, since they expand the parallelism. Needless to say, the Genizah psalms exhibit a literarydependence upon the biblical psalms. Thus, “the boastful will not stand before your glory” at 1.3alludes to “the boastful will not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers” (Ps. 5.6). The He-brew llwh, here translated ‘boastful,’ appears as ‘sinners’ in the Septuagint, while the singularnoun means ‘lie’ in the Hodayot (see Licht, Megillat ha-Hodayot, 90). Similarly, when our au-thor says of God “Blessed be he who impoverishes and enriches; blessed be he who lays low andraises on high: For he had raised the lowly from the dust, the poor man from the refuse heap,”the language is clearly influenced by the song of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:7-8. The psalm continues

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Another interesting linguistic phenomenon involves the verse “Youhave sanctified through him the holy name and he recounts daily the songs ofyour might” (1.22). The phrase “songs of your might” is based on Psalm 59:17,where David declares “I will sing of your might.” The nominal phrase is at-tested in the qedusha prayers:12 “Our eyes shall behold your kingdom as theword stated in the songs of your might by David your righteous messiah,”which is followed by Psalm 146:10. At 4.12 God is called “righteous and truejudge,” corresponding to the statement in Mishnah Berakhot 9.2: “Uponhearing bad tidings, one says: blessed is the true judge.” It appears the sagesbased their statement on a dictum that was current at the time, for theQumran psalm similarly states: “May the judge of truth turn away from methe recompenses of evil” (11Q5 24.6). Another statement is cited in the nameof Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai: “Blessed is the true judge, the master of all deeds,you who have neither injustice nor impartiality in your presence.”13 The com-

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“He made his throne greater than all ministers, his power mightier than all rulers,” which recallsthe statement in Esther 3:1 that King Ahasuerus “advanced him and set his seat above all the of-ficials who were with him,” though this is said of Haman, so it is more likely that the inspirationcomes from 1 Kings 1.37: “As the Lord has been with my lord the king, so may he be with Solo-mon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David” (and see also 1 Kings1:47). And if the author says of King David “You multiplied justice and righteousness in his day,peace and blessings forever beyond counting,” we hear in the background the words of theChronicler, speaking of Solomon, “I will give peace and quiet to Israel in his days” (1 Chr. 22:9).However, the phrase “blessings forever” is taken from a Psalm to David (21:7): “you bestow onhim blessings forever.” The phrase “For the soul of every man is in his hand and the spirit of allflesh will bow down to him” is a paraphrase of Job 12:10. Another paraphrase of this same verseis found in one of the Qumran psalms: “For in your hand is the soul of every living being, thebreath of all flesh you have given” (11Q5 19.3-4). The phrase “the idols will be utterly banished”(2.19) is taken from Isaiah 2:18. The statement at 4.21, “you give to all according to their ways, ac-cording to the fruit of their doings” is from Jeremiah 17:10 and 32:19, while “flock doomed toslaughter” at 2.6 is from Zechariah 11:4, 7. Finally, the apocryphal psalmist says that David “re-pairs the breach and rebuilds the ruins” (1.17), a phrase that follows Isaiah 58:12, and is applied toDavid on the basis of Psalm 89:41, “you have broken through all his walls.”

12. The passage is attested in the prayer book of Rav Amram (p. 32 in the Goldschmidtedition), Maimonides, the Yemenite liturgy, Tefilat Yom Yom, and in the Ashkenazic liturgy ofthe Sabbath and holiday morning prayers — all cited in Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 54-62. In addi-tion to these sources, we should also mention the Qafa prayer book for the High Holy Days, theliturgy of the Jews of Persia, and the prayer book of Rav Saadia Gaon (Jerusalem, 1963), 38.Yannai’s Sabbath liturgy does not, however, contain this language. The phrase “with the songs ofyour might,” Fzwe yryqb, appears only in the Ashkenazic traditions and in Rav Amram, whileother witnesses read “the kingdom of your might,” owclm Fzwe, and “songs of your sanctity,”Fqdk yryq. It would appear that the eastern manuscripts have omitted ‘your might,’ Fzwe,which is to be preferred if only because of Psalm 59:17.

13. Sifre Deuteronomy §304 (Hammer edition, p. 293), and Heinemann, Prayer in the

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bination of addressing God as a true judge and referring to his creatures is re-peated in the Genizah psalms: “May you be blessed and glorified, master ofthe generations; sanctified and glorified, the governor of all creatures” (4.11).It appears to us that the entire passage is significant for the evolution of Jew-ish prayer and doxology and, inter alia, for the history of the Qaddish.14 Asimilar phrase “All your creatures will glorify and sanctify you” appears at2.20. Further, immediately following 4.11 we read “May the mouths of all yourservants speak your unity,” indicating that God’s name is unified in the prayerof his servants.

At 1.10 we find: “You have set their path toward your commandmentsextending their might (fjwc horqyw) through your wondrous deeds.” Nowwe can examine the history of the rabbinic phrase “may your strength be ex-tended” (Fjc rqyy).15 Speaking of David, our text says to God, “You placed

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Tannaitic and Amoraic Period (Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1964), 161. We have had occasion to discussthe phrase “true judge” (4.12) as an epithet of God, and should mention in this context the Ara-maic Qumran fragment from the Book of Enoch 22.14 which contains the phrase atqwk vyd,‘judge (or judgment) of truth’ (4Q205 1.2). The Hebrew “true judge” (oma vyd) has no biblicalprecedent. The epithets “righteous judge” (kdxh tpwq; 1.2, 4.19 and kdx tpwq; 4.12) are basedon “righteous judgment” in Psalm 9:5 and Jeremiah 11:20. Interestingly, two phrases in theGenizah psalms are very similar to the mourning liturgy of the sages, so much so that a compre-hensive comparison of the two suggests a literary connection. One of the blessings in the mourn-ing liturgy, cited in the name of Mar Zutra, begins: “The good and beneficent, the true God andtrue judge who judges in righteousness, who takes with judgment and rules over his world, doingin it as he wishes” (b. Berakhot 46b). Another version is preserved in the tractate Semakhot 14.15:“Blessed is the true judge, who rules over his creatures, who judges all generations in righteous-ness. We are all with him and slaves to him, and for all that it is incumbent upon us to thank himand bless him.” Both versions contain the phrase “judges in righteousness” (kdxb tpwq), whichalso appears in the Genizah psalms (1.2; 4.12, 19), as well as in the blessing “true judge” which isrecited by the mourner. The other parallel occurs in 4.11-12: “May you be blessed and glorified,master of the generations; sanctified and glorified, the governor of all creatures. May the mouthsof all your servants speak your unity, righteous and true judge.” The phrase “master of the gener-ations” (4.11) parallels “judge of generations” (1.2) and is similar to the mourning blessing inSemakhot: “who judges all generations in righteousness.” Furthermore, the Genizah psalms statethat God is “governor of all creatures” (4.11) while tractate Semakhot reads, “who rules over hiscreatures,” and b. Berakhot, “rules over his world.” It appears, then, that ancient phrases turn upin Tannaitic and even late Amoraic literature. The images common to the Genizah psalms andthe mourning liturgy invoke God as a just and righteous judge who governs over all generationsand rules his creatures — images that may well be comforting to the mourners.

14. The earliest source is, of course, Ezekiel 38:23: “I will display my greatness and my ho-liness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations. Then they shall know that I am theLord.”

15. See b. Shabbat 87a, and the sources cited in J. Levy, Wörterbuch über die Talmudim undMidraschim (Berlin, 1924), 2.275.

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his name as an eternal pillar.” Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai is famously referredto as “the right pillar” (b. Berakhot 28b, based on 1 Kings 7:21, and see also“the righteous is an eternal foundation” in Proverbs 10:25); the three most im-portant disciples of Jesus were called “pillars”16; and the biblical patriarchsare “three great stakes in the world.”17 Prior to the praise of the ancestors inBen Sira the Hebrew manuscripts read “Praise of the Fathers of the World,”18

and Hillel and Shammai were referred to as “the fathers of the world.” Ac-cording to one rabbinic midrash, we are told that when God sought to createthe world, he foresaw Abraham and said “I have found a foundation on whichto establish the world,”19 while another states that God said to Moses “you arestanding on the site of the pillar of the world,” referring to Abraham in thesame epithet our psalmist uses for David.20 Incidentally, here and elsewhere,the Hebrew {olam appears both in a spatial (‘world’) and temporal sense(‘eternity’), unlike the Dead Sea Scrolls, which employ only the latter. Thatsaid, it should be noted that ultimately, the Genizah psalms assert, the nationsof the world “will put their trust in the Lord for he has done mighty deeds nolonger going astray after vanity and error” (3.18), using a word for ‘error,’mishgeh, that occurs only once in the Bible (Genesis 43:12), but recurs in theQumran Scrolls. There as here it serves as a technical term for a religious mis-take. Thus we find in 1 QHa 10:20-21: “You placed in his heart to open thesource of knowledge for all those who understand. But they have changedthem for an uncircumcised lip and weird tongue of a people without under-standing, and so they will be ruined by their mistake (mishgatam).” While theDamascus Document states: “Jacob’s sons strayed because of them and werepunished in accordance with their mistakes (mishgotam)” (3.4-5). Still an-other Qumran document speaks of “those who turn aside from the path ofthe wicked” (4Q174 fragment 1.14). It is this strong, theological sense ofmishgeh employed in the Genizah psalms.

Let us return to the manner in which the Genizah psalms portray KingDavid. One of the psalms refers to him as “A cornerstone despised by thebuilders you have raised to the headstone above all nations” (1.18), a para-phrase of Psalm 118:22: “The stone that the builders rejected has become the

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16. Galatians 2:9, and see F. Mussner, Der Galaterbrief (Freiburg, 1974), 120-121.17. See E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, translated by Israel Abrams

(Cambridge, Mass., 1975), 500, n. 70. See also S. Lieberman, Greek in Jewish Palestine (New York,1942), 106-108; idem, “A Comment on Jewish Oaths” (Hebrew), The Gershom Scholem Festschrift(Jerusalem, 1958), 58-59.

18. See the discussion in Segal’s Hebrew edition (Jerusalem, 1959), 303.19. Yalkut Shim{oni to Number 23:9.20. Exodus Rabba 2.13.

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chief cornerstone.” This verse was interpreted by Jesus as a reference to himself(Matt. 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17), and this connection is repeated elsewherein the New Testament.21 The sages, in contrast, relate the verse to David:22 Da-vid is the stone that is despised by the builders, these being his brothers, whenhe is chosen to be king. Apparently the author of the Genizah psalms inter-preted the verse in a similar manner: David was “the youngest” (1 Sam. 16:11),but ultimately God elevated him to be “the headstone above all nations” — anapparent gloss on the biblical “the chief cornerstone.” We find a similar motifin the Qumran psalms: “He sent his prophet to anoint me, Samuel to make megreat. My brothers went out to meet him, handsome of figure and handsomeof appearance. Though they were tall of stature, handsome by their hair,YHWH God did not choose them” (11Q5 28.8-10). It appears, then, that this in-terpretation is free of any messianic overtones, unlike the psalm that follows,where we read: “You have made him greater than all the angels” (1.23) — thatis, David is greater even than the angels! Similar statements are known frommidrashic sources preserved in the Tanhuma collection.23 Isaiah 52:13 states:“See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall bevery high.” The Targum glosses ‘my servant’ as ‘my servant the Messiah,’ whilethe sages interpret the verse as indicating that the Messiah “will be exaltedabove Abraham, lifted up above Moses, and very high above the ministeringangels.” To be sure, this interpretation is preserved in a late midrashic collec-tion, but its origins are ancient as it is based on one of the core assumptions ofPaul’s epistle to the Hebrews. Paul states there that Christ is greater than theangels (1:4), and his glory is greater than that of Moses (3:2-6); Christ is com-pared to Melchizedek since the latter is greater than Abraham (7:4-10). Itwould appear, then, that the midrashic tradition that elevates the Messiahabove Abraham, Moses, and the angels antecedes the Epistle to the Hebrews.24

The antiquity of this midrash is further attested in the words of Rabbi Yose inthe Sifre Numbers,25 where Moses is described as more humble than the patri-

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21. See V. Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark (London, 1957), 476-477.22. H. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NT aus Talmud und Midrasch

(München, 1922), 1.875-876; W. Bacher, Die Agada der Palästinenischen Amoräer (Strasbourg,1892), 1.73.

23. Buber edition 134-138. See also Yalkut ha-Makhiri to Psalms, Buber edition, 2.233;Makhiri to Zechariah, p. 42.

24. See also Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan A, chapter 2 (Schechter edition p. 10),where Psalm 8:5 is cited just as in Hebrews 2:5-9. See also the Targum to Isaiah 63:16, “for Abra-ham did not lead us out of Egypt.”

25. §§ 101 and 103 (Horowitz edition 100-101), and also Sifre Zuta, 175 and 276, though theversion there is secondary. The end of Sifre Numbers §101 (p. 100, line 6) is apparently a scribaladdition. And compare b. Sanhedrin 92b-93a.

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archs, based on the biblical statement “Now the man Moses was very humble,more so than anyone else on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3). Indeed, Moseswas more faithful than the ministering angels, as Scripture notes, “he is en-trusted with all my house” (Num. 12:7).26 In his interpretation, Rabbi Yosetakes “all my house” to include God’s own place of residing. There is a clearconnection between the midrashic argument for the superiority of the mes-siah and the midrashic argument for the superiority of Moses, and it seems thelatter is the earlier of the two. In any case, the author of the Genizah psalmsstates: “You made him greater than all the angels,” echoing a midrash attestedin rabbinic literature and known to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews.Did anyone refer to the historical David as greater than Abraham or Moses orthe ministering angels, or had our text elevated him to the angelic status be-cause he was understood as a messianic figure?

Before turning to this question, however, let us examine the biblical textknown to the author of the Genizah Psalms. For while we have shown that asimilarly structured composition appears in the Psalms Scroll of Qumran,and while nothing in our text argues decisively against its antiquity, it isnonetheless the case that every Second Temple text is, upon its discovery, gen-erally categorized as medieval. Scholars who did not recognize the impor-tance of diachronic analysis of the Hebrew language sought to locate the Da-mascus Document, Hebrew Ben Sira, and the Qumran Scrolls themselves inthis later period. This tendency may be exacerbated by the fact that our textwas only found in the Genizah, even if it is the same Genizah that yielded theDamascus Document, Aramaic Testament of Levi, and Hebrew Ben Sira. Butthose who wish to do so will face a formidable challenge if it can be shownthat the biblical text that was used by the author differed from the Masoretictext in a number of details. We have already noted that 2.19 states “The idolswill utterly pass away (wpwljy),” citing Isaiah 2:18 in accordance with theQumran Isaiah Scroll and the Septuagint, but unlike the Masoretic Text,which reads “it will pass away (iwljy).” In 2.6 we read: “Mercifully bind thecrushed bones, heal lovingly the wounds of your lot.” This line is based in parton Psalm 51:10, “let the bones you have crushed rejoice,” except that our au-thor reads “crushed bones” (owcd owmxe) with the Septuagint, against theMT’s “bones you have crushed” (oycd owmxe). Another source is Psalm

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26. It is striking that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (3:1-6) uses these samewords to justify the superiority of Christ (the anointed one). Moses is called “my servant” in thispassage and the same language appears in Isaiah 52:13, which is interpreted by the sages as an in-dication of the superiority of the messiah (the anointed one). This same characterization ap-pears in the Genizah Psalms (2.9, 4.6), and see also 1 Samuel 22:14: “Who among all your servantis so faithful as David?”

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147:3: “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds (fowbxel)”whereas our author apparently read “their bones” (fowmxel). This is con-firmed by 4.1, which similarly alludes to these verses from Psalms: “For heheals the brokenhearted, bandages the bones of the downtrodden.”

And how are we to interpret the conceptual parallels between theGenizah Psalms and the Essene worldview of the Dead Sea Scrolls? Already inthe first psalm (1.3-4) we read: “You desire justice and despise injustice; theboastful will not stand before your glory. You divided the world into darknessand light; into pure and impure,27 justice and lie.” Who can read this state-ment without recalling the moral dualism of the Essenes and the Scrolls’ dis-tinction between light and darkness? 1 Enoch similarly states that God “cre-ated the distinction between light and darkness and separated the spirits ofthe people, and strengthened the spirits of the righteous in the name of hisrighteousness” (41.8). And if we read in the Genizah Psalm “You desire justiceand despise injustice,” we recall not only Isaiah 7:16 (“despise the evil andchoose the good”) but also parallel formulations in the Qumran Scrolls, e.g.,“so that you can choose what he is pleased with and repudiate what he hates”(CD 2.15).28 Note also the subsequent image, according to which “You cast offfrom your nation all aliens; purifying your flock of impure beasts” (1.5). Thenation or the community is referred to as a flock, while the foreigners are im-pure beasts. A similar image is proposed in the second psalm (2.5): “May yourmercy, O Lord our God, be upon your flock doomed to slaughter; the shep-herds have killed it without mercy.” The phrase “flock doomed to slaughter” isfound in Zechariah 11:4 and 11:7, and the prophet goes on to speak of theshepherds, but a closer parallel is found in 1 Enoch’s vision of the seventyshepherds (89.19, 90.25), which likens the nations to shepherds who have re-ceived the flock, Israel, and are instructed to herd it and kill of it a fixedamount. But the shepherds do not abide by the killing quotas and kill morethan is permitted, and as a result the owner of the flock — God — will even-tually destroy these shepherds, who represent the angels assigned to governthe seventy gentile nations. This is the context of the statement concerningthe “flock doomed to slaughter; the shepherds have killed it without mercy.”We also find in the Genizah Psalms one of the distinguishing phrases fromQumran. “All the elect of justice rejoice before you” (1.21) employs the same

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27. An allusion to Leviticus 11:47, where the language is cultic: “to make a distinction be-tween the impure and the pure, and between the living creature that may be eaten and the livingcreature that may not be eaten.” Our author continues with the metaphoric understanding inthe next verse: “purifying your flock of impure beasts.”

28. See D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” in ScriptaHierosolymitana 4 (1958), n. 16.

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appellation for God’s chosen ones as the Qumran Scrolls (Hodayot 10.13; CD2.3; 4Q184 1.14), 1 Enoch (following the Greek “the elect ones of justice”), andTargum to Isaiah 12:3, where it appears in an eschatological sense. Interest-ingly, in its Aramaic form (akdx yryjb) the phrase appears in Mandaic liter-ature in reference to those who belong to the dominion of the good, and mayrefer to the Mandeans themselves.29 Another fascinating linguistic parallelbetween the Genizah Psalms and the Scrolls is “the wishes of his will” whichappears three times in our text (1.6; 3.1, 4), and once in the Damascus Docu-ment (3.15), where God is said to have revealed “his just stipulations and histruthful paths, and the wishes of his will which man must do in order to liveby them.” In the Epistle to the Ephesians, which is deeply influenced byEssene thought, we find that God “chose us in Christ before the foundationof the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us foradoption, as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the desire of hiswill, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us” (Eph.1:4-5). In each of these sources, the “desire of his will” refers to the grace thatGod bestows upon his elect,30 for it is God who is “knowing in the ways of allliving things” (1.2).31

Let us now return to the image of David in these two Genizah folios. Al-ready in antiquity there was a tendency to idealize David, and his stature andpower increased greatly. This is already evident in Psalm 89, which exerted agreat deal of influence on the description of David in our text. In verse 28 ofthis psalm, for example, God says “I will make him the firstborn, the highestof the kings of the earth,” just as the Genizah Psalms describe David as rulerover all kings, having vanquished all his enemies since God supports “hisright hand, bearing the sword; giving strength to his arm” (1.25). God furtherbestows upon David “all that kings desire; the might of nations and treasuresof kings” (3.15). But David is not just a great warrior who rules over the kingsof the earth; he is the king of peace (“You multiplied justice and righteous-ness in his day; peace and blessings forever beyond counting” [1.20]), as well

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29. See D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” n. 25. See alsoM. Odeberg, Die mandäische Religionsanschauung (Uppsala, 1930), 17. On the concept of elec-tion reflected in this terminology, see the discerning comments of E. Meyer, Ursprung undAnfänge des Christentums (Stuttgart, 1921), 2.404, who formulated his views prior to the discov-ery of the Scrolls.

30. See also D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” n. 36.31. This Hebrew phrase, yj lc ycrdb eydy, contains another interesting linguistic trait

that is unattested in Biblical Hebrew but is quite common in the Qumran Scrolls, namely theletter bet appearing as a preposition following edwy, to know. This construct is attested inHodayot 6.17; 7.12; 8.6; 15.27; 17.9; 18.5.

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as an exemplary man of wisdom (“You bestow upon your servant yourmighty wisdom; he understands all according to your desire” [1.6]). Needlessto say, our poet identifies wisdom with the Torah and the commandments:David is concerned with “the teachings of your mouth,” “your sacred words,”and “the commandments of your will” more than any material wealth (2.25,26, and 27). David’s desire is to “be in your presence forever” to “pursue yourtruth every day as is right in your eyes . . . knowing the paths of your righ-teousness” (3.2-5). God “made weighty his teaching upon his servant; hiscommands by the agency of his trusted messenger. He magnified wisdom andunderstanding in his heart; great sanctity without measure” (4.6-7). He evenstates that “his knowledge and wisdom are in my heart” (4.19). But note thatthe source of David’s wisdom is heavenly, bestowed by divine grace: “I takejoy in nothing save your teachings and the appearance of your glory” (2.22).David “trusts in his name and in the glory of the vision and in his holy words,in all the paths of life” (3.26). We have already noted that both according tothe Genizah Psalms and the list in the Qumran Psalms Scroll it is divine inspi-ration that evokes David’s poetry. The appearance of the glory is not a visionbut rather his own visionary power inspired by the holy spirit: “On the fourthday of Iyar I beheld a vision and all his prophecies, and I prayed before theLord, saying” (4.16), and here lies the genesis of these poems. In this way, therole of inspired psalmist constitutes a sublime unity of the two traditionalroles of David — the poet and the prophet. And once again we note that he isa prophet of the eschaton: “Your spirit prophesies through your servant foryou draw the end near, it will tarry no more” (1.14). Moreover, he is a prophetto the gentiles: “you have placed me before you for the sake of the world; youhave placed me in your might as a light to the nations” (2.8). As a poet too,David addresses all mankind: “he spread your praise to the ends of the earth”(1.16), so that “All who worship your name are learned of song; all those whobelieve the words of your servant” (1.8).

Are David’s universal roles as king, prophet, and poet limited to his ownhistorical period, or do they carry over to the end of days? We have alreadytouched on a similar matter when we discussed the Genizah Psalms’ state-ment that “You made him greater than all the angels” (1.23). Is this amidrashic statement about the former king of Israel, or perhaps a vision con-cerning David, the messianic savior of Israel, since there was, as noted, a Jew-ish belief that the messiah will be greater than the ministering angels. It ap-pears the latter is the case, for after discussing David’s glory as the king whoreigns over all the earth, the Genizah psalmist abruptly states: “His blessedones speak for all eternity; all the mighty of the earth will bow before him.They will put their trust in the Lord for he has done mighty deeds; no longer

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going astray after vanity and error. For all will know the Lord, from themightiest man to the most humble” (3.17-19). It is David, then, who will causeall of humanity to accept the kingdom of God, leaving behind their idola-trous ways — “no longer going astray after vanity and error.” At 2.8-19 we finda more explicit statement of the same idea, as God places David “as a light tothe nations,” and all the rulers of the earth gather to “see the might of yourright hand and understand the mystery of your holy teachings,” finally recog-nizing that all is made through God’s will. All the inhabitants of the earth willlearn from David, “repenting their ways to worship you in faith,” greetingGod “with hymns and songs and giving thanks” — perhaps learned from Da-vid himself — knowing that “you, O Lord, created them.” At that time, “allwho worship idols shall be shamed for they will come to recognize their stat-ues” and idolatry will be banished forever. Clearly, then, the Genizah Psalmscast David as a king, a prophet, and a messiah in the end of days too, at whichtime he will cause all of humanity to repent, returning them to the God of Is-rael and banishing idolatry from the world. It would be artificial to separatethe historic David from the eschatological one, since the Genizah Psalmsmerge the two into a single figure.

Was there a Jewish tradition that identified David as the messiah? TheBible emphasizes that God’s covenant with David is eternal: “Forever I willkeep my steadfast love for him, and my covenant with him will stand firm. Iwill establish his line for ever, and his throne as long as the heavens endure”(Ps. 89:30-31, and see also Isaiah 55:3). Thus it is possible that the name Davidcould refer to the messiah. Thus Jeremiah prophesies that on the day that Godfrees Israel from the yoke of the nations “they shall serve the Lord their Godand David their king, whom I will raise up for them” (Jer. 30:8-9). Similarlywe find in Ezekiel: “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant Da-vid. . . . I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be princeamong them; I, the Lord, have spoken” (Ezek. 34:23-24 and see also 37:24). Da-vid’s key role in the eschatological hope of Israel explains his mention in theSecond Temple prayers concerning the yearning for redemption.32 Oneprominent example is the conclusion to the {Amidah in its Palestinian ver-sion: “Blessed is the God of David, builder of Jerusalem.”33 Similarly we findin the Gospels that when Jesus entered Jerusalem the crowds praised him by

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32. Incidentally, the classical liturgy does not contain the word jyqm in the sense of a fu-ture redeemer. The word appears in the present version of the awbyw hley (“let him arise andcome”) blessing, but is unattested in earlier versions.

33. See also t. Berakhot 3.25; Elbogen, Jewish Liturgy, 47; D. Flusser, “Jerusalem in SecondTemple Literature,” 269; G. Alon, “Halakhah in Acts,” Studies in Jewish History (Tel Aviv, 1957),286, 290.

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saying: “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!Blessed is the kingdom of our ancestor David!” (Mark 11:9-10). It is, then, thekingdom of our ancestor David that comes in the name of the Lord. In Mat-thew the crowds say: “Hosanna to the son of David!” (21:9). Interestingly, thegrace recorded in the Didache states: “Hosanna to the God of David”(Didache 10.6), just like the conclusion of the ancient blessing of Jerusalem.According to Didache 9.2, the blessing of the wine opened with the words:“We thank you, our Father, for the sacred vine of David.” All these indicatethat the early followers of Jesus also mentioned David and the “God of Da-vid” in their prayers, as a way of expressing their hope for redemption.

The traditional sources clearly indicate, then, that not only was thename ‘David’ associated with the Messiah, there were those who thought thatKing David himself was the Messiah.34 The following, e.g., is cited in thename of Rav: “The Holy One Blessed Be He will in the future time establishfor Israel another David, as it is written, ‘But they shall serve the Lord theirGod and David their king, whom I will establish for them’ (Jer. 30:9) — theverse does not say ‘did establish’ but rather ‘will establish’.” In this statementthe David in question is not the biblical king, but in the Palestinian Talmudwe find: “The sages say, This is the Messiah King — if from among the living,his name is David, if from among the dead his name is David. Rabbi Tanhumsays: ‘I have provided the biblical prooftext: “[He] shows steadfast love to hisanointed, to David . . .”’ (Psalm 18:50; 2 Sam. 22:51)” (p. Berakhot 2.5a, and seealso Eikha Rabbati to Lamentations 1:16). Similarly the Kaliri writes in Feqyvmwa, a piyyut for hosha{na rabbah:35 “The shoot [jmx] of a man, ‘shoot’[jmx] is his name, he is none other than David.” The biblical verses that ap-pear to identify David as the Messiah undoubtedly play an important role inthe shaping of this tradition.

The identification of David as the Messiah is quite early, and is alreadyevident in the Second Temple disputes between the first Christians, whoclaimed that Jesus is the Messiah, risen from the dead, and those who arguedthat David is the Messiah. The Christian polemic against David’s messianicstanding is preserved in two versions. The first, Peter’s long oration in Acts2:24-36, and Paul’s shorter statement in Acts 13:32-37. Evidently, Luke had be-fore him a fully articulated Christian argument on this matter when he com-

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34. On David as the Messiah see L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1946),4.272, n. 128; M. Zobel, Gottes Gesalbter (Berlin, 1938), 90-91; P. Volz, Die Eschatologie derjüdischen Gemeinde (Tübingen, 1934), 206-207; H. Strack and P. Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NTaus Talmud und Midrash (München, 1924), 2.618.

35. See Siddur Rinat Israel (Jerusalem, 1977), 429; The Vitry Prayer Book, 456; and see alsoZobel, Gottes Gesalbter, 91 n. 2.

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posed Acts. The debate was couched in terms of the interpretation of Psalm16:8-10: “I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, Ishall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my bodyalso rests secure. For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful onesee the pit.” The Psalm is identified as a mikhtam to David, but does this meanthat David is speaking in the first person, or perhaps these verses are a futureprophecy concerning Jesus? Though the word ‘pit’ in verse 10 is a synonym ofSheol (as the parallelism clearly demonstrates), the Septuagint and othertranslations render it “corruption.” In Psalm 16, this interpretation might besupported by the broader context, i.e., the statement “my body also rests se-cure” — here understood as not decomposing. This view underlies the dictumof Rabbi Yitzhak: “‘my body also rests secure’ — this teaches that decomposi-tion and larvae have no dominion over his [David’s] body; ‘you do not give meup to Sheol’ — his flesh will not decompose into dust in the grave; ‘or let yourfaithful one see the pit’ — he does not even smell the scent of hell.”36

The interpretation offered by Rabbi Yitzhak suggests that David’s fleshdid not decompose, as his flesh does not turn to dust in the grave nor indeeddoes he smell the scent of hell. The early Christians opposed this view, argu-ing that Psalm 16 could be referring to David since he had died and remainedin his grave to this very day. David, moreover, was a prophet and thus it wasthe resurrection of Jesus that he foretold, as Jesus had not been given up toSheol, nor his flesh allowed to decompose, for he ascended to heaven. Clearlythen the words of Psalm 16 were applied to both Jesus and David. Similarly,we find that Acts (13:33-35) applies Psalm 2:7 — “You are my son; today I havebegotten you” — to the risen Christ. These same words are used by the sagesto refer to the Jewish messiah, and the psalm could quite naturally be inter-preted as referring to David, since he was viewed as the author of Psalms and,at least in some circles, as the messiah himself. Acts 13:34 also cites Isaiah 55:3:“I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for Da-vid.” This verse too is applied to Jesus, even though it explicitly mentions KingDavid. It appears, then, that there was a series of verses that Acts interpretedas referring to Jesus, while other sources used them as proof of David’s messi-anic status. The belief in David’s messianism is seen as a core part of Jewishmessianism.

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36. Midrash Tehilim ad loc, Buber edition p. 123. See also Bacher, Die Agada derPalästinenischen Amoräer, 248. A baraita in b. Bava Batra 17a and Tractate Derekh Eretz Zuta 1(Higger edition 74 and 129) list seven patriarchs who were not affected by larvae and maggots,and there are those that add David to the list, as it is written “my heart is glad, and my soul re-joices; my body also rests secure.” This addendum contains the opinion attributed to RabbiYitzhak. See also Strack and Billerbeck, Kommentar zum NT aus Talmud und Midrasch, 2.618.

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Can we provide a clearer picture of the belief or group of beliefs thatcast David as the future messiah? The Christian polemic against this view, asreflected in Acts, suggests that there were those who believed that David didnot decompose in his grave. Presumably these individuals assumed that dur-ing the future resurrection David would physically rise from his grave andfulfill his messianic role. Other views of David’s messianic role, if they existed,no longer exist today. If our interpretation of the apocryphal Genizah Psalmsis correct, David, who is both prophet and messiah, will return all the nationsto the Lord, forever banishing idolatry from the world.

Thus we find that the Psalms of David constitute a real contribution tothe ancient polemic between Judaism and Christianity regarding the identityof the messiah (or messiahs), as well as his life and role. It was this polemicthat gave rise to Christianity itself. We know that the Qumran scrolls, theBook of Jubilees and the Testaments of the Tribes — all of which are close tothe Essene worldview — reflect the belief in three messiahs: an eschatologicalmessiah, along with the messiahs of Aaron and Israel. The latter, who comesfrom the House of David, is less important than the Messiah of the House ofAaron. Why the diminished role of the House of David relative to the Houseof Aaron? Is it simply a function of the priestly orientation of this religiousgroup? Or is the emphasis on Aaron part of a polemic against those who ele-vate the messianic role of the Davidic messiah — and perhaps of David him-self? Whatever the answer, it was in Qumran that the Psalms Scroll was pre-served, including those apocryphal psalms attributed to David himself. Wehave already noted that one of these psalms (24.6) contains the phrase “truejudge” which also appears in the Genizah Psalms (4.12), and that the author ofthe Genizah Psalms beseeches God, saying “Do not deny me this request; ful-fill my request as though it were the wish of your will” (3.4). In the QumranPsalm Scroll we find a very similar phrase, one that is wholly unattested in theBible: “Bend your ear and grant my plea, and what I ask, do not deny me”(24.4-5). The striking similarity strengthens our hypothesis that the GenizahPsalms were originally part of the Qumran library.

By way of conclusion, we note the similarity between the “Genizahpsalms” and two apocryphal books — 1 Enoch and Pseudo-Philo’s BiblicalAntiquities. In chapter 51, Enoch describes the future resurrection of “therighteous and the holy ones,” adding: “In those days, the Elect One shall sit onmy throne, and from the conscience of his mouth shall come out all the se-crets of wisdom, for the Lord of the Spirits has given them to him and glori-fied him” (1 Enoch 51:3). Later on in the book we find: “These kings, gover-nors, and all the landlords shall try to bless, glorify, extol him who rules overeverything” (1 Enoch 62:6). Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities — of which

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only a Latin translation is extant — tells the history of Israel from Adam tothe days of King David.37 As part of this survey, the text includes two psalmsthat it attributes to King David (59:4 and all of chapter 60).38 In the GenizahPsalms, David says of his election: “A cornerstone despised by the buildersyou have raised to the headstone above all nations” (1.18), while in BiblicalAntiquities he says: “God hath kept me, and hath delivered me unto his angelsand his watchers to keep me, for my brethren envied me, and my father andmy mother made me of no account, and when the prophet came they callednot for me, and when the Lord’s anointed was proclaimed they forgot me”(Biblical Antiquities 59:4). The author states that God’s angels guard over Da-vid, while in the Genizah Psalms we read: “You made him greater than all theangels, establishing him as king of all nations forever” (1.23). Another strikingparallel involves the image of a light to the nations. In the Genizah Psalms wefind: “you have placed me in your might as a light to the nations” (2.8), andthe same phrase appears in Biblical Antiquities (according to the main manu-script) in the apocryphal hymn of Hannah (51:6), where it is applied to Davidand to the prophet Samuel, Hannah’s son. The same chapter contains a uni-versalistic description of Samuel, very much in the vein of the GenizahPsalms: “Come ye at my voice, all ye peoples, and give ear unto my speech, allye kingdoms. . . . I utter my words openly, for out of me shall arise the ordi-nance of the Lord, and all men shall find the truth” (51.3-4; and compareGenizah Psalms 2.19, 3.17-19). We may conclude, then, that even though theGenizah Psalms demonstrate a marked affinity to the world of the Essenes,the portrait they sketch of the prophet David, along with their universal tone,accords with the environment that produced Biblical Antiquities.

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37. See The Biblical Antiquities of Philo, translated by M. R. James, Prolegomenon byLouis H. Feldman (New York, 1971).

38. See the discussion in Pseudo-Philon, Les Antiquités bibliques, ed. J. Harrington (Paris,1976), 2.230.

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18. The “Flesh-Spirit” Dualism in theQumran Scrolls and the New Testament

Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars wishing to locate theorigin of the Flesh-Spirit dualism in the New Testament could be divided intothree broad positions: i. The Bible and its anthropology; ii. Greek dualism, be-ginning with Plato, that distinguishes the material and the spiritual, with thebody relegated to the former; iii Gnosticism, which also contrasts the materialbody to the spirit. The question, then, is whether the views enunciated in theearly church, particularly in the Pauline epistles and in the Gospel of John, areindependent or perhaps an outgrowth of one of these three views. The lan-guage of the New Testament is influenced by the biblical “flesh” and “spirit,”but it is still possible that the Christian dualism is a “pseudomorphosis” of bib-lical anthropology. Recently, P. Benoît has rejected the attempts to find Greekinfluence on the New Testament, arguing rather that it contains the “anthro-pological monism that is unique to the Semitic and biblical worldview.”1

The discovery of the Scrolls provided new impetus for the complexanalysis of the flesh-spirit dichotomy, even inciting a scholarly debate.2 To mymind, the proper solution lies in examining the theological meaning of theviews concerning flesh and spirit in the Scrolls and in the New Testament,

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1. P. Benoît, “Corps, tête et plérôme dans les Épitres de la captivité,” RB 63 (1956), 8, andsee also the literature cited there. On the Testament of the Patriarchs, which displays an affinityto the Qumran corpus, see R. Eppel, Le piétisme juif dans les testaments de douze patriarches(Paris, 1930), 111-113.

2. See G. Kuhn, “Temptation, Sin, and Flesh,” and W. D. Davies, “Paul and the Dead SeaScrolls: Flesh and Spirit,” both in K. Stendhal (ed.), The Scrolls and the New Testament (NewYork, 1957), 101-108 and 157-182, respectively.

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comparing the two, and only then proceeding to discuss other conceptual sys-tems. I believe this approach leads to the conclusion that the Dead Sea Scrollsand the New Testament speak with one voice with regard to the flesh-spiritdichotomy, a voice that is different from the biblical, Greek, and Gnosticdualisms of spirit and matter.

One evident difference between the worldview of the Scrolls and theNew Testament, on the one hand, and certain Greek and Gnostic positions,on the other, is that the former do not contain any principled opposition tomatter as such. The Qumran Scrolls even contain some positive statementsconcerning the material world: “He created man to rule the world” (1QS 3.17-18, and see Hodayot 9.15). The “wondrous mysteries” governing the creationof the world in all its fullness and eternal laws, are proof of God’s glory andsole government over all (Hodayot 9.7-20), and the “just judgments” of Godhighlight the nullity of man (Hodayot 9.21-27).3 Though not as positive as theQumran Scrolls published thus far, the New Testament’s ambivalent estima-tion of the physical world (kosmos) does not stem from the negation of theworld as such, but rather from the negation of the world inasmuch as it isruled by Satan.4 The Scrolls, too, hold that the present age is “the days ofBelial’s dominion” (1QS 2.19; 1.23; and see CD 4.12-13; 6.14; 12.23; 1QpHab 5.7),and thus the conclusion that the world “has been defiled in paths of wicked-ness during the dominion of injustice until the time appointed for the judg-ment decided” (1QS 4.19-20).5 It is possible, then, that the negative attitudetoward the physical world voiced in the New Testament is a more severe ver-sion of the views of the Qumran community.

Clearly, neither the Scrolls nor the New Testament can promote an abso-lute negation of the world, since both believe in a good and beneficent creatorGod. It is possible, then, that it was the Jewish heritage of these texts that limitedthe broader “spirit-matter” dualism to “spirit-flesh.” This hypothesis is appar-ently confirmed by the fact that the Hebrew word for flesh, rqb, does not ap-pear in the Qumran Scrolls in the New Testament sense except in the Hodayotand the psalm that concludes the Manual of Discipline.6 Davies noticed this aswell and suggested that most of the Scrolls belong to an earlier stage in the his-tory of the Qumran community, before Hellenistic influences altered itsworldview, while the Hodayot belong to a later, more Hellenized stage.7 I too

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3. See Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” 21-22 above.4. See R. Bultmann, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen, 1954), 172-173.5. See Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” 20-21 above.6. See also CD 3.17, where the enemies of the community are said to have “defiled them-

selves with human sin and unclean paths.”7. See Davies, “Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 165.

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have argued that the Hodayot and the concluding psalm of the Manual of Dis-cipline are relatively light, based on their unique anthropology along with otherconsiderations.8 I believe, however, that the differences between these texts arethe result of an internal evolution, rather than the spirit-matter dualism ofGreek and Gnostic thought.

The religious worldview of Qumran divides humanity into two camps:the sons of light and the sons of darkness. The sons of light, who are ultimatelythe members of the Qumran community, are marked by the spirit of truth,while the sons of darkness inhabit the spirit of wickedness. God “establishedevery deed, and on their paths every labor” (1QS 3.25-26). Just like the Gospelof John (14:26), the Qumran writings identify the spirit of truth with the holyspirit (1QS 4.21; 3.6-7). This spirit, then, which the Scrolls (like the New Testa-ment) refer to on occasion as ‘spirit’ as such, is the gift that God bestows uponhis elect: “For it is by the spirit of the true counsel of God that are atoned thepaths of man, all his iniquities, so that he can look at the light of life. And it isby the holy spirit of the community, in its truth, that he is cleansed of all his in-iquities” (1QS 3.6-8). Indeed, for the Dead Sea community, “you have stretchedout your holy spirit to cover up guilt” (Hodayot 23.13).

I believe that this view — the ethical dualism of Qumran alongside thedoctrine of divine grace and election — is the root from which grows theHodayot dualism between spirit and flesh. The spirit purifies man from hisdebased — which is his natural — state. Man is “a creature of clay, fashionedwith water, a foundation of shame . . . a building of sin, a spirit of error anddepravity without knowledge” (Hodayot 9.21-23). He is a base creature, gov-erned by his sinful desires, “impure abominations and guilt of unfaithful-ness” (Hodayot 19.11). The Qumran Scrolls refer to the sinful nature of manwith the biblical rqb, ‘flesh,’ arguing that “I belong to evil humankind, to theassembly of unfaithful flesh” (1QS 11.9). First Corinthians, “are you not of theflesh and behaving according to human inclinations?” (3:3), indicates thatPaul too sees the flesh and human nature as one and the same. The phrase“sin of the flesh” in the Community Rule (1QS 11.12) is reminiscent ofRomans 8:3, while the Christian phrases “›pijum¾ai sarkika¿ (swmatika¿)”and “¨ ›pijum¾a t«v sarkËv”9 parallel in language and content “the inclina-tion of the flesh” (yetzer basar) of Hodayot 18.25.

This particular sense of “flesh” refers to the unredeemed within man,“the assembly of flesh,” from whom God has hidden wisdom and knowledge;but “to those whom God has selected he has given them as everlasting posses-

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The “Flesh-Spirit” Dualism in the Qumran Scrolls and the New Testament

8. See Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” 18-24 above.9. See Bultmann, Theologie, 103.

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sion” (1QS 11.7). In Ephesians too we read: “All of us once lived among [thosewho are disobedient] in the passions of our flesh, following the desires offlesh and senses, and were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But. . . by grace you have been saved [see also Romans 7:5] . . . so that in the agesto come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace10 in kindness to-ward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:3-7). The author of the Hodayot conceives ofman’s election in a similar way: “For the sake of your glory, you have purifiedman from offence, so that he can make himself holy for you from every im-pure abomination and guilt of unfaithfulness” (Hodayot 19.10-11).

We saw above that for the Qumran community, the spirit purifies manof his iniquities, elevating him from the realm of the flesh. A similar positionis found in Paul’s letter to the Romans: “Thos who are in the flesh cannotplease God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the spirit, since the spiritof God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does notbelong to him” (Rom. 8:8-9).

The theological basis for the flesh-spirit dualism is not, then, the deeperdichotomy of matter and spirit, but rather the view that God elevates his electfrom a debased state — from the reality of “flesh” — by endowing him withspirit, i.e., with the spirit of truth (following the dualistic terminology of theScrolls) or, in the biblical phraseology regular in the Scrolls, the holy spirit. Itwould be a worthwhile endeavor to examine — to the extent that such an ex-amination is possible — whether all the New Testament passages that con-trast the flesh and the spirit accord with this view. The author of the Hodayotsummarizes his religious outlook regarding the flesh and the spirit in a beau-tiful and concise passage:

What is flesh compared to this? What creature of clay can do wonders? Heis in iniquity from his maternal womb, and in guild of unfaithfulnessright to old age. But I know that justice does not belong to man nor to ason of Adam a perfect path. To God Most High belong all the acts of jus-tice, and the path of man is not secure except by the spirit which God cre-ates for him to perfect the path of the sons of Adam so that all his crea-tures come to know the strength of his power and the abundance of hiscompassion with all the sons of his approval. (Hodayot 12.29-33)

This view is certainly similar (though not identical) to the Hellenisticand Gnostic conceptions, in which man is represented as constituted of two

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10. The evidence of the Scrolls suggests that the Greek ploØtov q}ritov is a mistransla-tion of vwmh wymjr. This phrase is common in the Hodayot, where it designates God’s grace to-ward his elect. See “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview,” 22 n. 36 above.

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warring elements — the spirit and the flesh — with the latter a prison of sortsfor the former, denying its most sublime aspirations. The difference lies in thefact that in the Hodayot and the New Testament, the dualism is the result ofthe presence or absence of God’s spirit within the otherwise carnal man. I be-lieve that the notion that it is the holy spirit that turns the carnal man intoone of the elect is theologically autocratic; there is no need to resort to Helle-nistic (and Gnostic) matter-spirit dualism to explain it.

That said, there is no question that the practical conclusions theHodayot yield are close to a matter-spirit dualism, and so it is possible thatthere is contamination between the two approaches. Proof of this is providedby a passage in the Wisdom of Solomon:

For who can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what the Lordwills? For the reasoning of mortals is worthless, and our designs are likelyto fail; for a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthy tentburdens the thoughtful mind. We can hardly guess at what is on earth,and what is at hand we find with labor; but who has traced out what is inthe heavens? Who has learned your counsel, unless you have given wis-dom and sent your holy spirit from on high? And thus the paths of thoseon earth were set right, and people were taught what pleases you, andwere saved by wisdom. (9.13-18)11

The view of this passage is theologically identical with that of the Hodayot,which state, e.g.:

What, then, is man? He is nothing but earth. [From clay] he is fashionedand to dust he will return. But you teach him about wonders like theseand the foundations of your truth you show to him. I am dust and ashes,what can I plan if you do not wish it? What can I devise without yourwill? How can I be strong if you do not make me stand? How can I belearned if you do not mould me? (Hodayot 18.3-7; see also 20.11-13 and7.21-22).

The Wisdom of Solomon passage is particularly close to Hodayot 12.29-30,which we cited above (see also 20.32-34). If the author of Wisdom of Solomon

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11. Prof. Isaac Seligman called my attention to other parallels between the Dead SeaScrolls and the Wisdom of Solomon, and see J. Fichtner, Weisheit Salomos (Tübingen, 1938), 36-39; K. Holmes in R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Ox-ford, 1913), 1.532, 550. Needless to say, I am not suggesting that the Wisdom of Solomon — un-doubtedly a Jewish Hellenistic composition — was written by one of the Qumranites. The rela-tionship between Wisdom of Solomon and the Dead Sea Scrolls requires further investigation.

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states that the giving of the holy spirit sets straight the paths of man (ka¿oÜtwv diwrjãjhsan a½ tr¾boi tån ›p¿ g«v), this may even be a Greek transla-tion of Hebrew phrases like the one found in Hodayot 12.31-32: “the path ofman is not secure except by the spirit which God creates for him to perfect thepath of the sons of Adam.”12

The author of Wisdom of Solomon added two elements to the concep-tual system already familiar from the Scrolls: first, he identified the holy spiritwith wisdom,13 which is the main subject of his composition; second, he su-perimposed the Greek “spirit-matter” dualism onto the “spirit-flesh” divi-sion. Indeed, scholars have already noted that the verse “for a perishable bodyweighs down the soul, and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind”(Wisdom of Solomon 9.15) is quite similar to Plato’s famous statement in thePhaedo: “the corporeal is heavy, oppressive, earthly, and visible. So the soulwhich is tainted by its presence is weighed down and dragged back into thevisible world” (81c).14 The fusion of Greek philosophy and Jewish writings ismade possible by the biblical view — quoted approvingly in the Dead SeaScrolls — that “What, then, is man? He is nothing but earth. From clay he isfashioned and to dust he will return” (Hodayot 18.3-4).

The Wisdom of Solomon passage adopts an interesting epistemologicalstance, according to which man can understand God’s counsel only if Godsends his holy spirit to man. This is also the Qumran view as expressed in theHodayot: not only does the holy spirit purify the elect of the charge of decep-tion, but it is also the only instrument through which the elect can receivetrue knowledge, i.e., knowledge of the mysteries of God’s dominion in theworld, and knowledge of God himself: “And I . . . have known you, my God,through the spirit which you gave in me” (1QH 20.11-13). Knowledge of Godoriginates in God, as we also see in the common formula “These things Iknow through your knowledge” (1QH 6.12; 7.12; 9.21; 1QM 10.16). For in-stance, “These things I know through your knowledge, for you opened myears to wondrous mysteries although I am a creature of clay, fashioned withwater” (1QH 9.21). Carnal man is unable to understand the divine secretswithout receiving the holy spirit, for “What is someone born of a womanamong all your awesome works? He is a structure of dust fashioned with wa-ter, his counsel is the iniquity of sin, shame of dishonor and source of impu-

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12. See also “For to man (does not belong) his path, nor can a human being steady hisstep; since the judgment belongs to God, and from his hand is the perfection of the path” (1QS11.10-11).

13. At Wisdom of Solomon 7.22, wisdom is again identified with spirit, though there it islikened to the pneØma of the Stoics.

14. Hugh Treddenick translation.

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rity and a depraved spirit rules over him” (1QH 5.20-22, and see also 7.21-22;18.3-7). After all, “what is the spirit of flesh to understand all these mattersand to have insight into your wondrous and great counsel?” (1QH 5.19-20).All other mortals have the “spirit of flesh,” but the elect can gain true knowl-edge through the divine spirit that he has been granted: “And I, your servant,have known thanks to the spirit you have placed in me” (1QH 5.24-25).

Despite the difference in details, Paul’s doctrine in 1 Corinthians (2:6-3:1) may serve as a systematic explanation of the hints scattered throughoutthe Hodayot suggesting that the flesh does not know God, only the spirit thatGod has granted his elect. Like the wisdom of the Qumranites, the Christianwisdom is “secret and hidden . . . which God decreed before the ages for ourglory” and which “God has prepared for those who love him”:

[These things] God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spiritsearches everything, even the depths of God. For what human beingknows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within?15 Soalso no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that isfrom God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.(1 Cor. 2:6-12)

The statement “we have received not the spirit of the world” is strongly remi-niscent of Hodayot 4.25, “for your servant is [not] a spirit of flesh.” As noted,Christianity’s hostile tone toward “the world” distinguishes it from theQumran literature, and it is therefore possible that the phrase “spirit of theworld” means the same thing to an early Christian as “spirit of flesh” to aQumran member. Moreover, the phrase “people of the flesh,” which occursfurther on in 1 Corinthians (2:14) — those who are unable to grasp the wordsof God’s spirit (in contrast to the people of the spirit) — is identical in mean-ing to the person of the flesh (3:1).16 It seems reasonable, then, that the“spirit” of “the people of the spirit” is nothing other than Paul’s “spirit of theworld” and the “spirit of the flesh” of Hodayot (4.25).

But if the gift of spirit elevates the Qumran elect from the realm of the

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15. Paul’s qal va-homer, the rabbinic argument from the minor to the major, is similar towhat was cited above from the Wisdom of Solomon: “We can hardly guess at what is on earth,and what is at hand we find with labor; but who has traced out what is in the heavens? Who haslearned your counsel, unless you have given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high?”(9.16-17).

16. See the commentary of A. Robertson and A. Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Com-mentary to the Corinthians (ICC; Edinburgh, 1929), 49.

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flesh, even to the point that he can state that “your servant is [not] a spirit offlesh” (1QH 4.25), how can he still sin in “the sin of the flesh” (1QS 11.12)? Howcan the author of the Manual of Discipline state that “I belong to evil human-kind, to the assembly of unfaithful flesh; my failings, my iniquities, my sins. . . with the depravities of my heart” (1QS 11.9)? This paradox is resolved if weunderstand that, while he has been elevated out of the realm of the flesh, hestill remains a creature of flesh. A similar dialectic is evident in Paul’s theol-ogy. For Paul speaks of the time “while we were living in the flesh” (Rom. 7:5)as belonging to the past, while at the same time exhorting his hearers: “Liveby the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what theflesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed tothe flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing whatyou want” (Gal. 5:16-17).

Indeed, the Qumran community and the early church maintain a dia-lectic position not only with regard to the flesh, but with regard to the spiritas well. Even though he received the spirit when he entered the Qumran com-munity (1QH 6.13), the elect may still “look for the spirit” (1QH 8.14). Inmuch the same way, one receives the spirit when he becomes a Christian butnonetheless yearns for the gifts of the spirit (1 Cor. 14:1).17 After all, the spiri-tual standing of the elect is not fixed, but rather can fluctuate for better andfor worse. Paul cannot speak with the Christians in Corinth as with people ofthe spirit, for they are still of the flesh: “For as long as there is jealousy andquarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according tohuman inclinations?” (1 Cor. 3:3). The struggle between carnal human natureand the God-given spirit is typical of the elect.

This view — that the spirit purifies the elect of the sins of the flesh —introduces a new wrinkle into the typical Qumran dichotomy of the sons oflight and the sons of darkness. For one might conclude that the sons of lightare God’s elect who have been granted the spirit, while those destined fordamnation reside in the realm of the sins of the flesh. This is Paul’s positionin Romans: “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on thethings of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their mindson the things of the Spirit” (8:5) and “For all who are led by the Spirit of Godare children of God” (8:14; see also Galatians 4:6). John expresses the sameidea in much starker terms: “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what isborn of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). And if the realm of the spirit suits thelot of light and the realm of the flesh the lot of darkness, it is clear why Ephe-sians — which refers to the Christian community as “sons of light” — speaks

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17. See Bultmann, Theologie des Neues Testaments, 158.

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of “the fruit of light” and “the deeds of darkness” (5:8-11), while Galatians em-ploys the terms “fruit of the spirit” and “deeds of the flesh” (5:19-23).Galatians also enumerates the deeds of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit,producing two contrary lists of wicked and righteous traits, respectively —lists that are very similar in content and literary form to the lists of the waysof the spirits of light and of darkness in 1QS 4.2-14.18 Interestingly, theQumran scrolls published thus far do not contain the explicit identificationof the realm of the good with the spirit and the realm of evil with the flesh. Isthis identification a novel conclusion reached by the Christian community, orwas there precedent in the Qumran community or affiliated groups?

We have seen, then, that the Qumran Hodayot present a flesh-spiritcontrast that is similar to the dualistic tendencies we find in the early church.The dualism of both the church and Qumran is rooted in the idea that Godgrants the holy spirit to his elect, and it allows them to overcome their in-nately sinful flesh, which is part of human nature as such. As noted, from atheological perspective the dualism in question is completely autocratic;there is no need to assume that it was formed under the influence of thematter-spirit dualism that is typical of certain Greek and Gnostic schools ofthought. That said, there is an undeniable community in the conclusionsdrawn by both the Scrolls and the early church, on the one hand, and theGreek and Gnostic thinkers, on the other, with regard to human nature. Assuch, there could be instances of conflation, as we in fact saw in the Wisdomof Solomon passage cited above. Any attempt to blur the differences betweenflesh-spirit dualism and matter-spirit dualism poses a real risk to the Jewishand Christian belief in a good and beneficent God who is the creator of thematerial world. It is not surprising, then, that “The Assumption of Moses”19

— a Jewish book that espouses Qumran-like views regarding dualism andpredestination20 — dramatically rejects the idea that the body is the realm ofSatan. The leaders of the forces of good and evil, the archangel Michael21 and

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18. Among the qualities listed: {g}ph = “of generous compassion with all the sons oftruth”; qar} = “eternal enjoyment”; e¼r©nh = “plentiful peace”; makrojum¾a = “patience”;{gajwsÖnh = “eternal goodness”; p¾stiv = “potent wisdom which trusts in all the deeds of God”(?); praÖthv = “spirit of meekness”; ›gkr}teia = “magnificent purity which detests all uncleanidols.” I could not identify qrhstËthv with any of the qualities enumerated in the Manual ofDiscipline.

19. See R. H. Charles, The Assumption of Moses (London, 1897), 105-110.20. See in particular 12.4-5.21. The Qumran writings represent Michael as the lord of light who leads the rule of the

sons of light. See Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness(Oxford, 1962), 235-236.

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Satan, respectively, fight over Moses’ body. Satan claim ownership on thegrounds that he is the ruler of the material world, but Michael responds thatall were created through God’s holy spirit, for God is lord of the spirits and ofall flesh. “The Assumption of Moses” was most likely composed in the days ofPaul and Simon Magus, one of the first Gnostics, and it is Gnostic — notGreek — dualism that the book so forcefully rejects. For it is only Gnosticismthat portrays matter not only as the element that inhibits the spirit, but as therealm governed by satanic forces. Is this Gnostic approach, which opposes theview of the Qumran scrolls and of the New Testament, an outgrowth of Greekdualism? Or is it a combination of Qumran dualism — which holds that theflesh is the very human nature that the elect overcomes with the help of thespirit, and that the world “has been defiled in paths of wickedness during thedominion of injustice” (1QS 4.19) — with the Greek dualism of matter (in-cluding the physical body) and spirit?

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19. “The Secret Things Belong to the Lord”(Deut. 29:29): Ben Sira and the Essenes

A fascinating article that appeared recently in Tarbiz discusses the verse “Thesecret things belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to usand to our children forever; to observe all the words of this law” (Deut.29:29).1 The authors focus on the interpretation of the verse in rabbinic liter-ature, and its importance in the history of the Qumran community, which is,in my view, an Essene sect. Among other sources they mention a well-knownpassage from Ben Sira 3:21-24: “Neither seek what is too difficult for you, norinvestigate what is beyond your power. Reflect upon what you have beencommanded, for the secret things are not your concern. Do not meddle inmatters that are beyond you, for more than you can understand has beenshown you. For their conceit has led many astray, and wrong opinion has im-paired their judgment.”2

Ben Sira’s words appear to be based on Psalm 19:12: “But who can detecttheir errors? Clear me from hidden faults.” The Hebrew owaygq, ‘errors,’ canalso be vocalized oway 5G2J, that is, ‘elevated matters,’ and apparently this is thereading that underlies Ben Sira’s exhortation not to “meddle in matters thatare beyond you.” In other words, he interpreted Psalm 19 as asking, Who canunderstand sublime matters? Clear me of the desire to know hidden things.

The words of Ben Sira played an important and well-established role in

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1. A. Shemesh and K. Werman, “The Hidden Things and Their Revelations,” Tarbiz 66(1997), 471-482.

2. For a discussion of the issues involved here see D. Flusser, “Who Can Detect Their Er-rors (Ps 19:12)?” (Hebrew), M. Bar Asher and D. Rosenthal (editors), Mehqere Talmud (Jerusa-lem, 1986), 2.402-409.

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the thought of the rabbis, who rightly interpreted them as a warning againstesoteric speculation. They are also clear evidence that nistarot, ‘secret things,’was an established term for esoterica already in Ben Sira’s time, causing therational author to warn his readers against such mystical inclinations. Thequestion remains, however, whether Psalm 19 is the only influence at workhere, or perhaps Deuteronomy 29:29 also played a part. It seems to me the lat-ter is the case, for how else can we explain his statement to “reflect upon whatyou have been commanded, for the secret things are not your concern” — forthe secret things belong to the Lord, but the revealed things belong to us andto our children forever. We are not permitted to investigate the secret things(for they belong to the Lord our God) but only the revealed things (for theybelong to us and to our children). This is the limit of our investigation, “formore than you can understand has been shown you” — even the revealedthings are ultimately beyond our grasp.

Shemesh and Werman make a novel, intriguing argument: the Qumransect assumed that certain religious rules, previously hidden from Israel, hadbeen revealed to them. In other words, the secret things that once belonged“to the Lord our God,” now “belong to us and to our children,” i.e. the sectar-ian legal rules. Is this the full story, or just a partial picture? Even if we acceptthe claim that the Qumran texts interpreted the Deuteronomy verse as refer-ring solely to their sectarian doctrines, it is still the case that the revelation ofcommandments that had been hidden from Israel constitutes just one aspectof the Qumran community’s broader tend toward insularity and partialesotericism of its doctrines.

It appears that Josephus’ statement concerning the Essenes does not referto esoteric matters (that could not be revealed to individuals who were not fullmembers of the community), but rather open issues that could not be hiddenfrom others. For example, the halakhic principles that guided the Essene wayof life, or core elements of their worldview — dualism and predestination.Still, Josephus himself allows that the Essenes maintained some matters hid-den from the outside world, though his formulation is — perhaps intention-ally — vague.3 In the Manual of Discipline the member of the community iscommanded to “hide the counsel of the law in the midst of the men of injus-tice (=the outside world)” (1QS 9.17). Licht, in his commentary, suggests thatthis is the only explicit instruction to keep the doctrines of the community se-cret, though the matter is alluded to in a number of other passages,4 e.g., “of

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3. BJ 2.142.4. Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim (Jerusalem, 1965), 196, which includes a list of possible

parallels. On the esoteric nature of the Qumran doctrines see also Hodayot 13.25-26; 16.10-11.

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concealment concerning the truth of the mysteries of knowledge” (1QS 4.6).Moreover, it must be recalled that the description of the Essenes as a pacifistand humanitarian community cast in the mold of Tolstoy — a descriptionfound in the writings of Josephus and Philo alike — is fundamentally wrong,and this mistake derives from the Essenes themselves. The Qumran membersspeak a very different language amongst themselves, prescribing “everlastinghatred for the men of the pit in clandestine spirit” (1QS 9.21-22).5

As we saw above, already in Ben Sira’s time, the beginning of the secondcentury b.c.e., there were esoteric “secret things” against which Ben Sirawarns. The Essene Qumran community was a sect that considered part of itsdoctrines esoteric.6 Indeed, one might suggest that the tendency towardesotericism was fundamental to the Qumran worldview, as it is undoubtedlylinked to Essene dualism, to the isolation of the community from the outside,to the doctrine of predestination, and to the belief that the community con-sists of God’s elect. As noted, the rules of conduct that governed the commu-nity were plainly visible, and so the community developed the notion thatthese are secret teachings that have now come to light. Furthermore, as noted,it was impossible to hide their doctrine of predestination.7

Even though the Qumran community (like the rabbinic sages) acceptedthe view that biblical prophecy had ended and hoped for its imminent re-newal,8 its members felt that they must “be united in the counsel of God andwalk in perfection in his sight, complying with all revealed things concerningthe regulated times of their stipulations” (1QS 1.8-9). In other words, likepresent-day Mormons, the Qumran Essenes believed there was within theman ongoing divine revelation that guided them in matters of faith and in-structed them concerning their shifting relationship with the broader Jewishcommunity and the outside world as a whole. Hence the obligation of eachmember of the community to share with his colleagues the content of his per-sonal revelation: “And every matter hidden from Israel but which has been

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“The Secret Things Belong to the Lord” (Deut. 29:29)

5. The entire passage is quite interesting; see 1QS 9.25-26.6. The Qumran horoscopes are written in a secret code. See J. M. Allegro, “An Astrologi-

cal Cryptic Document from Qumran,” DJD 4 (1954), 291-294; Y. Stracky, “Un texte messia-nique,” Mémorial du Centenaire de l’Ecole des Langues anciennes de l’Institut Catholique de Paris(Paris, 1964), 51-66.

7. Josephus’s description suggests they could not fully conceal their belligerent hatred ofthe outside world either. He states that they swear to love truth and reject liars (BJ 2.141), butalso to hate the sinners and to fight alongside the righteous (BJ 2.139).

8. See 1QS 9.11.9. The word ‘Israel’ here appears not to refer to the Jewish people as a whole but rather to

the Qumran community, though this cannot be known with certainty.

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found out by the Interpreter, he should not keep hidden from them for fear ofa spirit of desertion” (1QS 8.11-12; see also the Damascus Document 15.13-15).The aforementioned ‘Interpreter’ is, in Hebrew, qyah qrwdh, the one who isdoresh, suggesting that esoteric scriptural interpretation plays an importantrole in Qumran’s theology of ongoing revelation. The Manual of Disciplinegoes on to argue that one must “be segregated from within the dwelling of themen of sin to walk to the desert in order to open there His path. As it is writ-ten: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the deserta highway for our God’ (Isa. 40:3). This is the study of the law which he com-manded through the hand of Moses, in order to act in compliance with allthat has been revealed from age to age, and according to what the prophetshave revealed through his holy spirit” (1QS 8.13-16). The path referred to byIsaiah is, then, the interpretation of the Torah.10

As for the phrase ‘according to what the prophets have revealed throughhis holy spirit,’ it doubtless refers first and foremost to the prophets’ ability tounderstand present and future events. Did the author of this passage believethat biblical prophecy contains secret teachings that can be revealed throughscriptural interpretation? That indeed is the Essene position. Josephus, for ex-ample, notes that there are those among the Essenes who are able to foretellfuture events by immersing themselves in holy writ, undergoing various puri-fication rituals, and studying the words of the prophets.11 Pesher Habakkukattributes this very ability to the Teacher of Righteousness, the founder of theQumran community. Thus the pesher to Habakkuk 1 speaks of “violators ofthe covenant who will not believe when they hear all that is going to happento the final generation, from the mouth of the priest whom God has placedwithin the Community, to foretell the fulfillment of all the words of his ser-vants, the prophets, by means of whom God has declared all that is going tohappen to his people Israel” (1QpHab 2.6-10). It appears that the sectarianPesher interpretation is a novel approach pioneered by the priest, that is, theTeacher of Righteousness. This is confirmed by the pesher’s interpretation ofHabakkuk 2:2: “‘Then the Lord answered me and said: Write the vision; make

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10. On the phrase midrash ha-torah see D. Flusser, Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse (Bern,1981), 101-104.

11. Josephus, BJ 2.159. Josephus names three Essenes who could predict the future: Judahthe Essene (BJ 1.72-80; AJ 13.311-313), Menahem (AJ 15.373-379), and Simon (BJ 2.112-113). SeeFlavius Josephus, De Bello Judaico, O. Michael and O. Bauernfeind (eds.) (Darmstadt, 1959), 439n. 83. Judah the Essene prophesied in Jerusalem during the short reign of Aristobulus I (104-103b.c.e.), and it is possible that he was the Teacher of Righteousness who established the Qumrancommunity, in which case the events recounted occurred after he left Jerusalem and went outinto the wilderness.

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it plain on tablets so that a runner may read it.’ And God told Habakkuk towrite what was going to happen to the last generation, but he did not let himknow the consummation of the era. And as for what he says ‘so that a runnermay read it,’ its interpretation concerns the Teacher of Righteousness, towhom God has made known all the mysteries of the words of his servants, theprophets” (1QpHab 6.14-7.5).12

According to this pesher, “so that a runner may read it” refers to theTeacher of Righteousness, who will arise in future days. He is the reader whowill “run” through the revealed teachings of the prophets, discovering inthem all their secret teachings. The prophets themselves were only granted di-vine inspiration sufficient for the literal sense, but God did not reveal toHabakkuk “what was going to happen to the last generation.” God instead de-creed that the priestly Teacher of Righteousness be the one “to foretell the ful-fillment of all the words of his servants, the prophets.” Note, moreover, thatthe actions of the Teacher of Righteousness are alluded to in the very words ofHabakkuk: “so that a runner may read it.” The running image recalls theManual of Discipline (8.14-16), where Isaiah 40:3 “In the wilderness preparethe way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” is in-terpreted as alluding to the sectarian “doresh ha-torah,” the expounder of thelaw. Does this mean that the Qumran pesher writings are part of the secretthings that are not to be revealed to others? Whatever the answer, it is clearthat one of the core teachings of the Qumran community was “to act in com-pliance with all that has been revealed from age to age” (1QS 8.15, and see also9.1). The ideological and halakhic correlation is the role of the Instructor, themaskil (see 1QS 9.12-26). According to Licht, this refers to the commandmentsthat are known solely to the Qumran community, and are intended for par-ticular ages — every age and its commandments.13 In my opinion, phrasessuch as “revealed from age to age,” “the regulated times of their stipulations”— phrases that refer to the shifting epochs — are tied primarily to the ideo-logical flexibility of the sect, which allowed its members to adapt their behav-ior to the surrounding circumstances and Zeitgeist. The Qumranites saw thechanges in their outlook “from age to age” as the result of revelation, andthere is no question that the “law of the time” was hidden from outsiders, atleast as far as maintaining a façade of amicability toward the outside worldwas concerned. This is stated explicitly in the Manual of Discipline: “Andthese are the regulations of behavior of the Inspector in these times, concern-

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“The Secret Things Belong to the Lord” (Deut. 29:29)

12. See B. Nitzan, Megillat Pesher Habakkuk (Jerusalem, 1986), 153-155, 171-172.13. See Licht, Megillat ha-Serachim, 61, and see also 195-199 for a discussion of the ‘In-

structor.’

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ing his love and his hatred; everlasting hatred for the men of the pit in clan-destine spirit. To them he should leave goods and handmade items like a ser-vant to his master and like one oppressed before someone domineering him.He should be a man enthusiastic for the decree of the time, for the day of re-venge” (1QS 9.21-24). In two fragments from the Damascus Document theEssenes say of themselves: “He uncovered their eyes for hidden things andthey opened their ears and heard profound things and understood everythingthat happens before it comes upon them” (4Q266 [=4QDa] 2.5-6).14

It is true, then, that the Qumran community was in some way esoteric,but it is difficult to establish which of the doctrines could not be circulated tothe outside world or, alternately, which of the doctrines they were able to keepsecret. Their belief in predestination and their legal rulings — at least manyof them — were well known to outsiders. The hatred toward the “men of thepit” was not widely known. Similarly, the Essenes succeeded in hiding thepesher literature from the outside world, along with their political views andtheir eschatological doctrines. We must also bear in mind that the difficultyin distinguishing the truly esoteric from the semi-revealed — and betweenthe desire to conceal and true concealment — is not unique to the QumranEssenes, but rather characteristic of all “mystic” groups.

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14. This is a composite of the two fragments.

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20. The Jewish Origins of the Early Church’sAttitude toward the State

When Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, it wasguided in part by Paul’s words in his Epistle to the Romans: “Let every personbe subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except fromGod . . . therefore, whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed,for those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to goodconduct, but to bad . . .” (Rom. 13:1-3). In the centuries that followed, the divi-sion between the secular government and the church became much moremarked, but Paul’s teaching was again to become the basis of a religiousworldview with the establishment of the Lutheran church. Paul’s words inRomans are, then, very significant and a proper understanding of their intel-lectual sources is a desideratum inasmuch as it may shed new light on this im-portant Christian doctrine, and shed light on the afterlife of a sectarian Jew-ish group within the church.

A number of scholars have noted the similarity between Paul’s “there isno authority except from God” and the position Josephus attributes to theEssenes, namely, that they vow “to keep faith (or loyalty) with all, especiallythose in power, since no one attains power without God” (BJ 2.140). It is onlysince the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that this similarity can be properlyexplicated, as these texts provide a more comprehensive view of the Esseneposition vis-à-vis the secular government.

The Dead Sea community developed a unique theological worldview. Itadhered to predestination, or, in their words: “From the God of knowledgestems all there is and all there shall be. Before they existed he established theirentire design. And when they have come into being, at their appointed time,

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they will execute all their works according to his glorious design, without al-tering anything” (1QS 3.15-16). This view was, in turn, tied to the division ofmankind into the sons of light and the sons of darkness, with each individ-ual’s fate already determined at the time of creation. God, moreover, decreedhatred between the two camps: “God has sorted them into equal parts untilthe last time, and has put an everlasting loathing between their divisions.Deeds of injustice are an abhorrence to truth and all the paths of truth are anabhorrence to injustice” (1QS 4.16-17). In the end of days, however, evil will beforever destroyed and with it all the sons of darkness. Needless to say, theEssene community in the Judean Desert counted themselves among the sonsof light, God’s elect, while the rest of mankind — including all Jews who re-fuse to join with them — are the sons of darkness, destined for annihilation.

This brief survey clarifies why the community that understood itself tobe living in the end of days dreamt of its war against the sons of darkness, andimagined its conquest of Israel and then the world. For “this will be the daydetermined by him since ancient times for the war of extermination againstthe sons of darkness” (1QM 1.10). Still, the community had to determine howbest to live prior to the arrival of this day, that is, in the corrupt world gov-erned by the sons of darkness. The belief in predestination, which found ex-pression in their activist spirit, also guided them in adopting a passive ap-proach toward the wicked government of their day. After all, God’s elect mustunderstand that the course of history is a matter of divine will and decree,and that there is no other path to political power. God has fixed the course ofworld history, dividing it into different ages, and has divulged these mysteriesto the Qumran community. Thus, the Instructor, the maskil, must “fulfill thewill of God in compliance with all revelation for every period; he should ac-quire all the wisdom that has been gained according to the periods and thedecree of the period” (1QS 9.13-14). What, then, is the proper behavior towardthe surrounding world? “And these are the regulations of behavior of the In-spector in these times, concerning his love and his hatred; everlasting hatredfor the men of the pit in clandestine spirit. To them he should leave goods andhandmade items like a servant to his master and like one oppressed beforesomeone domineering him.” The Qumran member was to hate the surround-ing world of evil, but also to submit to the authorities all the same, since theday of judgment has not yet come; he must, then, “be a man enthusiastic forthe decree of the time, for the day of revenge. He should perform (God’s) willin all that his hand should tackle and in all that he controls, as he com-manded. And all that happens to him he should welcome freely and be grati-fied by nothing except God’s will. He should relish all the words of his mouth,wish for nothing that he has not commanded and be ever alert to the precept

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of God” (1QS 9.21-25). The sect’s submission toward the outside world was ac-companied by an instruction to hate it — their pacifism was conditional, theresult of their belief in predestination. The members of the community, then,could not pursue legal remedies in the present era, and so they prayed: “Whendistress is unleashed I shall praise him, just as I shall sing to him for his deliv-erance. I shall not repay anyone with an evil reward; with goodness I shallpursue man. For to God (belongs) the judgment of every living being, and itis he who pays man his wages. I shall not be jealous with a wicked spirit, andmy soul shall not crave wealth by violence; I shall not be involved in any dis-pute with the men of the pit until the day of vengeance” (1QS 10.17-19). TheQumran theology demands that its followers “reply with meekness to thehaughty of spirit, and with a broken spirit to the men of the bending (of thelaw), those who point the finger and speak evil and are keen on riches” (1QS11.1-2).

The much praised irenic tendencies of the Essenes were, then, littlemore than a façade of peaceful coexistence that hides behind it a dualistic ide-ology of hatred and a belief in a predestined fate that promises the Esseneelect world domination and the annihilation of the wicked on the fixed day.

If we examine Paul’s teachings regarding the proper Christian attitudetoward the authorities, taking the position enunciated in the opening ofRomans 13 as part of a broader discussion that begins in 12:9, we will findthat Paul’s view reflects the very same ideas as are presented in the Scrolls. Asnoted, the Essene doctrine of submission is rooted in their periodization ofworld history, and the resulting belief that one must abide by “the decree ofthe period” (1QS 9.14). Paul too demands of his brethren (in the correctreading) “serve the age (kairos).” The similarity between Paul’s position andthat of the Manual of Discipline is clear from what follows. Where Paul says,“Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer” (Rom. 12:12),the Qumran text states, in much the same spirit, “when distress is unleashedI shall praise him, just as I shall sing to him for his deliverance” (1QS 10.18).Similarly, Paul exhorts his readers “do not be haughty but associate with thelowly” (Rom. 12:16), echoed in the Manual of Discipline’s vow: “to instructin the teaching those who complain and to reply with meekness to thehaughty” (1QS 11.1). The clearest parallel is between Paul’s demands “blessthose who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom. 12:14) and “donot claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but takethought for what is noble in the sight of all . . . never avenge yourselves, butleave room for the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I willrepay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:16-19). While the Manual of Discipline states:“I shall not repay anyone with an evil reward; with goodness I shall pursue

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man. For to God (belongs) the judgment of every living being, and it is hewho pays man his wages” (1QS 10.19). Indeed, there is a marked linguisticsimilarity between the Qumran “with goodness I shall pursue a man” andPaul’s demand: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”(Rom. 12:21).

There are other points of similarity between Paul’s teachings and theQumran doctrine of submission, even if precise parallels have not yet beenfound in the Scrolls. Note, for example, Paul’s statement that “if your enemiesare hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for bydoing this you will heap burning coals on their heads” (Rom. 12:20). AsKrister Stendahl has noted, this statement — and its surprising employmentof Proverbs 25:21-22 — is closer to the teachings of Qumran than to Jesus’doctrine of love. Its meaning within the broader context of Romans is clearenough: do not repay evil with evil, rather “with goodness I shall pursueman.” In so doing, you “heap burning coals” on the head of your enemy sincevindictive behavior would reduce the severity of God’s vengeance against thesinner. Though the Scrolls contain no explicit statement to this effect, theoverall view fits well with the Qumran doctrine of apparent submission.

Note furthermore Paul’s argument in favor of a conciliatory approachtoward the enemies of the church: “never avenge yourselves, but leave roomfor the wrath of God” (Rom. 12:19). This view is very similar to the qualifiedpacifism of the Scrolls, which is associated with an expectation of imminentvengeance. That is, the demand for “everlasting hatred of the men of the pitin clandestine spirit” is linked with one being “enthusiastic for the decree andfor its time, for the day of revenge” (1QS 9.21-23). The Christian view, basedon Jesus’ teachings of love, prevents Paul from suggesting one is commandedto hate. He can, however, justify the prohibition against human vengeance asallowing a freer path for divine wrath, as God states, “Vengeance is mine, Iwill repay.” The theological similarity to the Scrolls is, then, apparent, and soit comes as no surprise that Paul goes on to argue that there is no authoritysave God’s, the very position Josephus attributes to the Essenes. We have sincelearned from the Scrolls that this position is anchored in the Essene doctrineof predestination, the basis for the Essene belief that one should leave to themen of the pit “goods and handmade items like a servant to his master andlike one oppressed before someone domineering him” (1QS 9.22). As noted,Paul makes similar arguments. True, Paul also argues that the authorities onlypunish the wicked — a view that is not attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls butrather a Christian innovation that is also found in 1 Peter (2:13-17). Despitethis difference, Paul argues that one ought to submit to the authorities notonly because of God’s wrath, but also because of “conscience” (Rom. 13:5), ap-

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parently alluding to his earlier statement: “leave room for the wrath of God;for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’” (Rom. 12:19).

In short, it appears that Paul’s doctrine of the church’s need to submitto authority is a continuation of his earlier statements concerning submissionto enemies. Both these views have parallels in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where theyform part of the same ideology. The question arises, then, whether the pas-sage from Romans is based on an Essene source that reached Paul indirectly,through his Christian teachers. One way to approach this hypothesis isthrough an examination of the passages in which Paul deals with topics otherthan the doctrine of submission. And indeed, these are replete with distinctlyEssene ideas. Thus Paul’s statement: “hate what is evil; hold fast to what isgood” (Rom. 12:9), has a precise parallel in the Manual of Discipline: “keeponeself at a distance from all evil . . . become attached to all good works” (1QS1.5). Paul also urges his audience to “contribute to the needs of the saints; ex-tend hospitality to strangers” (Rom. 12:13), while the concern for communalneeds caused the Essenes to share their wealth and exhibit their well-knownhospitality. The practical and ideological solidarity of the Essenes is furtherechoed in Paul’s exhortation to “live in harmony with one another” (Rom.12:16).

This passage in Romans, then, contains instructions for behavior withinthe community, framed within a broader discussion of the proper relation-ship between the community and the surrounding world. Both aspects ofPaul’s teachings have clear parallels in the Essene literature from Qumran.The question arises, then, whether Paul indirectly came upon an Essenesource that addressed both the proper relationship between the Essenes andthe sons of darkness who rule the world, and allusions to the love//adorationthat is proper for the Instructor within the community. Interestingly, thiscombination is found in the Rule of Discipline, which includes “the regula-tions for the Instructor by which he shall walk with every living being” (1QS9.12-21) and a concluding benediction (1QS 10.17-21, 26–11.2). Thus, the au-thor of 1QS joins internal and external behavior by speaking of the need tohave “compassionate love with the oppressed and to strengthen the hands ofthe dismayed, to teach understanding to those of stray spirit and to instructin the teaching those who complain, to reply with meekness to the haughty ofspirit, and with a broken spirit to the men of the bending (of the law), thosewho point the finger and speak evil, and are keen on riches” (1QS 10.26-11.2).It is possible, then, that Paul had in his possession another Essene source thatpromoted love toward members of the community and submission towardthe outside world. Note also that Roman 12:8-13:7 contains no distinctlyChristian elements. That said, even if our hypothesis is correct there is no

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question that Paul had no direct knowledge of this source. For Paul, like 1 Pe-ter, argues that the authorities only punish the wicked, a view that cannot beof Essene origin.

To conclude: Paul’s teachings concerning the need to submit to the au-thorities are linked to his earlier discussion of proper behavior toward one’senemies. The passage as a whole contains many Essene concepts, albeit in asubdued or muted form — e.g., Paul cannot demand of his brethren to se-cretly hate their enemies. Still, the similarity to the Qumran ideology ismarked. So much so that it is possible that Paul’s teachings are drawn from anEssene source. The comparison between Romans and the Manual of Disci-pline sheds light on the conceptual background of Paul’s teachings. Unfortu-nately, we are unable to resolve the thorny historical question of how theseteachings entered the early church in the first place and became so wide-spread that Paul could include them in his writings to the distant church inRome. Despite this failure, we were able to examine the fascinating evolutionof sectarian Jewish ideas into Christian thought, where they would exercise adramatic influence on the history of the Christian world.

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21. The Isaiah Pesher and the Notion ofTwelve Apostles in the Early Church

I

An important source for the study of the early church is the Qumran text thatcontains the pesher interpretation to Isaiah 54:11-12. The text, 4QpIsad

(= 4Q164), was first published by Allegro,1 and has been discussed by Yadin,2but its surprising ramifications for intellectual origins of the Christian insti-tute of twelve apostles have yet to be recognized. Here are the verses from Isa-iah, followed by the Qumran passage, with those of Yadin’s emendations thatshould be considered certain.

“O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, I am about to set yourstones in eye-paint, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will makeyour pinnacles of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your wall of pre-cious stones” (Isa. 54:11-12).

[“I am about to set your stones in eye-paint”]1. [Its interpretation is that he will make] all Israel like eye-paint

around the eye. “And lay your foundations with sapphires.” [Itsinterpretation:]

2. They founded the council of the Community, [the] priests and thepeo[ple . . .]

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1. J. M. Allegro, “More Isaiah Commentaries from Qumran’s Fourth Cave,” JBL 77 (1958),215-221.

2. Y. Yadin, “The Newly Published Pesharim of Isaiah,” IEJ 9 (1959), 39-42.

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3. the assembly of his elect, like a sapphire stone in the midst ofstones. [“I will make]

4. your pinnacles [of rubies].” Its interpretation concerns the twelve[. . .]

5. illuminate with the judgment of the Urim and the Thummim [. . .]6. any from among them missing, like the sun in all its light. “And

a[ll] your wall of precious stones.”7. Its interpretation concerns the chiefs of the tribes of Israel [. . .]

Yadin rightly argues that the Pesher assumes that the eschatological Jerusalemdescribed by Isaiah symbolizes God’s elect, that is, the Qumran communityitself. This interpretation is virtually certain. The building imagery is one ofthe most common symbols in the Qumran literature: the Community fre-quently likens itself to a building, to the temple, or to a city,3 a tendency thatfits well with the interpretation of Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Jerusalem inthe end of days as referring to the Community itself. Not all of the text sur-vived and, as a result, some of the details of the Qumran interpretation arenot clear. Nonetheless, it is evident that the Qumran author understood thedifferent stones of Isaiah’s Jerusalem as symbols for the institution or institu-tions of the Community, either in the present or the future. These were madeup of twelve individuals, a number that is cited explicitly in line 4 and againalluded to in line 5, which mentions the Urim and the Thummim, the twelveprecious stones on the priestly breastplate, each bearing the name of one ofthe tribes (Exod. 28:17-21). This imagery is undoubtedly linked to the third al-lusion to the number twelve (lines 6-7), where the precious stones in Isaiah’s“I will make . . . all your wall of precious stones” are interpreted as a referenceto “the chiefs of the tribes of Israel.”

Thus, while Isaiah does not mention the number twelve in the relevantverses, the Qumran author connects the Jerusalem stones in the prophet’s es-chatological vision with the twelve stones of the priestly breastplate. Thesource for this interpretation is found in another prophecy concerning Jeru-salem in the end of days, Ezekiel’s, which our author employed as a bridge be-tween Isaiah and the Urim and Thummim. For Ezekiel speaks of twelve gatesin the eschatological Jerusalem, “the gates of the city being named after thetribes of Israel” (Ezek. 48:31) — just like the stones of the breastplate. TheQumran author seems to have located the connection between the two pro-phetic visions — Isaiah’s and Ezekiel’s — and from them to the stones of the

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3. See O. Betz, “Felsenmann und Felsengemeinde,” ZNW 48 (1957), 49-77; Flusser, “TheDead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” 229-236; B. Gärtner, The Temple and the Commu-nity in Qumran and the New Testament (Cambridge, 1965).

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breastplate, in Isaiah 54:12: “I will make . . . your gates of jewels.” Though theinterpretation of this phrase is not attested, it appears the author identifiesEzekiel’s twelve gates bearing the names of the tribes, with the gates Isaiahclaims will be made of jewels — and thus the connection with the stones ofthe breastplate. Since this part of Isaiah’s prophecy plays a crucial role in theoverall interpretation, and since the Qumran interpreters interpreted the bib-lical verses in their entirety, it stands to reason that the interpretation of “yourgates of jewels” was located in a part of the scroll that is no longer extant. Theonly likely place where such matters could be alluded to comes at the end ofline 4, which opens with the citation of “I will make your pinnacles of rubies,”while line 6 interprets the end of the biblical verse, “and all your wall of pre-cious stones.” In light of this, I suggest, the passage should be reconstructed asfollows: “[‘I will make] your pinnacles [of rubies].’ Its interpretation concernsthe twelve [jewels that] illuminate with the judgment of the Urim and theThummim,” etc. The advantage of this reconstruction is that it assumes that,like all other pesher interpretations, our passage does not skip over any of theinterpreted verses.

The interpretive approach of the passage is clear enough, at least inbroad strokes. It is much more difficult to determine what institution or in-stitutions the author has in mind when he speaks of “the twelve,” invokes thestones of the breastplate, and links Isaiah’s “gates of jewels” with the “chiefs ofthe tribes of Israel.” The other Dead Sea Scrolls suggest two possible answers,since they know of two groups that consist of twelve members. The first ismentioned in the Manual of Discipline: “In the Community council (thereshall be) twelve men and three priests, perfect in everything that has been re-vealed from all the law” (1QS 8.1-2).4 Interestingly, we find that both the Man-ual of Discipline and Pesher Isaiah employ similar terminology: both speak of“the Community council” (the pesher reads: “they founded the council of theCommunity”), of priests, and of twelve-person institutions. Moreover, im-mediately after mentioning the twelve people, the Manual of Discipline em-ploys building imagery very similar to that found in the pesher. Thus we findthe Community likened to “a holy house for Israel and the foundation of theholy of holies for Aaron” (1QS 8.5-6), and similarly to “the tested rampart, theprecious cornerstone whose foundations do not shake or tremble from theirplace” (1QS 8.7-8). If we assume that the twelve people of the Manual of Dis-cipline are the institution referred to in Pesher Isaiah, we may propose the fol-lowing reconstruction of lines 1-5:

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4. On this verse and the difficulties it entails see P. Wernberg-Møller, The Manual of Dis-cipline (Leiden, 1957), 122-123.

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1. [Its interpretation is that he will make] all Israel like eye-paintaround the eye. “And lay your foundations with sapphires.” [Itsinterpretation:]

2. They founded the council of the Community, [the] priests and thepeo[ple within]


4. your pinnacles [of rubies].” Its interpretation concerns the twelve[jewels that]

5. illuminate with the judgment of the Urim and the Thummim.

According to this proposed reconstruction, eschatological Jerusalem is theQumran community, “the council of the Community” or “the assembly of hiselect”; the prophetic phrase “I am about to . . . lay your foundations5 in sap-phires” means that the priests and the people — i.e., the “twelve men andthree priests” that the Manual of Discipline characterizes as “the council ofthe Community” — are “like a sapphire stone in the midst of stones,” that is,the foundation upon which the rest of the Qumran community rests. Accord-ing to my reconstruction, these twelve people are alluded to by Isaiah’s “I willmake your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your wall of pre-cious stones,” all analogues to the twelve stones of the priestly breastplate thatbear the names of the tribes. The institution of the twelve in the Manual ofDiscipline corresponds, then, to the “chiefs of the tribes of Israel.”

However, it is clear that this reconstruction is hypothetical and cannotbe definitively proven. For example, the Qumran writings do not contain thephrase “the priests and the people,” and the suggestion that the “people” re-fers to the twelve individuals in the council of the Community is doubtful.Finally, most scholars suggest that the Manual of Discipline’s “twelve menand three priests” refers to a group of fifteen, rather than twelve of whomthree are priests — and this view seems persuasive. Pesher Isaiah three timesalludes to an institution (or to institutions) that contain only twelve.

Another major difficulty in identifying the institution of the twelve inPesher Isaiah with the twelve mentioned in the Manual of Discipline has todo with the fact that these twelve individuals are not mentioned anywhereelse in the Qumran literature. Does this mean that the institution in question

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5. The Septuagint, along with the first Isaiah Scroll in Qumran, reads “and your founda-tions” (Fyowdwsyw) rather than “I am about to . . . lay your foundations” (Fyodsyw). Though hecites the verse according to the Masoretic text, the interpretation may be informed by the alter-nate reading as he glosses the phrase: “[Its interpretation:] They founded the council of theCommunity.”

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played a minor role in the Qumran community? If we could establish thatPesher Isaiah is alluding to this group, its importance would rise dramatically.But even the Manual of Discipline does not fully clarify the role and functionof the twelve. A number of scholars believe that the twelve laymen and threepriests constitute some sort of internal committee within the broader com-munity,6 but it is also possible that the Manual of Discipline is speaking of the“council of the Community” itself, establishing a minimum quorum oftwelve lay members and three priests.7 Despite these difficulties, it is possiblethat Pesher Isaiah refers to the twelve individuals from the Manual of Disci-pline, especially in light of the surprising parallels (discussed more fully be-low) with the twelve apostles. The apostles, after all, started out as Jesus’ innercircle, but later — following his death — became the executive committeethat oversaw the activities of the Jerusalem church.

It should be noted that there is another Qumran institution that con-sists of twelve individuals, and the Pesher may be referring to it. In the WarScroll we find: “They shall arrange the chiefs of the priests behind the HighPriest and his second (in rank), twelve chiefs to serve in perpetuity beforeGod” (1QM 2.1-2), and Yadin holds that this is the institution alluded to inPesher Isaiah.8 As a result, he reconstructs the passage as follows:

[“I am about to set your stones in eye-paint”]1. [Its interpretation is that he will make] all Israel like eye-paint

around the eye. “And lay your foundations with sapphires.” [Itsinterpretation:]

2. They founded the council of the Community, [among the] priests:and the [council is]


4. your pinnacles [of rubies].” Its interpretation concerns the twelve[priests that?]

5. illuminate with the judgment of the Urim and the Thummim [andno stones of]

6. any from among them missing, like the sun in all its light. “Anda[ll] your wall of precious stones.”

7. Its interpretation concerns the chiefs of the tribes of Israel [. . .]

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6. See, among others, J. T. Milik, Dix ans de découvertes dans le desert de Juda (Paris, 1957),64; F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran (New York, 1961), 231-232.

7. This is Licht’s view in Megillat ha-Serachim, 167-168.8. Yadin, “The Newly Published Pesharim of Isaiah,” n. 2. In what follows I make use of

this article as well as personal communications with Prof. Yadin.

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According to this reconstruction, the sapphires of Isaiah 54:11 are interpretedas the priests that are the foundations of the Community. It is unclearwhether these priests, mentioned in line 2, are the same as the twelve priestsYadin provides in line 4. Be all that as it may, it is evident that the twelvepriests in question cannot be identical with the twelve chiefs of the tribes ofIsrael adduced in line 7 as a midrashic gloss of Isaiah’s “all your wall of pre-cious stones.” The advantage of Yadin’s reconstruction lies in the fact that allof the prophet’s building symbols need not be construed as a reference to asingle institution. The advantage of my reconstruction — to which we will re-turn presently — is that the symbols in question do in fact refer to one insti-tution in the New Testament: the institution of the twelve apostles.

Yadin’s decision to supply the word “priests” at the end of line 4 is based,to be sure, on the overall importance of the priesthood in the Qumran litera-ture, as well as the explicit reference to priests in line 2. No less important,however, are the twelve priests in the War Scroll, and the fact that there aresome parallels in other scrolls to the end of our lines 5-6 — all of which referto priests. Yadin rightly notes that the phrase “illuminate with the judgmentof the Urim and the Thummim” in line 5 is similar to the words of anotherscroll, where we read: “And about Levi he says ‘Give to Levi your Thummimand your Urim’ (Deut. 33:8)” (4Q175 [= 4QTestimonia] 14). Similarly with thephrase “the sun in all its light,” which has near parallels in the Qumran scrollsdealing with the priesthood and in cognate literature.9

According to Yadin’s reconstruction, Pesher Isaiah refers to two distinctinstitutions, each of which consists of twelve individuals: the twelve priests ofline 4, and the twelve chiefs of the tribes of Israel at line 7. And indeed we findthese two institutions mentioned side by side in the War Scroll.10 Alongsidethem this text also mentions “the chiefs of the Levites to serve always, twelve,one per tribe” (1QM 2.2-3). The Qumran eschatology posits, then, a set of in-dividuals charged with each of the tribes: a priest, a member of the Levitetribe, and the tribe’s chief. This tribal structure has no parallel in the texts de-scribing the non-eschatological Qumran community, which knows the num-ber twelve only in the context of the individuals in the council of the Com-munity. It is true that Pesher Isaiah interprets the words of the prophet asthough they are aimed at the end of days, but the Pesher itself refers to thefact that “they founded the council of the Community” in past tense, so thatat least this event refers to the present, non-eschatological reality. Further-

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9. Compare the Testament of Levi 4.3, and the priestly blessing in 1QSb (=1Q28b). SeeD. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik, Qumran Cave I (Oxford, 1955), 125ff.

10. Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, 262-263.

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more, it should be emphasized that the twelve priests — just like the twelveindividuals in the Manual of Discipline — are mentioned but once in theScrolls published thus far, so it is difficult to ascertain the precise organiza-tional context of the fragmentary pesher.11

II

It is a pity that we cannot determine the precise nature of the institution al-luded to in Pesher Isaiah. Were this text preserved in its entirety, it wouldprobably provide us with clear information regarding the origins of the earlyChristian institution of the twelve apostles. For we find striking parallels be-tween the New Testament and the pre-Christian Qumran writings with re-gard to the religious and conceptual underpinnings of the twelve apostles, theinner circle of Jesus. Consider Revelation 21:12-14 which, like Pesher Isaiah,describes eschatological Jerusalem. According to John of Patmos,

It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels,and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israel-ites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south threegates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelvefoundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles ofthe Lamb.

It is evident that the author bases himself first and foremost on Ezekiel 48:31-34, interpreting “the gates of the city being named after the tribes of Israel”(Ezek. 48:31) as if the names of the tribes are inscribed on each of the twelvegates. Revelation then goes on to characterize the gates as follows: “And thetwelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the streetof the city is pure gold, transparent as glass” (Rev. 21:21). Scholars have rightlyrecognized that The Apocalypse of John here echoes the words of Isaiah 54:12.The similarity to this verse, or, more precisely, to the Qumran Pesher’s inter-pretation of this verse, becomes more pronounced once we consider John ofPatmos’ description of the twelve foundation stones of eschatological Jerusa-lem. Isaiah says only “I am about to lay your foundations (or: your founda-tions are)12 with sapphires,” while Revelation provides a more detailed ac-count, suggesting that the city has twelve foundations, which bear the names

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11. It is further worth noting that Yadin’s reconstruction renders lines 2-3 somewhat awk-ward stylistically.


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of the twelve apostles of the lamb (21:14). These foundations symbolically in-dicate that the Christian community is founded upon the twelve apostles,corresponding to the twelve tribes of Israel, whose names are engraved on thetwelve gates. As noted, our Pesher passage refers to the number twelve threetimes (lines 4, 5, and 7). In the third of these, Isaiah’s “precious stones” are in-terpreted as “the chiefs of the tribes of Israel,” corresponding to the names ofthe tribes of Israel written (according to Revelation) on the twelve gates of Je-rusalem. The twelve of line 4 “illuminate with the judgment of the Urim andthe Thummim,” just as The Apocalypse of John states that “the foundationsof the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel” and then goes on to list,in a different order, the twelve precious stones of the priestly breastplate (Rev.21:19-20)! The similarity between Pesher Isaiah and Revelation 21 is threefold:both interpret eschatological Jerusalem and its physical components as sym-bols of their respective communities; both juxtapose ideas drawn from thesame prima facie unrelated biblical sources (Isaiah 54:11-12, Ezekiel 48:31-34,and Exodus 28:17-21); and both employ the same unusual symbols.

It is true that stone symbolism was employed throughout the Jewishworld,13 but taken together, the significant parallels between Pesher Isaiahand The Apocalypse of John suggest a substantive and theological link be-tween the texts. We have already noted that the Qumran community typicallyunderstands itself in terms of a structure — the Temple or a house. We mayassume, then, that the images of eschatological Jerusalem in The Apocalypseof John — so close to the imagery to Pesher Isaiah — derive from theQumran circles. Particularly, in light of the fact that we have proven else-where that another similar New Testament image (1 Peter 2:5-6) has a genuineliterary connection to the Qumran writings.14 Still, the question remainswhether the literary similarity is the result of a later, secondary influence ex-ercised near the time the Book of Revelation was composed, under Domitian,or perhaps the result of a Christian tradition influenced by Qumran at thevery beginning of Christianity. I believe the answer to this question lies in thefact that most of the points of contact relate to issues that involve the twelve

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13. See, e.g., Midrash Yelamdenu in Yalkut Shim‘oni to Numbers 23:9: “Since the HolyOne Blessed Be He foresaw that Abraham was going to come into being, he said, Behold, I havefound a rock (artp) on which to build, upon which to establish the world. Thus he calledAbraham ‘rock,’ as it is written: ‘Look to the rock from which you were hewn’ (Isa. 51:1; andcompare the words of Jesus to Peter in Matt. 16:18). See also the midrashic literature to Genesis49:24 (“by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel”); Genesis 28:18 (“he took the stone thathad been under his head”); Psalm 118:22 (“the stone that the builders rejected”). See also below,n. 16.

14. See D. Flusser, “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity.”

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apostles. It will be necessary to examine the evidence of the other books ofthe New Testament in comparison both with Revelation and with theQumran sources, thus establishing that the similarity exists in all strata of theearly Christian texts, from Jesus to the composition of The Apocalypse ofJohn. Once this has been done, we will see that in establishing the institutionof the twelve apostles, Jesus was influenced by the Qumran community, andthat The Apocalypse of John here preserves an apostolic tradition that datesback to the beginning of Christianity. We will begin our survey with the latersources, moving backward toward the earlier, in other words, from Revelationto Jesus himself.

III

The Book of Revelation is not the only source that identifies the apostles asthe foundation of the early church. In Ephesians we find: “So then you are nolonger strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also mem-bers of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles andprophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the wholestructure is joined together and grown into a holy temple in the Lord; inwhom you also are built together in the spirit into a dwelling place for God”(Eph. 2:19-22).15 Ephesians here combines the symbolism of the city with thesymbolism of the Temple, a tendency attested both in the Scrolls and else-where in the New Testament. As in Revelation, the community’s structurerests on the apostles, and it appears the same traditions underlie Ephesiansand Revelation. Also of note is Paul’s description of his visit to the JerusalemChurch where he meets “James and Cephas and John, who were acknowl-edged pillars” (Gal. 2:9). This terminology is no doubt taken from the Jerusa-lem Church of the day, as it is known to Clement of Rome at the end of the

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15. See on this matter Hebrews 11:13-15; 13:14; Philippians 3:20. Another relevant source isHebrews 12:21-25, which speaks of the church as “the city of the Living God, the heavenly Jerusa-lem.” The Greek of verse 23 is particularly important: pneÖmasi (pneÖmati) dika¾wnteteleiwmŸnwn. It further appears to be a link between the images in Pesher Isaiah and Revela-tion, on the one hand, and, on the other, Hebrews 11:10, where we read that Abraham “lookedforward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” A number of mid-rashim (see above, n. 13) liken the sons of Jacob to twelve stones. As noted, Revelation 21:12 as-serts that the gates of eschatological Jerusalem will bear the names of the twelve tribes, andPesher Isaiah identifies the precious stones of the future Jerusalem with “the chiefs of the tribesof Israel.” It is possible, then, that Hebrews’ comments that Abraham “looked forward to the citythat has foundations” are influenced by an unknown interpretation that identified the twelvesons of Jacob with the foundation stones of eschatological Jerusalem.

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first century, as we see from his Epistle to the Corinthians, which states:“Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars [of theChurch] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes theillustrious apostles” (5:2-5); Peter and Paul are mentioned shortly after. To besure, the pillar served as a symbol for national leaders in broader Jewish cir-cles as well,16 but as a designation of the head of the Jerusalem Church it isundoubtedly tied to the highly developed building symbolism employed bothby the church and the Qumran community. Another relevant source comesfrom Revelation 3:12: “If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple ofmy God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God,and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes downfrom my God out of heaven, and my own new name.” In this verse, the pillarimage is tied to the Temple and to eschatological Jerusalem, the symbol of thecommunity in both Pesher Isaiah and in Revelation 21. Just as Revelation 21:14has the names of the apostles on the twelve foundation stones of the city, herewe find the symbolic pillar adorned with names. The pillar, then, is part ofRevelation’s foundation stone symbolism, and it stands to reason that the title‘pillars’ was not a mere honorific the Jerusalem Church gave its three leaders,but rather part of a broader image of the building imagery — with its variousarchitectonic components — used for the church and its institutions.

It appears, then, that the view of the twelve foundations, i.e. the twelveapostles, which is explicit in Revelation 21 and alluded to in Ephesians 2:20,was part of the Jerusalem Church’s ideology from the outset. The question ofthe ultimate origin of this idea, however, remains open. One possibility is thatit developed within the Jerusalem Church under the influence of the Qumrancommunity, for we have seen that very similar ideas appear in Pesher Isaiah.Another possibility is that Jesus himself established the twelve apostles, paral-leling the similar Qumran institution, thus allowing the originally Dead Seasymbolism to be preserved in the early Christian community.

We begin our analysis with a logion preserved in Matthew, where Jesusaddresses Peter, saying: “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I willbuild my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matt.16:18). A number of scholars have noted the similarity between this statementand ones like it in the Dead Sea Scrolls.17 The closest parallel is Hodayot 14.26-36, which addressed God as follows: “for you place the foundation upon rock,and beams to the correct size, and a true plumb line to stretch out, tested

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16. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai is called “the right pillar” by his disciples in b. Berakhot29b, and Abraham is referred to as “the pillar of the world” in Exodus Rabba 2.13.

17. See Betz, “Felsenmann und Felsengemeinde.”

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stones to build a fortress which will not shake. All who enter there will notstagger, for a foreigner will not penetrate it; its gates are armored doors whichdo not permit entry, with unbreakable strong bars.” During the eschatologicalwars against evil the hero “will break open the encirclement . . . into an endlessbroad place. (He will open) the everlasting gates [= the gates of Hell] to takeout weapons of war”; however, the members of the Community will remain intheir fortress and he will protect them even in this hour of ultimate distress.

The similarity between Jesus’ words to Peter and Hodayot 14 is markedand startling. The key difference is, of course, the identity of the rock uponwhich the community is founded: in the Qumran text it is God, while Jesusassigns this role to Peter, much as the midrashic text states that God foundedhis work on a rock, i.e., Abraham.18 The apostle Peter is, then, the rock uponwhich the church is established, much as The Apocalypse of John and Ephe-sians identify the twelve apostles with the foundation stones of the city ofGod, that is, the church. If we could establish with certainty that Matthew16:18 is one of Jesus’ authentic sayings, we could cite it as evidence that Jesusdescribed at least one of the apostles in the imagery of a church founded onapostles. It seems, however, that the saying — at least in the form preserved byMatthew — is not authentic, and may have been reworked so as to emphasizePeter’s importance in the post-Jesus Jerusalem Church.19 Indeed, there is noindication in the authentic Jesus sayings that he intended to establish an inde-pendent church. The Greek word translated as “church” in the NRSV appearsonly once more in the synoptic gospels, again in a Matthew saying (18:17) thatis rightly considered inauthentic. Nonetheless, it is significant that the entirepassage (Matthew 16:17-19) is one of the most “Hebrew” in the gospels interms of its language and its expressions. The Hebrew original was undoubt-edly close to the rabbinic panegyrics, which employ an elevated, nearly poeticlanguage. The first sentence certainly appears authentic.20 It is possible, then,

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18. See above, n. 13.19. See the discussion of O. Cullmann, Petrus (Zürich, 1952), 176-238.20. Jesus’ words in Matthew 16:17 — “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and

blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” — are similar, on the one hand, tothe rabbinic panegyrics that open with the word “blessed” (see also Luke 11:27), and, on theother, to the hymn of praise in Matthew 11:25-30 (Luke 10:21-22). There Jesus says: “I thank you,Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and theintelligent and have revealed them to infants. . . . All things have been handed over to me by myFather, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to re-veal him. . . .” The lyric and conceptual similarity between Jesus’ hymn and the Hodayot scrollfrom Qumran suggests these may be the authentic words of Jesus. See D. Flusser, “The Dead SeaSect and Its Worldview.” The conceptual similarity between Jesus’ hymn and Matthew 16:17 may,in turn, strengthen the idea that the praise of Peter was in fact spoken by Jesus.

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that Jesus’ praise of Peter is the source of the passage as a whole, though itspresent form is the result of later reworking that focused on the verse in ques-tion (Matthew 16:18).21 Jesus’ description of Peter as the rock upon which thechurch will be founded is not, then, definitive proof that Jesus held that hiscommunity would be based on twelve apostles. For in any case, the statementcan be explicated in light of the church-building analogy, where the buildingincludes a foundation and rocks, the same imagery that underlies the escha-tological vision of Jerusalem in Revelation and in Pesher Isaiah.

Our question, then, is whether there is another instance in which Jesusemploys the building imagery. During his final visit to Jerusalem, Jesus fa-mously prophesied that the Temple would be destroyed and the corrupt na-tional leadership replaced by better heirs (Mark 12:1-12; Matthew 21:33-46;Luke 20:9-19). Drawing on Isaiah 5, Jesus likens Israel to a vineyard and tellsof the criminal tenants whom the owner will eventually destroy, leaving thevineyard to new tenants. Here Jesus adds: “Have you never read in the scrip-tures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?”(Matthew 21:42; Mark 12:10; Luke 20:17). To whom is Jesus alluding when hecites Psalm 118:22? In Acts (4:11) and 1 Peter (2:7),22 this verse is interpreted asa reference to Jesus. As a result we find a widespread belief that Jesus alludedto himself as the rejected stone that would become the cornerstone. Clearly,the parable about the tenants who kill the only son of the vineyard’s ownerprefigures Jesus’ own expected death at the hands of the corrupt nationalleadership. However, it is not clear that Jesus cited Psalm 118 to suggest that hewas going to be rejected — that is, tried and executed — but after his deathwould become a cornerstone of a great movement or of all Israel. Ephesians2:20 certainly identifies Jesus as the cornerstone of the symbolic buildingfounded on the priests and the apostles, a view that may have been influencedby a Christological interpretation of the Psalm verse in question. The parableof the vineyard, however, points to another possibility. Jesus concludes theparable with the assertion that the owner of the vineyard “will put thosewretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants,” thenturning to his audience asks if they have not read in Scriptures that “Thestone that the builders rejected has become a cornerstone.” It appears, then,

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21. Might the reworking not be later than is commonly thought? Might it not have oc-curred only once the Hebrew logion was translated into Greek? It should be noted that at themost critical juncture the Greek word order breaks with the literal translation from the Hebrew:o¼kodom©sw mou tªn ›kklhs¾an instead of tªn ›kklhs¾an mou!

22. 1 Peter joins the symbolism of the building — taken from the Qumran worldview(see my “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity”) — with the interpretation of theone stone as a symbol of Jesus.

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that the stone stands for those who, according to Jesus, will receive the vine-yard (Israel) after the destruction of the bad tenants. The rejected stone willbecome the cornerstone of the House of Israel. Those who are rejected are thepoor, the meek, the poor in spirit and the persecuted, whom Jesus promisesthe Kingdom of Heaven. That is, those that are last will become first. This in-terpretation fits not only the context of the parable, but also Jesus’ overall ap-proach, for he found similar views — though based in a more radical socialideology — within the Scrolls. It will come as no surprise if it can eventuallybe shown that the Qumran community, which frequently employed buildingsymbolism to describe themselves, interpreted “the stone that the builders re-jected has become a cornerstone” as referring to themselves. A similar viewappears in the parable of the trees in Hodayot 16.8-15: At the present time, thecommunity is “not considered, nor its sealed mystery known” but in futuredays it will rise up to its highest apex. We are faced with two possible interpre-tations: my view, that Jesus cites “a stone that the builders rejected” as a signof the glorious future that awaits the poor and downtrodden, and the tradi-tional view that Jesus adduces the verse in reference to himself as a corner-stone. In either case, the citation of the verse demonstrates that Jesus too em-ployed building symbolism.23 Already Jesus’ teacher, John the Baptist,employed his own building symbolism: “Do not presume to say to yourselves,‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from thesestones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9; Luke 3:8).

We have traced the building symbolism from The Apocalypse of Johnto the words of John the Baptist, concluding that this imagery was apparentlynot foreign to Jesus. We further established that the idea that the twelve apos-tles are the foundation stones of the church was well known among the earlyfollowers of Jesus, dating at the latest to the years immediately following hisdeath. If Jesus’ saying that Peter is the rock upon which the church is to bebuilt is authentic, or at least contains an authentic kernel, then Jesus em-ployed a nearly identical motif to describe the most important of his apostles.The material discussed thus far suggests that the similarity between the es-chatological Jerusalem visions of Revelation and Pesher Isaiah (by no meanslimited to the symbolism of the twelve foundation stones) is not the result ofa secondary influence exerted by the Qumran community on the Jerusalemchurch. It is far more likely that Jesus established the institution of the twelveapostles, in part due to the influence of Qumran ideology and institutions.Significant support for this view comes from another of Jesus’ sayings, a say-

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23. There are some scholars who argue that the Psalms citation is a late addition, but thisview is unpersuasive, especially in light of the interpretation proposed here.

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ing upon which Pesher Isaiah casts new light. Jesus promises his twelve apos-tles that in the end of days, “when the Son of Man is seated on the throne ofhis glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judgingthe twelve tribes of Israel” (Matt. 19:28; Luke 22:30).24 Most scholars considerthis an authentic saying of Jesus, since the promise that the twelve apostleswill judge the twelve tribes in the end of days highlights the Jewish nationalelement in Jesus’ religious worldview.25 This promise is usually understood asa reference to the apostles ruling over the tribes, that is, becoming the chiefsof the tribes of Israel. The appearance of the phrase “the chiefs of the tribes ofIsrael” in Pesher Isaiah, a text that contains numerous motifs that appear inrelation to the institution of the twelve apostles, only strengthens this inter-pretation. That said, if we examine Jesus’ saying as it appears in Matthew —and this seems to be the more original form26 — we find that the twelve apos-

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24. See R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Traditionen (Göttingen, 1957), 171n. 4. Following the lead of earlier scholars, Bultmann rightly links Luke 22:30 with Revelation3:20-21. According to Luke, Jesus promises the twelve apostles that they will eat and drink at histable, and sit on thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. In Revelation, these motifs are re-worked into a personal promise to the believer, who will overcome the present hardships: “I willcome in to you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a placewith me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne”(Rev. 3:20-21). A comparison of the logion in the gospels and in Revelation indicates that: i. Thereference to the eschatological feast, absent in Matthew, is authentic; ii. Matthew’s statementabout the twelve sitting with the Son of Man on his throne, absent in Luke, is also authentic. Wecan further compare Revelation 3:20-21 with the previous verse from Revelation (3:12), whichsimilarly speaks of conquest. There too we witness that a church tradition concerning the com-munal institutions has been reworked into a promise made to the individual believer. He is, asthe verse states, “like a pillar” and thus able to withstand the present tribulations (and seeGalatians 2:9 on the three pillars of the church). These are the same motifs that we find in Reve-lation (21:14), that is, in the description of the twelve foundation stones of eschatological Jerusa-lem, stones that bear the names of the twelve apostles. Thus there is a link, based on an earlyChristian tradition, between the three Revelation passages: Revelation 3:20-21 (compare Jesus’words to the twelve apostles in Matthew 19:28 and Luke 22:30); Revelation 3:12 (compareGalatians 2:9 on the three pillars of the church); and Revelation 21:14 (compare Revelation 3:12,Ephesians 2:19-22, and Matthew 16:18). In addition, we have already pointed out the similaritybetween Revelation 21 and Pesher Isaiah with regard to their description of Jerusalem in the endof days. Here, then, is another argument favoring the view that Revelation reflects early tradi-tions dating back to the first Christian community. These traditions, that apparently originatein the teachings of Jesus himself, are linked to the pre-Christian ideology and institutions of theDead Sea community.

25. Bultmann (Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 170-171) believes that it origi-nates early in the Jerusalem church; see the literature he cites, as well as the 1958 Supplement tohis book, p. 24. Also relevant is G. Bornkamm, Jesus von Nazareth (Stuttgart, 1956), 138.

26. See Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 171.

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tles will sit on their thrones in judgment of the tribes while the Son of Man islikewise seated on his throne. Now, both the gospels and 1 Enoch clearly indi-cate that the Son of Man sits on his throne when judging mankind. It wouldappear, then, that Jesus is not only promising his apostles that in the end ofdays they will be the chiefs of the tribes of Israel, but that they will serve as thetribes’ judges in the final judgment.27 Where does Jesus come upon such anidea? Pesher Isaiah suggests that it was one of the core ideas of the institutionof the twelve. Revelation (21:12) states that the names of the twelve tribes ofIsrael are written on the twelve gates of eschatological Jerusalem, while thetwelve foundation stones of the cities bear the names of the twelve apostles(21:14). These foundation stones, moreover, are none other than the preciousstones of the priestly breastplate, the Urim and the Thummim (21:19-20). Theidentification of the breastplate stones with the stones of eschatological Jeru-salem is also attested in Pesher Isaiah: “Its interpretation concerns the twelve[. . .] illuminate with the judgment of the Urim and the Thummim.” Asnoted, we also find here mention of the “chiefs of the tribes of Israel.” If thetwelve chiefs are symbolized by the precious stones of the breastplate —which bear the names of each tribe and serve in rendering judgment — it fol-lows that there is a link between the chiefs and the function of judgment. Thesymbolism of The Apocalypse of John is fundamentally identical with that ofPesher Isaiah, and helps clarify why Jesus would assert that the twelve apostleswill judge the tribes of Israel in the end of days.

If we compare the two logia of Jesus with the words of Revelation and ofPesher Isaiah, we find that Jesus’ description is rather thin where the othersources are rich in details. The logion describing Peter as the rock upon whichthe church will be built belongs to the symbolism of the twelve foundationstones of the community, while the assertion that the twelve apostles willjudge the tribes of Israel is best understood in light of the identification of thetwelve foundation stones with the Urim and Thummim. Even if the sayingconcerning Peter has not been reached in its original form, it is nonethelessclear that the connection between the two sayings of Jesus and the symbolismof Revelation and Pesher Isaiah sheds light on the figure and teachings of Je-sus. It stands to reason that if the Qumran texts — and not only Revelation —contain a full-fledged ideology surrounding the institution of the twelve, the

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27. See Daniel 7:22; Wisdom of Solomon 3:8; 1 Corinthians 6:2 (and 4:8). On the idea thatthe righteous, or perhaps the national leaders, will participate in the final judgment seeBillerbeck, Kommentar, 4.1097, 1103-1104. The same idea appears in Pesher Habakkuk 5:4-5: “inthe hand of his chosen ones God will place the judgment over all the peoples; and by their re-proof all the evildoers of his people will be pronounced guilty.”

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roots of this institution lie in the pre-Christian Dead Sea community, whoseinfluence on the early church is well established.

IV

Most scholars today argue rightly that Jesus himself established the institu-tion of the twelve apostles.28 The most compelling proof for this view is thatfollowing the death of Jesus, when Judah Iscariot, who was one of the twelveapostles, betrayed his master and apparently died (Acts 1:15-26), anotherapostle was added to complete the number twelve.29 This suggests that al-ready with Jesus’ establishment of the institution the number of apostles wasset at twelve. The centrality of the number is further reflected in the fact thatthere is some variation in the names of apostles in different New Testamentlists,30 but they always number twelve.

The gospels preserve the echo of a tradition that at first Jesus selectedfive students, a tradition preserved in the Babylonian Talmud as well (San-hedrin 43a).31 As with the apostles, the number is uniformly fixed, thoughhere it is five, even with the names changed. It appears that the number is notrandom, as indicated by the rabbinic sources:32 “Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkaihad five disciples” (m. Avot 2.8); the number of disciples Rabbi Aqiva hadduring the years of persecution was similarly five;33 the Passover Haggadahlists five sages who were seated in Bene Berak; and the rabbinic sources fur-ther speak of a group of five sages.34 We find, then, that when Jesus selectedfive disciples he was following an approach he received from the world of thesages; in expanding the institution to twelve apostles he acted under the influ-ence of (or in competition with) the Essenes, as evidenced by the markedsimilarity in the ideologies of the twelve in the New Testament and PesherIsaiah.

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28. See the full and well-argued discussion of the issue in E. Meyer, Ursprung undAnfänge des Christentums (Stuttgart, 1924), 1.264-299.

29. See the discussion in K. H. Rengstorf, “Die Zuwahl des Matthias,” Studia Theologica 15(1961), 35-67.

30. See the chart in Meyer, Ursprung und Anfänge, 295.31. See the discussion in C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cam-

bridge, 1963), 302-306.32. My friend Shmuel Safrai called my attention to the institution of the five in rabbinic

literature.33. B. Yebamot 62a, and compare b. Sanhedrin 14a.34. T. Miqvaot 7.10, p. 660; t. Tohorot 9.14, pp. 670-671; p. Betzah 3.6.62a; b. Mo{ed Qatan

10a; and see also Tractate Soferim 1.7: “It happened that five elders. . . .”

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It remains to be seen whether Jesus was influenced by the Esseneworldview directly, or through the mediation of John the Baptist’s group,which was close to but not part of the Essenes. The latter possibility is quiteplausible. Not only did Jesus and John know each other personally and theirdisciples maintain ties, but though evidence concerning John the Baptist andhis followers is meager, it may suggest that Jesus established the institution ofthe twelve apostles under the influence of John the Baptist’s disciples. We sawabove that the ideology of the twelve is based on both the number itself andon the building imagery, so it is worth repeating that both these elements ap-pear in the words of John the Baptist: “Do not presume to say to yourselves,‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from thesestones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matt. 3:9; Luke 3:8). The Baptist —whose worldview was remarkable close to that of the Qumran community —here provides a colorful and original interpretation of the imagery of build-ing stones as a foundation for God’s elect community. As for the numbertwelve, Acts notes there were twelve disciples baptized in the baptism of re-pentance by John (19:1-7). Since John the Baptist employed the building im-agery and his disciples attributed some significance to the number twelve, itstands to reason that Jesus’ decision to establish twelve apostles was influ-enced by the Baptist and his circle, rather than by the Essenes, directly.

We noted at the outset of our study that it is difficult to determine theprecise nature and identity of the institution (or institutions) to which PesherIsaiah refers. Were we to solve that problem we would establish the identity ofthe Essene institution that served as the model (whether directly or indi-rectly) for the Christian institution of the twelve apostles. Pesher Isaiah mightthen shed light not only on the ideological background of the twelve apostles,but on the organizational function of this Essene institution, and perhaps onthe administrative role of the Christian apostleship. Unfortunately, we cannoteven identify the relevant institution in Pesher Isaiah — largely due to thepoor physical condition of the scroll. Yadin’s reconstruction of the text sug-gests we are dealing with three distinct institutions: the Qumran priesthoodas a whole (lines 2-3), the twelve priests mentioned in the War Scroll (lines 4-6) and the twelve chiefs of the tribes of Israel (line 7). If we accept this recon-struction and the ensuing conclusions, it follows that the Christian institu-tion of the twelve apostles emerged out of a merger of two eschatologicalQumran institutions, that is, the twelve priests and the twelve chiefs of thetribes of Israel. We may also assume that one of the ideas that the Dead Seacommunity associated with its priests was transferred to the apostles, namely,that they function as a foundation stone of sorts for the community as awhole. In other words, the twelve apostles took on the priestly ideology of

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Qumran — a plausible suggestion since the early church never assigned aparticular role to its priestly members. If so, there exists a correlation betweenthe institution and the ideology of the twelve apostles, on the one hand, andthe messianic belief expressed in Hebrews. For here too we find that the beliefin a messiah was transferred from Aaron to Jesus, who is traditionally seen ascoming from the house of David. In this manner, the Qumran belief in dualmessiahs, one priestly, the other lay, is transformed in Hebrews to the belief ina single messianic figure.35 The possibility exists, then, that the Christianapostleship is the single product of different Qumran institutions and differ-ent ideological organizations.

It should be recalled, however, that the symbolism of Pesher Isaiah —where the number twelve is stated explicitly once (line 4) and alluded to twicemore (lines 5 and 7) — is applied in the New Testament (and in The Apoca-lypse of John in particular) to a single institution, the apostleship. Perhaps,then, Pesher Isaiah too deals with a single Qumran institution, one made upof twelve individuals that served as a model for Jesus when he selected thetwelve apostles from among his disciples. It may also be true that this institu-tion is identical with the twelve individuals mentioned in 1QS 8.1, alongsidethe three priests. As noted, however, there is no way to definitively answer thisimportant question, as the surviving copy of Pesher Isaiah is badly damaged.

The chart on page 323 summarizes the main parallels between the NewTestament’s statements concerning the twelve apostles, and those of PesherIsaiah. As the chart demonstrates, the fullest parallels are between Pesher Isa-iah and Revelation, though the other parallels indicate the symbolism of thetwelve apostles was present in sources that predate the composition of theBook of Revelation. And while there are many scholars who doubt the au-thenticity of Jesus’ saying concerning Peter the rock, there are many otherswho rightly defend the authenticity of Jesus’ assertion that the apostles willjudge the tribes of Israel. Clearly, then, the sophisticated and sublime apostlesymbolism preserved in the Book of Revelation found its way from the Esseneworld into the Jesus community at the time he established the institution ofthe twelve apostles. That the symbolism of the twelve found in the writings ofa Jewish sect that predates the church then reappears in full force in the Apoc-alypse of John, indicates that the apostles themselves — who knew, of course,of the ideological import of the Essene institution Jesus used as a model —preserved this ideology, which no doubt colored their understanding of their

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35. See Y. Yadin, “The Scrolls and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” Scripta Hierosolymitana 4(1958), 41-53. I want to thank my friend Yigael Yadin for pointing out to me the interesting possi-bility of a link between the establishment of the twelve apostles and the theology of Hebrews.

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own lofty role both in the divine world and in the Jerusalem church. How-ever, the view of the apostles was occasionally frowned upon by their master,Jesus. Thus the gospels record that two of the apostles, James and John thesons of Zebedee (or perhaps their mother), ask Jesus to promise that in theend of days one will be seated to his right and the other to his left (Matthew20:20-28; Mark 10:35-45). But Jesus answers: “to sit at my right hand and atmy left, that is not mine to grant.” Jesus then goes on to say:36 “You know thatthe rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrantsover them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great amongyou must be your servant” (Matthew 20:25-26; Mark 10:41-45; Luke 22:24-27).

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Pesher Isaiah Revelation Other parallels

1. New Jerusalem 1 New Jerusalem(chapter 21).

The city (Ephesians2:19)

2. (a) “And lay your foun-dations with sapphires.”[Its interpretation:] Theyfounded the council ofthe Community, [the]priests and thepeo[ple. . .] the assemblyof his elect, like a sap-phire stone in the midstof stones. [“I will make]your pinnacles [of ru-bies].” Its interpretationconcerns the twelve

2. The twelve founda-tion stones, uponwhich are the names ofthe twelve apostles(21:14).

2. The apostles asfoundation (Ephesians2:20). The church isfounded on Peter, therock (Matthew 16:18)

3. . . . illuminate with thejudgment of the Urimand the Thummim [. . .]

3. The foundationsstones and the stonesof the Urim andThummim (21:19-20)

3-4 The twelve apostleswill judge the twelvetribes of Israel (Mat-thew 19:28; Luke 22:30)

4. “And a[ll] your wall ofprecious stones.” Its inter-pretation concerns thechiefs of the tribes ofIsrael

4. The names of thetwelve tribes upon thetwelve gates of the city(21:12).

36. This may be an independent logion.

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Jesus’ words to the sons of Zebedee echo his other statement (Matthew 19:28;Luke 22:29-30) that the twelve apostles will sit on twelve thrones and judgethe tribes of Israel.37 However, there is a tension between Jesus’ promise to theapostles and his words to the sons of Zebedee, since the latter suggest that it isnot Jesus but God who determines the seating at the eschatological event.38

According to one saying, then, Jesus accepted the originally Essene view thatthe “twelve” will “illuminate with the judgment of the Urim and theThummim” when they sit in judgment as the “chiefs of the tribes of Israel.”According to the second, however, this position is rejected. It seems to me thatthis contradiction does not mean we should reject either of the two state-ments.39 They are rather the product of the coincidentia oppositorum of hu-mility, on the one hand, and supreme self-awareness, on the other, that char-acterize the person and the gospel of Jesus. As for this specific issue, it isworth noting that the tension between the two sayings suggests that the loftyeschatological position vouchsafed the members of this institution was al-ready an integral part of the institution when Jesus established it in his owncommunity. This allowed him to assert the eschatological promises to theapostles at one point, and to criticize them at another.

Now that Pesher Isaiah has demonstrated that the sublime and complexideology the Apocalypse of John associates with the twelve apostles, alreadyexisted prior to Jesus’ establishment of the apostleship, we must try to deter-mine as best we can the meaning of the institution in the days of Jesus. Moreprecisely, we should ascertain to what extent Jesus accepted the Essene ideol-ogy of “the twelve” when he selected his apostles. For we have already seenthat Jesus did not always accede to demands his apostles made based on this

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37. Both logia refer to the apostles seated in power. As noted above, a comparison of Rev-elation 3:20-21 and Luke 22:29-30 indicates that the eschatological feast belongs to the originalstratum of the promise Jesus made to his apostles. The feast is similarly alluded to in Jesus’words to the sons of Zebedee: “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” (Mat-thew 20:22; Mark 10:38).

38. See V. Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark (London, 1957), 440. Taylor tries to re-solve the difficulty by arguing that the sons of Zebedee wish for the most important of thetwelve seats and this is the demand Jesus rejects. This is unconvincing since Jesus’ answer sug-gests that the very act of seating is not under his control but rather has been determined byGod.

39. There is also a contradiction between the demand of the sons of Zebedee (or theirmother) that they be seated to the right and left of Jesus and Jesus’ statement to the High Priestthat “from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power” (Matthew26:64; Luke 22:69; and see also Acts 7:55; Hebrews 1:3; Ephesians 1:20). It would, however, be amistake to seek too much consistency in the use of an apocalyptic motif, especially when thesecond statement is based on a verse (Psalm 110:1).

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ideology. Moreover, the allusions to this ideology in the gospels are few andfar between. There is one statement about Peter as the rock on which thechurch is to be founded — though the authenticity of this logion (at least inits present form) is dubious. A second, presumably authentic saying involvesthe lofty status of the apostles in the final judgment. This is a promise involv-ing the eschaton, and lacks the “ecclesiastical” gravitas of the statements inEphesians and Revelation that portray the apostles as the foundation of thechurch — statements with clear parallels in Pesher Isaiah. The third state-ment, the one addressed to the sons of Zebedee, implies a critique of theapostles’ demands concerning the lofty eschatological status promised themin the earlier verse. There is, moreover, no mention in the gospels of a privi-leged organization status for the twelve apostles. We are told only that theywere chosen to be confidants to Jesus, to spread the news of the kingdom ofheaven and to heal the sick.40 Does this mean that the apostleship preservedthe lofty ideology it inherited from the corresponding Essene institution thatserved as a model for Jesus, but that Jesus’ non-sectarian approach and deephumility prevented him from accepting this ideology in full? This would betoo simplistic an answer, for we have already seen that Jesus contained an ad-mixture of humility with an awareness of the uniqueness of his person andhis mission. It is certainly possible that at times he accepted the lofty ideologyof the apostleship, other times he rejected it. As for the paucity of informa-tion concerning the institution of the apostleship in the gospels, here too wemust bear in mind one of the key rules in the study of the synoptic gospels:that the earlier sources tend to emphasize the humility of Jesus’ message, andonly rarely his supreme self-awareness. This may be due to the fact that thesetraditions circulated within the groups that preached his teachings to the Jew-ish masses, who might have rejected a gospel that emphasizes the other, un-usually demanding aspect of Jesus’ thought. It is possible, then, that the insti-tution of the twelve apostles enjoyed a more elevated status in Jesus’ teachings— both organizationally and ideologically — than the gospels allow. Simi-larly, Jesus himself (and not just the apostles) may have adhered to the ideol-ogy associated with the corresponding Essene institution, the same ideologythat reappears in the Apocalypse of John.

Whatever the case, it is clear that even the gospels echo the symbolismand motifs that we find in Pesher Isaiah and Revelation. Even without the dis-

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40. The present study is not concerned with a critical examination of the extant informa-tion concerning the twelve apostles in Jesus’ lifetime, though this is a desideratum in light of thediscovery of Pesher Isaiah. See the important discussion of the apostles following the death ofJesus in Léon-Dufour, Les Evangiles et l’histoire de Jésus (Paris, 1963), 247-248.

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covery of the Scrolls, we might have assumed that Jesus’ statement that Peteris the rock upon which the church is to be founded is tied with the image ofthe apostles as the foundation stones of the early Christian community. It isvery unlikely, however, that we would connect the statement that the apostleswill judge the twelve tribes of Israel in the end of days, with the tradition(preserved in the Apocalypse of John) that identifies the twelve foundationstones of eschatological Jerusalem with the twelve precious stones of thepriestly breastplate, stones that were used in judgment and bore the names ofthe twelve tribes. Pesher Isaiah, which includes this very tradition, representsa singular contribution to our understanding of the early Christian institu-tion of the twelve apostles. No less important, it demonstrates that the morecomplicated concept is not always historically subsequent. It was the Apoca-lypse of John that preserved the complex pre-Christian ideology that shedsnew light on the simple allusions in the gospels. It appears, then, that in mat-ters of scholarship the simplest explanation is not always the best.

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22. The Half-shekel in the Gospelsand the Qumran Community

The new discoveries teach us that, as a rule, scholars must first provide a thor-ough, grammatical analysis of the synoptic gospels, without any prior as-sumptions, with the sole goal of understanding the text as it stands. Onlythen, once this task has been accomplished, may we inquire after its goals andthe circumstances surrounding its composition. If we reverse the order andinvestigate the setting of the gospel composition first, we will most likely notmanage to understand the meaning of these texts.

The reason scholars tend to reverse the order of investigation is simple:the plain meaning of the gospel text often appears strange and poorly suitedto our understanding of early Christianity. Recent discoveries, however, andin particular the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicate that the plainsense of the gospels is in no way unreasonable. Quite the contrary — appar-ently curious statements are the ones that rightly reflect the spiritual and reli-gious views of contemporary Judaism.

A striking example of the recent discoveries facilitating the immanentunderstanding of the gospels is the question of the half-shekel, which is pre-served only in Matthew: “When they reached Capernaum the collectors ofthe half-shekel came to Peter and said, ‘Does your teacher not pay the half-shekel?’ He said, ‘Yes, he does.’ And when he came home, Jesus spoke of itfirst, asking, ‘What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earthtake toll or tribute? From their children or from others?’ When Peter said,‘From others,’ Jesus said to him, ‘Then the children are free. However, so thatwe do not give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook; take the first fish

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that comes up; and when you open its mouth, you will find a stater; take thatand give it to them for you and me” (Matt. 17:24-27).

Most scholars believe that this is not an authentic Jesus tradition, butwas formed (during the Second Temple period) as part of a polemic withinthe early church regarding the payment of the half-shekel, and reflects the de-bate surrounding this issue among Jesus’ followers. If so, it is undoubtedly nocoincidence that the tax collectors address their question to Peter, the leaderof the Jerusalem Church following the death of Jesus. In the Matthew story,the question of whether to pay the half-shekel is resolved by Jesus himself,thus establishing the position that the tax ought to be paid “so that we do notgive offense to them.”1 But it appears the pro-payment view was so unpalat-able in the Jerusalem Church that even its attribution to Jesus was not suffi-cient: the very heavens had to miraculously testify to this effect, so that themoney did not come from Jesus and his disciples, but from the coin discov-ered in the fish!

But while modern scholarship has rightly argued that the story of thehalf-shekel is the product of a Second Temple dispute within the JerusalemChurch, we cannot accept the same scholars’ view as to the meaning of Jesus’conversation with Peter in this very story. These scholars assume that the“children of kings” in Jesus’ parable refer to the Christians, while the others,who are obligated to pay the toll, are the Jews. It is certainly possible that thisis how the author of Matthew understood the story, for it is only in this gospelthat we find an explicit statement to the effect that the Kingdom of God wastaken from Israel and given to the church (Matt. 21:43), and that in the end ofdays, “the heirs of the kingdom [= Israel] will be thrown into the outer dark-ness” (Matt. 8:12). But this interpretation is untenable. That the parable por-trays the Christians as exempt from the half-shekel payment because they arechildren of God is clear enough. But how can we assume that the parable ar-gues that Israel must pay the half-shekel because they are “others” who areenslaved to the king of kings who resides in the temple? On this interpreta-tion the temple is the sanctuary of God and the half-shekel is the toll to God,but Israel is denigrated as a nation that is essentially foreign to God. Such aninterpretation could only be right if we assume a view that affirms the sanc-tity of the temple but denies the election of Israel. But since there is no evi-dence for such an odd doctrine within the early church, there is no justifica-tion for the standard interpretation of the half-shekel parable — assumingthe Matthew parable is not terribly corrupt.

If, however, we ignore the historical circumstances that gave rise to the

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1. See R. Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (Göttingen, 1957), 34-35.

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parable, and concentrate solely on the text as it stands, it is quite clear: this isperhaps the closest of the gospel parables to the rabbinic parables, meshalim,that open with the phrase, “a parable concerning a king of flesh and blood.”Even the phrase “kings of the earth” is the biblical equivalent to the rabbinic“king of flesh and blood,” and both phrases point to the parallels that existbetween terrestrial kings and their heavenly counterpart. As a rule, the rab-binic parables represent Israel with the figure of the son of the “king of fleshand blood” — and in Matthew too we find the kings of the earth and theirsons.2 Thus the most probable view is that in the Matthew parable too thesons of the king symbolize Israel. This interpretation resolves the key diffi-culty of the standard reading, i.e., attributing to the parable a positive valori-zation of the temple, but a negative view of Israel. All the same, interpretingthe Matthew parable in the spirit of the rabbinic mashal raises new difficul-ties, particularly the position it seems to espouse: just as the children ofearthly kings are not taxed by their fathers, so too the King of Kings, who re-sides in the Jerusalem temple, ought not demand that Israel pay him the an-nual half-shekel tax. What we have here, then, is a polemic against the collec-tion of the temple tax from the Jews — couched in terms of the traditional“parable of a flesh and blood king” genre!

It thus appears to me that the immanent interpretation of this parable,namely that the children are Israel, can only be accepted if we can assume thatthere were parties contemporary with the composition of the Matthew para-ble who objected to the half-shekel payment to the temple. If such parties ex-isted, we may conclude that the Jerusalem Church adopted the same view, atleast in principle, and that the story in question was created as part of the de-bate surrounding this question. Scholarship into the origins of the half-shekeltax has dealt with this question, though without any effect on the under-standing of the Matthew parable. One conclusion is that the Boethusians op-

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The Half-shekel in the Gospels and the Qumran Community

2. The rabbinic parables usually speak of a king of flesh and blood and his son, or evenhis only son, while Matthew speaks of the kings of the earth and their sons (both in the pluralform). It may be, then, that the Matthew parable too intended to speak of a king and his son.Many scholars interpret the “sons” in the parable as referring not to sons proper, or even thosesubjects of the king who are exempt from taxes, but rather to foreigners (see E. Klostermann,Das Matthäusevangelium [Tübingen, 1927], 146; W. C. Allen, The Gospel According to St. Mat-thew [London, 1915]). This is also the view reflected in the translation of The New English Bible(Oxford, 1961). It is true that the parable can be coherently interpreted if we assume it distin-guishes between the subjects of the king, who are exempt from the head tax (k«nsov), and theforeigners, i.e., citizens of lands conquered by the king who must pay the tax. However, “the sonof the king” is a stock character in rabbinic parables, and so it appears that the Matthew parableconflates the traditional view of the king and his son, on the one hand, and the contrast betweenthe king’s subjects and the people of lands conquered by him, on the other.

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posed the half-shekel payment,3 while E. Bickerman’s analysis of SecondTemple documents indicates the half-shekel tax is an ordinance formulatedby the Hasmonean priests.4 The next step was taken by Y. Livor, who arguesthat the half-shekel pericope in Exodus 30:11-16 does not refer to an annualtemple tax, but rather to a ransom payment for those that are absent.5 “Theannual monetary contribution to the temple . . . was not made mandatoryuntil the late Hasmonean period, if not later.”6 Already these findings — thatthe half-shekel contribution was a relatively late innovation that was not uni-versally accepted — might suggest that the half-shekel debate in Matthewechoes the opposing voices of those Jewish groups that argued that the newdecree of an annual temple tax has no scriptural basis. A fragment of Qumranhalakhah, published by Allegro7 and analyzed in detail by Livor,8 sheds newlight on the question. From it we learn that the Boethusians were not the onlygroup that opposed the annual half-shekel temple tax;9 the Qumran commu-nity also expressed their opposition to this tax: “Concerning the ransom: themoney of valuation which one gives as ransom for his own person will be half[a shekel], only once will he give it in all his days” (4Q159 Fragment 1.6-7).10

The above investigation has shown, then, that the half-shekel tax was aHasmonean innovation that was opposed by the Boethusians, thus removingthe main objection to the notion that the Matthew parable reflects some (ad-mittedly qualified) opposition to Israel — and not just the Christian commu-nity — paying the half-shekel. The 4QOrdinances fragment not only strength-ens this assertion, but aids in interpreting the Matthew parable as well.11 Itseems that Livor was right: “The emphatic ‘only once will he give it in all his

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3. See H. Lichtenstein, Die Fastenrolle, in HUCA 8-9 (1931-32), 290-292, 323.4. E. Bickerman, Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves 7

(1939-1944), 14.5. Y. Livor, “The Half-shekel Pericope” (Hebrew), The Yehezkel Kaufman Festschrift (Jeru-

salem, 1961), 54-67.6. Livor, “The Half-shekel Pericope,” 67.7. J. M. Allegro, “An Unpublished Fragment of Essene Halakhah (4QOrdinances),” JSS 6

(1961), 71-73.8. Livor, “The Half-shekel in the Dead Sea Scrolls” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 31 (1962), 18-22.9. The Ta{anit Scroll speaks of the Boethusians, while b. Menahot 65a refers to the

Tzedukim (Sadducees); it seems to me the former is to be preferred.10. That the Qumran community is Essene is widely accepted among scholars. The ques-

tion now arises whether the opposition to the half-shekel tax — shared by the Qumranites andthe Boethusians — does not support the argument put forward by Grintz identifying these twogroups. See Y. M. Grintz, “The People of the Yahad — Essenes — Beith (E)ssene,” Sinai 32(1953), 11-43. This is not an issue to be explored in the present study.

11. Allegro (“An Unpublished Fragment,” 73) has noted the similarity between the Mat-thew parable about the half-shekel and the statement of 4QOrdinances.

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days,’ which has no scriptural basis, expresses opposition to the annual half-shekel temple tax. The sages sought to link this tax to the biblical half-shekel,but the Dead Sea community opposed the annual temple tax from the out-set.”12 To be sure, Matthew’s gospel does not argue that Jews are to pay thehalf-shekel only once in the course of their lifetime, but like the Qumran au-thors it expresses opposition to the half-shekel as a fixed annual tax. After all,the Matthew parable likens the payment to a k«nsov (Latin: census),13 andthere are in fact a number of similarities between the Roman tax and the half-shekel payment: both are preceded by a census, and both are paid annually.There is, however, one fundamental difference between the shekel paymentand the census: the former is a payment by Israel to their temple in Jerusalem,while the latter is a sign that Israel has been enslaved to Rome and their ruler isnot their true king, for God alone is the true king of Israel. As one rabbinicsource states: “I shall not appoint nor delegate anyone else, so to speak, to ruleover you, but I myself will rule over you.”14 This view, applied inflexibly to thecontemporary political situation, famously gave rise to the Zealot movement.Already their founder, Judah the Galilean, demanded that the Jews not pay theannual tax to Rome and refuse to accept the rule of a king of flesh and blood,but only of the God of Israel.15 And what was the tax that instigated the Zealotmovement? The census, the annual payment Rome required not of its sons, butof conquered foreigners.16 According to Cicero, this tax was a wage for victoryand a punishment for the war itself.17 Clearly, Israel as a whole and the Zealotsin particular were opposed to the Roman census. But when Jesus was askedabout this tax he gave his famous answer: “Give to the emperor the things thatare the emperor’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). Jesus’ an-swer is politically moderate and in this sense stands in contrast to the “king offlesh and blood” parable in Matthew. After all, if the key element of the latter isthat the kings collect the tax from strangers but not from their sons, the impli-cation is that the census is viewed with a dim eye indeed. Here, then, is anotherargument against counting the half-shekel parable among the authentic say-ings of Jesus, whose position was apparently much more conciliatory.

331


12. Livor, “The Half-shekel in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 21.13. Indeed, there are scholars who hold that the Matthew parable was originally a po-

lemic aimed at the Roman census collection. See H. Loewe, Render Unto Caesar (Cambridge,1940), 66-67.

14. Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, translated by Jacob Lauterbach (Philadelphia, 1933), 2.204.15. Josephus, BJ 2.118, and see M. Hengel, Die Zeloten (Leiden, 1961), 93-103.16. See Hengel, Die Zeloten, 132-145.17. Cicero, Second Oration Against Verres (3.12); and see V. A. Tcherikover, Corpus

Papyrorum Judaicarum (Cambridge, 1957), 1.60.

345



Be all that as it may, the Matthew parable expresses opposition to thepayment of the half-shekel, adopting a position similar to that of theBoethusians and the Qumran community. The argument against the tax goesas follows: the annual tax to the temple cannot be just, since the king of Israel— God who resides in the temple — would not impose on his sons a tax thatthe earthly kings impose on foreigners. I do not find this parable in any waytypical of the Christian attitude toward Judaism and toward the temple. Thequestion, then, is: in what Jewish circles did it originate? Clearly not among therabbinic sages, since they affirmed that half-shekel payment and considered ita biblically sanctioned commandment. The spirit of the parable is similar tothat of the Zealots, who opposed the census on the grounds that it implied Is-rael’s submission to an earthly king. However, there is no evidence that theZealots transferred this argument to the payment of the half-shekel, or thatthey even opposed the temple tax. The Qumran scrolls, in contrast, indicatethat the Essenes claimed that each Jew should pay the half-shekel “only once inall his days.” As noted, this suggests the opposition was to the establishment ofthe half-shekel payment as an annual tax, much like the gospel position. It ispossible, then, that there were some among the Essenes who based their claimsagainst the half-shekel tax on an ideology of God’s kingship over Israel, an ide-ology known particularly from the Zealots.18

That the half-shekel parable in Matthew is of Essene or related origin issuggested by the fact that the Jerusalem Church (where the parable was appar-ently formulated) inherited two social-religious positions from the Essenes:baptism and shared property. It may well be that along with these they also in-herited the critique of the half-shekel payment. If so, the next question iswhether the opposition expressed in the half-shekel parable was theoretical19— that is, the church continued to pay the tax to “not give offense to them” —or whether the practical resistance to the payment was also part of the Esseneheritage. In fact, it appears the Jerusalem Church could not actively resist thetemple tax, since it congregated at Solomon’s Portico20 and regularly visitedthe temple;21 had they refused to pay the half-shekel they would undoubtedly

332


18. The question of the sages’ ideological commitment to the kingdom of heaven, and itsbearing on the question of Roman taxation, lies beyond the purview of the present study; Ihope to take up this important question elsewhere.

19. Bultmann (Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 34) argues that Matthew 17:22-26 appears early, and further suggests it originally referred to a different matter. I believe the lat-ter suggestion is untenable since the publication of 4QOrdinances.

20. See Acts 3:11; 5:12, and compare the Gospel of John 10:23.21. See Acts 2:46. For a comprehensive survey, see H. Lietzmann, Geschichte der alten

Kirche (Berlin, 1953), 1.54.

346



not be able to remain in these sites. It is possible, then, that the early church re-ceived from their forerunners only the parable and its implicit resistance to thetemple tax, but added to it Jesus’ moderate position and then invented the mi-raculous fish story. Still, I believe it is far more likely that the Christians re-ceived the moderate position as well from the Essenes. After all, the apparentrejection of radical principles was one of the key elements in the Essene Welt-anschauung. Indeed, acquiescence to the political authorities was typical oftheir “conditional pacifism,”22 which espoused “Everlasting hatred for themen of the pit in clandestine spirit. To them he should leave goods and hand-made items like a servant to his master and like one oppressed by someonedomineering him.”23 Note that when the tax collectors asked John the Baptist,who was close to the Essenes, what to do, he answered: “Collect no more thanthe amount prescribed for you” (Luke 3:12-13). In practical terms, he recog-nized the status of tax collectors working on behalf of Rome. The acquiescenceto the political authorities in the matter of the temple tax could have similarlybeen inherited from the Essenes or from the disciples of John the Baptist.

In summary, it is customary to explain Matthew’s half-shekel parable asif it indicates that the Christians are exempt from the temple tax — since theyare the children of God — while the Jews, who are strangers, must pay it. How-ever, this interpretation raises a number of internal difficulties. Comparison tothe rabbinic parable, the mashal, suggests that the children of the king are Is-rael, not the Christians. It appears, then, that the parable and its interpretationoriginate in the Jewish circles that opposed the half-shekel tax, viewing it as aninnovation that has no scriptural basis. Up to this point we knew only that theBoethusians espoused this view, but the recently published Qumran text indi-cates that this was also the view of the Essene Dead Sea community, who heldthat Jews must pay the half-shekel tax only once in the course of their lives.Thus there is no reason to reject the simpler interpretation of Matthew 17 andidentify the sons of the king with Israel. The conversation between Jesus andPeter suggests that the half-shekel ought not be paid since it is similar to thetaxes the kings of Rome impose on the nations it has enslaved — while theJews are not slaves to God, but rather God’s children. Even though the politicalnotion of God’s kingship over Israel that is reflected in Matthew is associatedprimarily with the Zealots, it appears that the parable originated in Essene orproximate circles. Moreover it seems that the Christians inherited from thesecircles not only the idea of a theoretical resistance to the half-shekel temple tax,but also the principle of practical acquiescence.

333


22. See “The Dead Sea Sect and Its Worldview.”23. 1QS 9.21-23; see also Josephus, BJ 2.140.

347



Index of Names

Abraham, 39, 210, 272, 314Adam and Eve, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59Agrippa, 202Albright, W. F., 50Alexander Jannaeus, 4, 81, 99, 101, 102,

170, 171, 172, 179, 182, 218, 220, 222, 223,230

Allegro, J. M., 255-56, 305, 330Amir, Y., 139Amram, Rabbi, 270Amusin, J. D., 161, 225Antigonos of Socho, 95Antiochus III, 176, 203Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), 144Aqiva, Rabbi, 26, 27, 64, 72, 74, 133Aristobolus I, 180, 182, 184Aristobolus II, 186, 225, 232, 234Aristotle, 125Augustus, 199

Benoît, P., 283Bickerman, E., 330Bultmann, R., 318

Calvin, John, 30Carneades, 126Clement of Rome, 95, 313Cross, Frank Moore, 37, 222

David, King, 264-65, 266-67, 268, 271, 272-73, 274, 276-81, 282

David ben Zimra, Rabbi, 57Davies, W. D., 294Demetrius (king of Illyria), 201Demetrius Eucaerus (king of Syria), 5, 81,

155, 172, 178, 220Dupont-Sommer, A., 141, 147, 225, 231,

234, 237Dürrenmatt, Friedrich, 205

Elazar of Modi{in, Rabbi, 208Elazar, Rabbi, 56Eliezer, Rabbi, 82Elijah, 30, 212, 213Epiphanius, 87, 88Eshel, Esther, 37Eumenes (king of Pergamum), 202, 203Eusebius, 30

Fleischer, E., 70-71, 132, 133France, Anatole, 49Friedmann, Meir, 212-13

Gamaliel, Rabban, 70, 100Grintz, Y., 149, 330

Hama bar Hanina, 205

334

348



Hanina, Rabbi, 56Hannibal, 176Harkavy, A. E., 258, 264Heinemann, J., 139Herod, 4, 100, 196, 224, 234Hillel the Elder, 53, 59, 95, 100, 272Hiya bar Abba, 157Honi ben Elazar, 37Honi the Circle Drawer, 102Hyrcanus II, 231, 234

Ibn Ezra, Abraham, 64Isaac, 210Isaac, Rabbi, 205, 280Ishmael, Rabbi, 96

Jacob, 210-11

James (son of Zebedee), 323Jerome, 87, 88Jesus, xii, 7, 8, 13, 30, 31, 39, 41, 67, 69, 74-

75, 76, 78, 100, 101, 102-3, 112, 218, 273,278-79, 280, 313, 314, 316-17, 320-21, 323-25

John (son of Zebedee), 323John Hyrcanus, 4, 30, 172, 178, 180, 181,

182, 182John of Patmos, 311John the Baptist, xiii, 29, 31, 321John the Essene, 14Jonathan (Hasmonean), 179, 182Josephus Flavius, 97, 299, 302Judah Iscariot, 320Judah Maccabee, 173, 177, 179, 180-81, 194Judah the Essene, 296Judah the Galilean, 331Jugurtha, 201Julius Caesar, 141, 201Justin Martyr, 87, 88

Kaufmann, Yehezkel, 62, 117Kohler, K., 108

Lactantius, 149, 166Lessing, G. E., 235Levi, Rabbi, 54Licht, J., 44, 159, 197, 294-95, 297

Lieberman, Saul, 92, 93, 114Livor, Y., 330

Mar Zutra, 285Mattathias (Hasmonean), 44, 182Medea, 125Meir, Rabbi, 64Melchizedek, 31, 249, 273Menahem the Essene, 296Michael (angel), 2, 62-63, 291-92Milik, J. T., 241, 200Milikowsky, C., 76Mithridates (king of Pontus), 177, 201-2Moses, 50, 51, 52, 53-54, 64, 273, 292

Naqdimon ben Gurion, 100Noah, 39

Origen, 180Ovid, 125, 206

Paul, xiii, 73, 100, 254, 299, 301, 302-4Perseus, 202, 203Peter, 315Pharaoh, 39Philip (of Macedon), 202, 203Plato, 21, 125, 288Pompeius Trogus, 201Pompey, 177, 178Porphyry, 144Puech, Emile, 66, 67

Raphael the Healer, 39Rashi, 63, 64

Saadia Gaon, 85, 87, 88, 108, 270Safrai, Shmuel, 112, 113, 117, 171Salome, Queen, 99, 223, 232, 233, 234, 248,

254Samuel (prophet), 282Sanders, J., 265, 266Sarai, 39Seligman, Yitzhak Aryeh, 4, 5Sennacherib, 163Shammai, 100, 272Shemesh, A., 293, 294Shimon bar Yohai, 270

335

Index of Names

349



Shimon ben Gamaliel, 100Shimon ben Shetah, 99Shimon ha-Pakuli, 113Shmuel the Lesser, 91, 93, 114, 115Simon (Hasmonean), 30, 178, 179-80, 183Simon Magus, 49Simon the Essene, 296Socrates, 125Stendhal, Krister, 302Sukenik, E. L., 156

Tacitus, 201Taylor, V., 324Tigranes (king of Armenia), 5, 154Timotheos, 265

Urbach, E. E., 258

Werman, K., 293, 294

Yadin, Yigael, 33, 58, 62, 81, 141-42, 146,147, 149, 152, 155-56, 157, 219, 224, 305,306, 310

Yehiel of Rome, 98

Yehoshua, Rabbi, 117, 118

Yehudah ben Yaqqar, 69, 89

Yohanan, Rabbi, 56, 80

Yohanan ben Nuri, 133, 138

Yohanan ben Zakkai, 272, 314

Yonathan, Rabbi, 80

Yose, Rabbi, 274

Yosef ben Qisma, Rabbi, 269

Zundil, Enoch, 136

336

INDEX OF NAMES

350



Index of Subjects

“according to the law of Moses and Is-rael,” 50-54

activism, the Essenes’ bellicose, 11-12, 13-14

Amidah prayer (Shemoneh Esreh), 90, 92,108-13, 116. See also Birkat ha-MinimBenediction of Mighty Deeds, 68, 69,

111Benediction of Redemption, 112Benediction of the Righteous, 108-9Benediction for Jerusalem, 111, 279High Holiday, 132-34, 135-36, 137history of, 112, 113-15Palestinian version, 86, 87, 88, 108-9“Return our judges,” 108, 109, 110

Ammon, 143, 145, 146antichrist, 130, 168anti-imperialism, 194, 197, 198Apocalypse of Peter, 77Apocalyptic doctrine, 10-12. See also End

of Daysapostates, 76, 77, 78, 85apostles, the twelve, 305, 309, 311, 312-26asceticism, 7Asia (Roman province), 178Assyria, 144, 145, 146, 148-50

Babylonia, 133

baptism, 332of the spirit, 44, 48

Belial, Prince of Depravity, 2, 23, 28, 33.See also Satan

Bethel, 210

Birkat ha-Minim, 70, 83, 84-94, 114-15, 118.See also Amidahas combination of two prayers, 90-94,

114-15written against the Essenes, 106, 109,

116

Bithynia, 178

Boethusians, 96, 329-30

“born of sin,” 128, 130-31, 132

building imagery, 306, 307, 310, 317, 321

building of Jerusalem, 110, 111, 113, 306

Carthage, 202

census, 331

Christians and Christianity, 67, 253attitude to the physical world, 245attitude to the secular authorities, 299-

304, 326-33building analogy, 316early, 8, 11, 30, 253, 279, 305, 327-33Essene influence on early, xiii, 24, 31,

35, 249, 250, 253-54

337

351



and flesh-spirit dualism, 283, 284, 285-86, 289-90

as heretics, 78, 87-88, 96, 116Jerusalem as symbol of, 247, 248, 250,

313Judaism, 251, 254the twelve apostles, 305, 309, 311, 312-26

Community council, 307, 308, 309Corinth, 178

Damascus, xii, 221, 222, 227diaspora, 173, 174, 222divine providence, 33dualism, 2, 26, 28, 33

Ebionites, 6, 30, 85Edom, 143, 144, 145, 146, 205End of Days, xiii, 10-11, 31, 30, 310. See

also messiahabolition of evil, 2, 10, 33, 40, 42, 43,

46, 47, 122, 123, 124-25, 129, 130, 132,134, 135, 136, 137, 243, 300, 301

death of the evil king, 147-48, 150, 151,152, 160-69

eschatological temple, 208-11the high priest at the end of days, 30-

31Israel’s hope for, 110, 113, 207-8as vengeance, 151, 195-96war at, 4, 11, 33, 141-42, 145-58

Ephraim and Manasseh, 224-25, 229, 231,246, 252, 254

eschatology. See End of DaysEssene, 20-21, 123, 124, 284-85, 286, 289-

90, 291eternal life, 183ethical dualism of the Essenes (sons of

light, sons of darkness), 9, 10, 11-12, 19,104, 243, 275, 285, 286Christian flesh-spirit, 283, 284, 285-86,

290-91flesh-spirit, 283, 284, 286-87, 291

evil and evil persons, 315destined for hell, 71, 72, 74destroyed at End of Days, 2, 10, 33, 40,

42, 43, 46, 122, 123, 124, 128, 130, 132,134, 136, 137, 300, 301

existence of, 33, 42, 43, 46, 48.See also man

exorcism, 38

flesh, the, 20, 284, 285-86, 290-91free will, 26, 32

man’s election through divine grace,19, 21, 22, 24, 285, 290

freedom of Jewish interpreters, 235

Genizah, Antonine Collection of the, 258Genizah, Cairo, xii, 84, 122, 258, 265Gnostics and Gnosticism, 21, 40, 48-49,

283, 284, 287, 291God’s curse, 82“God’s sword,” 151, 153, 156, 157, 158, 163,

164, 165, 167, 168godless, the, 77, 78, 80, 88Greece, 176-77, 184, 191Greeks, 5, 40, 140, 149 154, 155, 170, 181,

184, 191, 193groom’s blessing, 51, 52, 56-57, 58-59

half-shekel, payment of, 327-33hanging, 82Hasmonean family, 178-81, 182, 186

ties with the Romans, 178hell

evildoers condemned forever to, 71, 74,75, 76-77, 83, 89, 98, 115

and those who separated themselvesfrom the community, 71-73, 80, 84,89, 97, 115

and the wicked, 71-72, 73-75heretics, 71, 77historians, 175history, sequencing eras, 197, 301Holon, 51Holy Spirit, 285, 286, 288, 289, 290hospitality, 303human nature. See mankindHussites, 13, 35hypocrites. See godless

immortality of the soul, 67incantations, 39informers, 71, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 86-87, 88

338

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

352



ingathering of the exiles, 110, 113, 172-73Instructor (maskil), 297, 300, 303Interpreter of the Law, xiiIsrael divided into three major groups,

109, 116, 215, 235, 246, 254Iyar, 264, 267

Jericho, 37Jerusalem, 4, 146-47, 158, 173, 174, 177, 225,

237, 250, 255building of, 110, 111, 113Christians’ identification with, 247-48,

249, 250, 252, 313eschatological, 208, 236, 247, 249, 251,

306, 308, 311, 313Essenes’ identification with, 236-37,

240, 246, 248, 254heavenly, 250twelve gates of, 306-7, 311, 319

Jesus, 7, 30, 69, 78, 112, 273, 279, 313, 314,316-17, 320-21, 323-25and criticism of the Pharisees, 100, 101,

102-3, 218and the Essenes, xii, 8, 13as a healer, 39, 41as messiah, 278-79, 280messianic awareness of, 31and resurrection, 67on those condemned to hell, 74-75, 76

Judah, house of, 227, 228, 235, 236, 246,252, 254, 256

Karaites, 98ketubah. See marriage contractkibbutzim, 35Kittim, 4-5, 140-42, 144, 145, 161-62, 187-90

of Assyria, 148-50

language and orthography of Qumranscrolls, xii, xiii

Lebanon, 159, 161, 162, 164, 239

Macedonia, 178Mandeans, 276mankind

fundamentally good but commits evils,123-25, 206

inherently sinful, 20-21, 22, 292marriage, 50, 51-54marriage contract, Jewish (ketubah), 50,

52-54marriage contract, Samaritan, 52, 54matter

dualism of matter-spirit, 283, 287, 291positive attitude to the material world

among the Essenes, 284-85“May the apostates have no hope,” 84, 85,

86, 89, 97, 115medicinal plants, 39-40medicine, 38-39Megillat Ta}anit, 109, 269, 330messiah, 11, 30, 31, 110-11, 322

belief in three messiahs, 30, 281“birth pangs” of the, 131and Jesus, 31, 280in Jewish belief, 274, 280King David, 277-79, 280-81

messianic era, 213son of David, 30, 160, 162, 164

minim (heretics), 71, 76, 77, 83, 96, 114,118. See also Birkat ha-Minim

mistake (mishgeh), 272Moab, 143, 145, 146morality, 175“mysteries of sin,” 121, 123, 128, 129, 130,

131

natural law, 126“new covenant,” 17, 222, 249, 250, 252-53Noahide commandments, 88“Not by an angel,” 61-65

Oracle of Hystaspes, 149, 151, 157, 164, 165-66, 167, 168

pacifism, Essene, 14, 15, 24, 196, 238, 295,301, 302, 333

pacifism, Christian, 11“pattern of the human form,” the, 56-57Pergamum, 178persecution of the Essenes, 9-10, 220-21,

226-27, 223, 232, 234Pharisees

as enemy of the Essenes, 222-23, 231-32

339

Index of Subjects

353



as Ephraim, 224, 229, 232, 236, 239, 246Essenes anticipating the fall of the,

234, 235-36, 239, 243, 245Essenes’ attitude toward, 218-19, 232,

237-38, 243-44, 256-57father of rabbinic Judaism, 33, 108,

109-10, 172, 215, 242, 252identified as Nineveh, 236, 237, 246image as hypocrites, 100-103, 218, 220,

232influence of, 233, 234, 243as separated from the community, 73,

76, 77, 80, 82, 84, 89-90, 95, 96, 105,114, 115-16, 117-18. See also separatismof the Essenes

teachings of the, 33, 36, 66, 69, 183, 252term perushim for sages and their

companions, 93, 94-95, 97-100term with dual meaning, 223, 232-33

Philistia, 143, 144, 145philosophy, Greek

dualism of matter-flesh, 284, 287influence on Judean desert sect, 120,

122, 126-27, 206tension in mankind between good in-

tention and evil deeds, 124-27pillars, 272, 314, 318poverty, idealization of, 7, 8, 36, 195power, intensification of, 181, 185, 186, 194,

202, 206prayer, 60, 70, 112-14, 117-18, 132-33, 270predestination, 2, 13, 14, 22, 294, 298, 299,

301, 302double, 13-14, 15, 26, 28, 33, 198, 243and mankind’s election through divine

grace, 19, 21, 22, 24, 285, 290priests and priesthood, 310, 321

among Essenes, 34-35, 36, 195, 303among followers of Jesus in Jerusalem,

37high priest of the end of days, 30-31property and wealth, shared, 34, 332status among the Essenes, 5, 18, 30Wicked Priest, 4, 10, 41, 222, 223, 225,

230, 231, 234, 237prophecy and prophets, 122-23, 138, 295

Qaddish, 271

religious ferment among the Essenes, 1, 3repentance, 74, 86, 243, 244resurrection, 66-67, 69, 112, 182

denial of the idea of, 71, 77, 95revelation, divine ongoing, 295revolt of the angels, 49ritual purity, 36rituals of purification, 17, 105, 107Roman, 5 14, 140-41, 161

anti-Roman ideology, 37, 89, 115, 135,161, 176, 187, 188-89, 190-92, 193-94,199-203, 204-5, 206

praise of, 181, 183-86, 187, 189, 191-94,202, 205-6

rise of the empire, 177

Sadducees, 33, 36, 99, 108, 116, 180, 186,215, 223, 238identification with Amon, 236, 237, 246as Manasseh, 224, 225, 229, 230, 231,

233, 236, 238, 246teachings of the, 33, 95, 108, 109, 182-83

Satan, 291-92. See also Belialsecret things, 293, 294, 297Seleucids, 148, 154separatism of the Essenes and their hos-

tility to other groups in society, 7-8, 16,24, 33-34, 36, 103-7, 116, 117, 196, 225-26,243, 252, 254, 296hope that in the end many Jews will

join the sect, 243-45seven blessings (at Jewish wedding cere-

mony), 54simple folk, 239-41

of Ephraim, 240, 242, 245of Judah, 22, 228, 239, 241, 242

Sinai, theophany at, 17, 206, 251, 253, 268Son of Man, 23Spain, 192, 193Stoa, 126-27stone symbolism, 312, 314stones of the priestly breastplace, 306,

307, 308, 319, 326submission to the outside world, 301, 302,

303

340

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

354



Syria, 19, 149, 154, 187

Tabor (city), 35Teacher of Righteousness, 6, 41, 220, 223,

228, 231-32, 234, 257, 296, 297Temple, the, 17-18, 105, 173, 178-79, 210-11,

212according to the Essenes, 208-9, 211, 312and damage to the zevul, 75-76, 81, 83of the End of Days, 208-10, 211-12songs sung before the altar, 267, 268

“that all was made through His word,”121

theology, Essene, xiii, 26, 33-34, 296, 301

true Israel, 16, 245, 252truth, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47

world truth, 43, 44-45, 46-48, 49“Truthful Judge,” 121“The Two Ways,” 25-27, 28, 29

United States, 35

“wicked kingdom,” 89, 90-91, 134-35“will not return,” 121, 122, 138

Yavne, 87, 91, 94

Zealots, 331

341

Index of Subjects

355



Index of Sources

HEBREW BIBLE

Genesis1:26 551:26-27 551:26-28 282:7 552:22 55, 706:2 396:3 206:12 209:6 5910:22 14812:17 3921:13-15 21028:17 21028:18 312, 32635:6-7 21043:12 27249:24 312

Exodus3:12 12114 16314:30-31 16414:31 152, 16315:17 20816:25 208

21:10 5222:28 9624:17 26828:17-21 306, 31230:11-16 32932:34 6433:14 6433:14-15 6434:9 64

Leviticus11:47 27519:18 9626:9 252

Numbers12:3 27412:7 27415:30-31 73, 74, 7616:15 11824:23-24 14924:24 5, 140

Deuteronomy7:26 10721:22-23 82, 9629:29 293, 29432:4 123

32:8-9 62, 7633:8 310

1 Samuel2:7-8 26916:11 27322:14 27422:51 293

2 Samuel22:41 26922:51 265, 27923:1 265

1 Kings1:37 2701:47 2707:21 2728:13 72, 272

Isaiah1:16 191:26 1082:18 270, 2745:7 2405:24 2227:9 2407:16 275

342

356



7:17 227, 2298:11 105, 106, 107, 116,

2268:14 2279:19-20 22910:32 16110:33 16210:33-34 16110:34 161, 162, 16410:34–11:1 159, 16111:3 22923:12-13 14926:10 20530:6 13230:10 25631:8 144, 150, 151, 15633:14 8040:3 105, 226, 296, 29742:1 4242:1-3 4342:1-4 4242:2 4142:3 41, 42, 4342:4 41, 4242:6 26743:18 12144:13 5645:23 12149:6 26750:21-22 13551:1 31252:7 236, 24952:13 273, 27454:11-12 236, 246, 248, 305,

31254:12 307, 31155:2 11955:3 278, 28055:11 12158:12 27059:5 13260:22 26863 6463:8-9 63, 6463:8-9 LXX 62, 6363:9 63, 6563:15 22

65:17 20866:23 71, 7266:24 72

Jeremiah11:20 27112:4 18817:10 27030:8-9 27830:9 27931:31 24931:32 25332:19 27050:31-32 89

Ezekiel13:8-12 22113:10 10227:6 14934:23-24 27836:25 1937:9 17237:23 10537:24 27838:23 27144:9 644:10 10548:31 30648:31-34 311, 312

Hosea2:10 1005:14 230

Micah1:5 240, 2411:6 240

Nahum1:3-4 161, 2551:4 1983:1 2373:6-7 2383:8 2363:9 2363:11 236

Habakkuk1:4 41, 42, 43, 451:10 188, 1911:16 1892:2 2962:8 2382:12 2372:12-13 2372:17 161, 239

Zechariah2:6 17211:4 270, 27511:7 270, 275

Malachi3:21 713:24 LXX 213

Psalms1:1 1052:7 2802:10 1205:6 2698:5 2739:5 2719:17 7812:2 21916 28018:41 26918:50 27918:51 26532:1 13433:20 13437 4437:7 25637:10 18337:11 1037:14-15 23137:20 134, 13737:22 82, 19637:35-36 18341:14 26845:2 25749:15 7249:15 LXX 7651:10 274

343

Index of Sources

357



56:5 2059:17 27072:18-19 26878:39 2079:2-3 25582:1 24983:7-9 14489 26589:30-31 27889:41 27089:47 26591:1 26791:9 267102:3 134106:48 268107:34 188107:42 134110:1 324116:6 8118 312, 316118:22 272, 316119:72 269132 265132:9 134132:12 56139:21-22 96, 97146:6 183146:10 270147:2 110147:3 275

Job5:16 13412:10 27020:16 13222:19 13438:17-19 131

Proverbs10:25 27225:21-22 302

Ecclesiastes1:15 787:29 123

Lamentations2:3 147

Esther3:1 270

Daniel1:44 1477:22 3198:25 15111:30 5, 14011:32-34 21911:32 80, 14411:34 17911:40 144, 145, 148, 16011:41 14611:41-45 14311:42 14411:42-43 14811:44 147, 148, 15611:44-45 15011:45 151, 162, 16312:1 143

1 Chronicles22:9 270

APOCRYPHA

4 Ezra 208, 211, 2517.26 2479.38–10.28 24710.40-49 24711.40 20411.40-44 203-411.42 204

1 Maccabees 178, 180, 1821.1 5, 1401.10 1812.51 1822.62-63 1833.7 1833.18-21 1943.41 1444.22 144

4.24 1815.62 1795.66 1445.68 1447.41 1638.1 1938.1-2 1898.1-16 181, 183-85, 1878.2 192, 1938.3 192, 1938.4 189, 191, 193, 2028.5 5, 1408.7 192, 1938.9-10 191, 1938.10 181, 189, 1908.12 190, 192, 1938.14-16 1938.15 1908.16 19012.13-16 18213.29 18313.42 18014.35 18014.38-40 17814.41 30, 139, 18014.47 18016.23 183

2 Maccabees 1781.1-21 1731.10 1731.18 1732.8 1732.16-18 173, 179, 1823.6 1738.19 163

3 Maccabees6.5 163

Ben Sira, Wisdom of 2743.21-24 29316.6 7935.22-23 89, 13536.10 26837.26 18238.1-15 38

344

INDEX OF SOURCES

358



40.15 7941.10 7942.19 12148.25 12149.16 44, 5651.25 119

Tobit, Book of 596.13 50, 517.12 50, 517.13 50, 517.14 518.6 51, 5910.13 5114.4 122

Wisdom of Solomon3.8 3196 1207.22 2889.13-18 2879.15 2889.16-17 289

NEW TESTAMENT

Matthew 313:7 1323:9 317, 3215:3 7, 685:3-12 676:5 101, 1126:5-6 1126:16 1016:18 3188:12 32811:5 67, 6911:25-30 8, 31512:17 4112:18-21 41, 4212:20 41, 4212:32 74, 75, 8316:17 31516:17-19 31516:18 312, 314, 315, 316,

323

17 33317:12 21317:22-26 33217:24-27 32818:17 31519:28 323, 32419:29 31820:20-28 32320:22 32420:25 32321:9 27921:33-46 31621:42 273, 31621:43 32823 7923:2-3 21923:3 10123:4 10323:13 102, 10323:15 10323:16 10323:23 10323:25 10323:27 10323:27-28 10123:29 10323:30 22424:31 17324:36 6126:24 7926:64 324

Mark9:11 21310:35-45 32310:38 32410:41-4511:9-10 27912:1-12 31612:10 273, 31612:17 33113:27 17313:32 6114:21 79

Luke 311:69 111

3:7 1323:8 317, 3213:12-13 3336:20 76:20-23 677:22 67, 6910:21-22 7, 31511:27 31511:52 10220:17 273, 31622:20 31822:22 7922:24-27 32322:29-30 32422:30 32322:69 324

John3:6 29010:23 33214:26 28519:1-7 321

Acts of the Apostles2:23-36 2792:46 3323:11 3324:11 3164:34 375:12 3327:55 32413:32-37 27913:33-35 28013:34 28023:6 10023:8 61

Romans 3047:5 286, 2907:15-17 1248:5 2908:8-9 2868:14 29012:2 30112:6 30112:8–13:7 30312:9 301, 303

345

Index of Sources

359



12:12 30112:13 30312:14 30112:16 301, 30312:16-19 30112:19 302, 30312:20 30212:21 30213 30113:1-3 29913:5 302

1 Corinthians2:6-12 2892:6–3:1 2892:14 2893:3 285, 2904:8 3196:2 319

2 Corinthians5:17 208

Galatians1:8 612:9 272, 313, 3184:6 2904:21-31 250, 2544:22-31 2505:16-17 124, 290

Ephesians1:4-5 2761:7 221:20 3242:3-7 2862:19 3232:19-22 247, 313, 3182:20 314, 316, 3235:8-11 2915:19-23 291

Philippians3:5 1003:20 313

2 Thessalonians1:8-9 732:3-12 1292:6-7 129, 1302:7-10 1302:9-12 130

Hebrews1:3 3241:4 2732:5-9 2733:2-6 2737:4-10 2737:22 2538:6-7 2528:13 2539:10 1811:10 31311:13-15 31312:18 25312:18-24 249, 25012:21-25 31313:14 31331:6 274

1 Peter2:5-6 3122:7 3162:13-17 302

2 Peter3:10-13 208

Revelation 3131:16 1683:12 314, 3183:20-21 318, 32412 13118:3 20019:19-21 16720:8 21320:11–21:14 20821 32321 314, 31821:2 247, 31921:4 32321:9 247

21:10-14 24721:12 313, 32321:12-14 31121:14 312, 318, 31921:19-20 312, 319, 32321:19-21 24721:21 311

PSEUDEPIGRAPHICALBOOKS

Apocalypse of Baruch(Syriac) [2 Baruch]

164, 167, 168, 208,211

32 21136.3-5 16436.7-11 16637 16639.7 16540.1 16640.1-2 166

Assumption of Moses 29112.4-5 291

1 Enoch (Ethiopic) xiii,25, 266, 281

7.1 398.3 3917.28-29 20820.1 8320.6 7522.14 27127 8327.2-3 75, 7641.8 27545.4-6 20851 28151.3 28162.6 28163.3 12984.5 7389.19 27590.19 15190.25 275

346

INDEX OF SOURCES

360



90.34 151, 16591.15-17 20891.19 73

Jubilees xiii, 25, 29, 2661.15-17 2081.26-29 2081.27-29 2091.28-29 2502.26 2508.19 25010.1-14 3910.12-13 3913.1 14924.28 144

Sibylline Oracles 199l. 8 [10] 56l. 27 [33] 563.175-178 1853.190 1853.194-195 1853.257-259 2003.350-355 1993.350-361 1993.781-782 151, 165

Testaments of the TwelvePatriarchs xiii, 25, 29Testament of Judah 29

Testament of Levi 30, 2744.3 310

QUMRANDOCUMENTS

ApocryphalLamentations 255

Apocryphal Psalms154 170, 171

Apocryphal Psalmsof David 258-821.1-27 258-60

1.2 271, 2761.3 2691.3-4 2751.5 2751.6 276, 2771.7 2691.8 2771.10 2711.14 268, 2771.17 2701.18 272, 2821.20 2761.21 2751.22 2701.23 273, 277, 2821.25 2762.1-27 260-612.5 2752.6 270, 2742.8 267, 277, 2822.9 2742.18-19 2782.19 270, 274, 2822.20 2712.22 2682.23 2652.25 2772.25-27 2692.26 2772.27 2773.1 2763.1-27 261-623.2-5 2773.4 276, 2813.15 2763.17-19 278, 2823.18 2723.26 2774.1-2 2814.1-27 262-24, 2754.6 2744.6-7 2774.11 2714.11-12 2714.12 270, 2714.16 2774.19 271, 277

4.21 270

Consolation Scroll 2551.3-4 255

Damascus Document(CD) xii, 6, 116, 2741.1-11 2491.11 221, 2221.12 221, 2391.14-15 2401.16-18 2211.18 2562.1 221, 2392.3 2762.5-6 2982.7-12 22.12-15 812.14–3.21 2492.15 2753.4-5 2723.15 2763.17 203.19–4.4 183.20 444.2-3 222, 2424.3-4 64.10-12 2284.12-13 19, 2844.19 2214.19-21 2215.5 65.11–6.2 2215.14 1325.20 2406.5 xii, 2226.7 2206.14 19, 2846.14-16 96.19 177.9-10 2277.9-14 227, 2297.12 2277.12-13 2297.18-19 xii, 2207.21 118.4-5 106, 226

347

Index of Sources

361



8.8-9 106, 2268.9-10 2238.12 1018.12-13 2218.13 2398.16 2268.18 2218.21 xii, 178.21–20.1 2229.20–10.3 24910.19 xii11.5 22312.20-21 312.23 19, 28413.21 1113.23–14.1 227, 22914.19 1115.13-15 29619.17 10619.21 10619.25 10219.34 xii20.1 1120.10-12 22120.10-15 22220.11 22120.13-15 22220.14-15 22120.21 xii20.22-24 11720.28 22220.32 222

Florilegium1.14 2721.14-16 2261.14-17 104

Genesis Apocryphon 381.2 129col. 20 53

Hodayot xii, 6, 8, 191.10 1214.15 444.25 43, 289, 2905 129

5.20-21 575.20-22 2895.21-22 205.24-25 121, 138, 2896.4 15, 186.6 216.12 2886.13 2906.15 46.15-16 15, 1296.17 2766.18-20 236.20 47.6 1137.12 276, 2887.14-21 27.17-18 237.17-32 237.21-22 287, 2898.6 2768.14 2908.19-21 228.36 1299.7-8 29.7-20 21, 2849.11 209.13-16 579.14 219.15 2849.16 39.21 21, 2889.21-22 579.21-23 20, 2859.21-27 21, 2849.23-25 39.26-27 2010.8-9 23910.12-13 12010.13 256, 27610.14 25610.14-18 22110:18-19 24410:20-21 27210:22 237, 23910.22-23 22110.25-28 12010.27-28 132

10.31 25610.31-32 22110.31-37 22110.32 23910:32-33 22310.34 21910.36 22311.1-18 1111.5-18 13111.10 1111.10-12 13211:10-18 12011.11 13711.12 13211:17-18 132, 13711:18 13211.20 2111.26-36 12012.6-7 22112.7 219, 25612.7-12 22112.8 10212.9-10 25612.9-11 21912.9-18 912:10-11 22312.11 10212.14 21912.14-20 22112.16-17 10212.24-25 4212.29-30 28712:29-33 28612.30 2012.31 2112:31-32 28812.35-37 2212.38 213.24-25 313:25-26 29413:36-37 12914 31514.5 219, 221, 223, 23914.7 914.7-10 2314.8 11314.8-9 13

348

INDEX OF SOURCES

362



14.25 23614.26-36 31414.29 151, 16514:29-35 12015.8-9 5715.27 27615.29-32 2315.34 219, 221, 23716.5-6 1816.7 1816.8-15 31716.10-11 29416.10-13 1816.34-35 12917.9 27618.3-4 28818.3-7 287, 28918.5 27618.5-7 2218.22-23 19518.22-25 719.9-10 2319.10-11 28619.10-14 2119.11 28519.12 2319.14 113, 20819:27-34 11320.11-13 287, 28820.32-34 28721.11-14 20822 5823.6 25623.13 28524.7-9 129

Manual ofDiscipline xii, 6, 8, 19, 24,

26, 74, 304, 3101.5 3031.7 2411.7-8 2421.8 171.8-9 2951.9-11 91.11 2411.11-12 34

1.18 31.23 19, 2842.7-8 732.12 32.14-15 732.15 32.19 19, 45, 2843.4 193.4-9 193.6-7 2853.8 453.11 173.13–4.36 263.15-16 2, 27, 3003.17 283.17-18 21, 28, 2843.17-19 453.17-21 27-283.19 46, 47, 48, 130, 1323.20 463.20-24 1283.23 129, 1353.25 2, 483.25-26 46, 2854.2 21, 464.2-8 284.2-14 28, 2914.3 274.5 19, 454.6 45, 2954.9-14 284.10 19, 794.16-17 3004.16-18 9, 28, 464.18-19 2, 129, 1374.18-20 434.18-21 484.18-23 44, 47, 123, 125,

127-28, 130, 131,137

4.19 21, 45, 135, 2924.19-20 19, 45, 48, 2844.19-21 414.20 1294.20-21 46, 584.20-22 20, 44, 484.21 285

4.21-22 444.22-23 444.23 445.2 65.4-5 85.5-7 242, 2445.10-11 735.12-13 735.13-14 195.15-20 95.19 17, 243, 2536.3-5 66.4 66.5 76.6-7 2206.13 376.13-14 2416.18-24 376.19-20 347.16 78 1058.1 3228.1-2 3078.4 38.4-11 188.5-6 3078.7-8 3078.11-12 3, 2968.12 168.12-16 2268.13 98.13-16 105, 2968.14-16 2978.15-16 4, 2978.8 459.1 2979.4-5 179.5-6 189.7 6, 189.8-9 1959.11 11, 2959.12-21 3039.12-26 2979.13-14 4, 198, 3009.14 6, 3019.17 33, 2949.18-20 4

349

Index of Sources

363



9.19-20 2269.20 1059.21-23 196, 302, 3339.21-24 16, 2989.21-25 3019.22 3029.24-25 159.25-26 29510.15 18810.17-18 1510.17-19 30110.17-21 30310.18 30110.19 196, 30210.24 310.25-26 410.26–11.2 30311.1 30111.1-2 15, 30111.2 19511.7 28611.9 20, 21, 22, 285, 29011.10-11 22, 28811.11 2211.12 20, 285, 29011.14-15 20, 2164.6-13 116

Melchizedek,midrash on 248-492.8 2482.13-14 2482.23-24 2492.24 106, 2262.24-25 23610.16 288

Mysteries 40, 57, 89, 120,124, 125, 138

1.2 2191.5 40, 44, 461.8-12 2062–12 121-222.6 1195–7 122, 125, 128, 130,

132, 136, 1378 122, 137

8–12 206

Ordinances 330

PesherHabakkuk 5, 6, 175,

187, 188, 2011.10-13 412.1-4 221, 2222.3 172.5 2392.6-8 2372.6-10 2962.8 62.12 1922.12-13 1892.12-15 1882.14-15 1913.2-5 2043.4-5 190, 1923.4-6 1883.5-6 189, 191, 193, 202,

2043.9-11 1923.9-12 5, 1923.9-13 1883.10-11 1893.12-13 1914.2-3 1904.5-6 1904.5-8 2044.5-9 188, 191, 1934.10-13 189, 1904.12-13 1925.4-5 3195.7 195.8-12 2215.9-11 2226.1-5 1896.6-7 1936.6-8 1926.10-11 1896.10-12 189, 1916.14–7.5 2977.2 107.7-8 147.8 129

7.11-14 4, 108.1-2 2568.1-3 228, 2418.8-12 1958.11 223, 2308.12 2239.1-2 2319.4-6 10, 1879.4-7 5, 14, 186, 193, 195,

199, 2239.9-10 2319.9-12 23110.5-13 22110.9-10 22210.9-13 222, 23710.9-14 221, 24010.10 23910.13 1711.7–12.6 16112.1-5 24112.3-4 16112.3-5 228, 239, 25612.4 812.4-5 24112.10 223

Pesher Hosea 2302.2-6 1001002.3-6 2222.4-6 2552.5 2402.5-6 219

Pesher Isaiah 161, 236,313, 318, 314, 321

1–7 305-6, 3091.1-4 3231.1-5 307, 3081.1-7 305-6, 3091.2-3 3211.3 161, 2461.4-6 3211.5 3221.6-7 3061.7 321, 3222 3102–3 311

350

INDEX OF SOURCES

364



2.6-7 2552.6-8 2222.10 2552.10-11 221, 2552.17 2392.23 1642.27 1613.1-13 1613.7-8 1624 306, 307, 310, 3124.36 2395–6 3105 3126–7 3066 3077 310, 31254.11-12 246

Pesher Micah 5, 221,240, 241, 243, 248

Pesher Nahum 109, 171,198, 203, 205, 215,224, 230-45, 254,

2551.1-12 215-161.2 155, 220, 2221.2-3 1401.3 221, 2331.4 2301.4-5 1611.6-8 2201.7-8 222, 2301.11 81, 2351.11-12 1861.12 222, 2242.1-8 1612.1-12 216-172.1–3.8 2222.2 224, 2382.2-5 198-992.4 2332.4-6 2202.7-10 2432.8 218, 224, 2402.8-10 102, 219, 232, 244,

256

2.9 2252.18 2322.18-20 2333.1-12 217-183.4 135, 2433.4-5 2283.4-8 2393.5 224, 240, 2423.6-8 2393.7 239, 240, 242, 2433.7-8 2403.9 224, 233, 2363.11 182, 2333.15-16 2214.1 2244.1-4 2384.1-9 2184.2 2244.3-4 2334.4 186, 1874.5 2224.5-6 224, 2344.6 2244.13 1175.5-6 23915.2 155

Pesher Psalms 5, 2291.6-8 111.17-19 2111.25-27 2551.25–2.1 2562.4-5 2452.9-11 102.13-15 2552.14-16 2562.15 62.16-20 222, 2312.17-19 2552.18-20 223, 2332.20 2323.1-2 443.5 103.5-11 196, 2453.7-8 1343.12 2563.12-13 10

3.15-16 221, 2373.15-17 2553.19 2554.4 2554.7-10 2114.8 222, 2234.8-10 2314.9 2234.9-10 2324.10 2324.27 255, 257

Prayer for the Welfare ofKing Jonathan 170, 172,

173-742.3 1703.8 170

Psalms Scroll 171, 265,267, 274, 277, 281

19.3-4 27021.7 27024.4-5 28124.6 27024.9 12227.2 26727.4-5 26727.4-8 26727.7 26627.7-9 26627.10 26627.11 26728.8-10 273

Rule of theCongregation xii1.1-2 2451.2-3 106, 226

Temple Scroll xii1.373 821.373-379 812.289-291 8129.7-8 20929.7-10 20929.9-10 210, 21130.1-2 210

351

Index of Sources

365



64.6-9 7864.6-13 8164.10 8266.8-9 51

Testimonial. 27 22914 310

War Rule 159-60, 162

War Scroll xii, 4, 5, 6,11-12, 141, 145,

158, 159, 160, 168,197

1.1-2 141, 1431.1-7 12, 141, 154, 1551.2 5, 10, 148, 152, 154,

155, 2281.3 10, 1521.4 141, 142, 143, 148,

151, 152, 154, 1601.4-7 146, 1471.5 12, 731.5-6 143, 148, 1501.6 144, 154, 1621.1-7 12, 1411.10 3001.10-11 121.11-12 142, 143, 144, 1471.12-14 152, 1671.14 1632.1-2 3092.2-3 3102.3 1522.5 172.6 147, 1532.6-8 146, 1532.11 1532.12 1483.9 12910.10 1710.14 56, 5811.8-9 1211.11-12 144, 150, 151, 16312.1-5 1412.4-5 188

13.4-5 1913.7-8 1713.12-16 1413:14 6213.14-16 1214.7 714.9 12915.2 16015.2-3 151, 16516.9 12917.5 13517.6 2, 1217.16–18.3 15217.17 12918.1 15218.1-3 16318.2 14918.5 150, 16319.9-11 144, 150, 163, 165

1Q34

2.6-7 268

4Q159

1.6-7 330

4Q184

1.14 276

4Q180 197

4Q280 73

4Q521 67, 69

4Q735 139

4QF

1.11 220

4QMMT xii, 44, 118C 6-8 106C 7-8 118

PHILO OFALEXANDRIA

xi, 32

Omnis Probus Liber Sit1.75 1782 589-91 234

JOSEPHUS FLAVIUSxi, 25, 32-33, 34

Jewish Antiquities 2811.128 5, 14013.172 2713.209 3013.308-381 8113.311 413.311-313 29613.300 18013.394 17113.399-406 17213.401-404 10115.371-372 19615.373-379 29618.18 27, 6718.19 17, 10551.3-4 28251.6 28259.4 28260 282

Jewish War1.68 301.69 1801.78 41.97 811.105 1712.112-113 2962.118 3312.120 82.122 72.123 72.126 7

352

INDEX OF SOURCES

366



2.130 72.136 382.139 9, 2952.140 16, 299, 3332.141 3, 15, 295, 2992.142 4, 2942.147 2562.154-158 67, 208, 2122.159 18, 2962.361-387 2022.567 143.11 143.19 14

Vita10 100197 100

MISHNAH

Berakhot4.4 1175.3 719.2 270

Ketubot7.6 53

Sotah9.15 88

Sanhedrin1.10 836.4 826.5 6410.1 77, 78, 252

Eduyot2.10 72

Avot1.3 952.4 952.8 3206.9 269

Nidah4.2 965.2 96

Yadayim4.6-8 99

TOSEFTA

Berakhot3.25 92, 93, 94, 111, 114,

115, 116

Shabbat13.5 96

Yoma67b 74

Megillah4.14 54, 55

Ketubot3.9 53

Sotah15.11 97

Sanhedrin 738.5 5610.5 7913.4-5 71, 7213.5 75, 83

Tohorot9.14 320

Miqvaot7.10 320

Tosefta Derekh Eretz2.245 88

MIDRASHIM

Avot According to RabbiNathan 273A5 95, 23716 96B 5910 95

Genesis Rabba4.5 21048 8075 205

Exodus Rabba2.13 272, 314

Leviticus Rabba34.3 59

Numbers Rabba12.3 267

Canticles2.13 88

Eikha Rabbati1:16 279

Mekhilta of RabbiIshmaelto Ex. 14:29 40Pisha 14 63

Midrash Hagadol toGenesis274 80

Midrash Hagadol toNumbers21:2 149

Midrash Psalms16 28051.1 79104.25-26 205

353

Index of Sources

367



Midrash Tanhuma

Lev. 3 92parshat Korah

12 118

Seder {Olam 73, 74, 753 71-72, 73, 74, 75,

76, 77, 78, 79, 80,81, 83, 88, 89, 93,

114, 115, 116, 11817 226

Sifra to Leviticus

18:4 7426:9 249, 253

Sifre Numbers 7484 52, 63101 273103 273

Sifre Deuteronomy

42 61304 270, 284307 123337 61328 74352 210, 224

Sifre Zuta

101 273103 273175 273276 273

Targum Isaiah

12:3 27653:9 7363:16 273

Targum Nahum

2:13 2352:14 235

SMALLER TRACTATES

Derekh Eretz Zuta

1 280

Kallah Rabbati 54

Soferim1.7 32013.12 111

Semahot2.10 95

PALESTINIAN TALMUD

Berakhot2.5a 2793.25 2789, 13b 103

Ketubot4, 8a 914, 28d 53

Sotah5, 20c 103

Shabbat6.8b 267

Eruvin10.23c 267

Betzah6.6.62a 320

Yebamot15, 14d 53

Sanhedrin13.5 75, 76

BABYLONIAN TALMUD

Berakhot28b 27228b-29a 9129b 31429a 10846b 27164 5671 56

Shabbat87a 271114a 56

Pesahim 103b 55

Yoma67b 74

Rosh ha-Shanah17a 71, 79

Megillah6a 20517b 157

Mo{ed Qatan10a 320

Hagigah12b 76

Yevamot62a 320

Ketubot7b 547b-8a 548a 55, 57

Sotah22b 101, 102, 172, 218

Qiddushin66a 9966b 171

354

INDEX OF SOURCES

368



Baba Batra4a 9617a 280

Sanhedrin14a 32043a 32047a 9684 5692b-93a 27397a 15797b 88

Shevuot15b 267

Menahot65a 330

ADDITIONAL JEWISHSOURCES

Amidah 68, 69, 70, 84, 89,90, 92, 110, 111,

112, 113. See alsoIndex of Subjects

Birkat ha-Minim 86, 87,88, 108-9

Grace after Meals 212

Haftarah blessings 138-39

Mahzor Vitry 91, 135, 279

Prayerbook of Sa}adiaGaon 207

Prayerbook of theYemenite community 270

Qafa prayerbook for theHigh Holy Days 270

Rav Amram Gaon,prayerbook of 84n.42,

85, 87, 270

Siddur Rinat Israel 279

Worms,prayerbook 91 n. 60

Yalkut Makhiri to Psalms2.233 2733:8 267109 103

Yalkut Shim{oni toNumbers23:9 272, 312

Sefer Assaf ha-Rofe 39

Siddur Aleppo 84, 135

Sefer Josippon 97, 98,140, 171, 264

Maimonides’prayerbook 87, 88,

135, 207

Siddur }Otzarha-Tefilot1.336-337 84252b 57

Siddur Rav Sa}adiaGaon 55, 85, 88, 108, 121

ADDITIONALCHRISTIAN SOURCES

Clement of RomeEpistle to the Corinthians5:2-5 314

Didache 25-263.7-8 278.1-2 1019.2 2799.4 17210.5 17210.6 279

EusebiusEcclesiastical History6.25.2.1 180

LactantiusDivinae Institutiones6.8.6-9 1267.15.13 1497.18.5 1667.18.6-7 167

Epitome 16667.1-2 167

Pseudo-Clementines1.54-71 95

GREEK, ROMAN, ANDOTHER SOURCES

AristotleNicomachean Ethics7.3 125

Cleanthes, hymnto Zeus 126

Cicero 200De Republica3.22.23 126

355

Index of Sources

369



Second Oration AgainstVerres3.12 331

Julius CaesarBellum Gallicum7, 77.15 201

OvidMetamorphoses7.20-21 2067.21-22 125

Plato81c 288

Pliny the Elder xi

SallustEpistle to Mithridates theKing of Pontus 201-2

SenecaEpistles to Lucilius21.1 125

VirgilAeneid851-853 190

Ugaritic epics 66

XenophonOn the Education of CyrusBook VI, 1.41 125

356

INDEX OF SOURCES

370

