The Oxford History of the Biblical World

by Coogan, Michael D.

  The Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls

  The origins of the word Essene are unknown; it may been connected to the Hebrew Hasidim, or “holy ones,” or it may have some relation to the Greek term for “healers.” Josephus makes the earliest known reference to the group, describing a movement in existence at least by the mid-second century BCE. Like Philo, Josephus also indicates that the number of Essenes was comparably small, perhaps only four thousand, and that members lived throughout Judea.

  But Philo and Josephus’s Gentile contemporaries, Pliny the Elder and Dio Chrysostom, state that the Essenes lived on the shore of the Dead Sea. From this evidence comes impetus for the conclusion, accepted by the majority of scholars today, that the group responsible for the copying and preservation of the scrolls discovered in the caves near the Dead Sea settlement of Qumran were Essenes. Other scholars, however, have suggested that the composers and copiers of the scrolls were instead a group of Sadducees disenchanted with, if not disfranchised from, the Temple. A third view holds that the scrolls were composed and copied elsewhere and brought to Qumran for safekeeping.

  Were the Essenes exclusively male and celibate? The Qumran scroll 1QS suggests that members were celibate men. (Scrolls are identified with a number representing the cave in which the document was found, with “Q” for Qumran, and a final element identifying either the contents of the document or the number of the manuscript. In this case, the “S” stands for Serek ha-yahad, Hebrew for “rule of the community.”) But the Essenes known from external sources as well as the group represented by another scroll associated with but not found at Qumran, the Cairo-Damascus Document (abbreviated “CD,” and sometimes called the “Zadokite fragment”), included married members and children. Apparently, some were celibate and some were not.

  Reconstruction of the Qumran community on the basis of archaeological investigation and from the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves suggests that the community began as early as the time of the Maccabean revolt. Excavations indicate a settlement from approximately 140 BCE that was substantially expanded about 100, abandoned about 31 BCE because of an earthquake, and repopulated at the turn of the era.

  The scrolls locate the origins of the community with a figure known only as the “Teacher of Righteousness” or “Righteous Teacher.” Probably a contender for the high priesthood but deposed by the “Wicked Priest” (the Hasmonean kings Jonathan and Simon are plausible candidates), the Teacher led his followers out of Jerusalem and eventually to the shores of the Dead Sea. Accepting the centrality of the Temple but rejecting its present practices and leaders, the scrolls unique to Qumran propose an alternative to Sadducaic control, as well as to the Pharisaic response.

  From the fourteen caves around Qumran come numerous manuscripts in Hebrew, Aramaic, and even Greek. These include copies of books from the Hebrew scriptures (with the possible exception of Esther) and from the Old Testament Apocrypha (such as Tobit; the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus; the Letter of Jeremiah); pseudepigraphical works known also from external sources (sections from 1 Enoch; the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; Jubilees); commentaries on the Hebrew scriptures (called Pesharim); Targums (Aramaic translations) of Job and Leviticus; and various documents unique to Qumran, such as the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness (1QM), the Hymn Scroll (1QH), the Temple Scroll (11QTemple), the Genesis Apocryphon (IQapGen), and the awkwardly titled “Collection of Works of the Torah” or (more succinctly) 4QMMT.

  In addition to documents, the caves near Qumran also yielded a substantial number of mezuzot and tefillin (phylacteries) that contain texts from Exodus and Deuteronomy. Mezuzot were, and still are, attached by Jews to the doorposts of the house in conformity with Deuteronomy 6.9. Following Deuteronomy 6.8, tefillin, also still used in Judaism, are small boxes ceremonially worn on the left hand and forehead during prayer.

  The individual manuscripts of the Hebrew scriptures, as well as the tefillin and the mezuzot, sometimes match the Hebrew versions now standardized in synagogue worship. Sometimes they conform to the version familiar from the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. Sometimes they differ from both. The Psalms scroll contains several songs absent from the canonical collection. Thus the Qumran documents reveal that at the turn of the era the biblical text was not yet fully standardized.

  A highly ordered society as indicated by the scrolls, the Qumran covenanters had a council of twelve members (one for each tribe of Israel) and three priests. They required candidates to endure a three-year probationary period, held property in common, dressed in white, practiced table fellowship, and believed in predestination. These practices, as well as their utilization of a solar calendar (in contrast to the lunar calendar of the Pharisees and Sadducees), ensured their distinction from those they considered corrupt. Josephus remarks of the Essenes that “although they send votive offerings to the Temple, they do not offer sacrifices because of the difference in the purity regulations which they practice”(Antiquities 18.1.5).

  Highly eschatological in their outlook and dualistic in their theology, the scrolls represent a community anticipating the imminent end of the world and a style of life designed in preparation for that end. They attest to the expectation of two Messiahs: one, the son of Joseph, would fall in battle; the other, the son of Aaron, would lead the community to its final reward. The covenanters, the “sons of light,” would accompany the angels in battle. Their enemies, the “sons of darkness,” would eventually fall.

  The end came, but not as the covenanters expected. Not the heavenly hosts but the Roman army appeared in 68CE. Some members may have escaped to Masada, where they awaited their fate with the Zealots who fled from Jerusalem. Josephus speaks of “John the Essene,” who may or may not have had an association with Qumran, as active in the early campaigns of the revolt; excavations of Masada have yielded at least one scroll with connections to the Qumran documents. Others may have joined the early Jerusalem Christian movement, with whom Qumran shared such beliefs and practices as a charismatic leader, scriptural interpretation, communal meals, common property, messianic interests, and the coming judgment.

  Charismatic Prophets, Teachers, and Visionaries

  The community responsible for the Qumran scrolls was by no means the only group of first-century Jews with messianic expectations. Numerous, and quite diverse, portraits of the Messiah and the messianic age flourished: for some Jews, the savior would be a human warrior; for others, an angel; for others, the age to come would be inaugurated not by a savior figure but directly by divine command. Apparently, many Jews did not expect a messiah at all. Still others may have seen divine agency manifested by charismatic prophets, reformers, and teachers. One such figure was John the Baptist.

  A popular figure in the early part of the first century CE, John the Baptist was one of a number of Jewish reformers who attracted disciples and crowds, and consequently the attention of local authorities, both Jewish and Roman. Although the Gospels suggest that Herod Antipas was coerced by Herodias’s daughter into decapitating John, it is more likely that the tetrarch recognized John’s threat to his authority and, following his father’s practice, executed someone who challenged his rule. To be a religious leader during the Second Temple period was thus, as epitomized by John, also to be a political figure.

  Jesus and his followers may be placed in the context of various reformist groups—Pharisees, Qumran covenanters, urban Essenes, political revolutionaries, and John the Baptist, whose follower Jesus appears to have been at one time. The Gospels indicate that Jesus had much in common with various other charismatic teachers, healers, and sages of the period. All sought to live the way God intended, but they emphasized different lifestyles, interpretations of scriptures, relations to the occupying Roman government, and views of the Temple.

  Jesus was probably born during the reign of Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE). The Gospels of Matthew and Luke indicate, through quite different stories, that he was born in Bethl
ehem, conforming with Micah 5.2, but all four Gospels also identify him as being from Nazareth in Galilee. Consequently, more skeptical readers suggest that the birth in Bethlehem is a “theological truth” rather than a historically accurate statement. The evangelists recount that as the result of his healings and teachings Jesus gathered a crowd substantial enough to worry the Jewish officials responsible for maintaining peace with Rome. At some point in his ministry, he engaged in an incident in the Temple (Mark 11.15–19; John 2.13–22) that brought him to the attention of the Sadducaic authorities, as well as of Roman officials who took an equal interest in maintaining peace. He was executed by crucifixion as a Roman criminal on the orders of Pontius Pilate, the governor from 26 to 36, during the reign of Tiberius (14–37). Some of his followers proclaimed that after three days he was raised from the dead.

  Aside from these few conclusions, neither the chronology nor the central message of Jesus’ preaching nor the reason for his crucifixion can be given with certainty. The sources for his life, principally the Gospels but also other writings from inside and outside the Christian communities, lead to various reconstructions. Nor can he be securely located in a single social class (peasant, artisan, retainer), cultural environment (urban, rural; Galilee or Jerusalem), or even religious orientation (conservative, liberal). Jesus has been viewed, by followers and detractors, historians and theologians, in diverse roles: a Jewish reformer anticipating the end of the world and the beginning of the reign of God; a Hellenistically inclined Cynic-sage seeking to subvert conventional expectations; a Pharisaic interpreter of biblical law; a proponent of the Temple and of ritual practice; an opponent of the Temple and ritual practice (both conclusions can follow from how one interprets the “cleansing”); a revolutionary preaching a kingdom to replace that of Rome; a pietist who sought peaceful coexistence with the occupation forces; a sexual ascetic; a glutton and a drunkard; a proponent of family values; an underminer of precisely those values and the instituter of a new family connected not biologically but by faith. As Albert Schweitzer observed nearly a century ago, portraits of Jesus often reveal as much, if not more, about the painter as about the subject of the painting.

  Compounding these problems in constructing a biography of Jesus is the nature of the sources themselves. First, we lack any autographs—that is, the original manuscripts—of the Gospels. The documents we have today are composites based on various ancient manuscript traditions. Both the ancient texts and the modern translations of them represent various philological, historical, aesthetic, and ideological judgments. Second, while Jesus’ native language was Aramaic, the Gospel texts are written in Greek. Jesus may have been bilingual, but it is more likely that the Gospels derive from collections of teaching material translated from Aramaic. Third, although Jesus lived during the early part of the first century CE, and although stories about him circulated both during his lifetime and after his crucifixion, the Gospels date from the second half of the century.

  Moreover, the evangelists are addressing the concerns of the early Christian communities, most likely outside Palestine. Theological statements written by passionate believers rather than unbiased outsiders’ recollections, the Gospels present, each in its own way, the story of Jesus adapted to meet the needs of the diverse Christian groups in the early years of the church. Theology and history need not be mutually exclusive, but even so how we read the stories of Jesus preserved from antiquity will to a great extent be determined by our own religious orientation. If we believe that the Gospels recount events exactly as they are recorded, then little reconstruction needs to be done: Jesus disrupted Temple activities once at the beginning of his ministry (John) and again at the end (Matthew, Mark, and Luke); he delivered the same talks on more than one occasion (the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel; the Sermon on the Plain in Luke’s); and so forth. But different pictures emerge if we see the Gospels as the stories told by Jesus’ followers to aid the church in its mission to both Jews and Gentiles, as it was rejected or persecuted by representatives from those groups, as it sought its own place in the world and its relation to the traditions of Israel.

  Two examples illustrate the difficulty of historically reconstructing the story of Jesus. First, to a great extent, the Gospel accounts are garbed in the images of the Hebrew scriptures. The way his story has been told, what has been preserved, is influenced by the way those early Christians read their Bibles. For example, the crucifixion scene in Mark echoes Psalm 22, almost verse for verse. The infancy material, temptation scenes, and location of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew recollect the story of Moses from his birth to the Exodus to the wandering in the wilderness to the Sinai theophany. Second, the Gospels in various ways present Jesus in conflict with his contemporaries, identified either simply as “the Jews” (or “the Judeans”—the Greek term is the same) as the Gospel of John puts it, or with Pharisees, Sadducees, high priests, and others. Regardless of the episode, from controversies over practice to the events of Jesus’ final days in Jerusalem, these Jewish figures almost invariably appear at best as completely misguided, usually as malevolent, and even as children of the devil (John 8.44). If we recognize that the Gospels come from groups who define themselves in opposition to the thriving Jewish communities who identify themselves as “true Israel,” who have their own program of scriptural interpretation to support that self-designation, and who in turn reject the Christian proclamation, we can also recognize that the Pharisees and Sadducees of the Gospels are less objective portraits than caricatures. One might compare the portraits of contemporary political parties as painted by their bitterest enemies.

  Just as individuals bring different experiences to their studies of literature and history, just as they interpret events variously, so too did the “proclaimers of the good news,” the “evangelists” who composed the Gospels. The Christian canon has four Gospels, and each provides a different picture of its central character. According to early tradition, Mark was the interpreter of Peter, and Luke of Paul, while Matthew and John were members of Jesus’ inner group of disciples. Yet not only do the Gospels themselves not make these claims, but the names Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were assigned only later to the texts. Moreover, the Gospels themselves present differing views of the course of Jesus’ mission, the names of his disciples, the content and style of his preaching, the events surrounding his birth, and the date of his death. Although this diversity shows the richness of the early tradition (one might compare, for example, the different accounts of creation and the Flood in Genesis, or of the monarchy in the Deuteronomic History and Chronicles), it also creates problems for historians.

  The four canonical Gospels are not the only texts about Jesus that have come down to us from antiquity. Some scholars argue as relevant to the historical Jesus such texts as the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of sayings many of which resemble material in the Synoptic Gospels; the Gospel of Peter, a fragmentary text containing the trial of Jesus, the crucifixion, and the beginnings of a resurrection account; and even a text whose antiquity is debated, the “Secret Gospel of Mark,” which depicts a shamanlike Jesus who practices esoteric initiation rites.

  The value of non-Christian sources is likewise debated. In discussing Pilate’s rule, Josephus notes:

  About this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, if one should even call him a man. For he was a doer of striking deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He gained a following both among many Jews and among many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah [Greek christos]. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by leading men among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them, living again, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him. And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, still to this day has not disappeared. (Antiquities 18.3.3)

  Not surprisingly, this statement has provoked much controve
rsy. Of the three surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities in Greek, the earliest dates to the eleventh century, and all are preserved by the church. Thus, some suspect that the monks engaged in editorial elaboration. Supporting this view are three other factors: the tenth-century version of the Christian Arab Agapius lacks this testimony (of course, later Muslim copyists may have omitted it); unlike other comments of Josephus on early Christian leaders, this passage is not cited by the church fathers prior to the fourth century; and nowhere else, including in his autobiography, does Josephus indicate any Christian confessionalism. Finally, even if we assign the entire passage to Josephus, we still cannot account it as independent testimony, since Josephus is recounting the information second- or even thirdhand.

  Rabbinic sources are even further removed from the historical Jesus. The Babylonian Talmud, a product dating several hundred years after the first century CE, reports: “On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu of Nazareth. And the herald went before him forty days, saying, ‘Yeshu of Nazareth is going forth to be stoned, since he has practiced sorcery and cheated, and led people astray. Let everyone knowing anything in his defense come and plead for him.’ But they found no one in his defense, and they hanged him on the eve of Passover”(Sanhedrin 43a). The composite nature of the material (stoning and hanging are both mentioned) and the date of the text, which is from the time of Christian ascendancy and attendant persecution of the Jews, suggest that this is less an independent witness than a product of Jewish reflection on church teaching.

  Given the problems with these outside sources for reconstructing the life of Jesus, scholars turn primarily to the canon, and specifically to the first three Gospels. The accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke—called “Synoptic” since “seen together” they present a generally similar chronology and description of Jesus’ life—highlight the proclamation of the “kingdom of God” through parables and healings. Mark, usually viewed as the earliest of the canonical Gospels, is dated by most biblical scholars to sometime around the First Revolt against Rome, either immediately before or just after 70CE. Matthew and Luke, which appear to use Mark as a source, are dated toward the end of the first century. Matthew and Luke are also seen as having used additional traditional material, both shared and independently. Most scholars suggest that Matthew and Luke used, along with Mark, another text comprised mostly of sayings attributed to Jesus; this collection, known as Q (from the German word Quelle, meaning “source”), accounts for material Matthew and Luke both contain but Mark lacks, such as the Beatitudes (Matt. 5.3–12; Luke 6.21–26; the form was well known in both Jewish and Gentile sources) and the “Lord’s Prayer” (Matt. 6.9–13; Luke 11.2–4). Matthew alone provides such material as Jesus’ statement that divorce is permitted in cases of unchastity and the description of Pilate washing his hands. Luke alone offers the well-known parables of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son.