the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

84 MESSIANIC EXPECTATION AT QUMRAN
The two “sons of oil” in Zechariah reflect the dual leadership of
Zerubbabel and the High Priest Joshua at the time of the restoration. It
is possible that the sectarians of the Scrolls had this early postexilic period
in mind as an ideal, but the evidence is sparse. (There is only one reference
to Zech 4:14 in the Scrolls, in 4Q254 frag.4 line 2, which is a very
fragmentary text). 40 Closer to the world of the Scrolls is the Temple Scroll,
which is probably not a product of the Dead Sea sect but part of the corpus
of related literature. There we read that the king is not granted independent
authority: “He shall not go until he has presented himself before
the High Priest, who shall inquire on his behalf for a decision by the
Urim and Tummim. It is at his word that he shall go and at his word that
he shall come, he and all the children of Israel who are with him. He shall
not go following his heart’s counsel until he has inquired for a decision
by Urim and Tummim” (11Q19 58.18–21). The Temple Scroll is here
indebted to Deuteronomy 17, which also limits the authority of the king.
In the Temple Scroll, however, the king is not an eschatological messiah.
His rule is conditional and he is not said to fulfill messianic prophecy.
The relation between the king and the priests, however, is quite in line
with what we find in the sectarian scrolls. The Isaiah Pesher (4QpIsa a [=
4Q161]) frags. 8–10, col. 3.22–25 interprets Isa 11:3 (“he shall not judge
by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear”) as “according to
what they teach him, he will judge…with him will go out one of the
priests of renown.”
The subordination of the king to the High Priest is readily intelligible
in view of the history of Second Temple Judaism, where the High Priest
was nearly always the ultimate authority. Moreover, it is scarcely possible
to imagine an eschatological restoration of Israel without a High Priest.
Nevertheless, none of the Pseudepigrapha that mention a messiah, Psalms
of Solomon, the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71), 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, mention
a priest in conjunction with him. Consequently, it is reasonable to
conclude that the Dead Sea sect gave a higher rank to the High Priest of
the end time than was customary in messianic writings from other
sources. It is true, of course, that not all messianic texts found at Qumran
mention two messiahs. 41 But several do, and dual messianism is especially
characteristic of the major rule books, the Rule of the Community and
Damascus Document. It is still disputed whether the expression “messiah of
40. See Craig A. Evans, “‘The Two Sons of Oil:’ Early Evidence of Messianic
Interpretation of Zechariah 4:14 in 4Q254 4 2, ” in The Provo International Conference on the
Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. D. W. Parry and E. Ulrich; STDJ 30; Leiden: Brill, 1999), 566–75.
41. Martin G. Abegg, Jr., “The Messiah at Qumran: Are We Still Seeing Double?”
DSD 2 (1995): 125–44.