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

RICHARD A. HORSLEY 47
Qumran Opposition to the Temple and High Priests in Jerusalem
The Habakkuk Pesher, in particular, articulates a vitriolic attack on the
“Wicked Priest,” presumably (one of) the (first) Hasmonean high
priest(s) who usurped the proper Zadokite incumbents in mid-second
century B.C.E. (1QpHab 1.3; 8.9–11; 9.5–12; 11.4). The attack includes
indictments for robbing the people, especially the poor, to enhance their
own wealth (1QpHab 8.8–12; 9.4–5; 10.1; 12.6–10; cf. CD 4.18; 6.6, 11,
15–16; 8.4, 7; 20.23; 4QpNah 1.11; cf. 1 En. 92–104). Among the more
recently available scrolls, 4Q390 mentions high-priestly violence and
oppression as part of a review of Israel’s history. Similar indictments can
be found in other late Second Temple Judean Literature (see esp. Pss. Sol.
2:3; 8:12; T. Levi 16:1–2; 17:11; T. Mos. 5:4; 7:3–10) and in early rabbinic
literature (m. Ker. 1:7; t. Menah[. 13:18–21; t. Zebah[. 11:16–17; b. Pesah[.
57a), and Josephus provides accounts of high-priestly violence and
oppression for the mid-first century B.C.E. (e.g., Ant. 20.179–81;
20.205–7; 20.213).
Although Josephus reported that the Essenes offered sacrifices among
themselves (Ant. 18.19), Philo understood that they did not offer animal
sacrifices (Prob. 75). Archaeological probes to date have produced no altar
at Qumran. We should thus take seriously the references in the Rule of the
Community claiming that the Qumranites’ own righteousness and “perfection
of way” constituted their offerings, oblations, and “expiation for the
earth” (1QS 8.10; 9.3–5). Indeed, there is considerable evidence in the
scrolls that the Qumranites understood their community as the true
temple, the social-ethical replacement for the Jerusalem temple, now
utterly corrupted and defiled by their usurpers. The community itself was
“an everlasting planting, a house of holiness for Israel, as assembly of
supreme holiness for Aaron…who shall atone for the land…the ‘precious
cornerstone’ (Isa 28:16)” (1QS 8.5–7). The “sanctuary” that the Lord
established in the Song of Miriam (Exod 15:17–18) was understood as “a
sanctuary of men, that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense,
the works of the Law” (4Q174 = 4QFlor 1.2–7). That the purity code
intended originally for the priests in the temple was extended to all members
of the Qumran community fits precisely such a conception of the
community itself as constituting the sanctuary of God. This also fits the
dominant picture of the Qumran community as having modeled itself on
the exodus and covenant, despite its origin in priestly and scribal circles
formerly based in the temple.