historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

JUDEAN NATIONALISM 7
was not a vague possibility. Everyone knew there was additional
material out there, liable to surface at any time. At the beginning
of this decade I was putting the finishing touches on a book concerning
Jewish self-government in antiquity. In a chapter concerning
the view that the ideal and proper form of government was a
diarchy of high priest and Davidic prince, I discussed what has commonly
been called the doctrine of the two messiahs in some of the
Qumran texts. The book was almost finished when I came upon the
1990 publication of 4Q376 by John Strugnell. I was fortunate because,
first, I managed to see the text in time to discuss it in the book and,
second, the text in no way weakened my argument. 9 I was well
aware, however, that things could have turned out differently. Now
that photographs of all the Qumran texts are available to the public
and the rate of publication has accelerated, scholars need no longer
worry about drawing conclusions from only part of the evidence.
Another factor encouraging more intensive exploitation of the
Qumran materials by historians is a broadening of the scope of historical
interests. For those pursuing social history, for example, study
of the origins and development of the Qumran community may tell
a lot about Judean society in general, and not just about several
dozen individuals living on the fringes. Similarly useful for those
interested in social history would be full publication of the Qumran
excavations and, were it only feasible, further excavations in the
Qumran cemetery. Even those who focus on the religious side of
Qumran may be able to tell us things about broader Judean society,
as Albert Baumgarten attempted to do in his recent book on
sectarianism. 10 In my treatment of the diarchic tradition in Second
Temple times, I also discussed the doctrine that rule by the high
priest was the proper and traditional form of Jewish self-government.
Part of the evidence, and potentially important for the argument
that this doctrine antedates the Hasmoneans, was the Levi literature
from Qumran. 11 Here are two instances when the Dead Sea Scrolls
9 See J. Strugnell, "Moses-Pseudepigrapha at Qumran: 4Q375, 4Q376, and Similar
Works," in Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference
in Memory of Yigael Yadin, ed. L. H. Schiffman (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 221-56.
See D. Goodblatt, The Monarchic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-government in Antiquity
(Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994), 69, and generally on the doctrine of diarchy, 57-76.
10 A. I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation,
JSJSup 55 (Leiden: Brill, 1997).
11 See Goodblatt, Monarchic Principle, 44-45, 48-49, and on priestly monarchy in
general, 6~56.