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

8 DAVID GOODBLATT
may illuminate political history and theory. Thus, as we begin the
second half century of Qumran studies with the full publication of
the Qumran texts finally near, I predict that more and more historians
of Second Temple Judea will draw on these materials. The
question then will be, to what extent will the religious studies scholars
who have dominated the Qumran field pay attention to the work
of the historians?
The discussion up to this point has already shown how topics that
appear in the Qumran texts may reverberate with issues central to
the political life of Second Temple Judea. These texts may shed light
on the debate about the legitimacy of the Hasmonean high priesthood,
on the political role of the high priest and possibly on the
assumption of the royal tide by the high priest. Indeed, a view widely
held among scholars is that the Qumran group originated in, or at
least shared in, opposition to the Hasmonean regime. My point here
is that examination of this opposition is important not only for the
history of the few members of the Qumran group, but for the history
of the Hasmonean dynasty and thus for all of Judea. In this
paper I wish to explore another historical subject where the Qumran
material may make an important contribution: Judean nationalism.
First, a digression on nationalism is necessary. During the past
generation social scientists have devoted considerable attention to the
definition of nations and nationalism. Some of the most influential
studies, for example, by Anderson and Gellner, argue that nations
are a purely modern phenomenon. To be sure, this assertion is not
new. The great semitist of the last century, Ernst Renan, already
argued, "The idea of nationality as it exists today is a new conception
unknown to antiquity." 12 Even social scientists willing to recognize
some form of nationality in antiquity concede that it was not
quite like what exists in the modern period. To emphasize the
difference, these scholars prefer to avoid the simple term 'nation'
when discussing the ancient phenomenon. Thus Armstrong speaks
of 'proto-nationalism' or 'precocious nationalism' and Smith uses the
terms 'ethnic consciousness' and 'ethnic,' rather than 'nationalism'
and 'nation,' when treating antiquity. Even Connor, who stresses the
12 See B. Anderson, Imagined Communities, rev. ed. (London and New York: Verso,
1991); E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).
Renan is quoted by M. Vaziri, Iran as Imagined Nation: The Construction of National
Identity (New York: Paragon House, 1993), 42.