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

66 TAL ILAN
I would like to finish this paper by a short note on the second
Hosea pesher found at Qumran (4Q167). It had been identified as
a separate composition due to its script and parchment analysis,
although it does not discuss the same verses as Pesher Hosea A. The
extant fragments of this pesher discuss Hosea 5-8, namely parts that
come after chapter 2, which was discussed in Pesher Hosea A. In Pesher
Hosea B frg. 2, it becomes clear that, chronologically, this pesher is
discussing events that pre-date those mentioned in Hosea A, at least
according to my reconstruction, since it mentions the Lion of Wrath,
which, in Pesher Nahum, is the Qumran code name for King Alexander
Yannai, who was Queen Shelamzion's husband and predecessor.
It comes as no surprise that Hos. 5:14 evoked in the imagination of
the Qumranites the vision of King Yannai persecuting the Pharisees.
The verse reads: "For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a
young lion to the house of Judah." From Pesher Nahum we understand
that for the sect, Ephraim meant the Pharisees and Judah, the
sect itself. In fact, this verse in Hosea may well have been the incentive
for Yannai, the Pharisees, and the sect acquiring these code
names in the sect's terminology. If King Yannai had persecuted both,
this was the ultimate verse to bear this out, Yannai himself being
envisioned as a lion.
I believe that, as in Pesher Nahum, the Qumran sectarians intended
this pesher to expose history chronologically. If 5:14 discusses something
that happened during the 80s of the first century BCE, the
next verses will discuss something that happened later. A good example
for this chronological order is found in Pesher Nahum. Column 1
of the pesher describes the reign of King Yannai. Column 2 discusses
the reign of his wife and successor Shelamzion, and the fragmentary
column 3 probably discusses the Roman conquest that
followed. In Hosea, however, while 5:14 seemed to describe precisely
the relations between the sect and King Yannai, 2:11-12 served as
an excellent answer to the pharisaic claims about Shelamzion. The
order of the verses did not fit the chronology of the period. The
brought the Romans to Palestine is also championed by Josephus or, more likely,
by Nicolaus of Damascus. See my 'Josephus and Nicolaus on Women," in Geschichte—
Tradition—Reflexion: Festschrift fur Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. H. Cancik,
H. Lichtenberger, and P. Schafer (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1996), 239-41.