Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

confirms 'were dominated in all things by the Pharisees' (Ant. 18. 17), are the familiar ones pictured
by him, the Gospels, and to a certain extent Talmudic sources. They are probably best called Herodian
Sadducees. The Talmud calls them 'Boethusians' (i.e. Boethusian Sadducees after the name of a priest
from Egypt Herod appointed while also marrying his daughter-another instance of the multiplication
of wives by the ruler so roundly condemned at Qumran in documents like The Temple Scroll and
Damascus Document.)
Whatever else can be said of these unmistakable references to Aemelius' 'killing' - probably while
governor, though possibly in the war leading up to this - and to 'Hyrcanus' rebellion' (Line 6 Fragment
2 Manuscript A - almost certainly against his brother Aristobulus), they reveal the text to be hostile to
Hyrcanus, hostile to the party of collaboration, and hostile ultimately to the Herodian takeover
(perceived as both 'Gentile' and abetted by 'Gentiles'). This approach is consistent with the antiforeign,
xenophobic, 'zealot', yet pro-Temple - even James-like - orientation of the two Letters on
Works Righteousness and the Paean to King Jonathan below.
The conclusion appears to be that Qumran represents the archive of a pro-Maccabean nationalist
priesthood, one in sympathy with the aims of Judas, John Hyrcanus, Alexander Jannaeus, Aristobulus
II, Antigonus, etc., but not Salome Alexandra, nor her son Hyrcanus II with their Pharisaic tendencies.
The whole sitz-im-leben for these, including 'opposition' (even 'Messianic') and establishment
Sadducees, as well as for the two Letters on Works Righteousness and the Paen for King Jonathan
was already set forth in R. H. Eisenman's Maccabees, Zadokite, Christians and Qumran: a New
Hypothesis of Qumran Origins (E. J. Brill) without benefit of these texts in 1983. For more on this
subject, see our discussions of these Letters on Works Righteousness in Chapter 6 and the
Brontologion and Paean to King Jonathan in Chapter 8.
The reference to 'a Jewish man' or 'Jew' (ish Yehudi) in Manuscript D Fragment 4 parallels the similar
ones in the Persian Court materials in Chapter 3 and to 'a Jewish woman' below. Again, it shows that
this manner of looking at Jews as a distinct people, not as Israelites or in some archaizing tribal
notation, was already well in the process of taking hold.