Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

to Levi as the 'father' of the speaker in Line 11. (For Kohath's genealogy, see Exod. 6:16ff.) Here, we
have as beautifully preserved a piece of pseudepigrapha as one could wish. The instructions it
conserves are also of the most high-minded, zealous, and xenophobic kind, presumably in the style of
the proverbial Phineas (also a descendant of Kohath), the archetypical progenitor of both Maccabean
and Zealot movements. In this regard, one should also note Jesus' 'zeal' recorded in John 2:27 and
Acts 21:20's parallel characterization of James' followers as 'zealous for the Law'. These instructions
are obviously meant to apply to the entire priesthood relating to the family of Moses, including, one
would assume, the Levites themselves.
The text has been dated by those who rely on palaeography to 10075 BC, but what one has here,
regardless of the reliability of such assessments and the typological sequences on which they are
based, is not a formal or 'book' hand, but rather a semi-cursive or private one. As such, it is almost
impossible to date. A recent, .Tingle AMS Carbon 14 test done on the parchment yielded a date of
about 300 years earlier. This is obviously unreliable, and the inaccuracy is probably connected with
the imprecision of such tests generally and the multiple variables that can skew results. It should be
noted that C-14 tests in manuscript studies tend to make documents seem older than they actually are,
not vice versa.
The crucial passage in this text is the one in Lines 5-6 of Column 1 having to do with foreigners
coming into the country - particularly, in Line 7, foreign masters who have taken it over - and being
humiliated and trampled on by them. It is possible to read the reference to 'violent men' in Line 6 as
'confiscators' or 'expropriators'. As in 1 Macc. 13:36ff. , this allusion may not simply relate to
violence, but possibly to foreign taxation. It can also be read as 'violent ones' as we have rendered it,
which has important overtones with other Qumran texts. A third way of reading it is as a reference to
'men of mixed blood (italics ours). Such a reading would strengthen the relationship of the entire
allusion to 'Herodians' - the family of Herod and those owing their positions to them - who were
certainly regarded as 'hybrids' or of 'mixed' parentage if not outright foreigners altogether. However
this allusion is read - whether in one or a combination of these senses - it is a tantalizing notice, and
the antagonism to foreign control, particularly of the priesthood, should be clear. These xenophobic
instructions resemble nothing so much as the outlook of 'the Zealots', a militant group in the First
Jewish Revolt against Rome (AD 66-70) with roots going back to the Maccabean period and similar
uprisings and independence movements in that period (second to first centuries BC).
This nationalistic theme of antagonism to foreigners not only runs across the spectrum of these
documents, but can be rationalized to include objections to appointment of high priests by foreigners
and their gifts and sacrifices in the Temple, which both the Pharisees and the priesthood dominated by
them (i.e. the 'Herodian Sadducees') seemed to have been prepared to accept throughout this period,
but which the Zealots and others opposing Roman/Herodian rule in Palestine were not.
In an all-important passage in the Jewish War, Josephus describes this unwillingness to accept gifts
from and sacrifices on behalf of foreigners in the Temple as an 'innovation' which 'our forefathers'
were unacquainted with before (2:409-14). This would include, not only the Roman Emperor, on
whose behalf sacrifices were made daily, but also Herodians, looked upon by 'zealot' groups such as
these 'foreigners' because of their Arab and Idumaean origins. For Josephus, these circumstances led
directly to the uprising against Rome. From the period 4 BC-AD 7, when most of the first-century
revolutionary activity began, the tax issue was a burning one, particularly in the struggle between the