Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

upper-class establishment and the masses.
Nor can these objections be seen as unrelated to those in the Damascus Document, nor the two Letters
on Works Righteousness in Chapter 6 below, about 'pollution of the Temple' (one of the 'three nets of
Belial'). The Damascus Document, vi. 16 specifically raises the issue of the pollution of 'the Temple
treasure' (followed on the same line by a reference to 'robbing the Meek') and graphically delineates
these pollutions in v-viii.
The conditions described in this text could, therefore, apply, not only to the Herodian period (37 BC-
AD 70), where we are inclined to place the text, but also to any time prior to that, particularly in the
Maccabean period. However, it must be appreciated that should the text date to the Maccabean period,
it, like the Testament of Levi and the Daniel cycle related to it, must be seen as supporting a
Maccabean style priesthood and their 'Covenant of Phineas', that is, a native as opposed to a foreignimposed
one (1 Macc. 2:26-28). New texts such as these, and of course the stark, apocalyptic
nationalism evident across the whole corpus from Qumran, are bringing this proposition more and
more vividly to light, as opposed to the earlier consensus that led the public to believe that the group
responsible for these writings could somehow, quite mystifyingly, have been anti-Maccabean. The
Paean to King Jonathan, with which we end this collection, will further corroborate this proposition.
Where paying the Roman tax was concerned, Josephus refers to it when describing the birth of what
now goes by the name of 'the Zealot movement' (Josephus calls it 'the Fourth Philosophy'). In fact, the
tax issue was central to the split between Herodian Saducees and 'opposition Sadducees' signalled in
our discussion of the Priestly Courses/ 'Aemilius Kills' text above. Josephus presents a high priest, one
Joezer the son of Boethus - the obscure priest from Egypt Herod had promoted after marrying his
daughter (i.e. a Herodian or Boethusian Sadducee) - as successfully convincing the people to pay the
tax to Rome which the Herodians collected.
Joezer's opposite number - someone Josephus mysteriously refers to as 'Sadduk' (italics ours) - he
portrays as joining Judas the Galilean mentioned in Acts, the proverbial founder of the Zealot
movement, in agitating against the tax (Ant 18.4-5). The Gospels, prefiguring Paul's position
thereafter, for their part portray Jesus as teaching the people to pay the tax. Paul treated the issue of
paying taxes to Rome appropriately in Rom. 13. According to one perspective his approach could not
be more cynical, yet it is revealing. He applies the key 'Law-Breaker' terminology we find in the
Scrolls and the Letter of James to those who break Roman law not Jewish. 'God's Law' he calls the
law of the State, even going so far as to portray Roman officials and tax-collectors as 'God's officers'
(Rom. 13:6). According to this view, that Gospels writers after him did not scruple to portray their
'Jesus' as keeping 'table fellowship' with tax-collectors - even fornicators - should not be surprising.
As always in these texts, and the Firm Foundation text above, one should note the emphasis on
'Righteousness', 'Truth', 'Judgement' and 'Uprightness', as opposed to 'Evil', 'fornication' and
'deceitfulness'. Part of the second column of this text was previously published under the mistaken
identification of the Testament of Amram, presumably because of the mention of Amram in 2.9.