Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

supporters in the Temple. Josephus comments on the awe-inspiring impression that the zeal of these
supporters of Aristobulus made on the Romans as they steadfastly went about their priestly duties in
the Temple even as they were being slaughtered there. He also notes that it was the Pharisaic
collaborators of the Romans who killed more of these priestly partisans of Aristobulus in the Temple
than the Roman troops themselves (War 1. 148-50).
Josephus also describes two rabbis in the next generation, obviously meant to represent persons of the
stature of Hillel and Shammai in Rabbinic tradition. He calls them 'Pollio and Sameas'. During the
events of 37 BC, they had advised the people to 'open the gates to Herod', when the latter supported
by Mark Antony returned to Jerusalem and again stormed it, finally taking control for himself and his
family (Ant. 15.2-3). For this, Herod never stopped bestowing favours on Pollio and Sameas and their
Pharisee supporters, while he had the other members of the previous Sanhedrin (i.e. the Sadducee
dominated one) executed (Ant. 14.175-6). Contrary to popular notion, fostered by the heirs to that
tradition over the first millennia, the Pharisee position they represented was not the popular one.
Rather the people ignored it, as they seemed to do all such advice and typically supported the more
nationalist one; so the popular position was pro-Maccabean, not vice versa, a position also
exemplified in this Song of Praise to King Jonathan we have before us.
Finally, at the time of the uprising against Rome, led presumably by the kinds of forces exemplified in
this literature, Josephus specifically notes that it was 'the principal men of the Pharisees, the chief
priests (i.e. Herodian Sadducees), and the men of power (the Herodians and their confederates - the
intermediary for whom was a mysterious individual he refers to as 'Saul'), who invited the Romans
into the Jerusalem to put down the uprising, thus making the momentous events that subsequently
transpired and the destruction of the Temple inevitable (War 2.411-18). Josephus and Philo's nephew
Tiberius Alexander, among others, even presided over this destruction!
There is another text at Qumran referring to these events, the Nahum Pesher from Cave 4. This text,
whatever it may be interpreted to mean, was obviously written after the coming of 'the Kittim' into the
country. It appears to refer to Demetrius, mentioned above, as well as 'Antiochus' (probably
Epiphanes) at the time of the celebrated events of Judas Maccabee's struggle with him, noting that 'the
Kittim' came after the 'Greeks'. Therefore it must have been written in the Roman period, and the
conclusion would appear to be that in this text, as in the Habakkuk and Psalm 37 Peshers related to it,
'the Kittim' refer to the Romans.
In traditional theories of Qumran origins, i.e. the Essene theory and its variations, Alexander Jannaeus
is often considered perhaps the most likely candidate for the role of Wicked Priest referred to in these
pesharim - either him or one of his equally zealous Maccabean predecessors, like Judas, Judas' father
Mattathias, his brother Jonathan, or even Alexander's son Aristobulus, who was apparently mentioned
in the Aemilius text. It was the aim of Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran to gainsay this
approach. The Paean to King Jonathan now vindicates this position, and supports the opposite.
Since the existence of this Paean came to light, as a result of the efforts of a young Israeli scholar,
comments have been made attempting to come to grips with it, like, 'a Sadducee must have joined the
Community at Qumran' or the like, mostly from persons trying to salvage the traditional Essene
theory. Similar kinds of comments were made in earlier research about the War Scroll, that it was