THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD: LOOKING BACK ON THE END

Kurt Simmons

 

The nature and meaning of Christ’s coming and kingdom has been understood in different ways at different times. The prevailing modern view, which we deem erroneous, is that Christ’s second coming will be visible, bodily, and physical; and will be marked either by a millennial reign of Christ on earth, a material new creation, or by the end of the cosmos itself. The nature of these expectations is such that those who hold them still look for their fulfillment, giving rise to the notion of a ‘delayed Parousia.’ However, early Christians rejected the notion of a delayed Parousia, and instead viewed Christ’s coming as spiritual and providential, and believed it was accomplished in the events surrounding the persecution under Nero (A.D. 64-68), the Roman civil wars that followed Nero’s death (the ‘year of four emperors’ – A.D. 69), and the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome (A.D. 70).  There is a strong correlation in the eschatological views of these early Christians with the authors of the Dead Sea scrolls, who also believed they were living in the ‘end of days,’ and looked for victory over Rome and wrath upon the Jewish nation by the coming of Messiah. The Dead Sea Scrolls thus serve to corroborate the ‘Preterist’ view of eschatology.

I. WHAT IS PRETERISM?

The term ‘Preterism’ is derived from the Latin praeteritus, meaning that which has past; it describes a school of eschatology that views end-time prophecy as being fulfilled within the lives of the first disciples. Specifically, Preterists view the end-time language and imagery of Daniel, Revelation, and related prophecies as describing events culminating in the persecution under Nero, the series of Roman civil wars that followed Nero’s death, and the destruction of Jerusalem by Rome.[1] Other interpretative schools include ‘Futurism,’ ‘Historicism,’ and ‘Idealism,’ but are beyond the scope of this study.

Preterism had a very significant showing in the early church. The great Alexandrian thinker and writer, Origen (A.D. 184-254), was a Preterist:

We do not deny, then, that the purificatory fire and the destruction of the world took place in order that evil might be swept away, and all things be renewed; for we assert that we have learned these things from the sacred books of the prophets…But according to Celsus, ‘the Christians, making certain additional statements to those of the Jews, assert that the Son of God has been already sent on account of the sins of the Jews; and that the Jews having chastised Jesus, and given him gall to drink, have brought upon themselves the divine wrath.’ And anyone who likes may convict this statement of falsehood, if it be not the case that the whole Jewish nation was overthrown within one single generation after Jesus had undergone these sufferings at their hands. For forty and two years, I think, after the date of the crucifixion of Jesus, did the destruction of Jerusalem take place.[2]

Origen’s use of the phrase ‘all things renewed’ almost certainly alludes to Rev. 21:5, where John describes a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ in which Christ’s bride is the ‘new Jerusalem.’ The implication is that Origen interpreted Revelation’s imagery as being bound up in the destruction of the old Jerusalem by the coming of Christ, such that the church became the ‘new Jerusalem,’ taking its place. More importantly, Origen was not alone in this opinion, nor did it originate with him: Celsus cites other Christians as taking the view that Christ returned in vengeance upon the Jewish nation. Indeed, Origen’s quotation of Celsus gives every indication that the view was then normative and widely held among Christians, as indeed it would have to have been for it to come to the attention of an unbeliever and outsider like Celsus, and find its way into his works as representative of the general view among Christians. Hence, it would appear that at this point in history, Preterism was the dominant view of eschatology embraced within the church.

The famous church historian, Eusebius (A.D. 260-340), also made numerous Preterist statements. Regarding Jacob’s prophecy of the ‘last days’ (LXX ‘end of days,’ Gen. 49:1, 10) Eusebius states:

For we must understand by ‘the end of the days’ the end of national existence of the Jews. What, then, did he say they must look for? The cessation of the rule of Judah, the destruction of their whole race, the failing and ceasing of their governors, and the abolition of the dominant kingly position of the tribe of Judah, and the rule and kingdom of Christ, not over Israel but over all nations, according to the word, ‘This is the expectation of the nations.’[3]

According to Eusebius, then, the ‘latter days’ describes the period ending with the abolition of the Jewish state and polity, which has been replaced by the universal dominion and government of Christ. Concerning Christ’s second advent, Eusebius writes:

So, then, the prophecy before us says that He comes forth from His place, and will descend upon the high-places of the earth. How are we to understand this? Shall we take it literally of the hills and mountains of Israel, which are the subjects of so many prophecies, Jerusalem itself and Mount Sion, in which our Lord and Saviour spent so much time? If so, their destruction and ruin at the descent of Christ would be prophesied. And it is the fact that after the Saviour's coming and the treatment He received all the hills mentioned were besieged, and utterly desolated. But the rulers of the Jewish people as well, and their kingdom that existed previously, their sacrificial system and the seats of their teachers, here called Mountains metaphorically, are said to be shaken by the Descent of the Lord from heaven. And who could deny that this was fulfilled after the time of our Saviour Jesus Christ, when he sees all these things not only shaken, but abolished?[4]

Eusebius’ reference to things ‘shaken’ is probably derived from Heb. 12:26-29, which quotes the prophet Haggai where the Lord says ‘Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven’ (cf. Hag. 2:6). The shaking of heaven and earth is poetic and figurative language common to the prophets, used to describe the overthrow of earthly governments and powers as the original passage in Haggai expressly states (Hag. 2:7, 21, 22; cf. Isa.2:19—Assyrio-Babylonian invasions; Isa. 13:13—Mede-Persian capture of Babylon; Joel 3:16—wrath upon miscellaneous nations; Luke 21:25, 26—destruction of Jerusalem by Rome). It is cited in the epistle to the Hebrews to urge believers not to succumb to persecution from their fellow countrymen,[5] since God would soon visit judgment upon the Jewish nation, taking it away, that the church might assume its place as God’s covenant people in the world. More to the point, however, Eusebius saw Christ’s second coming as an accomplished fact, evidenced by the destruction of the Jewish state. Even Jewish Christians took this view, as evidence by the ‘Moriad.’

The Moriad is a book-length epic poem written by a third century Christian-Jew about the A.D. 70 destruction of the Jewish state. The name is taken from Mount Moriah (Zion) with ‘ad’ appended as a suffix similar to the ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Aeneid.’ The poem was written by Ben Asaph and translated into English from Syriac Hebrew by Anselm Korlstoff in 1857. It tells the story of the Jewish war with Rome based upon scripture and the history of Josephus, and is Preterist in eschatology. Book two, entitled “The Advent,” describes Christ’s coming to visit destruction upon the Jewish state:

“And now, O Branch, (on earth called Christ), descend,

And bring the Second Institution to an end.

Sweep from the land the wretched Jewish State,

Their temple burn, and yield them to their fate.

To spirit-baptism they will not aspire,

So let Jerusalem be baptized with fire![6]

This is a clear reference to John the Baptist’s eschatological warning in Matt. 3:10-12, and shows this third century Christian-Jew understood Christ’s second coming as fulfilled in the A.D. 70 fall of Jerusalem.

II. TIME STATEMENTS BY BIBLICAL AUTHORS

Statements like these from early Christian writers could be multiplied, including comments by Victorinus (died 303-304),[7] Augustine (A.D. 354-430),[8] and Jerome (A.D. 347-420),[9] the latter two of whom, if they did not embrace Preterism themselves, nevertheless testify that its basic assumptions were still prevalent in the church well into the fourth and fifth centuries. Indeed, it is widely recognized that the source of Preterism in the early church was none other than Jesus and the disciples—not, of course, in the sense that the events of which they spoke and wrote were already fulfilled, but that they looked for fulfillment in the apostles’ lifetimes. Jesus stated that he would come in his kingdom, in power, while some of the disciples were still alive (Matt. 16:27, 28; Mark 8:38, 9:1); before they had opportunity to preach in all the cities of Israel (Matt. 10:23); in judgment and wrath upon the very generation that crucified him (Matt. 23:36-39; 24:29-34); the Sanhedrin that tried him would ‘see’ him seated on the right hand of power and coming in the clouds of heaven (Matt. 26:64; Mark 14:61; cf. Dan. 7:13, 22; Acts 1:11; Rev. 1:7). The apostle John was specifically named as one who would live to see Christ’s return (John 21:20-22; cf. Rev. 10:11).

Peter warned his audience on the first Pentecost after Christ’s ascension that the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit signified that they were in the ‘last days,’ and that Joel’s prophecy of the ‘great and notable day of the Lord’ was upon them (Acts 2:14-21). When uttered, Joel’s prophecy had an immediate, historical application to a drought, famine, and locust plague (Joel 1). However, it’s plenior sensus (fuller sense) looked to messianic times, which Peter indicated was then being fulfilled, and makes explicit reference to the overthrow of Jerusalem (Joel 2:1); its possible range of fulfillment is limited to ancient times by reference to chariots, swords, the temple, the priesthood, meat and drink offerings, Jerusalem’s city walls, and Peter’s warning to ‘save yourselves from this perverse generation’—words that mirror the Lord’s statement that the city would be overthrown before that generation passed away (Joel 1:9, 14; 2:1-17; Matt. 24:34; Acts 2:40). Peter’s application of Joel’s prophecy to the contemporary-historical situation then playing out also helps set the context for the book of Revelation: John uses Joel’s imagery to describe the ‘abomination of desolation’—the legions of Rome portrayed as a preternatural army of locusts and scorpion-centaurs sent to denude Galilee, Jerusalem, and Judea of men (Rev. 9; cf. Dan. 9:24-27; 12:11; Matt. 24:15).[10]

A short time after Peter’s sermon on Pentecost, Stephen was arraigned for saying Jesus would come and destroy the city and temple and change the customs Moses delivered to the people (Acts 6:14). During his defense, Stephen quoted the prophet Isaiah who predicted the destruction of the city and temple hundreds of years before (Acts 7:49; Isa 66:1-6, 15):

Hear the word of the Lord, ye that tremble at his word; Your brethren that hated you, that cast you out for my name’s sake, said, Let the Lord be glorified: but he shall appear to your joy, and they shall be ashamed. A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple,  a voice of the Lord that rendereth recompense to his enemies…For, behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with his chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire.

Stephen quoted Isaiah’s prophecy in support of the proposition that the temple was holy only insofar as it was approved by God. But inasmuch as Isaiah had condemned the city and temple to destruction, Stephen could hardly be guilty of blasphemy for merely repeating what God himself had said. In verse three, the prophet calls the continuing temple service and sacrifices an abomination chosen in obstinate defiance of God. The priesthood and sacrifices were shadows prefiguring the cross of Christ (Col. 2:16, 17; Heb. 10:1). The shadow ends where the body begins; the body (substance) of the ceremonial law was Christ. The continuing temple service therefore stood as an implicit denial of the substitutionary death and atoning sacrifice of Jesus, marking the temple’s adherents as enemies of the gospel, destined for destruction in Jerusalem’s fall. Added to their crimes was the persecution of believers, casting them out for Jesus’ name sake—something the Gospel of John thrice gives in testimony (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2; cf. Matt. 23:34). Isaiah’s prophecy is particularly important inasmuch as it twice mentions the Lord’s coming in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem, and concludes with the promised new heavens and earth mentioned by Peter and John—the latter at the close of the book of Revelation where the metaphor is employed to describe the world under the providential government of Christ, ruling the nations with a rod of iron from the right hand of the throne of God, ‘angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him’ (1 Pet. 3:22; cf. Isa. 65:17, 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13; Rev. 21, 22).[11]

Language describing the imminence of Christ’s return intensified as the generation of first disciples grew to a close: Paul said the time is ‘short’ (1 Cor. 7:29); the night was ‘far spent;’ the day was ‘at hand’ (Rom. 13:12); God would ‘shortly’ bruise the adversary beneath the church’s feet (Rom. 16:20). Peter said the ‘end of all things is at hand’ (1 Pet 4:7), and the ‘time had come’ for judgment to begin (1 Pet 4:17). James said the ‘coming of the Lord draweth nigh;’ the ‘judge standeth before the door’ (James 5:8, 9). The epistle to the Hebrews said it was a ‘very little while’ (Gk. micron, hoson, hoson) and ‘he that shall come will come and will not tarry’ (Heb 10:37). John said ‘it is the last hour’ (1 John 2:18); the book of Revelation opens and closes with warnings that it describes things that ‘must shortly come to pass’ for the ‘time is at hand’ (Rev 1:1, 3; 22:6, 10); Jesus repeatedly states ‘behold, I come quickly’ (Rev 22:11, 20); and warns the seven churches of Asia Minor to be vigilant, lest at his coming he find them unprepared (Rev 2:5; 16, 25; 3:3, 11; cf. Matt 24:42-51).[12]

III. LIBERALS, CONSERVATIVES, AND THE INERRANCY OF SCRIPTURE

It is difficult to side step the time statements of New Testament writers, or to dismiss them by saying ‘one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day’ (2 Pet 3:8; cf. Ps 90:4). Without entering into debate concerning the nature and quality of Biblical inspiration, suffice it to say that time statements regarding Christ’s coming and kingdom serve as a point of contention between liberals and conservatives. Liberal theologians and skeptics have long chided conservatives who champion plenary inspiration and the inerrancy of scripture by pointing to such time statements, charging that Jesus and the apostles did not know what they were saying for they were obviously wrong. Bart Ehrman, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, takes the view that scripture is of purely human origination as evidenced (among other things) by Christ’s delayed Parousia. Ehrman states:

The earliest sources that we have consistently ascribed an apocalyptic message to Jesus. This message begins to be muted by the end of the first century (e.g., in Luke), until it virtually disappears (e.g., in John), and begins, then, to be explicitly rejected and spurned (e.g., in Thomas). It appears that when the end never did arrive, Christians had to take stock of the fact that Jesus said it would and changed his message accordingly. You can hardly blame them.[13]

Erhman was preceded in his views by Albert Schweitzer:

The whole history of ‘Christianity’ down to the present day, that is to say, the real inner history of it, is based on the delay of the Parousia, the non-occurrence of the Parousia, the abandonment of eschatology, the progress and completion of the ‘de-eschatologising’ of religion which has been connected therewith.[14]

Unfortunately, there is a good deal of truth in what Schweitzer and Ehrman state: For those still looking for ‘the end,’ Christ’s message has been changed; Christianity has been ‘de-eschatologized’ by various devices to allow for the indefinite postponement of the Parousia, now amounting to two thousand years and counting. Conservatives are thus caught on the horns of a dilemma: If the Old and New Testaments are scripture and scripture is inerrant, how do they account for the delayed Parousia? Doesn’t a delayed Parousia imperil the doctrines of plenary inspiration and inerrancy of scripture?[15] For Preterists, the solution is simple: The ‘end’ and all that it entailed came precisely when and as Jesus and the apostles said it would, albeit in a manner different than popularly supposed. The usus loquendi of the prophets was highly figurative and poetic; not literal. It was not the end and regeneration of the physical cosmos that they announced and foretold, but the spiritual regeneration of the world by the gospel and reign of Christ.

There are many ‘days of the Lord’ recorded in the pages of the Old Testament—many instances of national and world judgment in which the Lord ‘came’ in wrath and vengeance upon the world of sinful men. These comings were always spiritual and providential, not bodily and visible. Thus, the Lord would ride a ‘swift cloud’ and ‘come’ in judgment upon Egypt (Isa. 19:1; cf. Rev. 1:7); the Lord of hosts would ‘come’ against Babylon in the armies of the Medes and Persians (Isa. 13:5-13, 17; cf. Matt. 24:29); the day of the Lord’s vengeance would be upon Edom and all nations by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar in language appropriated by John in Revelation (Isa. 34:1-10; Rev. 6:13, 14); Ezekiel saw the Lord coming in his throne-chariot by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem and Judea (Ezek. 1:4-28). Jeremiah described this same time of judgment, saying, the Lord ‘shall come up as clouds, and his chariots shall be as a whirlwind’ leaving the earth ‘without form, and void’ at the ‘presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger’ (Jer. 4:13-29). In a list of nations stretching over nine chapters (Isa. 15-23) that would be visited with judgment in the Assyrio-Babylonian invasions, Isaiah sums the devastation up, saying,

Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof…the earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. Isa. 24:1, 19; cf. Jer. 25:8-38

The Minor Prophets wrote about the Assyrio-Babylonian invasions using similar language. Micah describes the Lord’s coming against Samaria and Jerusalem, saying:

For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as wax before the fire, and as the waters that are poured down a steep place. Micah 1:1-5

Zephaniah wrote of the Babylonian invasion and God’s wrath upon Palestine, including Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Moab, Ammon, the Ethiopians, Assyria, and Judea, saying:

The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. Zeph. 1:1-16

All these were ‘comings;’ all were ‘days of the Lord;’ all involved highly-charged language bespeaking the end of the cosmos, but in reality merely times of national and world judgment by God’s providential activity in the world of men. Since identical language is used in the New Testament, it must be interpreted the same way—or good reason provided why it should not. Preterists would urge that it is the failure to interpret identical language in identical ways that creates the appearance of a delayed Parousia: Men have been looking for something that never materializes because it was never intended to be understood that way! Jesus came when and as he said he would, albeit not the ‘personal, physical, and visible’ coming so often assumed by readers of the New Testament, but in the manner we repeatedly see in the Old Testament. In the words of Bishop Lightfoot (A.D. 1602-1675), a prominent member of the Westminster Assembly:

Whereas the Jews would not own Christ before for the Son of man, or for the Messias, then, by the vengeance that he should execute upon them, they and all the world should see an evident sign, that he was so. This, therefore, is called ‘his coming,’ and ‘his coming in his kingdom;’ because this did first declare his power, glory, and victory, on that nation that had despised him...not only in the horrid civil wars among the Jews, but also in the great concussions in the Roman empire, in the wars betwixt Otho and Vitellius, and betwixt Vitellius and Vespasian (of which the Roman historians, especially Tacitus, are very large); the like to which, there had not been before, even to the sacking of Rome itself, and the burning of the Capitol.[16]

We’ll look more at this as we progress. For the present, we want to survey the Dead Sea scrolls, for we believe they will show that their original owners and authors embraced similar views of eschatology, believing they, too, were living in the ‘last times’ as marked by the Roman conquest of Judea and the impending destruction of Jerusalem.

IV. WHAT ARE THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS?

The ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ describes a collection of texts found in eleven caves near Qumran in the northwest area of the Dead Sea.[17] This group of texts represents approximately 800 original documents, dating from about 200 B.C. to A.D. 70. A small portion of the texts may possibly date back to the third century B.C. However, the bulk of the texts date to the first century B.C., i.e., the late Hasmonean or early Herodian era.[18]

‘Dead Sea Scrolls’ is also sometimes used to describe a larger body of texts, which are of a separate provenance than the Qumran caves, including texts found at Masada and in fifteen caves used by refugees of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (A.D. 132-135).[19] Texts from the Bar Kokhba refuge caves, which were excavated in 1960-61, include letters to and from Simon Bar Kokhba, the leader of the revolt, and various military, legal, administrative, and personal and financial records, as well as religious and Biblical texts, including a scroll of the Twelve Minor Prophets. Excavations at Masada (1963-65) produced fragments of seven Biblical texts, including Genesis, two copies of Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, and two copies of the Psalms. Biblical texts from Masada and the Bar Kokhba refuge caves match the traditional Masoretic text, which serves as the basis of the modern Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament. Prior to their discovery, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts in our possession were the Cairo Codex (circa A.D. 895), the Aleppo Codex (circa A.D. 920), and the Leningrad Codex (circa A.D. 1008), all traditional Masoretic texts.[20] The discoveries at Masada and the Bar Kokhba caves therefore authenticate the text of modern, Hebrew Bibles, pushing back the date of manuscript witness one thousand years to New Testament times. This is by far the most important contribution the Scrolls have made. But there are other things we can learn from the Scrolls.

1. The Qumran Scrolls & Community. The scrolls at Qumran were discovered in 1947 by a young Bedouin shepherd. By 1949 officials of the Jordanian government had identified the cave where the scrolls were found. Hundreds of fragments and seven more scrolls were recovered. Between 1951 and 1956, ten more caves were discovered, which yielded thousands of fragments and several additional scrolls. The texts recovered represented three types of material: 1) books from the Old Testament canon; 2) various Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical works; and 3) sectarian texts reflecting the traditions and dogma of the sectaries of Qumran. Ruins of the settlement known as Khirbet Qumran in the vicinity of the caves were also excavated, and the view quickly came to prevail that the caves and site at Qumran were interconnected.

Preliminary studies concluded that the scrolls were produced or belonged to the ascetic sect known as the Essenes, mentioned by Josephus, Philo, and Pliny the Elder. In the years following, this thesis was developed at length and now represents the generally accepted view of scholars and archaeologists. Three points of contact support this conclusion: 1) the scroll known as the ‘Community Rule,’ which regulated the religious life of the community in conjunction with the Old Testament, describes a monastic community where men lived in celibacy and all property was held in common. This and various additional doctrinal indicia culled from the scrolls accord with descriptions of the Essenes left by Josephus, Philo, and Pliny. 2) The location of Qumran conforms to Pliny’s description of the Essene community, which he placed between Jericho and Engaddi:[21]

Lying on the west of Asphaltites [viz., the Dead Sea], and sufficiently distant to escape its noxious exhalations, are the Esseni, a people that live apart from the world, and marvellous beyond all others throughout the whole earth, for they have no women among them; to sexual desire they are strangers; money they have none; the palm-trees are their only companions. Day after day, however, their numbers are fully recruited by multitudes of strangers that resort to them, driven thither to adopt their usages by the tempests of fortune, and wearied with the miseries of life. Thus it is, that through thousands of ages, incredible to relate, this people eternally prolongs its existence, without a single birth taking place there; so fruitful a source of population to it is that weariness of life which is felt by others. Below this people was formerly the town of Engadda, second only to Hierosolyma [Jerusalem] in the fertility of its soil and its groves of palm-trees; now, like it, it is another heap of ashes. Next to it we come to Masada, a fortress on a rock, not far from Lake Asphaltites. Thus much concerning Judæa.[22]

3) Finally, chronological events alluded to in the Qumran writings correspond with Jewish history and the first mention of the Essenes by Josephus.

            2. Probable Origin of the Essenes: Judas Maccabeus and the Hassidim. The Essenes are first mentioned by Josephus during the inter-testamental period, in the time of the kingdom of the Greeks. Alexander the Great conquered Palestine in 332 B.C. Following Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., his kingdom was divided among his generals, and Judea came under the dominion of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, seated in Egypt. Although required to pay taxes, the Jews enjoyed considerable autonomy and continued to be ruled by the High Priest and Sanhedrin. A large population of Jews also lived in Alexandria, Egypt, where they enjoyed equal rights as citizens and were allowed to observe their religion without fear or molestation. It was during Ptolemaic control of Palestine that the Greek translation of the Bible known as the Septuagint was completed under Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 B.C.). Even so, Greek domination of Palestine brought significant demographic changes; the Greek cities of Gaza, Askelon, Joppa, Sycothopolis, and Ptolemais, were founded or grew up; Samaria was given the Hellenized name Sabaste; and the Transjordan city of Rabath-Ammon was re-founded as Philadelphia. Judea was therefore surrounded by Greek culture and civilization.

            In 200 B.C., the Seleucid Dynasty, seated in Syria, was able to wrest control of the Holy Land from the Ptolemies. As part of a program to solidify control of his kingdom, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (171-164 B.C.) undertook a formal Hellenizing program; local peoples were required to abandon their ancestral gods and to worship Olympian Zeus. Antiochus’ Hellenization campaign was met with enthusiasm by the Jews’ ruling elite, including the High Priest, Jason, and two of his successors, who abandoned the law, and adopted various facets of Greek culture; some going even so far as to surgically reverse the circumcision of their genitals so they could exercise naked in the gymnasium in the manner of the Greeks. To eradicate all vestiges of Judaism, Antiochus caused the temple in Jerusalem to be polluted with swine’s blood and a statue of Olympian Zeus erected. Keeping the law of Moses was made a capital offense; women who circumcised their sons were crucified with their children hung about their necks. At length, armed resistance broke out; a revolt was instigated by a priest named Matthias, whose son, Judas Maccabeus, defeated Antiochus, gained autonomy for Judea, and purified and rededicated the temple. [23] Judas was helped in his revolt by a group known as the Assideans or Hassidim: ‘Then came there unto him a company of Assideans, who were mighty men of Israel,  even all such as were voluntarily devoted to the law’ (I Macc. 2:42). Most scholars believe that the Hassidim were the immediate forerunners of the Essenes.

            3. Essene Resistance to Usurpation of the Zadokite Priesthood. Writings from Qumran indicate the sect was eventually forced to sojourn in Damascus and withdraw into the desert due to a conflict with the politico-religious leadership of mainstream Judaism.[24] Scholars interpret this, at least in part, to opposition by Essenes and traditionalist Jews to the usurpation of the High Priesthood by non-Zadokite priests.

            The High Priesthood had been held exclusively by descendants of Zadok from the time of Solomon who thrust Abiathar from the priesthood (1 Kgs 2:26, 27; cf. 1:1-40) in fulfillment of a prophecy by God against the house of Eli (1 Sam 2:31-35). The High Priesthood passed from the sons of Zadok during the Hellenizing campaign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. However, after Judas Maccabaeus had defeated Antiochus and restored the temple, the priesthood was not returned to the sons of Zadok. Rather, following the death of Judas Maccabaeus, the High Priesthood was assumed by his brother, Jonathan Maccabaeus. Jonathan received the High Priesthood from Alexander Balas, a usurper of the Seleucid throne, who offered it to Jonathan to secure his support and alliance.[25] It is during the time of Jonathan Maccabaeus that Josephus first mentions the existence of the Essenes by name.[26] The Essenes saw the priesthood and temple services as corrupted, and therefore did not sacrifice there, but looked for the restoration of the priesthood to the sons of Zadok by the coming of the Messiah:

The Master shall bless the sons of Zadok the Priests, whom God has chosen to confirm his Covenant for ever, and to inquire into all His precepts in the midst of His people, and to instruct them as He commanded; who have established His Covenant on truth and watched over all His laws with righteousness and walked according to the way of His choice. May the Lord bless you from His holy Abode; may He set you as a splendid jewel in the midst of the congregation of the saints! May he renew for you the Covenant of the everlasting priesthood; may He sanctify you for the House of Holiness![27]

Other theories regarding the identity of the community at Qumran have been floated but have not gained serious attention.[28] Before looking at the beliefs and eschatology of the Essenes, we’ll take a few moments to survey the scrolls and manuscripts found at Qumran, beginning with the Hebrew canon. As we shall see, the content of the scrolls and the Essenes’ attitude toward the Hebrew canon and prophetic utterance bear directly upon their belief they were living in the latter days.

V. QUMRAN AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON

Josephus states concerning the Hebrew canon:

For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another [as the Greek texts have,] but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them, five belong to Moses, which contain his laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life.[29]

The twenty-two books of the Hebrew canon mentioned by Josephus are the same as our thirty-nine; however, the Jews arranged and divided the books differently to match the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. The typical arrangement of the Hebrew canon was a three-fold division of the ‘law,’ the ‘prophets,’ and the ‘writings.’ However, the exact arrangement and division was not settled. Some lists join Ruth to Judges and Lamentations to Jeremiah; some separate these books, but combine 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings as a single book of ‘the kingdoms;’ some include Job and Esther among the ‘writings,’ etc. Given this fluidity, the arrangement and division as conceived by Josephus cannot be known for certain, but the following seems reasonably likely:

Twe

 

Books of Moses (five books)

 

Former & Latter Prophets              (thirteen books)

 

Hymns & Wisdom          (four books)

 

1. Genesis

2. Exodus

3. Leviticus

4. Numbers

5. Deuteronomy

 

 

6. Joshua

7. Judges

8. Ruth

9. I & II Samuel / I & II Kings  

10. I & II Chronicles

11. Ezra

12. Nehemiah

13. Esther

14. Isaiah

15.Jeremiah/ Lamentations

16. Ezekiel 

17. Daniel             

18. The Twelve

a)        Hosea

b)       Joel

c)        Amos

d)       Obadiah

e)        Jonah

f)        Micah                 

g)        Nahum

h)       Habakkuk

i)         Zephaniah

j)         Haggai

k)       Zechariah

l)         Malachi

 

 

19. Job

20. Psalms

21.Proverbs/ Ecclesiastes

22. Song of Songs

nty-two Books of the Hebrew Canon

 

           

 

 

 Fragments of all canonical books were found at Qumran, except the book of Esther. Like Masada and the Bar Kokhba caves, Masoretic-type texts were found at Qumran and were the dominate text type. However, unlike Masada and the Bar Kokhba caves where only Masoretic-type texts were found, the caves at Qumran also produced other text types. Manuscript types or families are largely defined by the variant readings that occur over time by the error or omission of copyists. An error or omission made by a scribe is copied and perpetuated by those coming after him, giving birth to a manuscript family. Text-types found at Qumran include the Hebrew underlying the Septuagint (an Egyptian text-type), and the Samaritan Pentateuch, and combinations of these and others.[30] We should not infer from this, however, that the text or canon of the Hebrew Bible was unsettled prior to A.D. 70. The Essenes received many texts as authoritative that the rest of Judaism rejected. Therefore, we should not be surprized to learn they had manuscript copies whose variant readings were not accepted by their fellow Jews.[31]

            1. Qumran and the Apocrypha. Two Apocrypha were found at Qumran: Tobit and Ecclesiasticus (The Wisdom of Ben Sira), though some add the Epistle of Jeremiah.[32] The Apocrypha refer to a collection of books that are part of the Septuagint. The books of the Apocrypha are: 1 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, additions to Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, additions to Daniel—Song of the Three Children, Susanna (Daniel 13), Bel and the Dragon (Daniel 14)—1-4 Maccabees, and the Prayer of Manasseh.

The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures commissioned or completed by Ptolemy Philadelphus about 250 B.C. The books of the Apocrypha are considered non-canonical by Jews and Protestants; prophetic utterance terminated under the dominion of the Persians and did not resume until the time of the Romans. The books of the Apocrypha were written in the time of the Greeks. Philo Judaeus, an Alexandrian Jew who lived in the first century A.D., never cites them, nor does any New Testament writer. Josephus consulted I Esdras and I Maccabees in composing his histories, but did not consider them canonical. The test of canonicity for Josephus was prophetic unction, presumably the same as Paul’s ‘theopneustos,’ ‘God-breathed’ (2 Tim 3:16). Concerning the Apocrypha, Josephus states:

It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes, very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time.[33]

Artaxerxes Longimanus reigned 465-424 B.C. The book of Malachi was written circa 444-430 B.C. Following Malachi, there were approximately 430 years of prophetic silence, broken only by the birth of Christ and John the Baptist whose coming Malachi said would precede the nation’s destruction in the ‘great and dreadful day of the Lord’ (Mal 3:1-3; 4:1-5).[34] The day of the Lord would be both a time of salvation and a time of wrath and judgment. The Lord would save his people from their oppressors and persecutors, and destroy his adversaries, including especially the Jews. This is nowhere more explicitly foretold than the prophet Zechariah:

Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Zech. 14:1-2

The 430 years of prophetic silence following Malachi was not unfelt by the Jews, and many spurious compositions of feigned visions and revelations were produced and have come down to us in the form of Pseudepigrapha.

            2. Qumran and Pseudepigrapha. The term ‘pseudepigrapha’ means ‘falsely ascribed;’ it is used to describe the body of writings produced during the inter-testamental period between Malachi and the Gospels, which are falsely attributed to a prophet or other Biblical figure. With the exception of historical books like Maccabees, the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are essentially identical, distinguished only by the former’s inclusion in the Septuagint. Pseudepigrapha imitate the tone and imagery of the prophets, particularly Daniel and Ezekiel, and often contain revelations of the future salvation of Israel and the judgment of the wicked by the Messiah. A large percentage of the material discovered at Qumran may be characterized as apocryphal and pseudepigraphic. These include:

  • Apocalypse Chronology
  • Conquest of Egypt and Jerusalem or Acts of a Greek King
  • The Triumph of the Righteous or Mysteries
  • A Messianic Apocalypse
  • Jubilees
  • The Prayer of Enosh or Enoch
  • The Book of Enoch
  • An Admonition Associated with the Flood
  • The Ages of Creation
  • The Book of Noah
  • Words of the Archangel Michael
  • The Testament of Levi
  • Testaments of the Patriarchs
  • The Testament of Qahat
  • The Testament of Amram
  • The Words of Moses
  • Sermon on the Exodus and Conquest of Canaan
  • A Moses Apocryphon
  • Pseudo-Moses
  • A Moses (or David) Apocryphon
  • Divine Plan for the Conquest of the Holy Land
  • A Joshua Apocryphon
  • The Samuel Apocryphon
  • A Paraphrase on Kings
  • An Elisha Apocryphon
  • A Zedekiah Apocryphon
  • A Historico-theological narrative based on Genesis and Exodus
  • Tobit
  • A Jeremiah Apocryphon
  • The New Jerusalem
  • Second Ezekiel
  • The Prayer of Nabonidus
  • Para-Daniel Writings
  • The Four Kingdoms
  • An Aramaic Apocalypse
  • Proto-Esther
  • Apocryphal Psalms

In addition to these are works not strictly of an apocryphal or pseudepigraphic nature, but which nevertheless purport to be immediate, divine revelations. These include:

  • The War Scroll
  • The Rule of War
  • The Temple Scroll

            3. Visions of the End: Essenes Authors of Pseudepigrapha? Most of the texts above are fragmentary, but the sheer amount of prophetical-apocryphal-pseudepigraphical material convinces scholars that the Essenes took these documents very seriously, and probably received many of them as canonical or divinely authoritative and inspired.[35] Indeed, it seems possible that the Qumran sectaries were responsible for generating many of the Pseudepigrapha themselves. Almost all apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts date to the time the Essenes began about 200 B.C.[36] Some of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic texts espouse doctrines indicative of the Essenes: Mainstream Judaism used a lunar calendar of 354 days to the year; the Essenes used a solar calendar of 364 days. The Book of Enoch, Jubilees, an Apocryphal Psalm, the Temple Scroll, and various other works recovered at Qumran, including the Genesis Commentaries, assume a solar calendar. Apocryphal and pseudepigraphic works hold themselves out as prophetic visions and revelations. It was expressly foretold that the prophetic silence that followed Malachi would terminate in preparation for the Messiah. God would send ‘Elijah the prophet’ (John the Baptist—Matt 17:10-13) before the great and dreadful day of the Lord (Mal 4:5). Joel prophesied that in the latter days the nation’s ‘sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions’ (Joel 2:28). Messiah himself would be a Prophet, a second Moses (Deut 18:15-18) upon whom God would place his Spirit (Isa 42:1). Belief that they were living in the end times therefore required that the Essenes possess the prophetic Spirit. It is a matter of record that the Essenes were interested in prophecy and claimed the power to prophesy. Three of the four Essenes mentioned by name by Josephus were associated with prophecy.[37] The situation with the Essenes therefore was roughly analogous to the era of the Crusades, Joachim of Fiore, and the Franciscans, when men’s eschatological expectations connected with the approach of the year A.D. 1260 (cf. Rev. 12:6) whipped them into ecstatic states, producing a variety of new visions and revelations about the end.[38]

4. Completion of the canon and close of the pre-Messianic age. As we have seen, the book of Joel indicates that the latter days and time of the end would be marked by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, preceding the great and notable day of the Lord. Similarly, Daniel said that ‘vision and prophecy’ would be ‘sealed up’ before the destruction of Jerusalem at the end of 490 prophetic years (Dan 9:24), while Paul indicated that that the charismata would terminate when the New Testament revelation was complete and Christ had come (I Cor. 10:4-8; 13:8-13). Recognizing that they were living in the end-time, the Essenes wrongly believed they possessed the Spirit of inspiration and appear to have thus produced numerous pseudepigrapha. On the other hand, the apostles and first believers were verily inspired and thus left us the New Testament—the full and final revelation of God’s salvific purpose in Jesus Christ. But if the canon is closed, then the charismata and inspiration have ceased; and if inspiration has ceased, then the time of the end and latter days have also passed away, for these are indicia one of another. Hence, the very fact that Christendom universally acknowledges that the canon of sacred scripture is full and complete is a tacit affirmation that we are no longer living in the latter days. But if we are no longer living in the latter days,[39] then the age marked by the dominion and reign of Christ has come, and the Parousia and day of the Lord were not delayed.

VI. THE NEW COVENANT AND THE ESSENES

God’s relationship with his people has largely been defined by covenants. God had covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Through Moses, God instituted the Old Covenant at Sinai; God pledged to bless and to protect the children of Israel and to give them the land in Canaan if they would obey his law. This covenant was renewed by circumcision under Joshua after entering the land (Josh. 5:2-9), then again by oath shortly before Joshua’s death (Josh. 24:25). However, after the death of Joshua, Israel’s history was one of continuous unfaithfulness and apostasy. God answered the Jews faithlessness by delivering the Israelites into the hands of their enemies, redeeming and receiving them again when they turned to him in repentance. Under the kings, the situation differed little, and the nation continued to rebel against God and his law. God thus carried the northern kingdom into captivity by the Assyrians and the southern kingdom into Chaldea by the Babylonians. However, for the sake of his remnant and his promise to redeem the world, God revived the nation and restored the captivity to Palestine so Christ could come into the world and die upon Roman cross. Then, the nation would be destroyed as God’s covenant people forever.

The weakness of the Old Testament lay in its nationalism: men were inducted into the covenant community by birth and circumcision at eight days of age, not by the mature choice and conversion of individuals indicative of the New Testament. Thus, on the eve of carrying away the Jewish nation into captivity in Babylon, God foretold the time when he would institute a new covenant, based upon inward conversion of the individual members:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah…this shall be the covenant I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people…for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jer. 31:31-34

The Essenes saw the realization of Jeremiah’s new covenant in themselves. Jeremiah’s promised new covenant was eschatological: ‘After those days’ equals ‘the latter days’ (cf. Jer. 48:47; 49:6, 39; Joel 2:28). According to the book of Daniel, the ‘end of days’ appears to have begun or been foreshadowed by the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Daniel said the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes would be at the ‘time of the end’ (Dan. 8:17), ‘in the last end of the indignation’ (Dan. 8:19), ‘in the latter time’ of the Jew’s kingdom ‘when the transgressors are come to the full’ (Dan. 8:23). From the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes until the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus was about 240 years. Thus, when Daniel refers to the persecution under Antiochus Epiphanes as the ‘time of the end,’ it is clear that this merely marks the beginning of the end when the shadows of the Jewish nation began to lengthen in anticipation of its sun-set and perpetual night. The latter days would not fully arrive until the appearance of John the Baptist whose message was decidedly eschatological:

Now also the axe is laid to the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Matt. 3:10-12

The saints were gathered to their reward by martyrdom under Nero; the Jewish nation was consumed by the fire of divine judgment and wrath. However, we have the benefit of hindsight, which the Essenes did not. The sect of the Essenes began during the revolt of Judas Maccabeus against Antiochus Epiphanes when the term ‘latter days’ first applied. It understandable that the Essenes should have seen themselves as living in the ‘last days’ and therefore putative heirs of the new covenant.

Unlike the New Testament where there is a complete break with the rituals of the Mosaic law and an end of the temple, priesthood, feasts, and sacrifices, which were types and shadows pointing to the cross of Christ (Col. 2:16, 17; Heb. 10:1), the Essenes conceived of the New Testament as a continuation of the law of Moses, purified of error and supplemented with various additions and improvements. In the new age, all the errors of mainstream Judaism would be set right and acceptable service in the temple would resume under the sons of Zadok. The Essenes, therefore, did not look for the end of the cosmos, but for a new age marked by a time of religious reformation under Messiah. Christians also anticipated a new age, which would be marked by the destruction of the city and temple at Christ’s coming, as witnessed by the disciples’ question to Jesus on the Mount of Olives ‘tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age’ (Matt. 24:1-3).

VII. THE ESSENES AS THE LAST REMNANT

The Essenes believed that the history of God’s people and covenant was marked by stubbornness, rebellion, and apostasy. The ‘Heavenly Watchers’ sinned by marrying women; their sons, the giants, sinned, bringing on the flood. The children of Noah sinned, as did the children of Jacob in Egypt. The first generation of those that came out of Egypt sinned in refusing to enter the land and so perished in the wilderness. After the children of Israel entered the land, from the death of Eleazar and Joshua, until Zadok, knowledge of the law was sealed. Because they did not know the law, even David committed fornication by taking more than one wife:

Concerning the prince it is written, He shall not multiply wives to himself (Deut. 17:17); but David had not read the sealed book of the Law which was in the ark (of the Covenant), for it was not opened in Israel from the death of Eleazar and Joshua, and the elders who worshipped Ashtoreth. It was hidden and was not revealed until the coming of Zadok.[40]

Because of Israel’s wilfulness and rebellion, the nation went into captivity in Babylon; however God preserved a remnant:

For when they were unfaithful and forsook Him, He hid His face from Israel and His Sanctuary and delivered them up to the sword. But remembering the Covenant of the forefathers, He left a remnant to Israel and did not deliver it up to be destroyed. And in the age of wrath, three hundred and ninety years [circa 196 B.C.] after He had given them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, He visited them, and He caused a plant root to spring from Israel and Aaron to inherit His Land and to prosper on the good things of His earth.[41]

For the first twenty years of its existence, the remnant groped about; then God raised a leader, the Teacher of Righteousness, to direct them:

And they perceived their iniquity and recognized that they were guilty men, yet for twenty years they were like blind men groping for the way. And God observed their deeds, that they sought Him with a whole heart, and He raised for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart.[42]

God made a ‘New Covenant’ with this remnant. The Essenes believed their rules of community life and interpretation of the law, which they believed were divinely revealed through the Teacher of Righteousness, constituted Jeremiah’s ‘new covenant’:

None of those brought into the Covenant shall enter the Temple to light His altar in vain...They shall take care to act according to the exact interpretation of the Law during the age of wickedness. They shall separate from the sons of the Pit, and shall keep away from the unclean riches of wickedness acquired by vow or anathema or from the Temple treasure; they shall not rob the poor of His people, to make of widows their prey and of the fatherless their victim. They shall distinguish between clean and unclean, and shall proclaim the difference between holy and profane. They shall keep the Sabbath day according to its exact interpretation, and the feasts and day of Fasting according to the finding of the members of the New Covenant in the land of Damascus.[43]

The ‘age of wickedness’ refers to the time remaining until the great eschatological crisis when God would defeat the ‘sons of the Pit,’ viz., mainstream Jews who rejected the new covenant according to Essenism. During this time, men would be converted from ‘Israel’ (the apostate mainstream Jews, allegorically equated with the northern kingdom) to the ‘house of Judah’ (the Essenes, the faithful southern kingdom), and their sins forgiven them (Jer. 31:34). But when the age was completed, there would be no more joining the ‘house of Judah.’ The eschatological crisis would ensue, overtaking the wicked:

Until the age is completed, according to the number of those years, all who enter after them shall do according to that interpretation of the Law in which the first men were instructed. According to the Covenant which God made with the forefathers, forgiving their sins, so shall he forgive their sins also. But when the age is completed, according to the number of those years, there shall be no more joining the house of Judah.[44]

There is much in this language that echoes Jesus’ warning:

When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten in and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. Luke 13:25-28

The object of Jesus’ warning was the Jewish nation, which ate and drank in Christ’s presence and in whose streets he taught. The point we want to come away with here is that there was a transitional period of grace in which to accept the New Testament that would conclude with the nation’s rejection, and that this corresponded with the eschatological ‘end’ the Essenes (and early Christians) looked for. Although obviously the Essenes did not see the New Testament as centered in Jesus, they did clearly understand that biblical eschatology was bound up in the nation’s refusal to accept the New Testament and that they were living in the ‘end of days’ when their fellow Jews would be forced to make their choice and be saved or perish accordingly. This same basic message is repeated by Peter:

For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people. Acts 3:22, 23

VIII. THE ESCHATOLOGY OF THE ESSENES

            The Essenes have been called an ‘apocalyptic sect.’ The very essence of Essenism entailed an imminent expectation of the end. Their writings reveal a people who understood they were living in the last times, and earnestly sought to piece together a picture of things to come based upon the writings of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. For us on this side of the first century, who possess the complete New Testament, the picture is infinitely clearer, like a ‘face to face’ reflection in a glass. But to those living between the second century B.C. and the Jewish war with Rome in A.D. 66-70, the image provided by the Old Testament was veiled and reflected the purpose of God but darkly (1 Cor. 13:9-13; 2 Cor. 3:13-16). Thus, while the Essenes were wrong in many of their expectations, we must recall that most Jews, including even the disciples, were mistaken in their conceptions of what the kingdom of the God would be and how it would come about.

            1. Kingly & Priestly Messiahs. Some texts of the Dead Sea scrolls indicate belief in a single Messiah, though other documents indicate an expectation of two: a priestly Messiah and a kingly, Davidic Messiah. ‘He is the Branch of David who shall arise with the Interpreter of the Law to rule in Zion at the end of time.’[45] The source of this error may be Zech. 4:1-14, where the prophet depicts two olive trees (‘sons of oil’ v. 14), which refer to Zerubbabel and Joshua the High Priest suggesting a priestly and Davidic Messiah; and Zech. 3:8 and 6:11-13, in which Joshua the High Priest is described as ‘THE BRANCH.’ ‘The Branch’ is a Messianic term elsewhere used to describe the Davidic Messiah (Jer. 33:15; Isa. 11:1), but here pointing to a priestly Messiah. Additionally, Psalm 110:1-4 refers to the Messiah as priest after the order of Melchizedek. Hence, the mistaken notion of kingly and priestly Messiahs is not without attestation in scripture (even if wrongly understood). Of course, two Messiahs were not predicted; rather, these two offices would merge in Christ, who would be both king and priest. Zechariah’s prophecies may also indicate that Christ would possess both Davidic and Aaronic blood. Elizabeth, Mary’s kinsman, was of the daughters of Aaron (Luke 1:5), indicating an affinity between the Davidic and Aaronic lines and that these two families had somewhere touched, making probable that Jesus had both kingly and priestly blood by his mother.[46]

            2. Messiah would appear in the ‘end of days.’ The idea of a ‘second coming’ is noticeably missing in the Old Testament. The events associated with Christ’s first and second comings are so closely connected in history that the prophets treat them as a single, historical event. Indeed, several of the prophets and prophetical texts (e.g. Moses, Psalm 110, Joel, Haggai, and Malachi) omit reference to Christ’s earthly ministry altogether, and focus instead upon his coming in wrath against his enemies, to avenge the quarrel of his covenant and the blood of his servants. Messiah would appear in the latter days, set up his kingdom, redeem his people from their enemies, and inaugurate a new age marked by his reign. The eschatology of the Essenes conforms almost completely with this pattern. For the Essenes, the period remaining until the Messiah was the ‘age of wickedness.’ Messiah would appear at the ‘end of days’: ‘This is the Rule for the assembly of the camps during all the age of wickedness, and whoever does not hold fast to these statues shall not be fit to dwell in the land when the Messiah of Aaron and Israel shall come at the end of days.’[47]

            3. Resurrection of the flesh. There were diverse opinions among the Jews about the afterlife, just as there are among Christians. The Sadducees were materialists who confined man’s existence to his time beneath the sun and denied any future existence after physical death. The Pharisees affirmed angels, spirit, and resurrection (Matt 22:23; Acts 23:8). However, the Pharisaic view of resurrection appears to have contemplated immortality in physical bodies on a regenerated earth. This follows from the Sadducees’ exchange with Jesus about the resurrection, in which they put to him the question about whose wife the widow of seven brothers would be in the resurrection (Matt 22:23-33). This hypothetical is often assumed to represent the Sadducee’s conception of things, but as they did not believe in the resurrection, this was probably the view of their opponents, the Pharisees, and that the hypothetical is calculated to show the absurdity of the Pharisees’ view that in the resurrection men receive their physical bodies again, will marry, beget children, etc. If it was not the Pharisees’ view, then it would have served no purpose to put this question to Jesus. What could be accomplished by showing the absurdity of a view no one actually held? On the other hand, Josephus presents the Essenes as occupying a middle ground, believing that the body is temporal, and a prison, but that the soul is immortal, and will enjoy eternal life in an ethereal realm somewhere beyond the sea when freed by death:

For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and continue forever; and they come out of the most subtle air, and are united to their bodies as in prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain natural enticement; but that when they are set free from the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward. And this is like the opinion of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean.[48]

Vermes believes Josephus’ representation is essentially correct and that Essene belief in immortality is better attested than belief in bodily resurrection.[49] However, VanderKam points out that, according to Hippolytus, the Essenes believed in the resurrection of the flesh impressed with the same immortality already enjoyed by the soul:

Now the doctrine of the resurrection has also derived support among these; for they acknowledge both that the flesh will rise again, and that it will be immortal in the same manner as the soul is already perishable.[50]

Thus, VanderKam believes Josephus misinterpreted Essene beliefs and that they more than likely believed in a resurrection of the body. We tend to agree with VanderKam. The Thanksgiving Hymns, for example, state:

For the sake of Thy glory

Thou hast purified man of sin

That he may be made holy for Thee…

That bodies gnawed by worms may be raised from the dust

To the counsel [of Thy truth].[51]

Raising from dust bodies gnawed by worms clearly affirms belief in bodily resurrection. And while there are other equivocal texts, the overall thrust of Essene eschatological expectations seems ‘this-worldly,’ caught up in such things as a restored temple service and Zadokite priesthood, and a national kingdom and earthly Messianic monarch in which Israel holds dominion over the nations and the Romans are destroyed. Thus, in contrast to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who confessed that they were ‘strangers and pilgrims on the earth’ and desired a ‘heavenly country’ (Heb. 11:13-16), the Essenes (and perhaps Pharisees) had eschatological hopes that appear to have been largely if not totally ‘earth bound.’ Significantly, such nationalistic hopes and expectations played a large role in the Jews’ rejection of Christ, and ultimately led to the destruction of the nation itself. Looking for a national liberator, rather than a Savior from sin, they completely misconstrued the person and office of the Messiah, and fell prey to the delusion that Rome would be defeated with heaven’s help.

            4. Forty-year Eschatological War. The Essenes looked for a final, eschatological crisis in which the ‘sons of light’ under the command of the ‘Prince of the Congregation’ would defeat the ‘company of darkness,’ consisting of the ‘ungodly of the covenant’ (apostate mainstream Jews) allied with Edom, Moab, Ammon, the Philistines, and the Kittim. The Prince of the Congregation is identified elsewhere with the ‘Branch,’ or Messiah: ‘The Prince of the Congregation, the Branch of David, will kill him [the king of the Kittim] by strokes and by wounds.’[52] According to the War Scroll, the ‘exiled sons of light’ would return from the ‘desert of the peoples’ and encamp in the desert of Jerusalem. After battling the army of Belial embodied in the ‘ungodly of the Covenant’ and their foreign allies, including the Kittim occupying Judea, the ‘Sons of Light’ would move to Jerusalem and rededicate the temple. The conflict would climax with the complete defeat of the ‘King of the Kittim’ by the assistance of heaven and the angels of God, led by the Prince of Light, who elsewhere is equated with Michael.[53]

            On the day when the Kittim fall, there shall be battle and terrible carnage before the God of Israel, for that shall be the day appointed from ancient times for the battle of destruction of the sons of darkness.[54]

            Scripture teaches, and the Jews understood, that the Messiah would continue forever (Ps 89:4; Isa 9:7; John 12:34). The forty-year war seems thus to be the period during which Messiah would defeat his enemies, inaugurating his reign, and may be derived from the probable time Joshua spent conquering the land of Canaan and the reign of David who ruled in Hebron seven years, and thirty-three in Jerusalem (I Kgs 2:11).

IX. KITTIM IDENTIFIED AS THE ROMANS

            The Kittim are identified in scripture as the end-time enemy of God’s people. This identification is implicit in their rise to dominion as the fourth world empire following the decline of the dominion of the Greeks. The Kittim are first named by Balaam, who said a Star and Sceptre would come out of Jacob who would visit wrath upon his enemies, and destroy ‘Heber’ by the hands of the Chittim (Kittim):

            There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth…And ships shall come from the coasts of Chittim, and shall afflict Asshur, and shall afflict Eber, and he also shall perish for ever. Num 24:15-25

‘Asshur’ refers to the land of the Assyrians bordering the Euphrates, which was the eastern-most border of the Roman Empire in the time of Christ. ‘Eber’ is the root word of Hebrew; Eber was the ancestor of Abraham, the Hebrew (Gen 11:17, 26; 14:13). Thus, Balaam’s oracle is the first explicit, end-time prophecy of the destruction of the Jewish nation by Rome. The Kittim occur in yet another telling passage:

For the ships of Chittim shall come against him: therefore he shall be grieved, and return, and have indignation against the holy covenant: so shall he do; he shall even return, and have intelligence with them that forsake the holy covenant. Dan 11:30

It is almost universally agreed that this refers to Antiochus IV Epiphanes and his war against Ptolemy Physcon. When Antiochus had advanced to attack Ptolemy in order to possess Pelusium, he was met by the Roman legate Gaius Popilius Laenus. Popilius handed Antiochus tablets containing the decree of the Senate, ordering him to cease his war with Ptolemy. Upon reading these, Antiochus expressed a desire to confer with his friends. Popilius drew a circle about Antiochus in the sand and bade him give his answer before he stepped from the circle. After a moment of silence, Antiochus replied that he would do whatever the Romans demanded. Accordingly, a stated number of days were allowed him within which he withdrew his army into Syria where he attacked Jerusalem, slew forty-thousand, sold an equal number as slaves, and robbed the temple of eighteen hundred talents of gold.

Since it is the Kittim (Romans) who succeeded to world dominion following the Greeks, it is they who are depicted as the fourth beast of Daniel chapter seven. Such is the process by which the Essenes almost certainly would have identified the Romans as the eschatological enemy who would be destroyed by the ‘Prince of the Covenant.’ Several passages from the scrolls serve to confirm this identification. For example, the Commentary on Nahum, which takes the prophet’s words against Nineveh as a type of God’s eschatological judgment against Jerusalem, states at verse 2:11:

Interpreted, this concerns Demetrius king of Greece who sought, on the counsel of those who seek smooth things, to enter Jerusalem. But God did not permit the city to be delivered into the hands of the kings of Greece, from the time of Antiochus until the coming of the rulers of the Kittim. But then she shall be trampled under their feet.[55]

After Antiochus IV Epiphanes, none of the kings of Greece entered Jerusalem until the city was captured by Pompey the Great in 63 B.C. It continued under the power of the Romans until it was destroyed in A.D. 70 by Titus. The prediction that the city would be ‘trampled under the feet’ of the Kittim finds surprizing correlation in the New Testament: Jesus’ Olivet Discourse and Revelation use identical language to the same purpose (Luke 21:24; Rev. 11:2).

Among the Dead Sea scrolls, the Commentary on Habakkuk is especially insightful. The commentary repeatedly states that it concerns the ‘final generation’ and ‘end of days,’ and treats the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans as a prophetic type of God’s end-time judgment against Jerusalem by the Kittim. That the Essenes were correct in interpreting Habakkuk this way is confirmed by Hab. 2:3, which states that the vision is for the time of ‘the end.’ It is also confirmed by the epistle to the Hebrews, which quotes Habakkuk to encourage Jewish believers to remain faithful in the face of persecution, because Christ would shortly come to save them and visit unquenchable wrath upon the Jews (Heb 10:37, 38; cf. 9:28). Essene comments upon Hab. 2:7-8 state:

Interpreted this concerns the last Priests of Jerusalem, who shall amass money and wealth by plundering the peoples. But in the last days, their riches and booty shall be delivered into the hands of the army of the Kittim.

At verses 1:14-16, the identity of the Kittim is made unmistakable when it states that they ‘sacrifice to their standards and worship their weapons of war.’[56] This can only refer to the Romans whom Josephus describes as sacrificing to their standards when they captured Jerusalem:

And now the Romans, upon the flight of the seditious into the city, and upon the burning of the holy house itself, and of all the buildings lying round about it, brought their ensigns to the temple, and set them over against its eastern gate; and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus imperator, with the greatest acclamations of joy.[57]

Identification of the Kittim with the Romans, together with their belief that the Romans would trample Jerusalem in the ‘end of days’ and ‘final generation’ preceding the dawn of the Messianic age, fixes the time of the Essenes’ eschatological expectation, and shows that it is Preterist in nature and essence.

            1. National Kingdom and Earthly Throne. The Essenes equated the Kittim with Gog and Magog, the pagan hoard Ezekiel foretold would descend upon restored Israel at the end of days (Ezek 38, 39). There are various interpretations of this prophecy. Not a few commentators see it in reference to Antiochus IV Epiphanes. However, the mention of ‘David their Prince’ (the Messiah) (Ezek. 37:24, 25) prior to the battle makes the persecution of Antiochus too early. During the Middle Ages, Gog and Magog were variously thought to be the Goths and Moors, the Huns, Saracens, Tartars, and Mongols;[58] in modern times Russia and more recently China have been proposed,[59] but these are obviously too late. The better view, therefore, is that Gog and Magog symbolizes the end-time persecution of the church by Nero Caesar and the Jews, which figures prominently in Revelation and Daniel where the coming of the ‘Ancient of days’ (Christ, Dan. 7:22) defeats the Roman power (Nero, the ‘little horn,’ Dan. 7:8)[60] and saves the beleaguered saints, who then receive earth’s dominion by the reigning Christ (Dan. 7:26, 27). The Essenes, however, understood Gog and Magog in terms of the Roman occupation of Judea; the Essenes viewed the battle in terms of an armed conflict typical of a national kingdom and an earthly monarch, followed by the world dominion of Jerusalem over the nations:

‘O Zion, rejoice greatly!

O Jerusalem, show thyself amidst jubilation!

Rejoice, all you cities of Judah;

Keep your gates ever open that the nations may be brought in!

Their kings shall serve you and

All your oppressors shall bow down before you;

They shall lick the dust of your feet.

Shout for joy, O daughters of my people!

Deck yourselves with glorious jewels

And rule over the kingdoms of the nations!

Sovereignty shall be to the Lord

And everlasting dominion to Israel.’[61]

It appears from history that the Essenes joined the revolt of A.D. 66-70, probably thinking that events would so unfold as to realize their eschatological expectations.[62] The disastrous beginning of the war in which Cestius’ army was almost completely destroyed probably served as a signal to the Essenes and many other Jews that the moment of deliverance had arrived. Josephus mentions ‘John the Essene,’ who was made a general in the war[63] but who perished in the battle of Ascalon.[64] Josephus also relates that many of the Essenes were cruelly tortured by the Romans during the war, so that we must conclude many from the sect joined the revolt, notwithstanding their normal separation from mainstream Judaism.[65] Unfortunately for the Essenes, their nationalistic expectations regarding the end of days and the triumph of the sons of light betrayed the sect: The site at Qumran shows signs of military destruction. The sect disappeared from history after the war, but not before bequeathing to posterity the legacy of their scrolls, hidden carefully in the caves adjacent to Qumran.

X. VALIDITY OF THE TIME-FACTORS NOTWITHSTANDING MISTAKEN INTERPRETATION

Although the Essenes were mistaken about many things relative to the time of the end, there can be small dispute that they understood the time aright. The various time-lines provided by the prophecies of the book of Daniel made unmistakable that they were living in the last days and time of the end: The Roman-sequence of world empires (Dan. 2, 7),[66] Daniel’s 490 prophetic years until the destruction of the city and temple (Dan. 9:24-27), his final vision about ‘the end’ and what would befall the Jewish nation (Dan. 10:14; 11:27, 35, 40; 12:4); the identity of the Kittim with Rome, together with the apostate nature of mainstream Judaism and the priesthood all signaled that God’s purpose was reaching its appointed consummation—a fact admitted even by Josephus, who acknowledged that Daniel had foretold the nation’s destruction by Rome:

In the very same manner Daniel also wrote concerning the Roman government, and that our country should be made desolate by them. All these things did this man leave in writing, as God had shewed him, insomuch that such as read his prophecies, and see how they have been fulfilled, would wonder at the honour wherewith God honoured Daniel.[67]

The Essenes clearly foresaw that the end would entail wrath upon Jerusalem and the Jews by the hands of Rome, but the deliverance they thought belonged to them, belonged instead to the church, the bride of Christ. The saints’ deliverance from their enemies did not entail military victory in the revolt of A.D. 66-70 as the Essenes wrongly supposed. Rather, it came about in the Jews’ war with Rome and the year-of-four-emperors, which ended the first imperial persecution of the church. The Essenes disappeared from history; the Jewish nation was destroyed; but the church went on to conquer Rome and the world.

XI. CONCLUSION

According to James C. VanderKam who served on the international committee charged with editing and translating the Dead Sea Scrolls for publication:

Both the Qumranites and the first Christians can be called eschatological communities in the sense that both were convinced that the end was near and ordered their beliefs and communal practices accordingly.[68]

The Essenes were guided in their belief that they were living at the time of the end and the threshold of the new age by the Old Testament; the early church was guided in the same opinion by the Old Testament, and, more importantly, by numerous direct statements of Christ and the apostles. Based on comments by Origen, Celsus, and others, it was widely understood by the early church that the destruction of Jerusalem marked the end of the age and the coming of Christ. In time, this understanding became lost or obscured, giving rise to the appearance of a delayed Parousia, which has used to impugn the inspiration and authority of scripture ever since. Where other schools of eschatology stutter and stammer searching for a response, Preterism has a ready reply: The Lord is come; let earth receive her King!



[1] A form of the term ‘preterist’ appropriately occurs in the Latin Vulgate at Matt. 24:34 in connection with the destruction of Jerusalem: ‘Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled’ (‘non praeteribit haec generatio donec omnia haec fiant’).

[2] Origen, Contra Celsus 4.21-22

[3] Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, 8.5.375

[4] Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, 6.13.271; Farrar edition.

[5] It should be stated that at this juncture the Jews were virulent ‘enemies of the gospel’ (Rom. 11:28), and actively persecuted the church and apostles as we see in the book of Acts that everywhere Paul carried the gospel, he suffered persecution by the Jews until at last they succeeded in his martyrdom and that of Peter (Acts 12:2; 13:45-50; 14:2-5; 19; 17:5-13; 18:5-6; 12-17; 21:11-12). Roman policy guaranteed local peoples the right to worship their ancestral gods, which Claudius extended also to the church (Acts 18:12-17). Claudius thus banished the Jews from Rome and Italy because of their incessant riots against Jewish Christians (Acts 18:2; Suetonius, Claudius 25.4). But when Claudius was poisoned by Agrippina, Nero’s mother, Nero came to the throne and the political situation soon changed—‘he who restrained’ the murderous Jewish hatred for the church was taken out of the way, and the ‘man of sin’ and ‘son of perdition’ was revealed, giving rise to the first imperial persecution (2 Thess. 2:1-12). According to Phillip Schaff, it was the Jews who probably suggested blaming the burning of Rome upon the Christians, providing Nero with a needed scapegoat: ‘It is not unlikely that in this (as in all previous persecutions, and often afterwards) the fanatical Jews, enraged by the rapid progress of Christianity, and anxious to avert suspicion from themselves, stirred up the people against the hated Galilaeans, and that the heathen Romans fell with double fury on these supposed half Jews, disowned by their own strange brethren’ (Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1882, 3rd ed. 1910) 1.383).

[6] Ben Asaph, The Moriad (Nashville, 1857), 2:170-75; p. 51

[7] ‘And after many plagues completed in the world, in the end he says that a beast ascended from the abyss…that is, of the Romans.  Moreover that he was in the kingdom of the Romans, and that he was among the Caesars.  The Apostle Paul also bears witness, for he says to the Thessalonians: ‘Let him who now restraineth restrain, until he be taken out of the way; and then shall appear the Wicked One, even he whose coming is after the working of Satan, with signs and lying wonders.’  And that they might know that he should come who then was the prince, he adds: ‘He already endeavours after the secret of mischief’—that is, the mischief which he is about to do he strives to do secretly; but he is not raised up by his own power, nor by that of his father, but by command of God ‘ (Victorinus, Commentary on the Apocalypse, 11:7). Victorinus here connects the ‘beast’ from the abyss with the Roman Empire and the ‘Wicked One’ with the one who was prince when Paul wrote (Nero), and would follow his father (Claudius) to the throne.

[8] ‘Some think that these words refer to the Roman Empire, and that the apostle Paul did not wish to write more explicitly, lest he should incur a charge of calumny against the Roman Empire, in wishing ill when men hoped that it was to be everlasting.  So in the words: ‘For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work’ he referred to Nero, whose deeds already seemed to be as those of Antichrist’ (Augustine, City of God, 20.19).

[9] ‘But these events were typically prefigured under Antiochus Epiphanes, so that this abominable king who persecuted God’s people foreshadows the Antichrist, who is to persecute the people of Christ. And so there are many of our viewpoint who think that Domitius Nero was the Antichrist because of his outstanding savagery and depravity’ (Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, 11:27-30).

[10] Matthew uses the term ‘abomination of desolation’ (Matt. 24:15); Luke interprets this phrase for his Gentile readers, saying, ‘when you shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh’ (Luke 21:20). Origen indicates this was fulfilled in the Jews’ war with Rome (Contra Celsus, 2.13).

[11] Isaiah’s promised new heavens and earth serve as bookends to the destruction of Jerusalem. The first reference occurs in Isa. 65:17; the second in Isa. 66:22. The fall of Jerusalem comes in between at Isa. 66:6, so that it becomes nearly impossible to attach the promised new heavens and earth to any other time or event.

[12] That Revelation was written before A.D. 70, and not during the reign of Domitian in A.D. 96 as popularly assumed, see Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell  (American Vision, 1998); John A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament, (SCM Press, 1976; republished Wipf and Stock Publishers, Eugene, 2000).

[13] Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (Oxford University Press, 1999), 134.

[14] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus (London, 1910), 358.

[15] The intellectual prowess necessary to extricate oneself from the horns of this dilemma is not a little disconcerting. Stein argues that the disciples asked only two questions in Mark 13:4, both confined to the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. Yet, Stein argues that the coming of the Son of man in vv. 24-27 lies outside the disciples’ question, was gratuitously and inexplicably inserted by Jesus in his answer, and pertains to a yet future coming of the Lord. This requires we be willing to believe that Jesus answered a question the disciples did not ask, misleadingly interwove it into his answer about events separated by thousands of years, and yet concluded his discourse, saying, ‘This generation shall not pass, till all these things be done’ (Mark 13:30). Stein’s argument would be more convincing if the material in verses 24-27 came after v. 30; but as it precedes v. 30, the only reasonable conclusion is that ‘all these things’ in v. 30 includes the coming of the Son of man, and that the whole of Christ’s Olivet Discourse was confined to events fulfilled before the death of the last apostle. Robert H. Stein, Jesus, the Temple, and the Coming of the Son of Man (Intervarsity Press Academic, 2014), 67-69.

[16] John Lightfoot, ‘The Harmony, Chronicle, and Order of the New Testament; with a Parergon, Concerning the Fall of Jerusalem’ in The Whole Works of the Rev. John Lightfoot D.D., (London, 1684; republished 1822 by J. F. Dove) 3.141, 142.

[17] Although the Dead Sea Scrolls are not new and virtually all readers have heard of them, since many will not have made a personal investigation of the scrolls, this article will proceed upon the assumption the reader has no personal knowledge of the origin and content of the scrolls.

[18] Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Complete edition., Allen Lane The Penguin Press, 1997), 12-14

[19] Wadi Murabba’at (Nahal Darga), five caves; Nahal Hever , ten caves.

[20] James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (2nd ed., William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994, 2010), 16

[21]Engaddi was pillaged and burned by the Sicarii in excursions from Masada during the war with Rome. Josephus, J.W. 4.398-403

[22] Pliny, Nat. Hist. 5.17

[23] Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 50-53; Will Durant, ‘The Life of Greece’ in The Story of Civilization (Simon & Schuster, 1939; renewed  1966 by Will Durant) 2.579-584

[24] Some scholars interpret reference to Damascus allegorically in reference to the captivity in Babylon ‘beyond Damascus’ as per Amos 5:26, 27 (‘Essene Origins—Palestine or Babylonia’ in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hershell Shanks editor, Vintage Books, 1993), 82.

[25] Josephus, Ant. 13.35-57

[26] Josephus, Ant. 13.171-173

[27] Blessings (IQSb=IQ28b), III.20-30; Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 375

[28] For a fuller discussion of the identity of the Qumran community see James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, (2nd ed., William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994, 2010), 97-126; James C. VanderKam, ‘The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essenes or Sadducees?’ in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, 50-62.

[29] Josephus, Ap. 1.37-41; Whiston ed.

 

[30] For an account of the variant readings discovered at Qumran and possible emendations vis-à-vis the Masoretic-text, see F.F. Bruce, Qumran and the Old Testament, Faith and Thought 91.1 (Summer, 1959), 9-27.

[31] According to Schiffman, the proto-Masoretic text was already in the ascendency in the Hasmonean period and was probably the most common precisely because it was known to be the most ancient. The process of standardization was one of eliminating variant texts. Lawrence H. Schiffman, ‘The Sadducean Origins of the Dead Sea Scroll Sect’ in Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (Vintage Books, 1993, Hershel Shanks, editor), 48.

[32] Cf. Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 17; Craig Evans, Peter W. Flint Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, (Eerdmans, 1997), 5

[33] Josephus, Ap. 1.41; Whiston ed.

[34] The 430 years of prophetic silence shows that the nation was effectively already rejected by God, and that it was only heaven’s forbearance that postponed its destruction until A.D. 70. According to Paul, God ‘endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction’ (Rom 9:22).

[35] Vermes and VanderKam both believe that the Essenes’ notion of the Hebrew canon was hazy and open-ended. Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 16; James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, 194, 195

[36] Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 13

[37] Josephus, Ant. 13.311-312; 15.373-8; 17.345-8; J.W. 2.159

[38] Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions of the Middle Ages, 126-41; 203-221.

[39] ‘That second block of history carries down to the work of Jesus Christ and to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. These two periods are the former days and the latter days of Israel, not of the entire world. For that reason, as we shall see, Daniel’s prophecies of the latter days concern the future history of Israel down to AD 70, and do not directly deal with the gospel era (except as general principles). The same is true of Zechariah 9-14. Arguably, every instance of ‘last days’ and ‘last hour’ in the New Testament also refers to the end of Israel’s history down to AD 70’ (James B. Jordon, The Handwriting on the Wall: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (American Vision, 2007), 20).

[40] Damascus Document (CD 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15), V.5; Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 130

[41] Damascus Document (CD 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15), I.5; Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 127

[42] Damascus Document (CD 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15), I.10, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 127

[43] Damascus Document (CD 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15) VI.10-20, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 132

[44] Damascus Document (CD 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15) IV.5-15, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English,130

[45] Florilegium or Midrash on the Last Days (4Q174) I.10, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 494.

[46] The lines of Judah and Aaron merged early on in Aaron’s marriage of the daughter of Amminadab, a descendant of Judah by Phares (Exod 6:23; Matt 1:4).

[47] Damascus Document (CD 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15) XIII.20; Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 142

[48] Josephus,  J. W. 2.154-155; Whiston ed.

[49] Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, 87-89

[50] Hippolytus, Against all Heresies 9:22

[51] Hymn 21 (1QH, 1Q36, 4Q427-32); Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, 288

[52] Rule of War (4Q285, 11Q14), fr. 5, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 189

[53] Michael is the name used for the divinity when acting as the captain of the Lord’s host to save God’s people (cf. Josh 5:14; Dan 10:13, 20, 21; 12:1). Michael is almost certainly Christ. The incarnation thus escaped the Essenes, who saw the Prince of the Congregation and Michael as two several actors.

[54] War Scroll (1QM1, 1Q33, 4Q491-7, 4Q471) I.10, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 164

[55] Commentary on Nahum (4Q169) II:11, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 474

[56] Commentary on Habakkuk (1QpHab) I:14-16, Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 481; ‘The Kittim in this document are clearly the Romans, who ‘sacrifice to their standards’ (1QpHab 6:3-4)’ (John J. Collins ‘The Expectation of the End in the Dead Sea Scrolls’ in Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Craig A. Evans and Peter W. Flint editors (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 83).

[57] Josephus, J.W. 6.316; Whiston edition

[58] Barnard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (Columbia University Press, 1979, 1998), 54, 71, 72, 150, 151, 156, 157.

[59] Paul Boyer, When time shall be no More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Harvard University Press, 1992), 134, 154-162; 167-168; 176-180.

[60] The ten horns of the fourth beast/world empire probably refer to the ten senatorial provinces created by Augustus in 27 B.C., which became a permanent identifying feature of the empire thereafter (Dio Cassius 53:12; Thomas Marris Taylor, A Constitutional and Political History of Rome (Metheun & Co., London, 1889), 464). There were never only ten provinces (there were thirty-nine in the time of Nero), but there were always ten senatorial provinces from 27 B.C. onward. The identity of Nero and the Roman principate as the ‘little horn’ is confirmed in part by Dan 7:8, 20, 24, which state that there were three horns (kingdoms/provinces) ‘plucked up’ before the little horn, which were subsequently subdued. This almost certainly refers to the revolt of the Britain, Armenia, and Judea which were forcibly returned to Roman rule during Nero’s reign. Suetonius summarizes these wars, saying, Nero’s reign was marked by ‘a disaster in Britain, where two important towns were sacked and great numbers of citizens and allies were butchered; a shameful defeat in the Orient, in consequence of which the legions of Armenia were sent under the yoke, and Syria was all but lost’ (Suetonius, Nero, 39; Loeb ed).

[61] War Scroll XII.10-15; Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 176

[62] ‘But it is quite possible that the members of the community decided that the day of vengeance had come when the revolt against Rome broke out. If so, they would have presumably expected the heavenly host to come to their aid as envisioned in the War Rule. Needless to say, no such help materialized’ (John J. Collins ‘The Expectation of the End in the Dead Sea Scrolls’ in Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Craig A. Evans and Peter W. Flint editors (Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 89).

[63] Josephus, J.W. 2.566-568

[64] Josephus, J.W. 3.9-21

[65] Josephus, J.W. 2.152-153

[66] That the end was predicted to come about in the time of the Roman Empire is widely recognized, prompting various attempts to extend its duration. The Continuous Historical method thus interpreted the ten horns of the fourth world-empire in Daniel seven as the division of nations into which the Roman Empire devolved at its demise, and the Roman Catholic Church and papacy as the ‘little horn’ that rose therefrom (Isaac Newton, Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (London, 1733), chapters 2-6). Premillennialism argues that there will be a ‘revived’ Roman Empire. And because the temple figures prominently in end-time prophecy, they argue a ‘third’ temple will also be built and even that another ‘Elijah the prophet’ will appear (John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Moody Bible Institute, 1966,) 176, 178, 197-199). The likelihood of a revived Roman Empire in any form we leave the reader to judge; Socrates Scholasticus reports that the Jews’ attempt to rebuild the temple under Julian the Apostate (A.D. 361-363), who commanded the work and ordered its expense be defrayed out of the public treasury, ended abruptly by a divine earthquake and fire, causing even the Jews to confess that Christ was God (Ecclesiastical History, 3.20).

[67] Josephus, Ant. 10.276-279; Whiston ed.

[68] James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, (2nd ed., William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994, 2010), 215



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