Examining the Bible Objectively
Today the oceans of the world have a heat store of about ten years of sunlight.
Who Lies Sleeping?
1. Essenes as Militant Nationalists
© Dr M D MageeContents Updated: 28 October 1998
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The Zadokite Priesthood
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Hate your Enemies!
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Gentiles
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Essene Revolutionary Activity
Abstract
In 104 BC, Alexander Jannaeus succeeded Aristobulus as king. The Hasids had split into twoparties, the Essenes and the Pharisees. Alexander Jannaeus was a rough soldier with no piouspretensions, but pleased the Essenes because he was so opposed to their enemies, the Pharisees—he crucified 800 of them—and the Greeks. This antagonism of the Pharisees and the Essenes isthe true birth of Christianity. Essenes hated foreign rule. A scroll fragment includes the sentence“The Lord is ruler… to Him alone belongs sovereignty”. Josephus wrote of the followers of Judas of Galilee that they called no man Lord but God, just like Christians, and condemningforeign rulers. Judah was a theocracy. An opponent of Herod, Sadduc, joined Judas of Galilee inrevolt. The Zealots were incensed by foreign gifts to the Temple, and it was the eventual refusalof the junior priests to offer foreign sacrifices that triggered the Jewish war. Discussing therevolutionary and nationalist activities of the Essenes
The Zadokite Priesthood
The Macedonian Greek, Alexander the Great, conquered Palestine in the fourth century BC.After his death his empire was immediately split among his generals and Palestine became partof Egypt under the dynasty of the Ptolemies. In 200 BC however it became part of the Seleucidkingdom centred on Syria and Mesopotamia. All of these former Alexandrian territories wereGreek in culture and the process of Greek cultural imperialism was called Hellenization. Duringhis reign the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-163 BC), pressed ahead with anaggressive policy of Hellenization in Israel until 165 BC. Some Jews had had enough—theyrevolted.The Zadokite line of Jewish priests in Jewish mythology had been founded by Solomon and hadsupposedly continued unbroken since. But the Greeks opposed an inherited priesthood: theywanted anyone to have a chance of being a priest. In 172 BC Antiochus IV Epiphanes murdered
Onias III, the High Priest, breaking the line of traditional Zadokite priests in Jerusalem. He putthe office up to the highest bidder.At first the Zadokites retained the office by submitting the highest bid but later Jesus, theZadokite High Priest, lost his bid to a non-Zadokite and civil war broke out. The Jews had littlechance and many were massacred. The victorious Greeks desecrated the Temple, dedicating it toZeus and sacrificing swine. Jerusalem became a Greek city. Baby boys went uncircumcised,priests exercised naked in the gymnasium and the king’s officers went around forcing Jews tomake pagan sacrifices. But at one village the local priest, Mattathias Maccabaeus, refused.Another Jew stepped forward to offer the sacrifice. The story is continued in the apocryphal book of
1 Maccabee
2:24-28:When Mattathias saw it he burned with zeal, and his heart was stirred. He gave vent to righteousanger; he ran and killed him upon the alter. At the same time he killed the king’s officer, asPhinehas did against Zimri the son of Salu. Then Mattathias cried out in the city with a loudvoice, saying: “Let every one who is zealous for the Law and supports the Covenant come outwith me!” And he and his sons fled to the hills and left all that they had in the city.Nominally their platform was against the Hellenization of religion and they called for purity of worship. Despite the Maccabaean propaganda, there is a puzzle here because the Greeks were asuniversal in religous outlook as the Persians and were happy to recognize local cults as aspects of a greater universal god. They had shown no desire to suppress Judaism but the Maccabeesclaimed they did. The real protest was not against Greeks but against Jews who had adoptedGreek culture, not against forced cultural imperialism but against the success of its voluntaryadoption.Eventually the Maccabaean rebellion, supported by the Egyptians and indirectly by the Romans,succeeded in undermining the Seleucid state, but unwittingly setup a lot of trouble and changedthe history of the world as well as world religions. Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias, proveda brilliant general and defeated the Greeks setting up the Jewish dynasty of the Hasmonaeans.Judas (165-160 BC) was followed by his brother Jonathan (160-143) and another brother Simon(143-134 BC). The victory of the Maccabees is still celebrated by Jews at Hanukkah.These victories of the Maccabees induced Jews to come from their heartland in Mesopotamiaincluding many who were zealous for the Law and were impressed by Mattathias’s stand againstthe Greeks. In Palestine they were doomed to disappointment. Hellenization had not ceased. TheHasmonaeans did not return to strict tradition. Judas was keen to secure Rome as an ally againstthe Seleucids and signed a treaty with the Roman senate. To effect this he made Hellenized Jewshis diplomats.
Nor did the Hasmonaeans reinstate the Zadokites: Jonathan Maccabee claimed the High Priestlyoffice for himself. It was possibly at this point that the sect which was to become the Communityof Qumran was first founded largely by zealous returners from Babylon disappointed by the turnof events. Josephus first mentions the Essenes in his description of the reign of JonathanMaccabaeus implying that they were founded then. However many Jews at this stage stillsupported Jonathan. He remained in conflict with the Seleucids throughout his reign and wouldhave been given the benefit of the doubt while he was engaged in throwing off the foreigner.Such regard would not have been shown to his brother, Simon Maccabaeus, whose son in lawkilled him and his eldest and youngest sons while they were drunk on a visit to Jericho. Anotherson, John Hyrcanus, escaped. Meanwhile the Seleucid king, Antiochus VII Sidetes, took thechance to reassert Greek authority. One Qumran document apparently alludes to
Joshua
6:26where a ”Cursed One” loses his eldest and youngest sons. In the
Habakkuk Peshar
we read thatthis priest ”…walked in the ways of drunkenness …but the cup of God’s wrath will swallow himup… ” Other Qumran
Testimonia
seem to identify this priest with Simon Maccabee. Why thendid the Qumran Community hate this man so much?Simon Maccabee (142-135 BC) was the first independent king of the Jewish free state , whoserule was considered by his followers as a golden age, though he chose not to be called kingmerely accepting the title ethnarch. The lack of religious principle behind the revolution becameimmediately clear. In 140 BC, Simon was proclaimed High Priest by the Great Assembly of Priests and Elders (Pharisees) and his position was to be ”forever,” which is to say inherited”until there should arise a faithful prophet (1 Maccabees 14:41).” The decree recognised its ownillegality by making it sound only temporary through the phrase about the prophet, but itremoved the Zadokites permanently from office in practice because the age of prophecy hadended—since it was mythical, it had never begun. Opposition was to be severely punished.The Hasidim cannot have accepted such a proclamation and must have been even more horrifiedwhen Simon allied himself with the Romans. Of course, the Romans were all the time beingdiplomatically astute and had used the Hasmonaean family of rebels to weaken the SyrianGreeks, in preparation for the Roman annexation soon to come.An American Jewish scholar, Lawrence Schiffman, believes that the Sadducees were theZadokites who lost control of the Temple when the Maccabees refused to return the HighPriesthood to them. Later some compromised accepting back their priestly positions but under anon-Zadokite High Priest. Others refused to compromise and joined the sectarians foundedearlier by a Zadokite New Covenanter, the Teacher of Righteousness, who had retreated with hisfollowers into the wilderness to lead ritually pure lives, observing the Law strictly and followingthe solar calendar. The Pharisees supported the Maccabees throughout.Simon was murdered and his son, John Hyrcanus (135-105 BC), had himself anointed as HighPriest and therefore ruler of the Jews. He attacked the Samaritan’s town of Shechem anddestroyed their temple on Mount Gerizim, he attacked the Idumaeans and forced them to becomeJews, setting up the prospect of having the Idumaean but Jewish king Herod a century later, andfinally he actually attacked the Greek city of Samaria, populated with descendants of
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3. Jewish Nationalism
In 104 BC, Alexander Jannaeus succeeded Aristobulus as king. The Hasids had split into two
parties, the Essenes and the Pharisees. Alexander Jannaeus was a rough soldier with no piouspretensions, but pleased the Essenes because he… (More)
parties, the Essenes and the Pharisees. Alexander Jannaeus was a rough soldier with no piouspretensions, but pleased the Essenes because he… (More)
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