The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State.

• Author: Davies, Philip R.
• Position: Book review

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State. By HANAN ESHEL. Grand Rapids. Michigan: WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2008. Pp. xii + 208, illus. $28 (paper).

The greatest frustration engendered by the Dead Sea Scrolls is that despite their enormous importance for the religious history of Judea and Judaism, they reveal so little of public events and figures. The early decades of Scrolls scholarship witnessed a struggle to identify the persons behind the sobriquets, with little consensus and, as time progressed, less confidence in the quest.

Since then, available scrolls have multiplied to 900. and two named, identifiable figures have emerged: Shelomzion, queen and successor (139-67 B.C.E.) of Alexander Jannaeus, and Aemilius (Scaurus), Pompey's legate who preceded his master's arrival in Jerusalem in 65-64 B.C.E. In addition, Jannaeus is the one outstanding candidate for the "King Jonathan" named in a Prayer (4Q448). Otherwise, there arc numerous colorful sobriquets and descriptions of events that might conceal real occurrences, creatively remembered ones, or even incidents inferred from biblical texts (a device of which Matthew's nativity account is perhaps the best-known example). Or they might be stereotypical, applicable to anything that came along (like much "prophecy").

The book follows a chronological sequence, from "The Roots of the Hasmonean Revolt" to "The Assassination of Pompey," in which the historical circumstances are described (using our extant witnesses, I and 2 Maccabees and Josephus) and then relevant or possibly relevant Qumran texts are adduced. In chapter one, "Roots of the Hasmonean Revolt," these are 4Q248, a pseudo-historical text like Daniel 11. mentioning an "Antiochus" identified by Eshel as IV ("Epiphanes"). Here the lack of reference to his anti-Jewish measures suggests to Eshel a date before 176. pointing to "messianic" expectations in Judea at this time (p. 19; but we are not told why these expectations should have arisen).

Chapter two rehearses a well-trodden discussion of the "Teacher of Righteousness," the "Man of Lies," and the "Wicked Priest." Eshel identifies the latter with Jonathan ben Mattathias. the one additional ingredient being that he is also the addressee of 4QMMT. It is strange that Eshel, who is very familiar with Qumran archaeology, does not note that according to the current consensus Qumran itself was probably not reoccupied before about 100 B.C.E., whereas Jonathan died in 142...