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Wicked Priest
The Wicked Priest (Hebrew: הכהן הרשע; Romanized Hebrew: ha-kōhēn hā-rāš'ā) is a sobriquet used in the Dead Sea Scrolls pesharim, four times in the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) and once in the Commentary on Psalm 37 (4QpPsa), to refer to an opponent of the "Teacher of Righteousness." It has been suggested that the phrase is a pun on "ha-kōhēn hā-rōš", as meaning "the High Priest". He is generally identified with a Hasmonean (Maccabean) High Priest or Priests. However, his identification remains controversial, and the matter has been called "one of the knottiest problems connected with the Dead Sea Scrolls."
The most commonly argued-for single candidate is Jonathan Apphus, followed by his brother Simon Thassi; the widespread acceptance of this view has been dubbed the "Jonathan consensus." Alternative suggestions include that the sobriquet does not refer to only one individual, but rather a series of multiple Wicked Priests (the "Groningen Hypothesis", advanced by García Martinez and van der Woude), and other suggested figures.
The Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) was one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 and published in 1951. The thirteen-column scroll is a pesher, or "interpretation", of the Book of Habakkuk. The Commentary on Psalm 37 is one of the three pesharim on the Book of Psalms and the only other Dead Sea scroll to use the sobriquet. Psalm 37 has been said to have "the strongest literary and thematic links" with the Book of Habakkuk, compared to the other Psalms, and the language of Psalm 37 is borrowed by the Habakkuk pesherist in the commentary on Hab. 2:17. The similar language and themes of the Commentaries on Habakkuk and Psalm 37 have been suggested as evidence of common authorship, or at least similar interpretive methods.
Radiocarbon dating tests conducted on 1QpHab and 4QpPsa at the Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility gave a one standard deviation confidence interval of 104–43 BCE and a two sigma confidence interval of 120–5 BCE (97%); for 4QpPsa (4Q171) the one standard deviation confidence interval was 22–78 CE and the two sigma confidence interval was 5–111 CE. Earlier paleographic dating of 1QpHab indicated a date range of 30–1 BCE.
The prediction of column 7 of 1QpHab that "the final age shall be prolonged" is sometimes interpreted to mean that the Habakkuk Commentary was written approximately 40 years after the death of the Teacher of Righteousness—the time when the final age should have ended, according to the Damascus Document.
Moreover, the arrogant man seizes wealth without halting. He widens his gullet like Hell and like Death he has never enough. All the nations are gathered to him and all the people are assembled to him. Will they not all of them taunt him and jeer at him saying, 'Woe to him who amasses that which is not his! How long will he load himself up with pledges?
Interpreted, this concerns the Wicked Priest who was called by the name of truth when he first arose. But when he ruled over Israel his heart became proud, and he forsook God and betrayed the precepts for the sake of riches. He robbed and amassed the riches of men of violence who rebelled against God, and he took the wealth of the peoples, heaping sinful iniquity upon himself. And he lived in the ways of abominations amidst every unclean defilement.
— 1QpHab, col. 8, lines 4–11, translated by Vermes (2004)
Because of the blood of men and the violence done to the land, to the city, and all its inhabitants.
Interpreted, this concerns the Wicked Priest whom God delivered into the hands of his enemies because of the iniquity committed against the Teacher of Righteousness and the men of his Council, that he might be humbled by means of a destroying scourge, in bitterness of soul, because he had done wickedly to His elect.
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Wicked Priest
The Wicked Priest (Hebrew: הכהן הרשע; Romanized Hebrew: ha-kōhēn hā-rāš'ā) is a sobriquet used in the Dead Sea Scrolls pesharim, four times in the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) and once in the Commentary on Psalm 37 (4QpPsa), to refer to an opponent of the "Teacher of Righteousness." It has been suggested that the phrase is a pun on "ha-kōhēn hā-rōš", as meaning "the High Priest". He is generally identified with a Hasmonean (Maccabean) High Priest or Priests. However, his identification remains controversial, and the matter has been called "one of the knottiest problems connected with the Dead Sea Scrolls."
The most commonly argued-for single candidate is Jonathan Apphus, followed by his brother Simon Thassi; the widespread acceptance of this view has been dubbed the "Jonathan consensus." Alternative suggestions include that the sobriquet does not refer to only one individual, but rather a series of multiple Wicked Priests (the "Groningen Hypothesis", advanced by García Martinez and van der Woude), and other suggested figures.
The Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) was one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 and published in 1951. The thirteen-column scroll is a pesher, or "interpretation", of the Book of Habakkuk. The Commentary on Psalm 37 is one of the three pesharim on the Book of Psalms and the only other Dead Sea scroll to use the sobriquet. Psalm 37 has been said to have "the strongest literary and thematic links" with the Book of Habakkuk, compared to the other Psalms, and the language of Psalm 37 is borrowed by the Habakkuk pesherist in the commentary on Hab. 2:17. The similar language and themes of the Commentaries on Habakkuk and Psalm 37 have been suggested as evidence of common authorship, or at least similar interpretive methods.
Radiocarbon dating tests conducted on 1QpHab and 4QpPsa at the Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility gave a one standard deviation confidence interval of 104–43 BCE and a two sigma confidence interval of 120–5 BCE (97%); for 4QpPsa (4Q171) the one standard deviation confidence interval was 22–78 CE and the two sigma confidence interval was 5–111 CE. Earlier paleographic dating of 1QpHab indicated a date range of 30–1 BCE.
The prediction of column 7 of 1QpHab that "the final age shall be prolonged" is sometimes interpreted to mean that the Habakkuk Commentary was written approximately 40 years after the death of the Teacher of Righteousness—the time when the final age should have ended, according to the Damascus Document.
Moreover, the arrogant man seizes wealth without halting. He widens his gullet like Hell and like Death he has never enough. All the nations are gathered to him and all the people are assembled to him. Will they not all of them taunt him and jeer at him saying, 'Woe to him who amasses that which is not his! How long will he load himself up with pledges?
Interpreted, this concerns the Wicked Priest who was called by the name of truth when he first arose. But when he ruled over Israel his heart became proud, and he forsook God and betrayed the precepts for the sake of riches. He robbed and amassed the riches of men of violence who rebelled against God, and he took the wealth of the peoples, heaping sinful iniquity upon himself. And he lived in the ways of abominations amidst every unclean defilement.
— 1QpHab, col. 8, lines 4–11, translated by Vermes (2004)
Because of the blood of men and the violence done to the land, to the city, and all its inhabitants.
Interpreted, this concerns the Wicked Priest whom God delivered into the hands of his enemies because of the iniquity committed against the Teacher of Righteousness and the men of his Council, that he might be humbled by means of a destroying scourge, in bitterness of soul, because he had done wickedly to His elect.
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