The Teacher of Righteousness (in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

: מורה הצדק ''Moreh ha-Tzedek'') is a figure found in some of the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

Qumran Qumran ( he, קומראן; ar, خربة قمران ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli ...

, most prominently in the

Damascus Document The Damascus Document is an ancient Hebrew text known from both the Cairo Geniza and the Dead Sea Scrolls.Philip R. Davies, "Damascus Document", in Eric M. Meyers (ed.), ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East'' (Oxford Universi ...

. This document speaks briefly of the origins of the

sect A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that ...

, probably

Essenes The Essenes (; Hebrew: , ''Isiyim''; Greek: Ἐσσηνοί, Ἐσσαῖοι, or Ὀσσαῖοι, ''Essenoi, Essaioi, Ossaioi'') were a mystic Jewish sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st ce ...

, 390 years after the reign of

Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar II (Babylonian cuneiform: ''Nabû-kudurri-uṣur'', meaning "Nabu, watch over my heir"; Biblical Hebrew: ''Nəḇūḵaḏneʾṣṣar''), also spelled Nebuchadrezzar II, was the second king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, ruling ...

and after 20 years of "groping" blindly for the way. "God... raised for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart". The Teacher is extolled as having proper understanding of the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

, qualified in its accurate instruction, and being the one through whom God would reveal to the community "the hidden things in which Israel had gone astray". Although the exact identity of the Teacher is unknown, based on the text of the

Community Rule The Community Rule ( he, סרך היחד, ''Serekh haYahad''), which is designated 1QS and was previously referred to as the Manual of Discipline, is one of the first scrolls to be discovered near ''khirbet'' (ruin of) Qumran, the scrolls found in ...

scroll, the teachers of the sect are identified as

Kohen Kohen ( he, , ''kōhēn'', , "priest", pl. , ''kōhănīm'', , "priests") is the Hebrew word for " priest", used in reference to the Aaronic priesthood, also called Aaronites or Aaronides. Levitical priests or ''kohanim'' are traditionally ...

s (priests) of patrilineal progeny of

Zadok Zadok (or Zadok HaKohen, also spelled Ṣadok, Ṣadoc, Zadoq, Tzadok, or Tsadoq; he, צָדוֹק הַכֹּהֵן, meaning "Righteous, Justified") was a Kohen (priest), biblically recorded to be a descendant from Eleazar the son of Aaron (). H ...

Serech HaYachad text – Sod H'Megilloth (B.T. Katz) p. 22 (the first high priest to serve in

Solomon's Temple Solomon's Temple, also known as the First Temple (, , ), was the Temple in Jerusalem between the 10th century BC and . According to the Hebrew Bible, it was commissioned by Solomon in the United Kingdom of Israel before being inherited by t ...

), leading scholars to assume the Teacher as a Kohen (priest) of Tzadokite lineage.

Identity

The "missing" High Priest of 159–152 BCE

One theory initially advocated by

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor Jerome Murphy-O'Connor (born 10 April 1935, Cork City, Ireland – died 11 November 2013, Jerusalem) was a Dominican priest, a leading authority on St. Paul, and a Professor of New Testament at the École Biblique in Jerusalem, a position ...

and subsequently by Stegemann is that the Teacher of Righteousness served as

High Priest The term "high priest" usually refers either to an individual who holds the office of ruler-priest, or to one who is the head of a religious caste. Ancient Egypt In ancient Egypt, a high priest was the chief priest of any of the many gods rev ...

but was subsequently ousted by

Jonathan Apphus Jonathan Apphus (Hebrew: ''Yōnāṯān ʾApfūs''; Ancient Greek: Ἰωνάθαν Ἀπφοῦς, ''Iōnáthan Apphoûs'') was one of the sons of Mattathias and the leader of the Hasmonean dynasty of Judea from 161 to 143 BCE. Name H J Wolf no ...

. In

1 Maccabees The First Book of Maccabees, also known as First Maccabees (written in shorthand as 1 Maccabees or 1 Macc.), is a book written in Hebrew by an anonymousRappaport, U., ''47. 1 Maccabees'' in Barton, J. and Muddiman, J. (2001)The Oxford Bible Comme ...

, no High Priest is named for the period from the death of Alcimus in 159 BCE to the claiming of the position of High Priest by Jonathan on the authority of

Alexander Balas Alexander I Theopator Euergetes, surnamed Balas ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος Βάλας, Alexandros Balas), was the ruler of the Seleucid Empire from 150/Summer 152 – August 145 BC. Picked from obscurity and supported by the neighboring Roman ...

in 152 BCE (1 Macc 10:18–20). From this it could be concluded that there was no High Priest for these years, and indeed

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

, drawing heavily on 1 Maccabees at this point in his history, comes to that conclusion (Ant. 20.237). It is improbable, however, that the office remained completely vacant for these years. Stegemann suggests that the reason that nothing is said in 1 Maccabees about a High Priest between Alcimus and Jonathan was apologetic: to conceal the fact that the Hasmoneans obtained the High Priesthood by usurping it from its rightful holder, the Teacher of Righteousness. Alvar Ellegård follows this line and argues that the Teacher of Righteousness was not only the leader of the Essenes at Qumran, but was also considered something of a precursor to

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

about 150 years before the time of the

Gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

s. In 1965 the Dead Sea Scrolls document known as '' Melchizedek '' dated to around 100 BC reveals the Essenes were waiting for this Mechizedek ( King of Righteousness ) High Priest and King Messiah. The Essenes also write in this document that they knew the time of his appearing due to the prophecies written in Daniel. Critics of this theory accuse it of being too hypothetical: slotting the Teacher as High Priest into a convenient gap during which no other High Priest is recorded in the few sources available. Neither the Damascus Document, nor 1QS or 4QMMT suggest that the legitimacy of the High Priest was an issue for the split. In addition, the motivation behind the split of the sect from mainstream

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in th ...

appears to have been of a religious rather than political nature.

A 1st-century BCE Messiah figure

Michael O. Wise posits that the Teacher of Righteousness was the "first messiah", a figure predating Jesus by roughly 100 years. This figure – who Wise believes was named Judah – rose to prominence during the reign of

Alexander Jannaeus Alexander Jannaeus ( grc-gre, Ἀλέξανδρος Ἰανναῖος ; he, ''Yannaʾy''; born Jonathan ) was the second king of the Hasmonean dynasty, who ruled over an expanding kingdom of Judea from 103 to 76 BCE. A son of John Hyrcanus, ...

, and had been a priest and confidant to the king. However, he became dissatisfied with the religious sects in Jerusalem and, in reaction, founded a "crisis cult". While amassing a following, the Teacher (and his followers) claimed he was the fulfillment of various Biblical prophecies, with an emphasis on those found in

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...

. The Teacher was eventually killed by the religious leadership in Jerusalem, and his followers hailed him as messianic figure who had been exalted to the presence of God's throne. They then anticipated that the Teacher would return to judge the wicked and lead the righteous into a

golden age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the '' Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages, Gold being the first and the one during which the G ...

, and that it would take place within the next forty years. Wise explains that dating of manuscript copies among the Dead Sea Scrolls shows that the Teacher's postmortem following drastically increased in size over several years, but that when the predicted return and golden age failed to materialize, his following dissipated rapidly.

A Sadducee priest

Other documents from the Dead Sea Scrolls portray the Teacher as involved in heavy conflict against a figure termed the " Wicked Priest", which has led to several proposals for their identity: A

Sadducee The Sadducees (; he, צְדוּקִים, Ṣədūqīm) were a socio- religious sect of Jewish people who were active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE through the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Th ...

(Zadokite) priest as the Teacher, possibly even the legitimate high priest, against a "wicked"

. "Zadok" in Hebrew (צדוק) translates as "righteous."

Hyrcanus II

Somewhat along these lines is the proposal that

Hyrcanus II John Hyrcanus II (, ''Yohanan Hurqanos'') (died 30 BCE), a member of the Hasmonean dynasty, was for a long time the Jewish High Priest in the 1st century BCE. He was also briefly King of Judea 67–66 BCE and then the ethnarch (ruler) of J ...

was the Teacher of Righteousness. This was proposed in 2013 by Gregory Doudna. Hyrcanus was the high priest of the Temple from 76 to 67 BCE and from 63 to 40 BCE. According to Doudna, Hyrcanus II’s sectarian orientation is now generally understood to have been

. Further, according to this hypothesis, Antigonus Mattathias would have been seen as the Wicked Priest. Antigonus was the last Hasmonean king of Israel. He ruled only for 3 years, and was executed by the Romans in 37 BCE. Antigonus was supported by the

Pharisees The Pharisees (; he, פְּרוּשִׁים, Pərūšīm) were a Jewish social movement and a school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs b ...

Hillel against Shammai

Rabbi Harvey Falk identifies

Hillel the Elder Hillel ( he, הִלֵּל ''Hīllēl''; variously called ''Hillel HaGadol'', ''Hillel HaZaken'', ''Hillel HaBavli'' or ''HaBavli'', was born according to tradition in Babylon c. 110 BCE, died 10 CE in Jerusalem) was a Jewish religious leader, s ...

as the Teacher, against a "wicked"

Shammai Shammai (50 BCE – 30 CE, he, שַׁמַּאי, ''Šammaʾy'') was a Jewish scholar of the 1st century, and an important figure in Judaism's core work of rabbinic literature, the Mishnah. Shammai was the most eminent contemporary of Hill ...

, a significant conflict mentioned in the

Talmud The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...

(Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 1:4). Most scholars date the Damascus Document and many of the

Dead Sea scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

to the decades around the year 100 BCE, vastly predating Hillel and Shammai.

James is Jesus, Teacher of Righteousness

Robert Eisenman Robert Eisenman (born 1937) is an American biblical scholar, historian, archaeologist, and poet. He is currently professor of Middle East religions, archaeology, and Islamic law and director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Orig ...

has proposed the

historical Jesus The term "historical Jesus" refers to the reconstruction of the life and teachings of Jesus by critical historical methods, in contrast to religious interpretations. It also considers the historical and cultural contexts in which Jesus lived. ...

was actually the Nazarene James, the Teacher of Righteousness against a "Wicked Priest" (

Ananus ben Ananus Ananus ben Ananus (Hebrew: ''Hanan ben Hanan'' Greek: "Ananos son of Ananos" var: Ananias, la, Anani Ananus or ), d. 68 CE, was a Herodian-era High Priest of Israel in Jerusalem, Iudaea Province. He was the High Priest who ordered the exe ...

), and a "Spouter of Lies" which Eisenman identifies as

Paul of Tarsus Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

. This theory is rejected by mainstream scholarship.

Judah the Essene

Stephen Goranson suggests that Judah the Essene, mentioned by Josephus, is the Teacher.

John the Baptist

Barbara Thiering questions the dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls and suggests that the Teacher of Righteousness preached coming fiery judgment, said "the axe is laid to the roots of the tree", called people "vipers", practiced baptism and lived in the wilderness of Judea. Due to these reasons, she believes there is a strong possibility that the Teacher of Righteousness was

John the Baptist John the Baptist or , , or , ;Wetterau, Bruce. ''World history''. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1994. syc, ܝܘܿܚܲܢܵܢ ܡܲܥܡܕ݂ܵܢܵܐ, Yoḥanān Maʿmḏānā; he, יוחנן המטביל, Yohanān HaMatbil; la, Ioannes Bapti ...

More than one Teacher of Righteousness

Richard A. Freund writes "The difference of opinion over the positioning of the Teacher of Righteousness leads me to conclude that perhaps all of these researchers are correct. A Teacher of Righteousness did lead the group in the second century BCE when it was established. Another Teacher of Righteousness led the sect in the first century BCE and finally another Teacher emerged in the first century CE."Freund,Richard A (2009) Digging through the Bible: modern archaeology and the ancient Bible Rowman & Littlefield p. 287

References

{{Dead Sea Scrolls 2nd-century BCE High Priests of Israel Dead Sea Scrolls 2nd-century BC clergy Unidentified people