Dr. Steven D. Fraade wrote this article while on sabbatical in 1988. It was accepted for publication soon after, but the journal wanted substantial cuts due to the space constraints at the time. Since then the article has survived via personal correspondence and then later via Academia.edu.

AJR is pleased to give this article a permanent home and hope it will inspire future work on priests, scribes, and sages in the Second Temple period. All citations to this article should include the following dates: June 5th 2023 (1988).

I. Introduction

A recurring issue in the critical reconstruction of ancient Jewish history is, to what extent were the social and cultural transformations that mark the eventual consolidation of rabbinic Judaism consequences of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and the subsequent period of recovery, and to what extent did those transformations begin well before that catastrophe, which simply hastened their consummation? This historical question hinges on the nature of the literary sources both pre- and post-70 available to us. On the one hand, to what degree can rabbinic collections, which came into being in their extant forms beginning only in the early third century C. E., long after competing Jewish groups disappeared or were eclipsed, be employed to reconstruct Jewish history of the period preceding the destruction of the Second Temple and immediately thereafter.[1] On the other hand, to what degree can the surviving and often fragmentary writings of a variety of Second Temple Jewish groups and authors, each with its particular tendenz and many reaching us via a complex history of transformative transmission, be used to extrapolate broader Jewish social and cultural developments of late Second Temple times?

My present interest in this nagging problem focuses on the question of the Second Temple antecedents to the post-70 rabbinic sages as a non-priestly learned elite. By “non-priestly” I mean that the rabbinic sage movement did not define its membership or status within that membership in terms of priestly lineage, even though it certainly included members of priestly descent and recognized some priestly prerogatives.[2] A strong expression of this is the mishnaic statement, “A bastard disciple of the sages takes precedence over an unlearned High Priest.”[3]

Thus, for the rabbinic sages, status in most matters was considered, ideally at least, to be a function of (rabbinic) learning regardless of priestly status. More noteworthy for the purposes of the present discussion is the fact that rabbinic texts presume that this was the case as much when the Temple stood as after its destruction, and that the post-70 sages were simply the latest links in a chain of lay learned authorities that extended well back into Second Temple times, and ultimately to Moses and the revelation of the Torah at Mt. Sinai.[4] According to this view, the post-70 rabbinic sages were the continuation of a similar lay group of sages (or elders, or scribes) which in Second Temple times was responsible for the transmission, interpretation, teaching, and implementation of Israel’s scriptures, laws, and traditions.

My purpose in drawing attention to this rabbinic retrospective in the introduction to an article that will focus on the pre-rabbinic period of Jewish history is to highlight the extent to which this view is reflected in many influential modern scholarly portrayals of the emergence of a non-priestly (even anti-priestly) learned leadership well before the destruction of the Second Temple. Many scholars, in describing the antecedents to the rabbinic sage, posit a shift from priestly to lay authority in the interpretation and teaching of Scripture sometime between Ezra (mid fifth century B.C.E.) and the Maccabean Revolt (167 B.C.E), and understand those antecedents already at that time to have constituted a popular and influential group of non- priestly teachers, who led a “democratization” of Judaism. For example, the recently revised edition of Emil Schürer’s history states:

The existence of a law provokes the need for professional knowledge of it and expertise. This requirement makes itself felt in proportion as the law is comprehensive and complicated. Only by dealing with it professionally can familiarity with its details be acquired, and certainty in applying its individual regulations to everyday life. At the time of Ezra and for a considerable period afterwards this was primarily the concern of the priests. Ezra himself was both priest and scribe.... The priests were at first both the experts in, and guardians of, the Torah. Gradually this changed however. The higher the Torah rose in the estimation of the people, the more its study and interpretation became an independent exercise..... It was the teaching of God. To know and obey it was as much the business of every individual Jew as it was of the priests. Increasingly, therefore, lay Israelites took over the study of the Torah, and side by side with the priests an independent order of “Torah scholars” or scribes came into being.... When in Hellenistic times some of the priests of higher rank turned to Gentile culture and more or less neglected the tradition of their fathers, the scribes set a very different example.

It was no longer the priests but the scribes who were the zealous guardians of the Torah. Consequently, from then on they were also the real teachers of the people, over whose spiritual life they increased their control. In New Testament times, this process was already complete: the scribes are represented as the undisputed spiritual leaders of the people.[5]

According to this account, it was the very canonization of the biblical books as Holy Scripture -- their elevation to the status of authoritative divine writ for the whole people -- that necessitated the development of a non-priestly intellectual leadership. The fact that the leading priests embraced non-Jewish, high Hellenistic culture hastened and reinforced this change. From such populist and non-priestly scribes descended in succession the Hasidim, the Pharisees, and the rabbinic sages.[6] Their opposition to the unpopular priesthood is often correlated with a romantically retrojected opposition between the democratized synagogue and the priestly Temple.[7]

In what follows I shall argue that as prevalent as such portrayals are in the canons of scholarship, they find little substantiation, certainly in the proportions usually assumed, in the evidence of the extant Second Temple sources. Certainly, there were during the period of the Second Temple profoundly significant conflicts and changes occurring with regard to the nature and location of Torah teaching authority and practice. Although it is beyond the scope of this article and nature of our extant sources to delineate those with precision, some alternative contours can be observed.

II. THE CONTINUING INTERPRETIVE ROLE OF PRIESTS IN SECOND TEMPLE TIMES

Most scholars who trace a Second Temple period shift from a priestly to non- or anti- priestly locus of interpretive activity and authority acknowledge that Scripture itself recognizes the priesthood (including the Levites) as the authoritative transmitters, interpreters, and executors of sacred text and covenantal laws. In particular, this view finds repeated and emphatic scriptural expression, especially in those books which emerged during the periods of the Babylonian exile and the subsequent return, when the core of the Torah as we know it was gaining authoritative status.[8] Two connected developments in the period of Persian rule contributed to the lasting (although not static) establishment of this pattern of priestly authority: the decline of national non-priestly leadership with the demise of the Davidic dynasty after Zerubbabel, and Persian financial support for the priests, under the supreme authority of the High Priest, as the officially recognized indigenous leadership. The latter was expressed in Persian support for the Temple and its priestly personnel, but also in Persian backing of Torah law (whatever it comprised) as an extension of imperial law, under the authority of that same priesthood.[9] Hence, Ezra’s status as both priest and scribe is emphasized in his role as emissary to establish a local law and judiciary under Persian authority. This arrangement continued, albeit with some important aberrations, under the rule of successive foreign empires.[10] Although the history of the Second Commonwealth witnessed major upheavals within the priesthood (especially with the Hasmonean and Herodian ascensions to power), there exists no evidence from the Second Temple period for a major shift of Torah authority from priestly to lay hands. Rather, to the extent that such shifts did occur, they were between competing priestly groups or to increasingly specialized subgroups.[11] The clearest expression of this overall priestly status is provided by an outside observer, the historian Hecataeus of Abdera (ca 300 B.C.E.), who describes the Judean constitution as ordained by Moses at God’s command, as follows:

He [Moses] picked out men of most refinement and with the greatest ability to head the entire nation, and appointed them priests; and he ordained that they should occupy themselves with the temple and the honours and sacrifices offered to their God. These same men he appointed to be judges in all major disputes, and entrusted to them the guardianship of the laws and customs. For this reason, the Jews never have a king, and authority over the people is regularly vested in whichever priest is regarded as superior to his colleagues in wisdom and virtue. They call this man the high priest, and believe that he acts as a messenger to them of God’s commandments. It is he, we are told, who in their assemblies and other gatherings announces what is ordained, and the Jews are so docile in such matters that straightway they fall to the ground and do reverence to the high priest when he expounds the commandments to them. And at the end of their laws there is even appended the statement: “These are the words that Moses heard from God and declares unto the Judeans.”[12]

This picture is confirmed by numerous Jewish sources of diverse social and religious perspectives throughout the Second Temple period. For example, about a century after Hecataeus, the learned and possibly priestly Jerusalemite Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira[13] writes of Aaron (and presumably his descendants):

He [God] chose him from all humankind to offer holocausts and choice offerings, to burn sacrifices of sweet odor for a memorial, and to atone for the people of Israel. He gave to him his laws and authority to prescribe and to judge: to teach precepts to his people and the norms to the descendants of Israel.[14]

Approximately three hundred years later, the Jewish historian Josephus, himself a well-educated priest,[15] presents a very similar picture. Josephus relates that it is the priests, and especially the chief priests,[16] who are entrusted with the administration of Israel’s divinely ordained constitution, not just in the area of worship, but equally in matters of law and the “training of the entire community.”[17] According to Josephus, it is the priesthood that has scrupulously preserved and transmitted Israel’s Scriptures through the generations,[18] and it is the High Priest who publicly reads those Scriptures (or parts thereof) in the Temple to Israel at their septennial gatherings during the Festival of Tabernacles.[19] Speaking of himself in the third person Josephus says: “A priest himself and of priestly descent, he was not ignorant of the prophecies in the sacred books.”[20] Josephus also emphasizes the role of the priests in the administration of justice, the centralized superior court being headed by the High Priest.[21]

Philo similarly understands this superior court to be made up of priests and to be headed by the High Priest:

And who should these be but the priests, and the head and leader of the priests. For the genuine ministers of God have taken all care to sharpen their understanding and count the slightest error to be no slight error, because the surpassing greatness of the king whom they serve is seen in every matter..... Another possible reason for sending such cases to the priests is that the true priest is necessarily a prophet, advanced to the service of the truly Existent by virtue rather than by birth, and to a prophet nothing is unknown since he has within him a spiritual sun and unclouded rays to give him a full and clear apprehension of things unseen by sense but apprehended by the understanding.[22]

The priests, by virtue of their consecration to God’s service, were understood to provide both a bridge and a buffer between the divine and human realms. They were viewed as a prophetic channel for the communication of God’s will to His people, employing both oracular and exegetical (if such a distinction can be made) means to do so. While different Jewish groups thought differently about the particular priests in power at a given time, and while different priestly groups vied with one another in the performance of these priestly functions, the extant evidence of the Second Temple sources overwhelmingly indicate that all such groups (with the possible exception of the Pharisees, to be discussed below) viewed the priesthood in general as the divinely appointed guardians and officiants not only of the sacrificial cult, but also of Israel’s sacred scriptures and legal system, all of which were centrally seated in the Temple precincts.

It should be stressed, however, that at the local level, both the justice system, whatever its purview, and the teaching of Torah may have been in the hands of non-priests, even as overall authority for the public supervision of these activities, to the extent that such authority extended outside Judea, rested with the priesthood.[23] Regarding education it should be stressed that we have no Second Temple period evidence for formal educational institutions in Second Temple times, it not being clear to what extent “schools” existed, except perhaps for the training of priests. While several sources stress the value of educating Jewish children from an early age in Jewish laws and customs, and speak of an educated elite, they do not inform us how such education, both elementary and more advanced, was achieved.[24] Undoubtedly, the synagogue was a place where Scripture and its interpretations were learned.[25] Otherwise, besides teacher- disciple circles, whether we conceive of them as philosophical or sectarian, the general teaching of Torah remained largely in the hands of parents and, for those who could afford them, private tutors.[26]

III. WERE THE SCRIBES LAY TORAH TEACHERS IN SECOND TEMPLE TIMES?

Besides assuming a decline in the authority of the priesthood in matters of Torah, the accounts of Tcherikover and Schürer and many others assume that we know much more about a class of lay Jewish scribes in Hellenistic times than our extant sources permit.[27] The word scribe (Hebrew, sôpēr; Greek, grammateus) denotes, to begin with, one who is skilled in matters of writing. In the neighboring cultures scribes appear as literary specialists in societies in which literacy is limited to an elite. While some scribes are professional clerks or secretaries for official records and correspondence, others are administrators and diplomats of state, while still others, thought to possess oracular powers as a result of their specialized knowledge of languages and texts, function as priests and trusted counselors to kings.[28]

Whereas in First Temple times Israelite scribes are associated with royal, wisdom, judicial, prophetic, and priestly circles (to the extent that they can be clearly delineated) and their literary traditions, in Second Temple times, with the ascendancy of the priesthood as the supreme religious and political power, scribes are most commonly identified as priests or associated with the priesthood. While this shift may be connected to the disappearance of the monarchy and the end of classical prophecy, it is also connected to the process of canonization of the books of Scripture. As long as different scriptures were the purview of different Israelite “parties,” each one had to maintain its own scribal authorities for the work of collecting, editing, correcting, and interpreting its writings. But as these writings gradually became part of a common scriptural canon, those responsibilities shifted to the centralized priesthood which was generally viewed as the body entrusted with the authority to preserve, teach, and interpret that canon, and, at least ideally, to implement its legal provisions. As such authority was increasingly centralized in the priesthood, it had in turn to be delegated to and divided among lower level priests (especially Levites), who in their capacities as textual specialists were referred to by the broad rubric “scribe.”[29] While some scribes were functionaries and officers in the Temple bureaucracy, others, being financially independent, devoted their energies to the study and elucidation of Scripture, serving as counselors to the priestly (and, under Herod and his successors, royal) authorities. To the extent that the scribes represent the rise of a new intellectual class, they remain within the priestly orbit and not apart from or opposed to it.[30]

Thus, Ezra is said to be both a priest (of Zadokite lineage: Ezra 7:2) and a scribe (“skilled in the Torah of Moses”: Ezra 7:6), in other words, a combined “priest-scribe” (7:11). Ezra’s role, as represented by the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah, is to establish a newly consolidated Torah as the moral and legal constitution of a recently reconstituted community. This involved him in editorial, didactic, exegetical, and administrative activities: to administer justice and to instruct all the people “in accordance with the wisdom of your God which in your possession” (Ezra 8:25-26). While Ezra’s authority to affect this radical reorganization, presumably against the opposition of the reigning priests, derived largely from his textual expertise and from his Persian backing, it cannot be understood apart from his emphasized priestly status, which was likely to have been a precondition for the first two. But from the perspective of the Book of Ezra, Ezra’s activities as priest-scribe were not functions simply of pedigree or politics but of prophetic inspiration: “the hand of the Lord his God was upon him” (7:6, 28).[31]

We next encounter the scribe in a serious way in Ben Sira’s idealized praise of him, beginning, “The scribe’s profession increases wisdom; whoever is free from toil can become wise” (38:24).[32] Ben Sira portrays, most likely autobiographically, the scribe-sage as someone who, having no financial need to earn a living through a craft or trade, can devote his full energies to “the fear of God and to the study of the Law of the Most High” (38:34).[33] This scribe spends his time studying not only God’s Law (Torah), but also the obscure texts of ancient wisdom and prophecies (39:1-3),[34] and learns from the ways of other peoples through his world travels (cf. 34:11-12). Ben Sira’s scribe sits on the aristocratic council (boulē), and because of his understanding of law and justice is said to sit on the “judge’s bench” (to be inferred from 38:32-33). Like the Assyrian scribe Ahikar, Ben Sira’s scribe is close to and provides wise counsel to those who rule (39:4; 38:33).[35] In Ben Sira’s time and place (ca. 200 B.C.E, Jerusalem), such rulers were priests, especially the High Priest Simon whom he lavishly praises at the consummation of his “Praise of the Fathers” (50:1-24).

Ben Sira stresses the divine source of the scribe’s wisdom. Both in his uncovering of the hidden meanings and mysteries of ancient texts and in his public expression of them the scribe is filled with a prophetic “spirit of understanding.” This prophetic inspiration is connected with his pious petition early each morning of God’s merciful pardon of his sins (39:5-6). The success of such a life devoted to the study and contemplation of sacred texts and mysteries is marked by what Burton Mack calls Ben Sira’s prophetic “coming-to-speech,” both orally in his teaching of others (24:30-33; 33:16-18; 39:8), and even more significantly in his self-conscious authoring of a book of wisdom: “I will pour out instruction like prophecy, and bequeath it to generations yet to come” (24:33).[36]

Ben Sira’s scribe does not appear, as do scribes in other Second Temple sources, to be a professional functionary, but rather a financially independent member of the priestly aristocracy who sees it as his religious and civic calling to contribute his inspired wisdom to the commonweal. Ben Sira’s own priestly connections are suggested by his repeatedly expressed sympathies to the Aaronite priesthood, as well as by his priestly name.[37] Yet it remains difficult to know to what extent he taught or intended his writings for an audience outside his own aristocratic, priestly class.[38]

Ben Sira’s encomium to the scribe is significant because it is the only extended statement we have from Second Temple times about this figure. This makes it tempting to build, as many have, a picture of the scribe during the second half of the Second Temple period entirely upon Ben Sira’s praises. But given the serious possibility that Ben Sira’s self-interested praise of the scribe and the Hellenistic models that he employed for that purpose may have resulted in an idealized exaggeration, and the fact that the fragmentary evidence from other sources reveals a more complex picture, caution must be exercised in adapting Ben Sira’s picture as being historically representative of the scribe in Second Temple times. For example, Josephus, in paraphrasing biblical history and in extending that history into his own time, employs forms of the term grammateus thirty-nine times, almost always to refer to some kind of official functionary connected either with government or with the priesthood and Temple, and in the majority of cases with the latter two.[39] Josephus, in reference both to biblical and to Second Temple times, employs the term “scribe” to denote not an independent class of wise men, but men who are closely associated with royal or priestly institutions, and who, because of their specialized, literate knowledge, either provide counsel to those institutions or act as their administrative agents.

Notwithstanding the well-known difficulties of employing New Testament statements about Jewish leaders for historical purposes, a similar picture emerges from a critical analysis of the scribes as they appear in the Gospels and Acts. Firstly, as much as scribes and Pharisees are associated with one another in the Gospels, they should not be assumed to be identical.[40] For example, while the Gospel of Matthew often uses the two terms interchangeably or in close association, even substituting Pharisees for scribes when the latter alone appears in his Markan source, this might serve the author’s socio-rhetorical purposes in defining his community of Jesus followers against competing or challenging Jewish leadership and teaching authorities of his own day (ca. 90 C.E.).[41] Not only are the scribes of the New Testament often associated with the “chief priests,” but the Levites of the Gospel of John appear to be equivalent to the scribes of the other Gospels, the administrative and teaching functions of the scribes having otherwise been assimilated to the Pharisees as the dominant competing Jewish group.[42] In general, the scribes of the Gospels are associated with two functions elsewhere connected with the Levites in Second Temple sources: administration (including judicial) and teaching. In their former role they appear with the chief priests and elders as challengers of Jesus’ authority, especially in Mark’s account of his arrest and execution,[43] whereas in their latter role they are sometimes associated with the Pharisees as challengers of Jesus’ religious teachings.[44]

All of this is by no means to suggest that a lay (that is not specifically priestly) elite was absent in Second Temple Jewish society, but that its functions are generally not evidenced to have been those of Torah teaching and interpretation. Particularly in periods of priestly upheaval and transition (following the Exile, following the Maccabean revolt, and especially in the beginning and aftermath of Herod’s rule), a lay nobility emerged which exercised considerable power in matters of state, including authority over the High Priest.[45] At the local level a hereditary lay elite is likely to have constituted regional and village courts and councils.[46]

More significant for our present discussion, however, are late Second Temple accounts of lay (presumably) teachers who attracted circles of disciples, or even throngs of followers, as was common throughout the Greco-Roman world.[47] In particular, we learn from Josephus of two “sophists,” Judas and Matthias, who in the time of Herod had “a reputation as profound experts in the laws of their country,” and whose “lectures on the laws were attended by a large youthful audience.”[48] It was they who urged their young followers to fulfill God’s law by tearing down the golden eagle which Herod had erected over the Temple entrance. These two sophistai -- and presumably there were others, but we do not know how many and how influential they might have been -- represent a new phenomenon: they neither appear as part of a larger organized movement (“philosophy” or “sect”), nor claim their authority to teach from the predominant institutional framework of Temple and priesthood (although they might teach in or around the Temple[49]). Rather, it would appear that they exert their influence by the force of their teachings and individual, charismatic personalities. The evidence, therefore, does not permit us to include such Second Temple individuals within a class or movement of non-priestly sages, or to associate such an unattested class with what elsewhere are variously referred to as scribes.[50]

IV. PRIESTLY AND SCRIBAL AUTHORITY IN SECOND TEMPLE “SECTARIAN” GROUPS

Those Second Temple groups that questioned or rejected the legitimacy or fitness of the Jerusalem Temple and its priesthood affirmed no less the principle that the descendants of Aaron and Levi were the authoritative purveyors of Israel’s scriptures, their interpretation, and legal implementation. These groups, to the extent that they distanced themselves from the Jerusalem Temple and its priesthood, developed their own (from their perspective, more legitimate) priestly vision and praxis, including alternative or supplemental scriptures authenticated by their own priestly scribes and interpreters.

The earliest (third century B.C.E.) evidence for this can be discerned in the Enochic Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36). There Enoch is called the “scribe of righteousness”[51] for his role in writing and conveying messages between the heavenly watchers and fallen angels (12:3-6), and between the latter and God (13:4-6). But even more important is Enoch’s work of recording and transmitting to mankind (in particular the sectarian elect for whom the Enochic literature was presumably Scripture) the heavenly secrets and judgments, as well as laws, that had been revealed to him in his visions and journeys.[52] Not only is Enoch said to be a scribe, but his interests (that is, the interests of the authors and audience of the literature attributed to him) are clearly priestly. This can best be seen in the description of his ascent to heaven as a journey to and entrance into a heavenly temple in which God, dressed like a High Priest, dwells with His heavenly divine council of ministering angels.[53]

Enoch’s roles as scribe and priest are even more explicitly linked in the Book of Jubilees (mid-second century B.C.E.), in which Enoch is removed to the Garden of Eden where he bears continuous witness by recording humanity’s misdeeds and their condemnation, while offering incense “before the Lord in the evening (at) the holy place on Mt. Qater” (4:25).[54] The Book of Jubilees similarly attributes to the tribe of Levi both priestly and scribal functions. Isaac in blessing Jacob’s sons Levi and Judah, blesses Levi at his right hand first, “predicting” that he and his sons will serve in the sanctuary “as the angels of the presence and the holy ones,” that they will become “judges and rulers and leaders for all the sons of Jacob,” and that “the word of the Lord they will speak righteously and ... they will tell my ways to Jacob, and my paths to Israel” (31:11-17). When Jacob dies, he gives all of his books and his fathers’ books to Levi for preservation and transmission through the generations (45:15). Finally, Levi and his sons are said to have been chosen as priests and Levites, to serve as do the angels in heaven, because Levi was “zealous to do righteousness and judgment and vengeance against all who rose up against Israel” (30:18).[55]

This connection between zealousness and priestly scribalism, can be seen as well in the Hasidim at the time of the Maccabean Revolt. While we know much less about this group (if in fact they were a clearly defined group) than is sometimes presumed by scholars,[56] two reports about them in 1 Maccabees suggest that they were a priestly group that had split from the Jerusalem priesthood during the time of the “reforms” of the High Priests Jason and Menelaus. When they first appear (1 Macc 2:42) they are described as “mighty warriors of Israel, all who volunteered in defense of the Torah.” The verb “volunteered” suggests a group that viewed its observance and defense of Torah law in priestly-military terms.[57] When they next appear (7:12- 14), a “group of [Hasidaean] scribes” (synagogē grammateōn) seek to negotiate a peace with the Syrian appointed priest Alcimus, whom, we are told, the Hasidim were prepared to accept as “a Priest of the stock of Aaron.” The diplomatic role portrayed here for the scribes of the Hasidim is similar to that attributed to the scribes associated with the Jerusalem priesthood in other Second Temple sources.[58]

The idea that sectarian groups which were alienated from the priesthood and Temple in Jerusalem organized themselves along much the same priestly hierarchical structure as governed (at least in theory) Israel as a whole, finds its clearest and most heightened expression in the writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Qumran sectaries sacralized their communal life and structures after the model of the traveling wilderness camp with its tabernacle and priests at the center and its rites for ensuring the purity of those who wished to dwell within, in proximity to the divine presence. Notwithstanding this sacralization of communal life overall, the sect’s membership was hierarchically structured along priestly/non-priestly lines. At the top (or center) were the Zadoqite priests, led by the chief priests, followed by the Levites, and finally by the laity. This is the order in which members were to sit and speak at public meetings as well as at sessions of the smaller courts and councils, the order in which they were to partake of bread and wine at their communal and festive meals, and the order in which they were to march out in the eschatological war.[59] The sect’s prophetic “founder,” the Teacher of Righteousness, “to whom God made known all the mysteries of the words of his servants the prophets” (1QpHab 7.4-5), was a priest, and most likely a Zadoqite priest of the high priestly family.[60]

Although we have seen the important role assigned to the Levites in other Second Temple sources, they are particularly prominent in the Dead Sea Scrolls, serving as a mediating bridge and buffer between the priests and the laity.[61] While overall authority for the conduct of the community and for the teaching and interpretation of its laws rests with the Zadoqite priesthood, the implementation of these functions, especially in intercourse with the lay members, devolves upon the Levites. Thus, the messianic Rule of the Congregation (1 QSa 1.22-25) states:

The sons of Levi shall serve, each according to his position, under the authority of the sons of Aaron to lead the whole congregation in and out,[62] each man in order, under the direction of the heads of families of the congregation; [the Levites shall serve] as commanders, judges, officers,[63] according to the number of all their hosts, under the authority of the sons of Zadoq the priests [and of all the heads of families of the congregation.

These same functions are associated in the rules of the Damascus Document (14.3-18) with the Overseer (me ̆baqqēr):

And this is the rule for the meeting of all the camps: They shall be enrolled all of them by their names: the pr[ies]ts first, and the Levites second, and the children of Israel third, and the proselyte fourth.... And so they shall sit, and so they shall be questioned about everything. And the priest that is appointed [at the head of] the many shall be from thirty to sixty years old, learned in the book of [the Hagu] and in all rulings of the Torah, so as to speak them in the proper manner. And the Overseer over all the camps shall be from thirty to fifty years old, one that has acquired mastery in every secret of men and in every language according to their families. By his authority shall the members of the congregation come, each man in his turn. And in any matter that any man has to speak to the Overseer, let him speak with regard to any litigation and judgment.

From a comparison of these two texts and from others it would appear that the Overseer is a Levite.[64] While it is the priest who is the authoritative teacher and interpreter of the sect’s teachings, it is the Overseer who is in direct contact with the members, being responsible for their conduct and being the one to whom they turn with specific legal questions or complaints.[65] But this theoretical distinction between the priest and the Overseer could become blurred in practice as the following passage from the Damascus Document (CD 13.2-7), dealing with the local camps, suggests:

And in a place of ten, let there not be less than one priest (îš kōhēn) who is learned in the Book of Hagu. By his authority shall they all be ruled. But if he is not proficient in all of these matters and a man from among the Levites is proficient in these matters, then let it be determined that the members of the camp shall come and go according to his [the Levite’s] authority. But if there arises a case of the law (tôrâ) of a man with a skin-plague (cf. Lev 13:2, 29), then the priest shall come and stand in the camp and the Overseer shall instruct him in the specific application (pērûš) of the law. And [even] if he [the priest] is a simpleton (petî),[66] it is [still] he who shall lock him [the afflicted man] away. For such judgement is theirs [the priests’].[67]

The passage continues by describing the more pastoral functions of the Overseer (CD 13:7-10): And this is the rule for the Overseer of the camp: He shall instruct the many in the works of God and enlighten them concerning His wondrous mighty acts, and he shall recount before them the events of eternity.... And he shall have pity for them like a father for his children, and shall gather those that have strayed like a shepherd his flock. He shall loosen all fetters that bind them so that there be none that are oppressed and broken in his congregation.[68]

Thus, even though the authority to instruct and judge the people belongs in principle to the Zadoqite priests, they may not always have all the specialized expertise to be able to do so (especially in the smaller camps), in which case some of that authority devolves upon a lower stratum of the priesthood, here being the Levites.[69] But it is likely that another factor is also at work here: the day to day contact with the laity, whether in instructing them, in supervising their conduct, in adjudicating their conflicts, or in disciplining them, is best handled not by the Zadoqite priests themselves, who must maintain a degree of distance from the laity so as not to compromise their sacred status. It is for this reason that the Levites become especially important at Qumran for the medial position that they occupy between priests and Israelites in matters of teaching, administration, and discipline; they perform priestly functions without being full priests.[70] The levitical Overseer, both in the individual camps and in the central camp, acts, in a sense, as the priest’s agent. However, in cases in which judicial authority is scripturally assigned explicitly to the priest, it is he who must pronounce judgment, even when he must depend on the expertise of the Overseer for his instructions.[71]

Although a priestly “division of labor” is more explicitly delineated in the Dead Sea Scrolls than in other Second Temple sources, perhaps reflecting the community’s more acute sense of self-definition, the roles assigned to the Levites (including the Overseer and overlapping community functionaries) are very similar to those assigned to the priestly and levitical scribes in those other sources: learned counselors, teachers, keepers of records, and legal administrators.[72] But if the roles assigned to the intermediary Levites and scribal administrators at Qumran mirror (in heightened fashion) their reported roles in Jewish society overall, they also bear striking resemblance to the roles assigned to medial scribal functionaries in contemporary non-Jewish associations. In a recent study comparing the structure of the penal system at Qumran to those found among Greco-Roman religious associations and guilds, Moshe Weinfeld demonstrates that the hierarchical structures of the Greco-Roman cultic associations are similar to that at Qumran: priests head the associations and hold supreme authority, followed by officers who handle the social and economic administration, records, and property of the associations, followed by the members. The intermediary officers go by several names, one of them being grammateus.[73]

Finally, it needs to be emphasized that although the priests and Levites were the authoritative teachers of the sect’s laws and traditions, the collective activity of study of scriptures (whatever texts they may have been), under priestly guidance to be sure, was central to the life of the community and its prophetic self-understanding:

They shall separate themselves from the settlement of the men of iniquity and shall go into the wilderness to prepare there the true way, as it is written, “In the wilderness prepare a way ... make level in the desert a highway for our God” (Isa 40:3). This refers to the study (midrāš) of Torah [which] He commanded through Moses, that they should do according to all that has been revealed from time to time and according to what the prophets revealed by His holy spirit. (1QS 8.12-16)

Although familiarity with the precepts of the sect’s Torah is essential to their proper performance, the activity of study is not regarded simply as a means to that end. While the community was dependent on their priestly teachers for inspired understandings of the laws and prophecies recorded in their scriptures, the participation of the members in the very activity of study appears to have accompanied prayer as a ritualized way to collectively experience and acknowledge the spirit of divine truth which defined and distinguished their common life and eschatological destiny:

In the place where the ten men [of the Council of the Community] are, there shall never lack an Interpreter of the Torah (dôrēš hattôrâ)[74] who shall [instruct] day and night concerning the proper conduct of a man with his fellow. And the many shall together keep watch for a third of every night of the year: reading the Book, studying Law, and praying together (1QS 6.6-8).[75]

The continuous ministering of the Interpreter and the regularized participation of the Many suggest that the activity of study, like eating and prayer, contributed to the community’s sense of itself as a Temple City in which God’s presence dwelt (if only through the intermediacy of angels) in exile.

V. THE PHARISEES: ANCESTRAL TRADITION AND PRIESTLY PIETY

Before proceeding to a consideration of the Pharisees -- who are by all accounts the closest antecedents to the rabbinic sage, however we may understand their relationship -- it would be useful to summarize our findings thus far. Although modern scholars and rabbinic texts speak of a broad class or movement of non-priestly sages (hăkāmîm) in Second Temple times, the extant Second Temple sources provide little evidence for this.[76] Those sources associate the authority to preserve, interpret, teach, and legally apply sacred Scriptures with the priesthood, even as that authority shifted between different priestly families and strata and even as that priesthood was split by broader sectarian schisms.[77] In particular, we saw evidence for inner-priestly shifts of Torah and legal authority to specialized priestly subgroups, particularly scribes and Levites (the latter being, in a sense, quasi-priests), with the two often overlapping. However, it is important to stress that despite such shifts in practice, our extant sources concur that the prophetic authority to interpret and the juridical authority to implement scriptural laws remained in principle with the priesthood, however it may have been distributed, both for those who looked upon Jerusalem Temple as the center of religious and national life and for those movements which denied the legitimacy of that center and desired for it to be transformed. Except for the Pharisees, to whom we now turn, the only exceptions to this pattern of priestly authority appear to have been individual, charismatic teachers and their disciple circles, which appear especially at the very end of the Second Temple period, but whose numbers and influence we are unable to determine.[78]

Against this background the Pharisees, even to the limited extent that we can reconstruct their salient features, stand out in sharp relief. While the Pharisees included priests within their ranks, it is clear that they also included non-priests, and that the movement as a whole was not defined by priestly ancestry.[79] Although our extant Second Temple sources for the Pharisees are all significantly skewed and impossible to reconcile completely with one another, two principal characteristics of the movement transcend the biased perspectives of those sources, and require our brief attention.

The first of these Pharisaic characteristics is what might be called their legal pietism -- an emphasis on the scrupulous observance of Jewish law as they interpreted it.[80] Of course, the Pharisees were not the first or only Jewish group to distinguish itself from the rest of Israelite society by its stricter and more extensive observance of what it understood to be covenantal law, nor to claim that the particular laws or interpretations of laws that set it apart from the rest of Israel were divinely sanctioned.[81] Rather, what is unique about the Pharisees in this regard is their claim that the distinguishing laws that they observed, and of which they considered themselves to be the legitimate guardians, transmitters, and expositors, were those that they had inherited via extra-priestly ancestral tradition. These are referred to as the “traditions of the elders” (paradosis tōn presbyterōn) or “fathers” (tōn paterōn), as distinct both from the laws recorded in the written Torah and from the non-scriptural laws which were likely to have been recorded and maintained under priestly jurisdiction.[82] For their advocacy of these “traditions of the elders” the Pharisees are reported to have come under sharp criticism both from the followers of Jesus and from the priestly Sadducees: the former because the Pharisees valorized what the early Christians considered to be mere human traditions over divine commandments,[83] the latter because the Pharisees advocated rules which, from the priestly perspective, were not authoritative, that is, lay outside priestly sanction.[84]

The second Pharisaic characteristic which is evidenced in the Gospel accounts and in the earliest stratum of rabbinic literature relating to the Pharisees is that the legal areas with which the Pharisees were particularly concerned were those of ritual purity, tithing, and Sabbath and festival observance -- areas which involved the realm of the Temple and priesthood in its relation to the people. While some purity rules were generally applicable outside of the Temple, and some level of purification was required of the laity upon entering the Temple mount, the most extensive system of purity rules applied to the priests during their service in the Temple and during their meals of consecrated food. The Pharisees are reported to have been especially scrupulous in eating their ordinary meals in a state of ritual purity, requiring that the food, utensils, and participants at such meals be uncontaminated by direct or indirect contact with sources of impurity (death, anomalous animals, bodily discharges). While pentateuchal legislation applies such purity strictures to anyone within the pre-settlement wilderness “camp,” in Second Temple times most Jews understood these to apply primarily within the centralized Temple domain, thought to be the the successor to that “camp.” The Pharisees, like the Qumran sectaries but less so, had a broader understanding of the applicability of such rules within Israel. Furthermore, it would appear that the Pharisees were not only scrupulous in tithing, but prohibited their members from eating untithed foods. Just as the priests consumed the tithings in a state of ritual purity, so the Pharisees consumed that which had been properly (by their tradition) tithed in a state of ritual purity, elevating the status of the Pharisaic table to a level approaching that of the priests.[85]

It has become commonplace to interpret these Pharisaic purity practices as a “democratization” of priestly piety: all of Israel could now be “a kingdom of priests” (Exod 19:6), every table being a substitute altar. As attractive as this view may be from a post-priestly perspective, there is no evidence that it represents the Pharisees’ intent, being more likely a post- 70 (if not modern) retrojection.[86]

Rather, it makes more sense to assume that the Pharisees, like the Qumran sectaries, undertook these supererogatory purity practices in order to distinguish themselves from and to elevate themselves above the rest of Israel and to define for themselves a status approaching (but not equalling) that of the priests. The Pharisees, although not a priestly group, regarded themselves, by virtue of their pietistic behavior and intellectual expertise, as a priestlike group. This is analogous to the biblically prescribed Nazirite, who by voluntarily submitting to restrictions normally applicable only to the priests when they served in the Temple (avoidance of contact with the dead, abstinence from intoxicants, hair taboos), acquired a consecrated, priestlike (even High Priestlike) status of “holy unto the Lord” (Num. 6:8).[87] The major structural difference between the two is that the Nazirite was dependent on the Temple and priesthood for his practice (in order to reconsecrate himself after contact with the dead or to terminate his period of consecration), while the Pharisee was not. The Pharisees, it would appear, sought to occupy a liminal position between laity and priests, much as did the Levites, with whom they shared scribal interests and skills, except that the Levites were a hereditary class which performed professional functions connected with the Temple.[88]

Scholars generally have not sought to interrelate these two aspects of Pharisaic ideology and practice, but rather have debated which one of them is defining of the Pharisees. Are the Pharisees to be characterized primarily as proponents and exponents of a popular un-written Torah, or as pietistic participants in an exclusive “table fellowship” (hābûrâ)?[89] Instead of accepting such an either/or choice, I would suggest viewing these two sides of the Pharisees -- to the extent that we can reconstruct them from our paltry Second Temple evidence -- as being interdependent. Perhaps the Pharisees, in claiming to be the authoritative transmitters and interpreters of an ancestral legal tradition not in and of itself accepted as normative by the priestly authorities, sought through their supererogatory priestlike practices to gain credibility both for that tradition and for themselves as its prophetic expositors.[90] Conversely, the Pharisees could not have acquired status and influence simply as priestly imitators; they needed their own distinctive source of identity and status, and this derived from their claims to be the true guardians and exponents of an extra-priestly yet ancestral legal tradition which they avowed was divinely sanctioned. Liminally poised between the priests and the laity, the Pharisees fashioned an exclusive enough social identity to distinguish them from both, while maintaining open enough channels by which to extend their influence (however much) in both directions. Thus, the priests may have sought the Pharisees’ expertise in matters of priest-related law,[91] while the laity to whom Pharisaic membership was in principle open, may have turned to the Pharisees as teachers and exemplars of the extra-priestly ancestral traditions for which they claimed sacred status and of which they claimed to be dedicated purveyors.[92]

Whatever the actual degree of Pharisaic authority and influence, they appear, like the Second Temple period Levites and scribes (and at Qumran, the Overseer and Master), to have occupied an ever-shifting, medial gray area between Israel and its priests, especially in the area of Torah law and teaching. But unlike the priestly Levites and scribes, the priestlike Pharisees were not directly dependent on the Temple or priesthood for their status, which is not to say that in their time they saw themselves as alternatives to the priesthood or viewed their scholastic and pietistic practices as alternatives to the Temple worship. Only their successors, the rabbinic sages, after the Temple was destroyed and hopes for its immediate rebuilding were shattered, would dare to think of themselves so boldly. The evidence here presented has suggested some important, yet partial antecedents to that radically transformative program, while cautioning against the presumption that the route to its social realization was short or pre-paved.[93]

[1] For a more developed discussion of these historical questions as they relate to the study of the rabbinic sage, with reference to the relevant secondary literature, see my essay, “The Early Rabbinic Sage,” in John G. Gammie and Leo G. Perdue, eds., The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 417-436, which is an abbreviated version of chap. 3 of my book, From Tradition to Commentary: Torah and its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991).

[2] Such prerogatives were generally in the realm of liturgy, e.g., the priestly blessing of the congregation in synagogue services (m. Ber. 5:4; m. Meg. 4:5, 6, 7; m. Sota 7:6; m. Tamid 7:2) and the honor of being the first called to the reading of the Torah (m. Git.. 5:8).

[3] M. Hor. 3:8; as well as in p. Shabb. 12 (13c) and p. Hor. 3 (48c).

[4] The most famous example is the “chain of tradition” of m. ƒAbot 1. Although one high priest (Simeon the Just) appears in this “chain,” he is not denoted as such, and priests as a group (unlike prophets and elders) do not appear at all.

[5] Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.-A.D. 135), rev. and ed. Geza Vermes et al., vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1979), 322- 23. For other influential scholarly accounts which stress the shift from the priestly to a lay intellectual elite of scribes, the following sampling should suffice: Elias Bickerman, From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees: Foundations of Postbiblical Judaism (New York: Schocken, 1962), 67-71; Yizhak Dov Gilat, “Soferim,” EncJud 15 (1972): 79-81; Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987), 102, 160-161, 218; idem, “The Temple and the Synagogue,” in The Temple in Antiquity, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, 1984), 151-74, esp. 161-62; Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period, trans. John Bowden, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 78-83; George Foote Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1930), 308-9; Victor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, trans. S. Applebaum (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1966), 124-25, 197, and notes on 456-57; Harry Austryn Wolfson, Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. vol. 2 (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, rev. ed. 1968), p. 343. I do not mean to suggest that others have not challenged the historical construction of an ascendant class of popular lay scribes in Second Temple times. Most recently, see Rebecca Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine: The Evidence from Josephus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 53-58; Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1988), 241-76, esp. 273-76; E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE - 66 CE, chaps. 18, 21.

[6] Some scholars use the term “sages” as a generic rubric, to encompass all of these as non- priestly teachers across time. For example, Ephraim Urbach (“Sages,” EncJud 14:635) states, “The sages flourished from the beginning of Second Temple times until the Arabian conquest of the East .... The term sages embraces the men of the Great Synagogue, the scribes (soferim), members of the Sanhedrin, nesi’im, heads of the academies, Pharisees, hasidim, mystics, and haverim.”

[7] See, in particular, Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization, op. cit., for this formulation. Needless to say, we know very little about the leadership of the synagogue in pre- rabbinic times (and even in early rabbinic times its nature is disputed), but from the literary and inscriptional evidence available to us, there is no reason to presume a non- priestly leadership. For the late Second Temple period, note in particular Philo, Hypothetica (in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 8.12-13) and the the Theodotus inscription, CIJ 2.232f, no. 1404. See Bernadette J. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), 90-93; E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law From Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (London: SCM, 1990), 79-80.

[8] See: Lev 10:11; Deut 17:8-13, 18; 19:17; 21:5; 24:8; 27:9-10, 14; 31:9-11, 25-26; 33:10; 2 Kgs 12:3; 17:27-28; Isa 2:3; 28:7; Jer 2:8; 18:18; Ezek 7:26; 22:26; 44:23-24; Hos 4:4- 6; Mic 3:11; 4:2; Zeph 3:4; Hag 2:11-13; Zech 7:3; Mal 2:4-8; Ezra 7:1-6, 10-12, 21, 25; 8:16; Neh 8:1-2, 7-9; 1 Chr 23:4; 25:8; 26:29; 2 Chr 15:3; 17:7-9; 19:8-11; 29:4-36; 30:22; 34:8-14; 35:3-6.

[9] Ezra 1:1-4; 6:1-12; 7:11-26, especially 25-26; cf. the Passover Papyrus, ANET, 491-92. See Elias Bickerman, “The Edict of Cyrus in Ezra,” in Studies in Jewish and Christian History, vol. 1 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), 72-108. For Alexander the Great’s confirmation of local Judaean autonomy, see Josephus, Ant. 11 §338-339.

[10] For the most recent treatment of the continuation of local Judaean autonomy under Cyrus’s successors, especially as attested in material evidence, see Seth Schwartz, “On the Autonomy of Judaea in the Fourth and Third Centuries B.C.E.” Journal of Jewish Studies 65.2 (Autumn 1994): 157-168, with references to earlier scholarship on this question.

[11] Possible exceptions, most notably the Pharisees, will be addressed below.

[12] As excerpted by Diodorus of Sicily, Bibliotheca Historica 30.3.3-5, translated by F. R. Walton, in Menahem Stern, ed., Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976), 28, with 26-27 for the Greek text and 31 for Stern’s notes. On this passage and its interpretation, see most recently David Goodblatt, The Monarchic Principle: Studies in Jewish Self-Government in Antiquity (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1994), 10-12, 32-35. On Ben Sira’s name, and his own priestly lineage or at least sympathies, see below, n. 37.

[13] On Ben Sira’s name, and his own priestly lineage or at least sympathies, see below, n. 37.

[14] Sir 45:16-17, trans. Patrick W. Skehan in The Wisdom of Ben Sira, with intro. and commentary by Alexander A. DiLella, AB 39 (New York: Doubleday, 1987), 507.

[15] For Josephus’ priestly lineage, see Life 1-2 §§1-9; 39 §198; B.J. 1.1 §3; 3.8.3 §352; Ant. 16.7.1 §187; Ag. Ap. 1.10 §54.

[16] On the expression “chief priests” as a term for those priests, the extended families of the High Priests in office, who constitute a social and political elite within the priesthood, see Menahem Stern, “Aspects of Jewish Society: The Priesthood and Other Classes,” in S. Safrai and M. Stern, eds., The Jewish People in the First Century, vol. 2, CRINT I (Assen/Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1976), 600-603.

[17] Ag. Ap. 2.21-22 §§184-88. For Josephus’s view that priestly autocracy (or theocracy) was the historical norm, as well as the popular and divine desire for the Jewish polity, see Ant. 4.8.17 §223; 6.3.3 §36; 8.5.1 §131; 11.4.8 §111; 14.3.2 §41; 20.10.5 §251. For the judicial and political authority of the High Priest, according to Josephus, see Ag. Ap. 2.23 §194; Ant. 4.8.17 §224. For priests consulted in matters of legal expertise, see Life 2 §9; Ant. 2.17.4 §417. For Josephus’ retelling of biblical narratives so as to introduce or emphasize the priests’ governing role, see Harold W. Attridge, The Interpretation of Biblical History in the Antiquitates Judaicae of Flavius Josephus (HDR 7; Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1976), 176-77.

[18] Ag. Ap. 1.6 §§28-29. Josephus goes on to link the priests’ preservation of Jewish scrip- tures with their scrupulous record keeping of priestly genealogies. In Ant. 4.8.44 §304, Josephus, like Deut 31:9, 25, connects priestly responsibility for the Torah with their responsibility for the holy ark with its contained tablets. In Ant. 8.15.2 §395, he associates the “teaching of the laws of Moses” with the priests (cf. 2 Chr 17:7-9, where the Levites are mentioned before the priests in this regard). For the Temple as the place where the Torah was kept, see War 7.5.5 §150; Ant. 3.1.7 §38; 4.8.44 §303; 5.1.17 §61. For the Temple as the place where decrees were recorded and kept, see 1 Macc 14:48. 19.

[19] According to Deut 31:9-11, Moses assigns this function to “the levitical priests” and to “all the elders of Israel,” without being more specific. Josephus in his paraphrase (Ant. 4.8.12 §209) says: “Let the high priest, standing upon a raised platform from which he may be heard, recite the laws to the whole assembly.” The Mishnah (Sot.a 7:8; cf. Sifre Deut. §160) conflates this practice with the “paragraph of the king” (Deut. 17:14-20), in which it is said that the king reads “a copy of this law,” presumably while “sitting on his throne.” We may have in the mishnaic account a retrospective elevation of the king over the High Priest in status (cf. m. Sanh. 2, with which compare t. Sanh. 4). Nevertheless, Second Temple sources (see Philo’s Hypothetica referred to above, n. 7; Hecataeus of Abdera cited above; and Ep. Arist. 310; and, of course, Neh 8:1-12) appear to support Josephus in viewing this ceremonial recitation of Scripture as the prerogative primarily of the priests. For priests as readers of Torah, see now 4Q266 5 ii 1-3 (DJD 18 [1997]: 49- 52), with Joseph Baumgarten, “The Disqualifications of Priests in 4Q Fragments of the ‘Damascus Document,’ A Specimen of the Recovery of pre-Rabbinic Halakha,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls - Madrid, 18-21 March 1991, ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992) 2:503-513. Priests as communal readers and teachers of Torah may also be suggested by the fragmentary 4Q264a 1 4-5. See Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “Sabbath Halakha and Worship in 4QWays of Righteousness: 4Q421 11 and 13+2+8 Par 4Q264a 1-2,” Revue de Qumran 18 (71) (1998): 363-366. Still, 2 Kgs 23:2-3 provides the scriptural precedent of a king having read Torah, at least once. For the view that the septennial reading of Scripture was not practiced in late Second Temple times, and that the difference between Josephus and the Mishnah is one of differing exegeses of Deut 31:9-11, see David Goodblatt, “Agrippa I and Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” Jewish History 2 (1987): 26-27 n. 31. Seth Schwartz (Josephus and Judaean Politics [Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990], 162-4) similarly discounts the historical reliability of the mish- naic passage. For the subordination of the king to the authority of the High Priest, also in the context of a retelling of Deut 17:14-20, see Josephus, Ant. 4.8.17 §§223-224; 11QTemp 56.12-57.15.

[20] J. W. 3.8.3 §352. Just before this, Josephus speaks of himself as “an interpreter of dreams and skilled in divining the meaning of ambiguous utterances of the Deity.” For other statements connecting Josephus’ priestly descent with his expert knowledge and interpretation of Scripture and Jewish law, see Life 1-2 §1-9 as a sequel to Ant. 20.12.1 §262-66; and Ag. Ap. 1.10 §54. However much Josephus may be exaggerating his own skills, he takes for granted (and assumes his readers do too) the connection between being a priest and having knowledge of Scripture, and between that priestly knowledge of Scripture and oracular powers of interpretation. Josephus, like other Second Temple sources to be considered below, understands prophecy (the inspired interpretation of omens and events) in his time to be a function of the priests. On this see Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Prophecy and Priesthood in Josephus,” JJS 25 (1974): 239-62; W. C. van Unnik, “Die Prophetie bei Josephus,” in idem, Flavius Josephus as historischer Scriftsteller (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1978) 41-45; Rebecca Gray, Prophetic Figures in Late Second Temple Jewish Palestine: The Evidence from Josephus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

[21] See Ant.4.8.14 §218, where Deut.17:9’s “to the Levitical priests, and to the judge,” becomes: “the high priest, the prophet, and the council of elders (gerousia).” For Josephus’s exegesis here, see Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Prophecy and Priesthood in Josephus,” 257 n. 85. In describing the local magistrates, Josephus (Ant. 4.8.14 §214) says that these comprise seven men of virtue and experience in the pursuit of justice, to each of whom are assigned two “officers of the tribe of Levi” (presumably the šôte ̆rîm of Deut. 16:18), it not being clear whether these seven magistrates were priests or not. Cf. Deut. 21:5. For priests as the administrators of the Jewish polity’s “highest affairs,” including “strict superintendence of the Law and of the pursuits of everyday life,” see Ag. Ap, 2.21 §185-87 with 2.16 §165.

[22] Spec. Leg. 4.36 §§188-92. For Philo, the “levitical priests” of Deut 17:9 are the priests, while the singular “judge” is the High Priest. Cf. previous note. For other passages in which Philo stresses the teaching, wisdom, or juridical functions of the priests, see Det. 132; Deus. 134; Mos. 214 (cf. Num. 15:32-36).

[23] On the assignment of Levite administrators to local courts, see above, n. 24.

[24] See Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.25 §204; Life 8-9; 197-98; Ant. 4.8.12 §209; 20.12.1 §263; Philo, Leg. 115 (which specifies that parents and tutors teach children); 1QSa 1.6-9; Acts 22:3-5. For a fuller listing and discussion of the Second Temple sources regarding Jewish education, see David Goodblatt, “Hammeqorot ‚al reƒšito šel hahinuk hayyehudi

hammeƒurgan beƒeres.-yiśraƒel,” in Studies in the History of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, vol. 5, ed. B. Oded (Haifa: University of Haifa, 1980), pp. 83-103.

[25] See Philo, Hypothetica, and the Theodotus inscription, cited above, n. 7.

[26] On the problem of the paucity of sources dealing with ancient Israelite education see James Crenshaw, “Education in Ancient Israel,” JBL 104 (1985), 601-15. Shmuel Safrai’s “Education and the Study of the Torah” (in S. Safrai and M. Stern, eds., The Jewish People in the First Century, 2.945-70), like its predecessors, anachronistically employs later rabbinic evidence to fill in the historical gaps left by the Second Temple sources. For a fuller critique of the gullible employment of later rabbinic sources which retroject a whole network of formal Jewish schooling in late Second Temple times, see the article by David Goodblatt cited above, n. 27. For more on the question of Second Temple schools, see below, nn. 41, 50.

[27] Assumptions of a large non- (even anti-) priestly Jewish class of scribes in Second Temple times are often dependent upon significantly later rabbinic traditions. Several rabbinic texts apply the term “scribes” and “words of scribes” to the rabbinic sages and their teachings, or more broadly to scholars and teachers of Torah across time. To use such texts to reconstruct the character of the scribes in Second Temple Times, especially when extant Second Temple sources provide a different picture, is, it seems to me, a questionable practice. See, for example, H. D. Mantel, “Soferim,” in The World History of the Jewish People. Vol. 8: Society and Religion in the Second Temple Period, ed. Michael Avi-Yona and Zvi Baras (London: W. H. Allen, 1977), pp. 52-57, plus notes for earlier bibliography. For rabbinic uses of the term sôpēr, see Wilhelm Bacher, ‚Erkê Midrāš, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv, 1922/3), 92-3. The idea that rabbinic texts speak of a “period of the scribes” (between Ezra and Simon the Just [ca. 200]) has been convincingly refuted by Yehezkel Kaufmann (History of the Religion of Israel, vol. 4, From the Babylonian Captivity to the End of Prophecy, trans. C. W. Efroymson [New York: KTAV, 1977], 562-66). That idea is similarly rejected by Ephraim E. Urbach (“The Derasha as a Basis of the Halakha and the Problem of the Soferim” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 27 [1958]: 166-182), whose alternative reconstruction of the scribes, however, also requires the retrojection of rabbinic statements onto Second Temple times.

[28] On the ancient near eastern scribe, see H. Duesberg and I. Fransen, Les Scribes inspirés, rev. ed. (Maredsous, 1965), pp. 22-41; J. P. J. Olivier, “Schools and Wisdom Literature,” Journal of North West Semitic Languages 4 (1975): 49-60; Ronald J. Williams, “Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt,” JAOS 92 (1972): 214-21. On the ancient Israelite scribe in relation to his ancient near eastern analogues, see E. Bickerman, From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees, 67-68; Y. Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel, vol. 4, From the Babylonian Captivity to the End of Prophecy, 324-26; Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985), 24-37; Jonathan Z. Smith, “Wisdom and Apocalyptic,” Religious Syncretism in Antiquity: Essays in Conversation with Geo Widengren, ed. Birger A. Pearson (Missoula, Montana: Scholars Press, 1975), 131- 56. For surveys of the use of the term “scribe,” see Joachim Jeremias, “grammateus,” TDNT 1: 740-42; N. Hillyer, “Scribe,” New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology 3; 477-82. For other recent treatments of the ancient Israelite and Jewish scribe, besides works cited earlier, see Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus: An Investigation into Economic and Social Conditions during the New Testament Period, trans. F. H. & C. H. Cave (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), 233-45; David E. Orton, The Understanding Scribe: Matthew and the Apocalyptic Ideal, JSNTSup 25 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989); Elias J. Bickerman, The Jews in the Greek Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 161-76; M. Bar-Ilan, “Scribes and Books in the Late Second Commonwealth and Rabbinic Period,” In Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading and Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, CRINT 2.1, ed. Martin Jan Mulder (Maastricht: Van Gorcum, Assen and Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), 21-24.

[29] For scribes as part of the Levites, see 2 Chr 34:13; T. Levi 8:17; and below, n. 42. For specific scribes who are said to be or are associated with Levites, see Neh 13:13; 1 Chr 24:6 and 2 Chr 26:11 (cf. 35:9). For scribes as Temple functionaries, see Josephus, Ant. 11.5.1 §128 (cf. Ezra 7:24; 1 Esdr 8:22) and 12.3.3 §142, where Artaxerxes and Antiochus III exempt the “scribes of the Temple,” among other Levite functionaries, from taxes to the empire. Such Temple scribes are also mentioned by Josephus in J. W. 6.5.5 §291, where shortly before the destruction of the Temple they foretell the future from an omen. On “sacred scribes” in Josephus, see also the next note. According to post-exilic scriptural traditions, the Levites are not only entrusted with carrying the ark and safeguarding the Torah within it (Deut 31:25-26; 1 Chr 15:2 [based on Deut 10:8]; 2 Chr 5:4; but cf. 1 Kgs 8:3-4), but are responsible for teaching the Torah to the people (Deut 33:10; Ezra 8:16; Neh 8:7, 9; 2 Chr 17:7-9; 35:3-6) and for administering Torah law and affairs of state (as šôt.e ̆rîm) (1 Chr 23:4; 26:29; 2 Chr 19:8, 11 [cf. LXX]; 29:5- 36; 34:8-14; as well as Josephus, Ant. 4.8.14 §214; and Sifre Deut. 15). The latter two functions are also connected with the Levites in the Dead Sea Scrolls, to be discussed below, and in Jub. 31:15. In these ways the Levites are said to carry out functions more generally or previously assigned to the priests, thereby increasingly acting as intermediaries between the Aaronite priests and the people. The eventual assignment of the role of Temple gate-keepers to the Levites (Neh 7:1; 12:25 [compare Ezra 2:42; Neh 7:45]; 1 Chr 9:18; 16:38; 23:5; 26:1-19; 2 Chr 34:9 [compare 2 Kgs 12:10; 22:4]; Philo, Spec. Leg. 1.156) may similarly reflect an increasingly intermediary role between priestly and Israelite realms. For the growing importance of the Levites in Second Temple times, especially as reflected in the retrojections of the Chronicler, see Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions, trans. John McHugh (New York: McGraw, 1961), 388-94.

[30] I use the terms “priestly” and “priesthood” to refer to members of families that trace their ancestry back to Aaron, whether or not they served as Temple functionaries. For First Temple Times, the term could be used to refer more broadly to the descendants of Levi. For a useful survey of the different priestly strata in Second Temple times, see Menahem Stern, “Aspects of Jewish Society: The Priesthood and Other Classes” (above, n. 19).

[31] See Ezra 7:1-6, 10-12, 21, 25, 28; 10:5, 10, 16; Neh 8:1-13; 12:26, 36. In the paraphrase of 1 Esdr 9:37-48, Ezra is “the high priest and reader,” while in the Syriac addition to 4 Ezra 14, he is “the scribe of the knowledge of the Most High” (cf. Ezra 7:12, 21; 4 Ezra 12:36). For Ezra as the receiver and recorder of esoteric revelation, see below, n. 55. For the “hand of the Lord” upon a prophet, see Ezek 1:3; 3:22; 33:22; 40:1. On Ezra as scribe see M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 36-37; Y. Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel, vol. 4, From the Babylonian Captivity to the End of Prophecy, 324-58; Hans Heinrich Schaeder, Esra der Schreiber, BHT 5, (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1930), 39-49, esp. 42-3. 4 Ezra 14 depicts Ezra as a recipient of revelation, a second Moses, as do later rabbinic texts: t. Sanh. 4:7; b. Sanh. 21b. But cf. b. Sukk. 20a, which states that Ezra only reestablished what had been forgotten by the people. Note the argument of Schaeder, that the title “scribe” was originally applied to Ezra as an administrative official, and only later acquired the retrojected meaning of a person learned in the Torah of Moses.

[32] Translations are from the Anchor Bible (see above, n. 17). The Hebrew is hokmat sôpēr tarbeh hokmâ, literally meaning, “The scribe’s wisdom increases wisdom,” perhaps meaning, “The scribe’s pursuit of wisdom increases wisdom.” The point of the section is to contrast the scribe in his dedicated pursuit of widsom with skilled workers who must devote all of their energies to their trades. The Greek translation has, “The wisdom of the scribe [is acquired] in the opportunity of leisure.” E. Urbach (“The Derasha as a Basis of the Halakha and the Problem of the Soferim,” 172) argues that the opening line of this section draws a distinction between the professional scribe and the sage (hākām), only the latter being the object of Ben Sira’s praises. But this interpretation cannot be sustained either by the Hebrew original or by any of the versions, all of which speak of the scribe and sage as one.

[33] The implication is that the scribe’s fear of God is a precondition to the success of his studies. Cf. the description of Ezra in Ezra 7:6, 10 as someone who both is proficient in his knowledge of the Torah of Moses and must “set his heart” to seek (lidrōš) the Torah of the Lord.

[34] Ben Sira’s grandson, in the preface to his Greek translation, states that his grandfather “devoted himself for a long time to the study of the Law, the Prophets, and the other books of our ancestors, and developed a thorough familiarity with them.”

[35] =Ahikar is described as a “wise and skilled scribe,” who unravels riddles, provides counsel to royalty, and transmits his wisdom through a book given to his son. See Y. Kaufmann, History of the Religion of Israel, vol. 4, From the Babylonian Captivity to the End of Prophecy, 325, 349 n. 5; M. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, 26 n. 14. Note that the me ̆hôqēq (“ruler”) in Sir 10:5, to whom God imparts his majesty, is rendered by the Greek translation with grammateus (“scribe”). This probably derives from an understanding of the Hebrew as “one who inscribes.” A similar understanding likely lies behind the targumic rendering of this word as sāprāƒ (“scribe”), often in a teaching sense, in the following verses: Gen 49:10; Num 21:18; Deut 33:21; Judg 5:9; Ps 60:9; 108:9; as well as in the interpretation of Num 21:18 in CD 6.7. Note as well Tg. Neb. Isa 33:22, where God as me ̆hôqēq is translated, “our teacher who gave us the instruction of Torah from Sinai.” There is no need, however, to read these later rabbinic understandings of “scribe” into LXX Sir 10:5, where grammateus might simply denote one wielding administrative authority by virtue of literate expertise.

[36] Burton L. Mack, Wisdom and the Hebrew Epic: Ben Sira’s Hymn in Praise of the Fathers (Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 1985), esp. 89-107. Mack (105-106) argues that what began for Ben Sira as Moses’ archetypal role as teacher of Torah (45:5) is subtly transferred to Aaron (45:17) and the priestly scribe-sage of Ben Sira’s own day.

[37] On Ben Sira’s strong priestly sympathies and the likelihood that he was himself an Aaronite priest, see Saul Olyan, “Ben Sira’s Relationship to the Priesthood,” HTR 80 (1987): 261-86; Helge Stadelmann, Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1980), pp. 40-176; John F. A. Sawyer, “Was Jeshua Ben Sira a Priest?” Proceedings of the Eight World Congress of Jewish Studies. Division A: The Period of the Bible (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1982), pp. 65-71. According to Sir 50:27, Ben Sira’s father or grandfather was named Eleazar. For the different versions of Ben Sira’s name, see M. H. Segal, Seper Ben-Sira Haššalem, 2nd. ed. (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1958), 1-3. The name Eleazar in Second Temple times is most commonly borne by members of priestly families. See Menah. em Stern in Zion 26 (1961): 21 n. 119 (Hebrew). For another person named Eleazar who is called a scribe, see 2 Macc 6:18, but compare 4 Macc 5:4 where he is said to be a learned priest. Stern (“Aspects of Jewish Society: The Priesthood and Other Classes,” 562, 580, 591) also argues that Ben Sira was a member of the prestigious priestly family of Hakkos. (Ezra 2:61; Neh 3:4, 21; 7:63), since Sira is the Aramaic equivalent of Hakkos. (“the thorn”), and is not otherwise attested as a personal name. See Segal, Seper Ben-Sira Haššalem, 2; S. Klein, “Leh. eqer haššemot wehakkinnuyim,” Leshonenu 1 (1928/9): 341. Thus, “son of Sira” would indicate not the name of his father but that of his family. For the Christian tradition that Ben Sira was a priest, based on changing ho Ierosolymeitēs of 50:27 to hiereus ho solymeitēs, see Segal, 1 n. 3. The Greek version of Sir 51:14, which has the author seek wisdom “in the presence of the Temple,” is not reflective of the Hebrew as represented by 11QPsaSirach. It has been important to stress the centrality of priestly concerns to Ben Sira, and the priestly nature of his scribe, since those who portray a split between priest and scribe in Second Temple times (see above, nn. 7, 10) adduce Ben Sira’s scribe as their main evidence.

[38] According to Ben Sira’s grandson, in his prologue to the Greek translation, Ben Sira turned to writing only after a long devotion to study, “so that those who love wisdom might, by acquainting themselves with what he too had written, make even greater progress, living in conformity with the Divine Law.” Presumably such an audience would be drawn from Ben Sira’s own social class and not from the tradesmen who, he says, cannot become wise (38:25). It is important to distinguish between Ben Sira’s frequent expressions of sympathy for the plight of the poor and criticisms of the selfishness of the rich, and his belief (commonplace in his time) that the cultivation of wisdom is only possible for those of high social standing. It is not at all clear that Ben Sira was mainly a teacher by profession, as some have concluded from the didactic rhetoric of his writing (common to wisdom literature in general and to Hellenistic paideia in particular) or from 51:23, with its supposed reference to Ben Sira’s own school. First, most scholars do not consider the acrostic poem in which this reference is found (51:13-30) to have been authored by Ben Sira, since it appears to have circulated independently, and hence may here be an addition, as evidenced by the fact that a major part of it (vss. 13-20a) has been found in a more original form among the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QPsa), where it is associated with David. See Saul Olyan, “Ben Sira’s Relationship to the Priesthood,” 275-76. Second, the phrase bet midraši (“my house of study”) appears to be a later Hebrew retroversion from the Syriac, the original Hebrew more likely having been bet musar (“house of instruction”), without a possessive pronoun. See Patrick Skehan, “The Acrostic Poem in Sirach 51:13-30,” HTR 64 (1971): 387-400, esp. 390, 397. Third, the poem follows the style of biblical wisdom poems in which hypostatized wisdom beckons men to enter her metaphorical house (cf. Prov 7-9). This suggests caution in interpreting the poem literally as a broad invitation to enter the author’s own school. The common assumption that we have here an antecedent of the rabbinic bet midraš is even more unlikely. Whatever the nature and extent of Ben Sira’s teaching, it would likely have been to other, perhaps more junior, priestly scribes, and not to the “assembly” (39:10) which, in typical rhetorical fashion (cf. 44:15), he would have sung the scribe’s praises. It may be noted that Ben Sira’s description of the scribe (and hence himself) is similar in several regards to what Josephus says about himself over two centuries later. Josephus too is of the economically independent, priestly elite (Life 1-2). He claims that he acquired at an early age such a thorough understanding of Jewish writings that he was consulted for his expert knowledge of Jewish laws by “the chief priests and the leading men of the city.” He further claims to have been “skilled in divining the meaning of ambiguous utterances of the Deity,” and to be prophetically inspired as an instrument of God’s will (J. W. 3.8.3 §§352-3). Although Josephus does not speak of having peripatetically traveled to other lands to acquire wisdom, he emphasizes his studies of Greek language and learning (Vita 8-9; Ant. 20.12.1 §§262-63), and his having sampled the ways of the leading Jewish “philosophies” of his time, as well as having spent three years as the disciple of the ascetic Bannus (Life 14). Although Josephus does not apply the term “scribe” to himself (on his use of this term see the next note), and although his writings take a very different form than do Ben Sira’s, the claims that each makes for himself (however much exaggerated) are very similar, as are, it would appear, their social circumstances.

[39] The breakdown is as follows: officers associated with the priests or the Temple (21), secretaries to kings (8), Baruch (3), Samuel (3), a village clerk (1), a priestly secretary of the national council (boulē) (1), Moses (1), Joseph (1). The last two derive from Chaeremon’s account of the Exodus from Egypt (Ag. Ap. 1.290), in which Moses and Joseph are described as “sacred scribes,” like the Egyptian priests, who by virtue of their knowledge of sacred records are thought to possess oracular powers. Note that Josephus (Ant. 7.14.7 §364), like the Greek version of 1 Chr 23:4, lists six thousand “judges and scribes” among David’s division of the Levites, whereas the MT has “officers and judges,” substituting “scribes” for “officers” (šot.erim) as the Greek version most commonly does. This may be the sense of “scribes” as officers in 1 Macc 5:42. On scribes as Levites see above, n. 32. For similar examples of Josephus’ insertion of scribes into biblical narratives, see Ant. 6.6.4 §120 (cf. 1 Sam 14:31-35); 7.13.1 §319 (cf. 1 Sam 24:1); 11.6.10 §248 (cf. Est 6:1); 11.6.13 §287 (cf. Est 9:13). By contrast, Philo only uses the term grammateus once, in Flacc. 4, where it denotes a political advisor or secretary.

[40] Daniel R. Schwartz, “’Scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites’: Who Were the Scribes?” (Hebrew) Zion 50 (1985): 121-32. A similar pattern of association yet differentiation, but in literary-rhetorical terms, is drawn by Elizabeth Struthers Malbon, “The Jewish Leaders in the Gospel of Mark: A Literary Study of Marcan Characterization,” JBL 108 (1989): 259-281.

[41] For the substitution of Pharisees for scribes, see Matt 12:24 (cf. Mark 3:22); 21:45 (cf. Mark 11:27); 22:34 (cf. Mark 12:28); 22:41 (cf. Mark 12:35). But compare Matt 12:38 (cf. Mark 8:11). However, one need not go so far as Morton Smith (Jesus the Magician [New York: Harper & Row, 1978], 153-57) in denying all historical basis to such associations of scribes and Pharisees, or of the presence of Pharisees in at least the core narratives of Mark. These groups may in fact have been associated in late Second Temple Palestine, but the precise nature of their association (and differentiation) was either lost or inconsequential to later New Testament authors whose purposes in weaving them into the narrative of Jesus’ life and death was more theological than historical and more self-referential than representational. Elsewhere, Matthew drops scribes from the Markan combination of “chief priests, scribes, and elders” as Jesus’ primary authoritative opposition, leaving the combination of chief priests and elders in that role: Matt 21:23 (cf. Mark 11:27); 26:47 (cf. Mark 14:43); 27:1 (Mark 15:1). This permits the scribes to become more fully associated with Pharisees as challengers to Jesus’ teaching authority. Note, however, that Matthew also uses the term “scribes” in a positive sense in reference to Jesus’ own disciples and followers: 8:19-22; 13:51-52; 23:34; cf. Mark 12:28, 32, 34. The tendency to assimilate the scribes to the Pharisees, attenuating the former and accentuating the latter, as Jewish authorities and Jesus’ opponents becomes even more pronounced in the Gospels of Luke and John, notwithstanding the particular rhetorical emphases of each.

[42] Thus the Gospel of John mentions Levites but generally not scribes (except in 7:5 and 8:11, which are generally not viewed as authentic), while the other Gospels mention the scribes but not the Levites (except for Luke 1:32). John 1:19-28 mentions a delegation of priests and Levites who are sent from Jerusalem to question John the Baptist, whereas in the other gospels such delegations often include scribes (Mark 3:22; 7:1; 11:27; 12:38). Compare the delegation sent from Jerusalem to remove Josephus, comprising priests and Pharisees (Life 39 §§196-98). See Schwartz, “Scribes and Pharisees,” 125. Note that Mark 12:38 and Luke 20:46 criticize the scribes for showing off their robes (stolai). While these may be the robes of philosophers, they are just as likely the robes of priests. Josephus (Ant. 20.9.9 §216-218), in fact, reports that in the time of Agrippa the Levite singers requested and were granted permission to wear the same linen robes (stolai) as the priests. Compare A. Saldarini’s conclusion (Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees, p. 268): “The gospels testify most reliably to scribes connected to the government in Jerusalem where their role seems to be as associates of the priests both in judicial proceedings, enforcement of Jewish custom and law and ongoing business in the Sanhedrin.”

[43] Mark 8:31; 10:33; 11:18, 27; 14:1, 43, 53; 15:1, 31.

[44] Mark 2:6, 16; 3:22; 7:1, 5; 9:11, 14; 12:35, 38. Schwartz (“Scribes and Pharisees,” p. 131) argues that the scribes and the Pharisees, as claimants to the “seat of Moses” (Matt 23:2), represent respectively the two major yet distinct streams of Torah teaching in Jesus’ time: priestly and non-priestly. The scribes, as Levites, could claim Moses’ seat by virtue of being of his tribe. For a different view of the scribes in Mark as being identical to the Pharisees, see Michael J. Cook, Mark’s Treatment of the Jewish Leaders (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), 81-97. For an analysis of the various characterizations in terms of the internal narrative-theological progression of the Gospel of Mark, see Mal- bon, “Jewish Leaders.” For a broader survey, with reference to earlier literature, see Anthony Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees, 144-98.

[45] For the exilic and post-exilic periods, see Ezek 7:26; 8:1; 20:1; Ezra 5:5, 9; 6:7-8, 14; 10:8. Note as well the authority that Nehemiah the governor is said to wield in enforcing the rules of the “book of Moses,” even to the point of overruling the High Priest in Temple matters: Neh 13:1-9. The account in 2 Chr 19:8 of Jehoshaphat’s appointment of “heads of the clans of Israelites” to serve on a supreme judiciary after the Levites and priests may be more reflective of the Chronicler’s times. In Hellenistic times there appears an aristocratic council of elders (gerousia or presbyteroi), who, alongside the leading priests, constitute a national leadership, although the extent of its authority and the balance of its priestly/lay makeup is unclear, in part because it probably varied over time: 1 Mac 7:33; 8:15; 11:23; 12:6, 35; 13:36; 14:20, 28; 2 Mac. 1:10; 4:44; 11:27; 14:37; Jdt 4:8; 11:4; 15:8; Ant. 12.3.3 §142; 13.5.8 §166; 13.16.5 §428. Finally, many of the people whom Herod brought into power and influence formed a non-priestly hereditary elite, frequently referred to by Josephus as the “principal citizens” (J. W. 2.17.3 §411), “leaders of the people” (Life 194), etc. The lay aristocratic families (e.g., the Tobiads and Herodians) intermarried with priestly families as a way of strengthening their position and influence. For discussions, see Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, 222-32; M. Stern, “Aspects of Jewish Society: The Priesthood and Other Classes,” 612-18; Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1:25-27, 49-50, 267 (in each instance with notes in vol. 2); Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt Against Rome AD 66-70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 36-37. The place of the lay heads of clans in the Dead Sea Scrolls will be discussed below.

[46] The authority of the lay elders (Hebrew, ze ̆qênîm; Greek, presbyteroi) to judge derives from Exod 18:13-26; Num 11:16-25; and Deut 1:9-18. Note that in Deut 21:1-9 the local elders and judges act under the judicial authority of the priests. Note also the judicial role of the local elders in the book of Susanna. See also Josephus, Ant. 4.8.14 §214, for local lay courts of seven judges, with two Levites assigned to each judge, presumably as administrative assistants.

[47] For overviews, see H. I. Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956); and Werner Jaeger, Paideia, vol. 1 of The Ideal of Greek Culture, trans. Gilbert Highet, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1954). Much has been written on the social and intellectual similarities between the rabbinic and philosophical “schools.” However, the evidence for such Jewish “schools” in the period before the destruction of the Temple is very thin. See Saul Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1962), 47-82; Judah Goldin, “A Philosophical Session in a Tannaite Academy,” Traditio 21 (1965): 1- 21; Henry Fischel, Rabbinic Literature and Greco-Roman Philosophy: A study of Epicurea and Rhetorica in Early Midrashic Writings, SPB 21 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973); David Daube, “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric,” HUCA 32 (1949): 239-63; Shaye J. D. Cohen, “Patriarchs and Scholarchs,” PAAJR 48 (1981): 57- 85.

[48] Josephus, J. W. 1.33.2 §§648-53; Ant. 17.6.2-3 §§149-63. There is no reason to assume, as many have (for references see D. Goodblatt, “Agrippa I and Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” 32 n. 85), that these teachers were Pharisees because they are called “experts in the laws of their country.” Cf. Life 39 §198, where a delegation of Pharisees and non-Pharisees are all said to have been “skilled in the laws.” Similarly, there is no reason to presume that a certain Simon who is said by Josephus (Ant. 19.7.4 §332) to have a “reputation for religious scrupulousness,” and who is reported to have assembled the people to denounce King Agrippa I, was a Pharisee. Josephus elsewhere uses the term sophistēs (perhaps pejoratively) for Judas the Galilean, the founder of the Fourth Philosophy (J. W. 2.8.1 §118; 2.17.8 §433), and for Menahem his son (J. W. 2.17.9 §445).

[49] Cf. Luke 20-21.

[50] For example, Josephus uses the Greek word sophos (the translation equivalent of the Hebrew hakam) twenty-three times to refer to wise, skilled, or clever persons, applying it to such biblical figures as Moses, Solomon, Daniel, and Zerubbabel. However, except for the disputed Testiimonium Flavianum, in which Jesus is called sophos anēr (Ant. 18.3.3 §63), Josephus does not use the term sophos to refer to any Second Temple individuals or groups who might be considered to be “proto-rabbinic.” The only exception is in J. W. 6.313, where he speaks of many of the nation’s wise men (sophoi) who, shortly before 70 C. E., erred by interpreting a scriptural oracle to mean that a Jew would soon become ruler of the world. There is no reason to assume that Josephus has any particular group of sages in mind here. On the use of the term hakam in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see below, n. 75.

[51] 1 Enoch 12:4: grammateustēs dikaiosynēs; 15:1:grammateustēs alētheias. The Aramaic is not extant here, but probably had sapraƒ quštaƒ. In the Aramaic fragments of the “Book of Giants,” Enoch is referred to as “scribe of distinction” (sāpar paršāƒ). See J. T. Milik, ed., The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 236-37, 260, 262, 305, 315. For Enoch as “scribe of righteousness,” see also T. Abr. B 11:3. For Enoch as “scribe,” see also 12:3 and 92:1 (possibly: see Matthew Black, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985], 283, 371); 2 Enoch (short recension, MS A) 36:3. Tg. Ps.-Jon. Gen 5:24 calls Enoch, identified with the angel Metatron, “the great scribe.”

[52] This writing role is implicit in the Book of Watchers, and made explicit in Jubilees 4:17- 19, 21, 23. For Enoch’s transmission of revealed laws, see Jub. 7:38-39; 21:10. According to Jub. 4:24, 2 Enoch 53:2, and T. Abr. B 11:4, Enoch also records human deeds for final divine judgment. Enoch as esoteric scribe may be compared to the priest-scribe Ezra as portrayed in the apocalyptic 4 Ezra (e.g., 12:37; 14:6, 24-26, 44-48).

[53] See 1 Enoch 14. In Jub. 4:25 Enoch, like the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, burns “incense of the sanctuary” before God. The Book of Watchers, reflecting the perspective of a group that considered the earthly temple to have been defiled and to be an unfitting abode for God’s glory, projects an ideal temple (largely modeled on the temple of Ezekiel) into heaven, to which access could be achieved through vicarious participation in Enoch’s visions and journeys. This is argued by Martha Himmelfarb in a forthcoming book, “Like One of the Glorious Ones”: Ascent to the Heavenly Temple and the Transformation of the Visionary in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, parts of which she was kind enough to let me read. On priestly aspects of the Enochic literature, see as well: David Suter, “Fallen Angel Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6- 15,” HUCA 50 (1979): 115-135; George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981): 575-600, esp. 589 for Enoch as priest, even high priest, after whom Levi is modeled in the Testament of Levi, already in its pre-Christian Aramaic form.

[54] The translation is from James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 2 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 63. On Enoch’s priestly role here, see James C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984), 185-86.

[55] For the levitical sympathies of Jubilees, see E. Schwarz, Identität durch Abgrenzung (Frankfurt am Main and Bern, 1982), 187-90. The superiority of (the descendants of) Levi over (those of) Judah, and the assignment of the former not only to cultic but also to political, judicial, didactic, and scribal responsibilities, is frequently expressed in the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs: Reuben 6:5-12; Simeon 7:1-2; Levi 8:2, 17; 13:2-4; 18:2-4; Judah 21:1-5; 25:1; Issachar 5:7; Naphtali 5:3; Joseph 19:11. Note in particular T. Levi 8:16-17, which assigns to the descendants of Levi “everything that is desirable in Israel,” and the roles of “high priests, and judges, and scribes,” by virtue of their guarding of the “holy place.” See as well T. Levi 18:2-4, where the eschatalogical “new priest” is assigned royal functions and honors, and T. Reuben 6:10-12, where Levi is spoken of in eternal kingly terms. Levi, thus, appears as a priest-king, along the lines of Melchizedek (Gen 14:18-20; Ps 110; cf. Heb 7). Compare, Jub. 32:1, where Levi dreams that he is appointed “priest of the Most High God,” an expression evocative of Melchizedek (Gen. 14:9). The importance of the Levites is also a recurring theme in the Temple Scroll, where the burnt offerings of the Levites emphatically precede those of the tribe of Judah during the Feast of the Wood Offering (23.9-24.11), just as the sons of Levi precede those of Judah in the eschatological battle array (1QM 1.2) and the priestly messiah takes priority of place over the Davidic messiah (1QSa 2.11-12). For the Temple Scroll’s frequent assignment of priestly prerogatives to the Levites, see 60.6-9 (tithes); 57.12-15 (a place on the king’s advisory council); 22.10-11 and 60.7 (assigning them the shoulder of the well-being offering); 21:[1] and 22:12 (double portions of the well-being offerings for the New Wine and New Oil festivals); 22:4 (sacrificial slaughter); 60:11 (the recitation of the priestly blessing, for which cf. 1QS 1.18-20; Tg. Ket. 2 Chr 30:27; Deut. 10:8; LXX and Sam. Tg. Deut. 18:5). On the levitical sympathies of the Temple Scroll, with other examples, see Jacob Milgrom, “Studies in the Temple Scroll,” JBL 97 (1978): 501-506, 519, 523; idem, “The Qumran Cult: Its Exegetical Principles,” in Temple Scroll Studies, ed. George J. Brooke (JSPSup 7; Shef- field: JSOT Press, 1989) 176-78; idem, “The Shoulder for the Levites,” in Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983), 1:169-76; ibid., 1:154-59. For the unwarranted view that the Temple Scroll was authored by Levites (sympathy need not denote identity), see Hans Burgmann, “11QT: The Sadducean Torah,” in Temple Scroll Studies, ed. George J. Brooke, 257-63. Philo similarly expresses (through the mouth of king Agrippa I) the superiority of the priesthood to the kingship in Legat. 278. On Philo’s high regard for the priesthood, see also below, n. 55.

[56] See in particular, Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 78-80, 175-80; and the critique of Philip Davies, “Hasidim in the Maccabean Period,” JJS 28 (1977)L 127-140.

[57] The Greek is ekousiazomenos, which is the equivalent of the Hebrew mitnaddeb, meaning literally “to offer oneself.” The Hebrew verb is used of participants in a holy war in Judg 5:2, 9 (the Song of Deborah). It is frequently employed in the Dead Sea Scrolls to refer to the Qumran sectaries, who, by offering themselves in observance of the sect’s laws, acquire a consecrated status like (but not equal to) that of the sons of Aaron: 1QS 1.7, 11; 5:1, 6, 8, 10, 21, 22; 6:13. The War Scroll uses the same verb (ndb) for those who are “freely enlisted for war” (1QM 7:5). For the zeal of the priests and Levites, see Exod 32:25-9; Num. 26:6-13; Jub. 30:18. It was the zealot priests who instigated the revolt against Rome: Josephus, J. W. 2.17.2 §§409-10; 4.3.6 §§147-49; 4.4.1 §225. For the view that the Hasidim were Levites, see Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Interpretation and the Tendency to Sectarianism: An Aspect of Second Temple History,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, ed. E. P. Sanders et al., vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 308 n. 104; idem, Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1977), pp. 135-37.

[58] See my earlier discussion of scribes in Josephus (above, n. 42) and the New Testament (above, nn. 43-47). The New Testament phrase “scribes of the Pharisees” (Mark 2:16; cf. Luke 5:30 and Acts 23:9) is of contested authenticity, with some scholars claiming that it was originally “scribes and Pharisees” (as in Mark 2:16 according to some testimonies). Luke 20:39-40 (cf. vv. 27-28) is thought to speak of scribes of the Sadducees.

[59] As John Strugnell (JBL 77 [1958]: 111) states, “Theologically, the order may have been a priesthood of all believers, but the texts clearly show that in ritual and purity the legitimate priesthood had prerogatives.” For these prerogatives, see 1QS 1.18-2.18; 2.19- 23; 6:2-8, 8-9 (the elders take the place of the Levites); 1QSa 1.15-17, 22-25; 1.27-2.3; 2.11-22 (the messiah of Israel takes the place of the Levites); CD 13.2-9; 14.3-6; 1QM 2.1-4; 7.9-18; 11QTemp 57.11-15; 58.18-21. Whereas in the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa 1.15-17, 22-25) the Levites and the Levite judges and officers are under the dual authority of the priests and the lay heads of the families (rāƒšê ƒăbôt), in the War Scroll (1QM 2.1-3) the heads of the families follow after the chief priests, Levites, and heads of tribes. It should be noted that while the heads of the families play a role in both of these messianic texts, they are absent in the sectarian hierarchy of the other scrolls. For the subordination of the king to the priests in matters of scriptural and legal authority, see 11QTemp 56.12-57.15; 58.18-21 (with which compare Num 27:17, 21); 4Q161 (4QpIsad) frags. 8-10, lines 21-24 (DJD 5:14). See above, n. 22. For a fuller treatment of the place of the priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see Jacob Liver, Studies in Bible and Judean Desert Scrolls (Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1971), 131-85.

[60] The Teacher of Righteousness is “raised” by God to lead the elect (CD 1.11). For the Teacher as a priest, see 4QpPsa i-x 3.15; 4QpPsb 1.4-5; and possibly 1QpHab 2:5-10. The Teacher is portrayed in direct conflict with the Wicked Priest, generally thought to have been a High Priest in Jerusalem: 4QpPsa i-x 4.8-10; 1QpHab 9.9-10; 11.4-8; and possibly 4.10. Another figure, who appears sometimes as a messianic figure and some- times as a leader within the community, is the Interpreter of the Torah (dôrēš hattôrâ, or ƒîš haddôrēš). He may overlap with the Teacher and appears also to have been a priest (see below, n. 68): 1QS 6.6; 8.12; CD 6.7-8; 7.18; 4QFlor i-iii 1.11; 4Q177 frgs. 10-11 line (DJD 5:71). On the overall authority of the priests at Qumran to teach and interpret the Torah, see, in addition to the sources cited in the previous notes and to be cited below, 1QS 5.2, 9; 6.3-6; 1QSb 3.22-24; 4.27-28. For the supreme legal authority of the priests, see 1QS 5.1-3; 9.7. For the prominent place of the priests in the courts and councils (which nonetheless had more non-priests than priests), see 1QS 6.8-9; 8.1; CD 10.4- 6; 11QTemp 57.11-15; 61.7-9 (with which compare Deut 19:17); 4Q159 frg. 2-4 lines 3- 4 (DJD 5:8); and perhaps 4QpIsad 1.2-4 (DJD 5:27-8). On the system of courts and judges at Qumran, see Lawrence H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony and the Penal Code, Brown Judaic Studies 33 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 23-54, 215; idem, “The King, His Guard, and The Royal Council in the Temple Scroll,” PAAJR 54 (1987): 249-53; Yigael Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 1:349-53.

[61] In the Temple Scroll in particular, the Levites are interpolated into biblical laws. See 11QTemp 57.11-15 with Deut 17:20; and 11QTemp 61:7-8 with Deut 19:17. For the enhanced place of the Levites in the Temple Scroll, see above, n. 55. The threefold hierarchical division of priests, Levites, and laity is particularly emphasized in this scroll. This accords with the Temple Scroll’s conception of the Temple as comprising three rather than two concentric courts which decrease in sanctity and exclusivity as one moves, with the expanded middle court serving as a buffer between the inner priestly court and the outer Israelite court, the three together corresponding to the inner divine sanctuary, the medial Levitical camp, and the surrounding Israelite camp (= “temple city”) of the wilderness encampment. See B. E. Thiering, “Mebaqqer and Episkopos in the Light of the Temple Scroll,” JBL 100 (1981): 59-74; Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Exclusion from the Sanctuary and the City of the Sanctuary in the Temple Scroll,” Hebrew Annual Review 9 (1985): 315, 318. The Levites also play a prominent but medial role in the eschatological holy war according to the Qumran War Scroll: 1QM 1:2; 2:2; 5:1; 7:14-16; 8:9; 13:1; 15:4; 16:7; 18:5. In late Second Temple times some Levites are reported to have been unhappy with their liminal status. Thus, Josephus (Ant. 20.9.6 §§216-18) disapprovingly recounts that the Levite singers petitioned and were allowed to wear the same robes as the priests, thereby blurring the distinction, set by “ancestral law,” between priest and Levite. The rebellion of Korach and company (note especially Num 16:8-11) may be a retrojected reflection of this tension. The Temple Scroll, by contrast, insists that the Priests not wear their priestly garments in the middle court (= Levitical camp), lest they thereby “communicate holiness” to the people. See 11QTemp 32:10- 12; 33.1-7; and 40.1-4, with Lev 6:2-4; Ezek 42:14; 44:19; and Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 1:220-23, 248-49.

[62] The expression is from Num 27:17; cf. 1 Sam 18:16. It denotes the leader, especially the military leader, who both precedes his charges when they go out and come in, and by exercising control over them determines when and how they are to go out and come in. It is difficult to know whether the expression here and elsewhere in the scrolls is to be taken in a physical or spiritual sense or both.

[63] For the “officers” (šôte ̆rîm) as Levites, see above, n. 32, as well as 1QM 7.14. Note that the LXX most commonly translates šôtēr with grammateus (“scribes”). Cf. above, n. 42.

[64] In 4QTeharot B (4Q275) 3.1.3 the Overseer recites the covenantal curses which in 1QS 1.18-2.18 and in Deut 27:14-26 are recited by the Levites. See the next note.

[65] The relationship between Priest and Overseer is somewhat like that between Ezra and the Levites in Neh 8:1-12. In 1QS 6.11-12 it is the “Overseer of the many” who runs the community’s meetings. In CD 13.11-13 and 15.6-11, it is the Overseer of the camp who is in charge of the examination and admission of new members and the recording of their status (cf. 1QS 5.21). In 1QS 6.13-15 it is the “Officer (pāqîd) at the head of the many,” who may be the same as the Overseer, who is in charge of the investigation, instruction, and admission of new members, while in 6.19-20 it is the “Overseer of the property of the many” who receives and records the property of candidates during the second stage of their probation. The Overseer may be the same as the Master (maśkîl) of 1QS 9.12-21, one of whose responsibilities is the admission of new members. According 2 Chr 30:22 the Levites were maśkîlîm, which can also be inferred from Ezra 8:18 and Neh 8:7-8. According to CD 9.16-23, it is the Overseer who receives and records the reproofs of members against their fellow members whose sins they have witnessed, and according to the broken text of CD 15.14-15, the Overseer gives the order for wayward members to be locked away for a year. According to CD 13.15-16, the Overseer must be notified of, and presumably approve and possibly record, all commercial agreements entered into by the members. According to CD 14.12-16 it is the Overseer and the judges who receive portions of the members’ salaries and who distribute these to members in need (cf. the role of Zadok the scribe in Neh 13:12-13). For the Overseer’s more pedagogic and pastoral functions within the community, see CD 13.5-10, to be discussed below. Geza Vermes (The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 2nd ed. [Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1975], 21-25) argues that the Overseer (me ̆baqqēr) and the Master (maśkîl) are the same office and that both are Levites. Vermes’s suggestion that they are the same as the Interpreter of the Torah (dôrēš hattôrâ) is less certain. For the view that the Overseer is a layperson (rather than a priest or Levite), see Lawrence H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 215, who sees this as a sign of the sect’s “democratization.” J. T. Milik (Dix ans de découvertes dans le désert de Juda [Paris: Éditions du Cert, 1957], 64) considers both to be possibilities. The evidence that I have presented and the next passage to be considered (CD 13.2-7) make it more likely that the Overseer was a Levite (in a sense, a “quasi-priest”). For a comparative view of the Overseer, and for additional bibliography, see Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 29 n. 51.

[66] Here the reference is not, as previously, to a priest lacking in Torah learning or expertise, but to one who is mentally incompetent, a sort of worst case. Others have suggested reading: “[Even] if he [the afflicted man] is a simpleton [of low status], it is still he [the priest] who must lock him away.” See B. E. Thiering, “Mebaqqer and Episkopos in the Light of the Temple Scroll,” 68-69. But note the very close rabbinic parallel in Sipra Tazri‚a Parašat Nega‚im 1:8-10 (ed. Weiss, 60b): “An Israelite sage (hākām) observes the skin-plagues and tells the priest, even if he is a simpleton (šôteh): Say ‘unclean,’ and he [the priest] says ‘unclean.’ Say ‘clean,’ and he says ‘clean.’” Here the Israelite (lay) rabbinic sage stands in relation to the priest, even a mentally incompetent priest, exactly as does the levitical Overseer in CD 13.2-7. Compare m. Neg. 3:1, where it is stated that anyone (that is, a non-priest, but presumably one learned in such matters) may examine the skin-plague, even as it is the priest alone who declares, even at the instruction of such a learned non-priest, the status of the afflicted person. On the relation of CD 13.4-7 to these rabbinic passages, see Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran, 39-40 and n. 111; Chanoch Albeck, Siššâ sidrê mišnâ: sēder toho ̆rôt (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute and Tel-Aviv: Dvir, 1958-59), 552. Compare the exclusion of a mentally incompetent person (ƒîs pôtî) from leadership, judicial, and military service to the community in 1QSa 1.19-21. For discussion, see Lawrence H. Schiffman, The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls, SBLMS 38 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 26-27. For the seeming (the text is broken) exclusion of the petî from the community, see also CD 15.15-17 (more completely preserved in 4QDb = 4Q266, cited in J. T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea [London: SCM Press, 1959], p. 114). For the rabbinic elevation of lay learning over priestly status, see above, at n. 4.

[67] See Lev 13-14, where it is explicitly stated that the Aaronite priests examine the afflicted person, pronounce him clean or unclean, and quarantine him. Cf. Deut. 24:8; Hag 2:11- 13. For the role of the Priests in examining people with skin afflictions, see also Matt 8:4 (and parallels) and Luke 17:14.

[68] Similar didactic and pastoral roles are associated with the Master (maśkîl), who may be the same as the Overseer, in 1QS 9.12-21.

[69] Compare 1QSa 1.22-25, where such administrative and legal control of the community is assigned to the Levites, under the ultimate authority of the priests, but unconditionally. See 2 Chr 29:34, where, from a pro-Levite perspective, it is said that the Levites were brought in to assist the priests when the latter were too few for the large number of sacrifices, and since the Levites were more conscientious about sanctifying themselves than the priests. For a negative view of the subordinate role of the Levites, see Ezek 44:10-14; Num 18:2-6.

[70] See above, n. 64. Note that in 1 Chr 26:29 the Levite Chenaniah and his sons, who serve as officers and judges, are assigned “to the outside business over Israel,” that is, outside the Temple proper. These are priestly functions inappropriate to officiating priests. Compare Lev. Rab. 15:8 (ed. Margulies, p. 337), where Moses is said to have said: “Does this befit my brother Aaron’s honor for him to be inspecting skin affections?”

[71] CD 15.14 seems to say (the text is broken) that for other kinds of violations the Overseer himself authorizes locking a member away.

[72] Notwithstanding the importance of scribal functions at Qumran, the word “scribe” (sôpēr) only occurs once, so far as I can tell, in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 11QPsaDavComp, David, who is said to have been a prolific author of songs, is called hākām (“wise”), sôpēr (“literate”), and nābôn (“understanding”). It may be that for the Qumran sectaries the word “scribe” had become too closely identified with the Jerusalem Temple bureaucracy. The terms me ̆baqqēr and pāqîd, by contrast, draw upon prophetic motifs of shepherding, as in Ezek 34:11-12 (bqr) and Jeremiah 23:1-2 (pqd). Cf. CD 13.9, where the Overseer gathers his lost flock. See also the next note. Similarly, the word maśkÒîl has strong prophetic-didactic associations from the Book of Daniel (e.g., 11:33; 12:3, 10). It should be noted that the word h. ākām (“sage”) also does not appear often in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and where it does appear it does not denote an intellectual elite, but rather a quality associated with the ordinary members overall. See 1QSa 1.28; 2.16; CD 6.3; 1QH 1.35.

[73] Moshe Weinfeld, The Organizational Pattern and the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect: A Comparison with Guilds and Religious Associations of the Hellenistic-Roman Period (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986), 19-21. Weinfeld brings evidence from Roman, Egyptian, and Nabatean associations.

[74] On dôrēš hattôrâ see above, nn. 63, 68.

[75] It is not clear from this and other passages which texts were studied and what manner of study was practiced. For the study of scriptures and laws as a part of the training of youth for full participation in the community, see 1QSa 1.6-8, with which compare m. ƒAbot 5:21

[76] See above, nn. 53, 75. Cf. above, n. 6.

[77] Let me stress again (see above, n. 11) that we cannot assume that what our Second Temple sources describe is identical with what existed, that is, that they offer representational accounts. But if such a broad range of texts from different times, of a variety of literary genres, and from diverse ideational and social perspectives expresses a common view of the priests as the authoritative didactic and legal authorities (notwithstanding the very great differences between these sources as to the specifics of this view), then, lacking contradictory evidence, that broadly held view may be said to bring us as close to historical reality as is possible.

[78] Another exception may have been the early (pre-70) followers of Jesus, but we know too little about them (having to depend again on later, retrospectively transformative sources) to say much about their pattern of organization or self-understanding in relation to the Temple and its priesthood.

[79] For example, Josephus (Life 39 §§197-98) speaks explicitly of priestly and non-priestly Pharisees. Several of the pre-70 sages of rabbinic literature are said to be priests. Whether Johanan ben Zakkai was a priest has been debated, but since the evidence about him is from significantly later rabbinic texts and is largely hagiographic, the question is probably misplaced. See Gedaliah Alon, The Jews in their Land in the Talmudic Age (70-640 C.E.), trans. Gershon Levi, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1980), 91-92; Shmuel Safrai, “Reconsiderations Concerning Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai’s Status and Achievements” (Hebrew), in Essays in Jewish History and Philology in Memory of Gedaliah Alon, ed. Menahem Dorman et al. (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1970), 203-26.

[80] In Greek, the same word akribēs (akriboō, akribeia) is used to denote the Pharisees’ strictness of observance and their expert knowledge and interpretations of Jewish law. It is sometimes difficult to know which meaning is intended. See Josephus, Life 191; J. W. 1.5.2 §110; 2.8.14 §162; Acts 22:3; 26:5. See also Phil 3:5-6.

[81] E.g., the “many” of 1 Macc 2:29-38, the group responsible for the Book of Jubilees, and, most notably, the Dead Sea sectaries. Note also the individuals distinguished, according to Josephus, for their scrupulous observance or expert knowledge of ancestral laws (see above, n. 51).

[82] Josephus, Ant. 13.10.6 §297; 13.16.2 §408; 17.2.4 §41; 18.1.2 §12; 18.1.4 §16; Mark 7:1-13; Matt 15:1-9; Gal 1:14. See A. I. Baumgarten, “The Pharisaic Paradosis,” HTR 80 (1987): 63-77. Note that while in the Jewish War (see above, n. 83) Josephus stresses the strictness of Pharisaic practice and the exactness their legal knowledge, in the Antiquities he stresses their advocacy of ancestral tradition. For different interpretations of the differences between Josephus’ portrayals of the Pharisees in his Jewish War and Antiquities, see Daniel R. Schwartz, “Josephus and Nicolaus on the Pharisees,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 14 (1983): 157-71; Steve Mason, “Josephus on the Pharisees Reconsidered: A Critique of Smith/Neusner,” SR 17 (1985): 455-69; Anthony Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees, 128-132. I wish to emphasize that the Pharisees are not distinguished for their observance of extra-scriptural rules, but for their claim of divine sanction and legal status for observances which others regarded as ancestral tradition (or custom). Compare Ben Sira’s praise of “the tradition of the elders” as a source of wisdom: “Reject not the tradition (še ̆mî‚â) of the elders which they have learned (šāme ̆‚û) from their fathers; From it you will obtain knowledge how to answer when the need arises” (8:9). While I am assuming that there was an authoritative corpus of extra- scriptural laws under priestly jurisdiction (cf. the Sadducean “book of decrees” according to Megillat Ta’anit), we do not know to what extent those laws extended outside the realm of the Temple and its justice system, and to what extent the Jerusalem priesthood exercised authority outside of Judea. In both regards, priestly legal authority probably varied over time depending on political factors.

[83] Mark 7:7-13; Matt 15:3-9. Josephus (Ant. 17.2.4 §41) similarly states that the Pharisees

claim divine sanction for ancestral custom. The New Testament complaint may be connected with a broader early Christian polemic against the Pharisees (Jews) for having rejected Jesus (the spirit for the flesh, the divine for the human).

[84] See Josephus, Ant. 13.10.6 §297; 18.1.4 §16. As we have observed, the Hebrew equivalents of presbyteros (ze ̆qēnîm) and pateres (ƒăbôt), denote non-priestly elders. See above, nn. 49, 62.

[85] In the New Testament see Mark 2:23-28; 7:1-5, 14-23; Matt 12:1-8; 15:1-2, 10-20; 23:23-26; Luke 6:1-5; 11:37-42. Jacob Neusner has shown that the rules attributed by rabbinic literature to Second Temple authorities, especially the houses of Hillel and Shammai, and those forming the earliest anonymous stratum of rabbinic legal discussion, concentrate on the same areas of ritual purity, tithing, and Sabbath observance that are identified as the Pharisees’ concerns in the New Testament. From this he portrays the Pharisees as a “table fellowship”: a closed association whose priestly table manners constituted its social boundaries. However, one must assume that pre-70 authorities referred to in rabbinic literature, including Hillel and Shammai and their “houses,” were Pharisees and that the earliest stratum of rabbinic legal discourse is Pharisaic. Furthermore, while there is clear evidence for the importance of common meals among the Qumran sectaries and the early Christians, such evidence for the Pharisees must be retrojected from rabbinic literature. Similarly, the extent to which rabbinic rules which require the hābēr (“fellow”) to eat only tithed foods in a state of ritual purity and to separate himself in such matters from the ‚am hāƒāres. (“common people”) can be retrojected onto the pre-70 Pharisees is uncertain. For examples of these, see m. Dem. 2:2-3; t. Dem. 2:2; ƒAbot R. Nat. A 41; t. ‘Abod Zar. 3:10; m. H. ag. 2:7; t. Šabb. 1:15; p. Šabb. 1:3 (3b-c); b. Šabb. 13a; S. El. Rab. 16 (ed. Friedmann, 72); t. Ber. 4:8; 5:6. See Jacob Neusner, The Rabbinic Traditions about the Pharisees before 70, 3 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971); summarized in From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism (2nd ed. New York: KTAV, 1979). Neusner follows the influential essay by Morton Smith, “Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,” in Moshe Davis, ed., Israel: Its Role in Civilization (New York: Harper, 1956), 67-81, esp. 75-79. Deriving information about the Pharisees from the references in the Dead Sea Scrolls to the “seekers after smooth things,” is even more risky. For an attempt to use the scrolls to shed light on the Pharisees, see David Flusser, “Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes in the Commentary on Nahum,” in Essays in Jewish History and Philosophy in Memory of Gedaliah Alon, 133- 68.

[86] See, for example, Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 218 (with 101-103, 160, and 172-3): “If the ancestors of the rabbis were the Pharisees, and if the Pharisees were a sect, then the rabbis certainly would have been prepared to live without a temple, because even when the temple was standing, sects had a very ambivalent attitude to it. But the sects were merely the extreme representations of the democratization of Judaism, which affected sectarians and nonsectarians alike.” For a thorough critique of the view that the Pharisees sought to erase the line between priesthood and laity, and for the modern historical context of this retrojection, see Daniel R. Schwartz, “History and Historiography: ‘A Kingdom of Priests’ as a Pharisaic Slogan,” Zion 45 (1980): 96-117. On the supposed “democratization” of the synagogue as a lay alternative to the Temple already in Second Temple times, see above, n. 8. With the ascendancy of the rabbinic movement and its leadership in the third century C.E., the earlier purity requirements of the hābēr were greatly moderated (or became elective) since such purity strictures were an impediment to rabbinic hopes to draw a wider circle of Jews to their practices and authority. On this tension, see my essay, “Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism,” in Arthur Green, ed., Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible Through the Middle Ages, vol. 13 of World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 253-88, esp. 272; and Gedalyahu Alon, “The Bounds of the Laws of Levitical Cleanness,” in Jews, Judaism, and the Classical World, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1977), 190-234.

[87] Interestingly, rabbinic sources equate the verbs nzr (“dedicate”) and prš (“separate”): Sifra Zabim 9:6; Sifra ƒEmor 4:1; Tg. Onq. Lev 15:31.

[88] Not only have we seen evidence for Levite expertise in legal and scriptural matters, and for connecting the Levites with the scribes, but we have noted that the liminal Levites also sought to be more priestlike, lest they be regarded simply as the priests’ lackeys. See above, nn. 23, 24, 32, 42, 45, 47, 62, 64, 66-68, 72, 73. For a parallel between the rabbinic hākām and the Levite Qumran Overseer, see above, n. 66.

[89] For the former view, see Ellis Rivkin, “Defining the Pharisees: The Tannaitic Sources,” HUCA 40-41 (1969-70): 205-249; idem, A Hidden Revolution (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1978). For the latter view see the works of Jacob Neusner cited above, n. 88. Neusner elsewhere (“The Formation of Rabbinic Judaism: Yavneh [Jamnia] from A.D. 70-100,” Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II 19.2 [Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979], 3-42) argues unconvincingly that rabbinism derived its emphasis on the study of Torah from the pre-70 scribes and not from the Pharisees, from whom they derived their emphasis on priestly piety. For another critique of the polarizing of intellectual and “sectarian” characteristics of the Pharisees, see Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees, 285-87. For other reviews of the rabbinic evidence for the Pharisees, largely critical of Rivkin’s conclusions, see Jack Lightstone, “Sadducees versus Pharisees: The Tannaitic Sources,” in Jacob Neusner, ed., Christianity, Judaism, and other Greco-Roman Cults: Studies for Morton Smith at Sixty, vol. 3 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 206-217; E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah, 152-54.

[90] The degree of Pharisaic influence on the “masses” and on those in political power in different periods of their history has been much debated. It is a question which cannot be answered with much certainty given the biased nature of our sources. See Lee I. Levine, “The Political Involvement of the Pharisees under Herod and the Procurators” (Hebrew), Cathedra 8 (1978): 12-28; idem, “The Political Struggle Between Pharisees and Sadducees in the Hasmonean Period” (Hebrew), in A. Oppenheimer, et al., Jerusalem in the Second Temple Period: A. Schalit Memorial Volume (Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi, 1980), 61-83. Even within rabbinic sources, the extent to which the pre-70 “sages” merely advised the priests who had the authority to reject (or ignore) their counsel, or actually dictated matters of Temple and priestly law is unclear. Compare, for example, m. ‚Ed. 8:3 with t. Yoma 1:8. That later talmudic text take such Pharisaic control for granted (e.g., b. Yoma 4a, 19b; b. H. ag. 23a). For Josephus’ association of prophetic powers with the Pharisees, see Ant. 15.1.1 §3; 17.2.4 §§41-3; Joseph Blenkinsopp, “Prophecy and Priesthood in Josephus,” 257-58; and above, n. 23.

[91] Note the rabbinic sources cited in the previous note.

[92] It should be stressed that the above reconstruction is based on sources from the very end of the Second Temple period and immediately thereafter, and hence can only be said to apply to the Pharisees of that time. Their earlier history and characterization, is, it seems to me, beyond our ability to recover. Although I have attempted to rely only minimally on rabbinic sources for my reconstruction, it is worth noting that m. H. ag. 2:7 portrays the Pharisees as being hierarchically positioned between the common people (‘am hāāres.) and the priests. It may be noted that my characterization falls somewhere between that of Josephus (who stresses the Pharisees’ popularity with the masses) and the New Testament (which stresses the Pharisees’ closeness to the ruling elite and distance from the common people). Each of these two sources, with its own apologetic/polemical tendenz and opposite exaggeration, preserves a partial reflection of a common, but more com- plex, Pharisaic reality.

[93] According to a commonly held view, by the time the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E., its replacement by the Pharisaic/rabbinic sages and their alternative program of lay Torah teaching and study, table fellowship, and synagogue worship had been long in preparation, and now simply moved from side stage to centerstage with the demise of priestly authority. See above, n. 89. Other groups which had previously challenged the legitimacy of the Jerusalem priesthood, but on the grounds of an alternative priestly leadership or ideology (e.g., the Qumran sectaries), found themselves without ground to stand on and quickly left the scene, leaving the nascent rabbinic movement without com- petition for the part of national leadership. This transformation is associated with the sages who gathered at Yavneh immediately after the Temple’s destruction. See for example, Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis and the End of Sectarianism,” HUCA 55 (1984): 27-53. Since our first rabbinic collections appear only in the early third century at a time of rabbinic consolidation under the authority of the recently empowered rabbinic Patriarch, we have no way of knowing how much of the rabbinic transformation evidenced in those sources took place at Yavneh, and how much not until significantly later, only to be retrospectively projected back onto the figures and circles of the rabbinic “founders” (e.g., Hillel, R. Yohanan ben Zakkai, and R. Akiba). The assumption that with the destruction of the Temple priestly status and prestige, and long established priestly prerogatives which were not necessarily dependent on the functioning of the sacrificial cult suddenly terminated, needs to be questioned in light of significant evidence to the contrary. For further details and discussion, see my works cited in n. 1.