Religion: Out of the Desert

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¶ Judas Maccabeus was succeeded in 160 B.C. by his brother Jonathan, who eventually assumed the office of High Priest as well. Another theory identifies him as the Wicked Priest, since he outraged the religious purists by usurping the priesthood. Scholar Milik holds to this view, citing further the Scrolls' presentation of the Wicked Priest as having rebuilt Jerusalem and been captured and put to death; the known history of Jonathan satisfies both these conditions.

¶ Milik's colleague, Frank Cross, holds that a more plausible Wicked Priest is Jonathan's brother Simon, who issued a decree (I Maccabees 14: 27-47) that established his descendants, the Hasmonean dynasty, as High Priests in perpetuity, also gave them permission "to stamp out, indeed to persecute, those who refuse to recognize the full legitimacy of his office. This program seems to give the appropriate occasion for the crystallization of the Essene sect." Cross finds further evidence for this identification in a Qumran document that quotes Joshua's curse upon Jericho and follows it with a curse on an unnamed man and his sons who fortified a "stronghold of wickedness." Simon, while drunk, and later two of his sons were assassinated at Jericho on an inspection tour of its fortifications.

¶ Another ingenious line of thought reasons that the Teacher was one Eleazar, in the reign of Simon's son, John Hyrcanus (134 to 104 B.C.). Hyrcanus, according to the Jewish historian Josephus, was friendly to the anti-Hellenist Pharisees ("Separators") who clung to the old ways. Once Hyrcanus gave a dinner for their leaders, and after dinner invited their opinions on his rule, whereupon Eleazar bluntly told him he had no right to the High Priesthood. Promptly, John Hyrcanus switched his favor to the pro-Hellenistic Sadducees and the Pharisaic observances were forbidden. It is not hard to imagine, according to some scholars, that a strict-thinking band of Pharisees heard in outspoken Eleazar the voice of a prophet, and fled with him from Wicked Priest Hyrcanus into the desert. ¶Alexander Janneus (103-76 B.C.), son of Hyrcanus, makes an appealing Wicked Priest to some experts. He revenged himself for a Pharisee-led uprising by crucifying 800 leaders of the revolt in a single night and having their wives and children slaughtered before their dying eyes—meanwhile gratifying himself with his concubines in full sight of the victims. If he is the Wicked Priest and the community in the desert was founded by Eleazar under John Hyrcanus, the Man of the Lie might be the leader of the Pharisees who had sought to remain in Jerusalem instead of facing ascetic hardship in the desert. In any case it is reasonable to assume that many Pharisees joined the Dead Sea sect at this time.