Russ Gmirkin writes: > On Greg's comments on 1QSa, I think > there's a pretty good case to be made that both priestly and lay messiahs are > referred to, as conventionally interpreted. Most superficially, other Serekh > texts distinguish the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel.
Well, maybe they do and maybe they don't. I'm sure you know this has been a disputed point. The singular 'messiah of/from Aaron and Israel' in four occurrences in CD can read either as one figure or distributive construct, equivalent to 'messiah of Aaron, and messiah of Israel', two figures. Martin Abegg, who as you know wrote the article on Qumran Hebrew in the Flint and VanderKam volumes, argued earlier for the singular figure reading, and then (in the Flint and VanderKam article) corrected to endorsing the distributive construct interpretation (FV I, 334-35). At 1QS 9.11 there are the plural 'messiahs of Aaron and Israel', but was this a scribal copying error (for original singular)? Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't (an error). When all readings of an expression are one way, except for one reading in a different text that is slightly variant, how does one evaluate whether the variant is an error or a non-error? In this particular case, I doubt that it is possible to know for sure one way or the other. The point: your statement that 'most superficially, other Serekh texts distinguish the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel' is true, if it was true. In other words, you don't have an independent basis for knowing this, apart from if it was so, then it was so. Let it be observed simply as a point of fact that the expression 'messiah of Israel', standing alone, does not occur elsewhere than in 1QSa. I must say that on the issue of the singular vs. plural of the CD 'messiah of/from Aaron and Israel', although it is syntactically ambiguous (the sense would not have been ambiguous to original authors and readers, who would have known what was meant, but our problem is we don't know for sure what they understood and were thinking), I think is more likely to have been a singular figure, a singular future anointed one. (Fitzmyer and others have justly critiqued the rendering or understanding of heb. 'messiah' in biblical and Qumran texts as 'Messiah', correctly noting that that is an anachronistic translation projected back into the Qumran texts.) The 1QS plural 'anointed ones of Aaron and Israel' I suspect is a scribal error for this reason: it is associated with the 'prophet', and one personal figure is associated with a second (not a second and a third). That seems to be most expected. But who knows for sure. > But also, the (priestly) > Messiah seems particularly associated with the "[sons] of Aaron, the priests" > at 1QSa ii 11-13, while the "[Me]ssiah of Israel" is especially associated > with the "chiefs [of the clans of Israel]... in their camps and in their > marches." This latter figure appears to be a military messiah; the "camps" > here are the mobile camps of the deployed legions -- I don't think the term > royal messiah can be justified by the context. Military matters of course > figure large in 1QSa, especially throughout column i. But this very comparison argues against what you are saying, as I see it. Indeed there is emphasis on military service, and the same language of 'chiefs of the thousand of Israel, commanders of a hundred, .. chiefs of the clans of the congregation', going out to war... being inscribed in the army register (1.21), etc. But all of the first column is extant and there is no personal figure leading these warriors corresponding to a non-high priest. There is no 'prince of the congregation'. The warriors are subject to the authority of, are led by, the 'sons of Aaron' (1.23) and the 'sons of Zadok, the priests' (1.24) --(and I agree with those who read sons of Aaron and sons of Zadok as identical, interchangeable language). The structure in the first column of 1QSa is: the warriors are under the authority or leadership of the sons of Zadok. Then, next column, there is the high priest. The high priest is a singular figure who represents the 'sons of Zadok, the priests'. The high priest is also the major anointed figure of Qumran and biblical texts. The high priest in this sense is 'the anointed of Israel'. (Whereas the Prince of the Congregation and the Davidic Branch figures of other Qumran texts are never identified as 'the anointed of Israel' or 'Messiah' in a text; only in scholarly constructions.) > The relevant > comparison to the two Messiahs in 1QSa appears to be 1QM ii-ix, wherein the > high priest serves in the temple (ii 1-3) and the prince of the congregation > commands the army in the field (v 1). > One could of course argue that in 1QM xiii-xix the high priest also > serves as commander-in-chief. But in this primitive early section of 1QM one > lacks the advanced serekh terminology or military organization seen > throughout 1QSa. 1QSa appears contemporary with the "tactica" of 1QM ii-ix, > where priestly and military leaders appear separately. The Prince of the Congregation indeed is a distinct figure from the high priest in 1QM and other texts. But neither the Prince of the Congregation nor the Branch of David (these last two figures appear clearly to be identified, by independent argument from 4Q285 and themes) are in 1QSa. They are not in 1QSa by name, and the expression which you (following the consensus) consider to be equivalent, 'messiah of Israel', is never attested elsewhere as meaning the Prince of the Congregation or the Branch of David. You don't have a reason that does not assume your own conclusion for showing this to be a necessary reading. In short, the 'messiah of Israel' of the second column of 1QSa who leads the warriors I say should be identified with the leader of the warriors of the first column of 1QSa: the 'sons of Zadok, the priests' (i.e. the high priest, the chief Zadokite priest)-- rather than, as you say, some figure distinct from the high priest whom I imagine you identify with the Prince of the Congregation. There simply is no actual textual evidence that the Prince of the Congregation is more logically a 'messiah of Israel' than the high priest, or that the Prince of the Congregation is more naturally a leader of the warriors of 1QSa than the chief Zadokite priest among the Zadokite priests who lead the warriors in the first column of 1QSa. The Prince of the Congregation is not identified in 1QSa. If he is anywhere in 1QSa, he is unnamed, among the commanders subordinate to the high priest, the anointed one of Israel. At least this is how I suspect 1QSa would better be read. 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