The Teacher of Righteousness

This leader of the Essene community was not known until a century ago with the discovery of two incomplete copies of the Damascus Document in Egypt. A little more information was learned from the Dead Sea Scrolls, but they shed little light on the identity of this important leader of the Essenes. We know that he was a priest, and that he was probably the author of the spiritual guidelines for the community. And we know approximately when he came to the community.

The Damascus Document states the community (presumably the Essene community at Qumran) was born 390 years after the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. That event took place in 586 BCE, giving the date of about 196 BCE for the beginning of the community. The document then says that this group of pious people struggled alone for twenty years until a Teacher of Righteousness was sent to them. This, then, would have been about 176 BCE.

And that's really all the information there is, and interest in this person might never have progressed had it not been for the curiosity of a man who decided to investigate the origins of Christianity from a new perspective, from the extant documents -- both canonical and non-canonical -- to see what they actually said.

What Professor Alvar Ellegård discovered was rather amazing: none of the documents from first century Christian writers refer to Jesus in any way that indicates they knew him. In fact, Ellegård argues, they are talking about a man they all know quite well by reputation: the Teacher of Righteousness that inspired the messianic Essene movement two centuries earlier. Central to this argument are the letters of the Apostle Paul, who spent his life promulgating the idea that Jesus was the Christ, the much anticipated messiah. And for nearly 2000 years the Christians have assumed he was talking about the Jesus in the New Testament. But there is reason to believe that he was not.

The Christian church has long relied upon a disputed passage in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus to prove Jesus' existence since it is the only historical reference to him outside Christian writings. But a search through Josephus for the name Jesus produces a half dozen besides the disputed passage describing the New Testament Jesus.

The most interesting is found in Book 12, Chapter 5: About this time, upon the death of Onias the high priest, they gave the high priesthood to Jesus his brother.... That took place about 175 BCE. He changed his name to Jason (it was apparently common at that time for Jews to adopt Greek names) and three years later was thrown out of office by the king and replaced with yet another brother named Menelaus. Josephus continues: Now as the former high priest, Jesus raised a sedition against Menelaus, who was ordained after him, the multitude were divided between them both.

And that is the last that Josephus says about him. We do know there was great turmoil over the desecration of the Temple by Menelaus, and that might have been involved in the dispute with Jason [Jesus]. The only other references I've discovered are in the apocryphal book 2 Maccabees. At one point it is stated that Jason [Jesus] took refuge in Ammonite territory. (2 Maccabees 4:27) That is the land east of the Jordan River and Qumran is less than ten miles from where the Jordan empties into the Dead Sea.

I realize this is not conclusive evidence, but I think a strong argument can be made that this high priest Jesus was the Teacher of Righteousness. The dates are as close as can be expected and the name is right. And there is one other thing that intrigues me: Jason/Jesus was apparently in favor of "hellenizing" some aspects of Judaism and it's known that the Teacher of Righteousness, though a rigid observant Jew in most ways, introduced a solar calendar like that used by the Romans. A small thing, perhaps, but suggestive.

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The famous story of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus does not come from him, but from the author of the book of Acts (Acts 22:6-11) and is somewhat different than his own description of events, which we can find in his letter to the Galatians (1:12-16). Paul does not claim any personal encounter with Jesus, but says that God "was pleased to make his son known by means of me." The importance of this, as Mack points out, is not that it was a new idea that Jesus could be the Christ; after all, it was the Christ myth against which he had been fighting. What happened was that he came to some understanding that this could be true, and the revelation stunned him and changed his life irrevocably.

Paul speaks of similar events occurring to others in his first letter to the Corinthians:

For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. For I am the least of the apostles, that I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. (1 Corinthians 15:3-9)

My own interpretation of this is simply that he was the last of those mentioned to come to this realization that their Essene master was indeed the messiah. A further hint that this is the case is that he refers to those he persecuted as the "church of God" -- a name by which the Essenes called themselves.

It is my belief that the first verse is probably a later interpolation. But whether Paul wrote these words, we must ask which scriptures were being referred to. Ellegård points out that because of the arrangement of the New Testament, with the gospels coming first although they were written later, the average reader unconsciously assumes the reference is to the gospels. That can't be the case, so the assumption would be then that the Old Testament scriptures are being referred to. But we now know there is a third set of scriptures that might be intended: those Essene writings we call collectively the Dead Sea Scrolls.

One aspect of those Essene scriptures is particularly relevant for the discussion at hand, the messianic and apocalyptic elements of Essene thought. We mentioned earlier the passage from Hebrews 7:1-4, that characterizes the nature of Melchizedek. The verse before this says: "Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek." (Hebrews 6:20) That is just the beginning of a long argument that Jesus is a priest just like Melchizedek. My argument, of course, is that Jesus -- that is, the Teacher of Righteousness -- was in fact a later incarnation of Melchizedek.

Mack talks at some length about this Book of Hebrews, which was not written by Paul, but by an unknown scholar later in the first century. The document might have been meant as a commentary on Psalms 110, and seems to have been an attempt to bolster the Christ myth in the evolving movement by arguing that Christ was the eternal high priest for Christians as Melchizedek was for the Jews. But the focus on Melchizedek might have another origin. One of the surviving apocalyptic documents in the Dead Sea Scrolls is titled The Heavenly Prince Melchizedek. It portrays Melchizedek as the heavenly deliverer who will act as the final judge at the culmination of the battle against evil forces. The writer may well have known that Jesus (the Teacher of Righteousness) was a high priest, and making an identification between Jesus and Melchizedek would further strengthen his position as the messiah.

Here is a passage from Andre Dupont-Sommer that sums it all up nicely, if a bit extravagantly:

The Galilean Master, as He is presented to us in the writings of the New Testament, appears in many respects as an astonishing reincarnation of the Master of Justice [that is, the Teacher of Righteousness, as the title came to be translated]. Like the latter, he preached penitence, poverty, humility, love of one's neighbour, chastity. Like him, He prescribed the observance of the Law of Moses, the whole Law, but the Law finished and perfected, thanks to His own revelations. Like him He was the Elect and the Messiah of God, the Messiah redeemer of the world. Like him He was the object of the hostility of the priests, the party of the Sadducees. Like him He was condemned and put to death. Like him He pronounced judgement on Jerusalem, which was taken and destroyed by the Romans for having put Him to death. Like him, at the end of time, He will be the supreme judge. Like him He founded a Church whose adherents fervently awaited His glorious return.

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This incarnation as Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness, further energized the messiah archetype established by Zoroaster and was turned into a new religion by Paul in his vision and subsequent preaching. I would suggest that the appearance of Melchizedek as a messianic figure in the Dead Sea Scrolls indicates they knew their leader Jesus was the incarnation of Melchizedek.

Andre Dupont-Sommer, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Preliminary Survey, p.99

Alvar Ellegard, Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ

Burton Mack, Who Wrote the New Testament?

Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English