Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest

by

Damien F. Mackey

I have embraced Marvin Vining’s well argued and convincing thesis that the biblico-historically elusive Essenes were the scribes (also known as the “Herodians”). That does not mean that I accept Vining’s book in its entirety, as already pointed out. I have explained why I must reject his notion that “the Wicked Priest” of the Qumran scrolls was Jesus himself (see also below).

George J. Brooke, when writing his review of Rabbi Steven A. Fisdel’s book, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Understanding Their Spiritual Message, https://www.jstor.org/stable/4193190?seq=1

says of the author that: “He locates the origins of Essenism firmly within the context of the Maccabean struggles …”.

With this biblico-historical location I would fully agree. But I would add to it my chronological twist that the Maccabean period overlaps with the Infancy of Jesus Christ. Thus the Essenes, well identified by Vining with the biblical scribes, fit nicely into this revised scenario, thereby answering the question as to why the Essenes, as such, are never mentioned in the Bible.

With that in mind, I can also accept Brooke’s view (whether attributable to the Rabbi or not) that “for [the Rabbi] the Teacher of Righteousness is probably to be identifed as Onias III and the Wicked Priest as Menelaus”.

{Though I would not number Onias as III, which I believe is a fault due to an over-extended chronology}.