Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness—Similarities and Differences

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The similarities between the Jewish Dead Sea Scroll community and early Christianity are sometimes striking. The public has been fascinated by these similarities, often forgetting the differences, which are in many ways greater. In this article, I will compare the leaders, or founders, of these two religious organizations—the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus. Their similarities—and differences—will, I believe, provide insights into the nature of both. First, let us look at similarities. Both the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus lived within the Judaism of the late Second Temple period, when there was no clearly defined and established Jewish “orthodoxy” and […]

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Footnotes

1Q stands for Qumran Cave 1, H for the Hodayot Scroll. Hodayot is the Hebrew word for psalms of thanksgiving.

MMT stands for Miqsat Ma’aseh ha-Torah (literally, “Some Rulings Pertaining to the Torah”). See Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The Significance of the Scrolls,” BR 06:05; and James C. VanderKam, “The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essenes or Sadducees?” BR 07:02.

Endnotes

Josephus, The Antiquities of the Jews 13.46.

1Q2 Pesher Habakkuk 2.8–10; cf. 7.3–5.

According to the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, Jesus “called” to his disciples in a godlike fashion, bidding them “Follow me!” They followed him immediately without being motivated by a miracle or by any kind of persuasive preaching (see, e.g., Mark 1:16–20; 2:14; Matthew 4:18–22; 9:9). The psychologist Luke noticed this curious manner of enlisting followers, and he replaced it with a more plausible version: Simon Peter and the two sons of Zebedee are driven to become followers of Jesus by an impressive miracle (Luke 5:1–11). All traditions of this kind are secondary and cannot be traced back to the historical Jesus. Jesus’ call of “the Twelve” (Mark 3:13–19//Matthew 10:1–4; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:5) was similarly modified by Luke to the call of the “twelve apostles” (Luke 6:12–18; cf. Acts 1:13). These 12 were clearly considered the representatives of the 12 tribes of Israel in the “new age,” which started with Christ’s resurrection, or with his initial epiphanies (1 Corinthians 15:5–8).