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 when Judaism was marked by a variety of different religious organizations or movements. Both the Teacher and Jesus functioned not in Egypt or in Babylonia, but in Palestine, close to 043Jerusalem and its Temple. Indeed, the departure of the Teacher of Righteousness from Jerusalem led to the establishment of his separate community, while the circumstances of Jesus’ last arrival in Jerusalem became basic to the creation of the Christian Church. Both religious leaders had a particular relationship to Jerusalem and to its religious institutions, establishing their specific leadership in altercations with other religious groups and institutions, such as the Pharisees or the Temple priesthood. But at the same time, both stood in a positive relationship to traditional Jewish authorities of the past—the Torah and the Prophets. And, finally, both regarded themselves as “teachers”; and both had “followers.” These are at least the main similarities, if not all.

Access to the historical Teacher of Righteousness is much easier than it is to the historical Jesus, who has left us no written documents from his hand, so that we have recourse solely to third-, fourth- or fifth-hand information about him, mainly from the New Testament Gospels. These data and traditions come from many different informants who were more interested in telling of Jesus’ significance for themselves and for the salvation of all humanity than in reporting the events of his life, his acts and his teachings for later historians or scholars.

On the other hand, we may assume that the Teacher of Righteousness was the immediate author of some of the hymns collected in the Thanksgiving Hymns Scroll from Cave 1 (1QH).^a He was 044probably also the author of the famous letter known as MMT,^b which was addressed to the high priest at the Jerusalem Temple around the mid-second century B.C.E. Other characteristics and deeds of the Teacher of Righteousness were extolled by members of his community after his death. We find them mainly in the so-called Damascus Document (CD I–VIII/XIX–XX) and in two biblical commentaries from Qumran, 1Q Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab) and 4Q Pesher Psalms^a (4QpPs^a). These literary sources provide us with reliable information about the Teacher of Righteousness, though there are some slight differences between his self-evaluation as mirrored in his Thanksgiving Hymns and the appreciation of his function and significance expressed in texts written by others.

The Teacher of Righteousness was a priest. Not only is he referred to as ha-cohen, “the priest,” in 1Q Pesher Habakkuk and in a fragmentary commentary on Psalm 37 from Cave 4 (4QpPs^a), but this is also consistent with his titles Teacher of Righteousness, Teacher of the Community and Interpreter of the Torah. For in this community, “to inquire of the Law” and “to teach” were restricted to the priests, who alone were invested with this authority.

Born to a Zadokite family and educated to function as a priest, the Teacher of Righteousness was from his earliest years a member of a leading family. He was also destined by his lineage to become a mediator between the God of Israel and his people—the cultic role of priests during the Second Temple period. Thus, from his birth, the Teacher of Righteousness was a potential Jewish religious leader, independent of the concrete functions he assumed during his lifetime and of his priestly career at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Furthermore, the definite article “the” in his designations, ha-cohen, “the priest (of all),” or moreh ha-sedeq, “the most reliable (authoritative) teacher (of the Law),” characterizes him clearly as the high priest of his time. Historically, he was, in my opinion, the predecessor of the first Hasmonean high priest, Jonathan the Maccabee, who violently removed him from office in about 152 B.C.E. Before this event, the Teacher of Righteousness had served as the Jerusalem high priest during a short period (as reported by Josephus) when the office was otherwise vacant.¹ This period lasted a maximum of seven years. In his own view, however, the Teacher continued to be the unique high priest of all the people of Israel—even after his removal from office—to the end of his life.

Thus, the authority of the Teacher of Righteousness as a religious leader rested, on the one hand, on the traditional authority of a high priest; on the other hand, with his deposition from the Temple in Jerusalem, he also achieved the rank of an authoritative leader of a religious community.

In the fragmentary commentary on Psalm 37 already referred to (4QpPs^a), he is described as “the priest, the Teacher of [Righteousness] whom God called to arise, and whom He appointed to build up for Him a community of [holiness (?)] and guided him to His truth.” According to this text, God himself granted the Teacher special authority, 045making him the founder of this community, and “guided him to His truth” in the sense that all further decisions of the Teacher proved to be right. This account was obviously formulated by members of the Teacher’s community at a later date.

An additional aspect of the Teacher’s special authority should be mentioned. In the Commentary (or Pesher) on Habakkuk (1QpHab), it is stated that God gave into (the Teacher’s) heart the “insight to explain everything the prophets had told.”² This statement does not imply that the Teacher was regarded, or regarded himself, as a prophet. But by his priestly authority he discerned that what the biblical prophets had written related to their future and that his own days were the time of fulfillment of the prophets’ predictions. His own days were regarded as “the last days” before the final judgment and the everlasting salvation of all Israel.

In contrast, Jesus was not a priest nor an educated religious leader. Nor is there a record that could be historically construed as his “call to office” in the tradition of the New Testament. The historian cannot detect the source of Jesus’ authority. We only know that he began as a follower of John the Baptist. He later became independent of his early “master,” but no information about why this happened or where his new orientations came from has been transmitted to us. The field remains open for speculation.

In my view, Jesus one day experienced “events” that he could not explain in any way other than to conclude that God had started to act on earth again, that is, that the eschatological end-of-days with the final extermination of all evil from the world had already set in. His basic experience may have been the “withdrawal of demons” from ill people and their sudden return to health without the application of any technical magical healing practices. No one except God could have done that. Jesus saw himself as integral to this process: “If I by the ‘finger of God’ [i.e., solely by God’s own power] cast out the demons, the kingdom of God is already established amidst you” (Luke 11:20; cf. Matthew 12:28).

Later, his adherents, or the Christian communities, considered him to be a mediator of the kingdom of God, the royal Messiah, “the Son of God” and so on. To Jesus himself, however, such views were quite strange; he was witness to and involved in God’s actions, but he did not feel that he alone had the leading role or function in this cosmic drama.

How can one describe the authority of Jesus within the framework of such indirect religious leadership? He was not like John the Baptist, who was born into a priestly family and, therefore, could become a mediator, who was “more than a prophet” (Matthew 11:9; Luke 7:26). By baptizing a penitent people, John could save them from their approaching punishment in the final judgment. Jesus, however, did not consider himself to be such a priestly mediator. All his authority came from the acting God and from Jesus’ own followers. He did not think of himself as possessing a specific personal authority. He became a “leader” only by extra-personal authority drawn from God from the people and, afterwards, from the belief of the Christian communities in his resurrection.

We have looked at the different authority of these two religious leaders. Now let us look at the relation of each to his followers.

From the Thanksgiving Hymns, we learn that the Teacher of Righteousness had a distinct group of individuals associated with him, whom he called nismede sodi, “servants of my council,” or ’anshe ‘asati, “members of my Directory Board” (1QH 5.24). These close adherents of the Teacher were not identical with the common members of his community, whom he denotes in the previous line as re‘ai, “my fellows,” as ba’e briti, “they who entered my covenant,” and as no‘adai, “they who are appointed to me” (1QH 5.23). As a leader of his community, he had, therefore, a close inner circle of men of special confidence, perhaps his “followers” from the Temple, who became his counselors in problematic affairs afterwards in his community.

The organizational system of the Teacher’s community was hierarchical, with strict obedience expected from the lower to the upper ranks. As long as the Teacher lived, all final decisions were his. He was their unique religious leader. This role did not derive from his personal authority or the persuasive power of his teaching. His leadership derived exclusively from his permanent function as a high priest of “all Israel,” even if recognition of his role was now limited to the members of his community. This community, historically, included more than 4,000 Essenes—a very high number of members compared with more than 6,000 Pharisees and only a few hundreds of Sadducees and of Zealots—in the time of Jesus.

The Gospel of John reports that the first followers of Jesus were former “disciples” of John the Baptist, who sent them to Jesus (John 1:35ff.). The idea that John the Baptist “sent” them to Jesus may be a secondary tradition; but it may be true that some of Jesus’ first adherents had formerly joined John the Baptist, but “followed” Jesus after the death of their master, or—more likely—after Jesus started his own “preaching.” Others of his followers may have been people whom he “healed” from their demons (see, e.g., Mark 5:18–20; Luke 8:2–3), or people impressed by his deeds or by his 046preaching (see, e.g., Luke 19:1–10).³

Contrary to the descriptions in the Gospels, Jesus did not want a circle of close adherents permanently accompanying him, either as “followers” or as “disciples.” According to some New Testament traditions, most of which are gathered in Matthew 10, Jesus sent his disciples away to other places to tell their own experiences of the new “kingdom of God” on earth, to preach that kingdom and to drive out demons. Jesus never initiated a close circle of followers, nor anything resembling a “community” or a “church.” During his lifetime there were only some devoted disciples who regarded him as their “master.” The organizational framework of his followers actually developed only after his death. Jesus preferred to divert his followers’ faith to the God acting in the world, not to his own person. He became a religious leader of sorts against his will, very much in contrast to the Teacher of Righteousness of the Essenes’ community, a small group of whom—only about 50 members—settled at Qumran after the Teacher’s death.

Despite Jesus’ personal inclinations, his followers perceived his deeds and teachings as testifying to his personal qualifications as their “master” and “prophet.” In their belief, Jesus was authorized by God to establish the final truth. In this indirect way, Jesus became a “religious leader,” without ever having claimed this function or having assumed such a role.

Let us return now to the Teacher of Righteousness. It was impossible to have two high priests in Judaism at the same time. According to the personal claim of the Teacher of Righteousness, he had been and remained the unique leader of “all Israel,” even if, due to circumstances, his authority was acknowledged temporarily only by one segment of a split community, the synagogue Asidaion, “association of pious people,” of Maccabean times. The opposing leader of the other part of that community, later known as the Pharisees (i.e., “dissenters”), was condemned as “the liar who flouted the Law” (1QpHab 5.11–12). The Teacher of Righteousness believed that Jonathan, the Maccabean high priest who then officiated at the Temple, should resign from office and follow the halakhah, the religious law, according to the interpretation of the Torah that he, the Teacher of Righteousness, offered. This claim is clearly demonstrated by the letter known as 4QMMT, in which the Teacher of Righteousness excoriates the lunar calendar used in the Temple and many laws of the reigning Jerusalem Temple authorities.

After the death of the Teacher of Righteousness—probably close to the end of the second century B.C.E.—no successor was acknowledged as the true high priest or the unique leader of the Essenes’ community. This community continued to exist within Judaism, at least until the first Jewish revolt against the Romans (66–73 C.E.). After the death of its founder, this group was guided by a council of twelve (lay-)men and three priests (1QS 8.1 [Manual of Discipline]), who were at the same time under the leading authority of the Zadokite priests of this group as a collective responsibility.

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Jesus, by contrast, did not achieve his uniqueness as a religious leader in opposition to some other Jewish leader. He became independent from John the Baptist, but never his opponent (see, e.g., Matthew 11:7–11//Luke 7:24–28). If indeed he was in conflict with the high priest of his time (see Mark 14:60–64; John 18:19–21), this was a last episode shortly before his death, and had no importance for his self-image during his lifetime.

During his lifetime Jesus believed that God had begun to establish his everlasting reign on earth. Jesus did not believe in the coming of a “messiah,” or even conceive of himself as such. Neither Jesus nor anyone else could assume an “official” role where the almighty God himself was acting. The high priest in Jerusalem and his traditional function on the Day of Atonement were no longer necessary if a sinless “people of God” started to spread throughout the world. The religious leaders of the Sadducees, of the Essenes, of the Pharisees, of the Zealots and of all other Jewish groups or organizations were rendered totally unnecessary wherever God himself had taken over.

In accord with this concept, Jesus did not claim uniqueness, nor was such uniqueness attributed to him. Uniqueness was attributed exclusively to God and to the events of his present final coming, the inauguration of which Jesus experienced in his lifetime, an event never before experienced nor ever to be experienced again in the future.

But, quite independent of his self-understanding, some of Jesus’ followers even during his lifetime began to regard him as their unique “master” or “religious teacher.” After his death, they continued to believe in his function as their religious leader. Progressively, they included Jesus within the uniqueness of God’s acting-in-history, and in this way Jesus finally was cast in the role of the unique savior of all humanity. This aspect of Christian belief cannot be traced back to the historical Jesus who attributed all uniqueness of leadership to God alone.

The Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus were both Jews, but they became religious leaders under rather different historical circumstances, and they represented quite different aspects and tendencies of Second Temple Judaism. They are similar, perhaps, in that their adherents’ fervor made them unique leaders for all time, to a future end-of-days. Concomitantly their followers held that all other branches of Judaism were in error. But here the similarity ends. While the Teacher of Righteousness was indeed the unique religious leader of “all Israel” during his lifetime, Jesus, by contrast, attributed uniqueness to God alone. Jesus did not consider himself to be a religious “leader” or the royal “messiah.” He was merely a witness to God’s eschatological deeds, in which he was involved. He conveyed his observations to others, commented on them and argued against opponents who did not believe his view of the now-acting God. Jesus did not interpret the Torah or the Prophets better than others, nor did he perform miracles to convince others of his own religious power. But whatever he did or said, his followers felt themselves “guided” by his views—or by his deeds. In this indirect way, Jesus became a religious leader of his time, an everlasting “master” for his followers, and finally the founder of a new community, the Christian Church. Thus, after his death he gained a status that, in some respects, is similar to that which the Teacher of Righteousness enjoyed, at least within his community, already during his lifetime.

Although the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus each arose as a result of circumstances that were perhaps typical for that time, each was a unique figure, and the types of religious leadership they exemplified were not similar—indeed they were both atypical for Judaism. Never again did Judaism—or Christianity—produce a religious leader like the Teacher of Righteousness or like Jesus.

In the centuries that followed, the typical religious leader in Judaism became the sage, or the rabbi. At first, he was a doresh ha-torah, an “interpreter of the Torah,” and later also a doresh dibre ha-hakhamim, an “interpreter of the sayings of the sages.” There was no longer any need for this kind of interpreter to be of priestly stock; laymen could exercise the same kind of authority. These rabbis were for the most part heads of schools in Mesopotamia or in Palestine.

Early Christianity, on the other hand, was marked by a rather diffuse plurality of religious leadership in its beginnings. Some types emerged from Judaism, others from Hellenistic patterns. At first, “the Twelve” existed in Jerusalem as representatives of the eschatological Israel; their true function, however, is as yet unknown. Afterwards, three styloi, “pillars,” were the leaders of the Christian community in Jerusalem (Galatians 2:9), while other local communities were headed by an apostolos, “apostle,” who had founded them, much as Paul had founded such local communities in Asia Minor and in Greece. Other Christian communities were guided—like synagogues—by a collective group of (seven) presbyteroi, “elders.”

Only after a century of pluralistic Christianity did a special type of episkopos, “bishop,” begin to attain religious leadership, at first as the head of a local community and later as a representative of a broader segment of the church. This specific 063Christian type of religious leader put its stamp on the church during the centuries when the sages were active in rabbinic Judaism. The roots of the office of the bishop are still debated. Perhaps it first developed from an organizing function in Hellenistic associations and only later received its religious connotation; alternatively, perhaps the bishop continues the function of the Essenes’ mebaqqer, “overseer.” But whatever its origins, the Christian bishop and the Jewish rabbi exemplified quite different types of religious leadership—and their leadership also differed from the kind of religious leadership exemplified by the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus.

Thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls, we know the different uniqueness of the Teacher of Righteousness and of Jesus, their different relationship to God and to their followers, and also some differences in their teaching and behavior. Without the Qumran scrolls, much of the Jewish background of Jesus would still be unknown to us. Now the light from Qumran illuminates as well some of the darkness of Judaism in the late Second Temple period, which forms the true background of the beginnings of Christianity.

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 […]