More on the Pierced Messiah Text from Eisenman and Vermes

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Few of the recently published Dead Sea Scrolls have generated as much controversy as payment 4Q285, popularly known as the Pierced Messiah text. The debate over its meaning has raged in the pages of this magazine. Now two of the principal scholars in that debate, Robert Eisenman, chair of the department of religious studies at California State University, Long Beach, and Geza Vermes, director of the Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, continue their discussion of this fascinating text.

Now that everyone has had their say about the so-called Pierced Messiah text,^a isn’t it about time I had mine?

The reason I released this text to the press in November 1991 should be seen in the light of what was transpiring then, not hindsight. “Establishment” scholars were insisting there was nothing of interest in the unpublished corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls and nothing of consequence relating to Christian origins in Palestine. I disagreed; but neither Professor [Michael] Wise nor myself considered the version of the text we released a final one, only preliminary. We are, however, glad that this text has now engendered the kind of international debate it has. That was the whole point of the exercise—free and unrestricted debate.

But I do not enjoy being mischaracterized by BAR, by the New York Times or by Professor [Geza] Vermes of Oxford. It is too easy to set up a straw man and proceed to demolish him. I never said there was a concept of a “suffering Messiah” at Qumran and, in fact, never thought this to be the case. To be precise, this interpretation, quoted in the AP wire report and refurbished in the New York Times, was originally Professor Wise’s. I don’t know if he still holds it. My point was that Isaiah 53:5 [“He was wounded for our transgressions… and by his bruises we were healed”] was one of several messianic proof texts being evoked in this tiny fragment, nothing more.

I am perfectly comfortable with Professor Vermes’ interpretation of this text, which was actually first voiced by Professor [Ben Zion] Wacholder and Martin Abegg, not by him. I prefer it, as it fits in better with my own theory—as anyone who is familiar with my work would know—about the militant, aggressive, xenophobic, nationalist and vengeful ethos of the group responsible for these writings at Qumran. I would prefer that this fragment be tacked on to the apocalyptic and militant War Scroll and its evocation of Daniel 7’s “Messiah coming on the clouds of Heaven” with the Heavenly Host to render final apocalyptic judgment on all the sons of men—if it can be. But I am not sure it can—see Professor Tabor’s latest piece in the BAR 18:06, which is as at least as convincing as Professor Vermes’ (see “Bits & Pieces,” BAR 18:06).

If your readers really want to know what I think about this text and not some compilation of second- and third-hand newspaper accounts, they should consult my discussion of it under the title “The Messianic Leader (Nasi)” in the Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered by myself and Michael Wise (Element Books, 1992; reviewed in “A First Look at Key Scrolls,” in this issue).

In short, my motives for releasing this so-called Pierced Messiah text were: (1) to gainsay the notion that there was nothing interesting in the unpublished corpus and to show the importance of free and unimpeded access to all texts—this, I think, we accomplished; and (2) to show that the links between early Christianity and Qumran were much closer than previously thought, that is, both were operating within the same messianic context or using the same messianic proof texts—no matter how you interpret them.

All the rest for me is sheer smokescreen and dissimulation aimed at confusing the issue. To me, it matters not a jot whether “the Messianic Leader” was “putting” or “being put to death.” What is important about this text is the reference to an “execution” of some kind within the framework of familiar Judeo-Christian messianic prophecy. Given the present state of preservation of the text, it is doubtful we shall ever know the truth about it, though I still think our reading makes more sense than Vermes’ when viewed in and of itself. (The string of appositives in line 4 of the text, beginning with “the Nasi ha-‘Edah the Br[anch of David…],” is just too long to be accusative, even without the presence of the Hebrew object indicator et—often missing in Second Temple texts even at Qumran.)

What I object to in Professor Vermes’ behavior is that he acts as if he and his colleagues found this text after 35 years and not us. With all due respect to Messrs. Rochblatt and Galindo of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena (see their letter to the editor, Queries & Comments, BAR 18:06), I have no desire to attend conferences Vermes calls on texts we discovered. In his dismissive response to their letter, Vermes inadvertently demonstrates another point I have been making all along about the control exercised over publication and discussion in this field by an “academic curia” of sorts. I wonder would he have published our interpretation of this text last year in the Journal of Jewish Studies that he controls? I doubt it.

Though feigning objectivity and disinterestedness (cf. Time, Sept. 21, where Vermes claims he only wants “to find out what this text means”—as if we don’t), I consider him no different than other scholarly “clerics” who so long controlled the texts and with whom he appears to be of such a similar mindset, trying to rescue “the uniqueness” of Jesus. This has been the leitmotif of Qumran studies from the mid-1950s to the present and still to a certain extent appears to be going on.

Your readers should note Vermes’ words in the introduction to his first edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin 1962): “The Teacher of Righteousness… was without the genius of Christ who laid bare the inner core of spiritual truth and exposed the essence of religion as an existential relationship between man and man, and between man and God” (italics mine). The same words appear in the most recent, third edition, of 1987; nor does Vermes seem to have ever felt he needed to delete them.

His view is no different from that of Abbé Milik in his introduction to Ten Years of Discovery in the Judean Wilderness (translated into English by the illustrious John Strugnell in 1959): “Although Essenism bore in itself more than one element that one way or another fertilized the soil from which Christianity was to spring, it is nevertheless evident that the latter religion represents something completely new which can only be adequately explained by the person of Jesus himself.”

Compare this with Vermes’ statement in a not dissimilar vein: “Compared with the ultraconservatism and rigidity of the Essene Rule [as reflected in Qumran literature], orthodox Judaism appears progressive and flexible, and beside Essenism and Rabbinic orthodoxy the Christian revolution stands out invested with inspired actuality” (italics again mine).

Vermes’ translations of the Qumran texts are in line with these theological preconceptions and are sometimes equally tendentious. He seems to go out of his way to downplay and obscure connections to Palestinian Christianity. For example, highly charged words like “works” he renders by the less threatening “deeds” or “acts.” A key concept like “the Holy Spirit” he reduces to “spirit of holiness.” “Messiah” he often renders by the innocuous “anointed one.”

Finally, may I make a point about the way my thought is presented by some who would simplistically reduce my position to inanity. I do not claim that all the Scrolls are Jewish/Christian/Ebionite/Early Christian, or what have you. No one who has read my Maccabees, Zadakites, Christians and Qumran (Leiden, 1983) could possibly think that. What I do claim is that the last stages of the movement represented by the literature at Qumran—and it is a movement—moves directly into what we call 067Jewish Christianity in Palestine or the Jerusalem Church of James the Just, and is all but indistinguishable from it.

Geza Vermes replies:

I note with satisfaction that Professor Robert Eisenman now declares himself “perfectly comfortable” with my reconstruction and interpretation of 4Q285 and would even “prefer” it. On the other hand, I am disturbed by his remark that this theory was “first voiced” by Professor Ben Zion Wacholder and Dr. Martin Abegg. If so, I was certainly unaware of it in the spring of 1992, when my original paper appeared in the Journal of Jewish Studies.

As for Professor Eisenman’s personal attack on me, let me make three points.

1. Far from agreeing with J. T. Milik’s statement, cited by Professor Eisenman, that what is “completely new” in Christianity “can only be adequately explained by the person of Jesus,” I hold the diametrically opposite view, namely that the teaching of Jesus and of Judeo-Christianity are strictly part and parcel of Palestinian Second Temple Judaism, and that Christian novelty derives essentially from the subsequent presentation and development of this message, “revised and edited” for a non-Jewish audience in the pagan world of Late Antiquity.

2. The idea of a theological “uniqueness of Jesus” is foreign to me. I consider him, in the footsteps of Joseph Klausner and Martin Buber, as an outstanding Galilean charismatic master, steeped in Judaism, and my purpose in writing Jesus the Jew has been to establish this fact and thus reclaim him for the Jewish world to which he belongs.

3. For years, I have been on the record as arguing that many of the teachings, customs, rituals and the actual organization of the primitive Christian church have close links with the Qumran (for me, Essene) community, and that the former must have been influenced by, or modeled on, the latter.

Having put my cards on the table, I am happy to leave it to the readers of BAR to decide, in the light of my published work as a whole, and especially Jesus the Jew and The Religion of Jesus the Jew (now in press), whether they find the slightest substance in Professor Eisenman’s allegations.

Finally, to use for the promotion of the common good the opportunity afforded by this personal clash, may I propose that BAR commission a series of articles by leading scholars who, each from a different point of view, would take stock of the situation regarding the relationship between Qumran, the New Testament and early Christianity and outline, in this Year Two of the Liberation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, new tasks and perspectives for the next stage of scholarly endeavour in these overlapping disciplines.

Few of the recently published Dead Sea Scrolls have generated as much controversy as payment 4Q285, popularly known as the Pierced Messiah text. The debate over its meaning has raged in the pages of this magazine. Now two of the principal scholars in that debate, Robert Eisenman, chair of the department of religious studies at California State University, Long Beach, and Geza Vermes, director of the Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, continue their discussion of this fascinating text. Now that everyone has had their say about the so-called Pierced Messiah text,a isn’t […]