The “Pierced Messiah” Text—An Interpretation Evaporates

080

Not long after the unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls became accessible last autumn, Professor Robert Eisenman of California State University, Long Beach, disclosed that he had discovered among the hitherto secret manuscripts a small, five-line fragment that has since become known as the Pierced Messiah text.

Eisenman did not reveal his discovery in the usual way, in a scholarly journal supported by the customary apparatus, but by a press release sent to the media. The story was immediately reported in newspapers all over the world. The New York Times headlined the story, “Reference to Execution of Messianic Leader Is Found in Scrolls.” This simply echoed the title of the press release: “California State University Scholar Finds Text Referring to the Execution of a Messianic Leader in the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls.” A London newspaper, the Independent, stated, “According to Robert Eisenman … , the fragment says that the Messiah will be killed. And references to ‘piercings’ in the fifth line of the text suggest that the killing might take the form of a crucifixion.” In short, Eisenman believes that the Dead Sea Scroll sect and the early Christian Church shared the notion of a slain messiah. For Eisenman, this text, “of the most far-reaching significance” (his press release), is “a missing link between [Judaism and Christianity]” (as quoted from the Chicago Tribune). Now, we are told, both Christianity and Judaism shared the concept of a slain messiah.

Geza Vermes, professor emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford University and director of the newly established Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies, convened a seminar to consider this allegedly explosive text. The seminar was attended by some 20 experts from Oxford, Cambridge, London and Reading Universities, as well as by an American scholar. Their conclusion was unanimous: The fragment does not speak of a slain messiah.

What follows is a summary of the account of the seminar published by Vermes, “The Oxford Forum for Qumran Research: Seminar on the Rule of War from Cave 4 (4Q285),” Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (Spring 1992), pp. 85–90, combined with an article he published in the London Jewish Chronicle (January 10, 1992). Vermes has checked this summary and has added a fresh note (endnote 6) on the meaning of “piercing.”—Ed.

The controversial text, known as 4Q285 (Palestine Archaeological Museum photograph 43.325), measures approximately 1.6 by 2 inches. The critical Hebrew word, hmytw, which figures in line 4, can be vocalized and understood in two different ways. Hebrew is usually written only with consonants. Certain consonants (h, w and y) are, however, sometimes used as substitutes for vowels, known as matres lectionis (mothers of reading). In hmytw, y and w (but not h) serve as vowels. Nevertheless, the word can still be vocalized, as we shall see, in more than one way, resulting in very different meanings. If read hemitu, the word could indicate the execution of the messianic figure. But if the reading is hemito, the verb would state that the messianic figure kills another male person. Obviously this difference is critical to a proper understanding of the text. And the only basis for deciding which reading is correct is the context.

There is no question that messianism was important to the Qumran sectarians. Many of their texts reflect this. From these, we learn that Qumran messianism incorporated elements of the Biblical doctrine relating to the future liberator of Israel, but restructured them in accordance with the sect’s own religious outlook. In addition to the traditional victorious king-messiah, the shoot of David or new David (Isaiah 9:1–7; Jeremiah 17:25, Jeremiah 33:15ff.; Ezekiel 34:23f.; Zechariah 3:8, Zechariah 6:12, etc.), the Qumran sectarians envisaged a priest-messiah, and perhaps even a prophet-messiah.

The messianic king, also designated “Messiah of Israel,” “Prince of the Congregation” and “Branch of David,” appears in several Qumran documents.

The scrolls depart from mainstream Judaism, however, in their assertion that the messiah of Aaron (the priest-messiah) would take precedence over the royal messiah at meetings and at the messianic banquet (IQSa 2:11–22).

In short, the Qumran sect envisaged, unlike Christianity, two messiahs—one kingly and the other priestly. They would rule at the end of days, which, according to the Qumran sectarians, was imminent. The Community Rule (1QS) even suggests a third messiah, a prophet-messiah, speaking of “the coming of the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (IQS 9:11).

Prior to the claim made by Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise of the University of Chicago, co-translators of the small Qumran fragment, no one mentioned the existence of a Qumran belief in a slain messiah. Although the new text is very fragmentary, with the beginning and the end of each line missing, most of the surviving part is clearly legible. Line 1 refers to “Isaiah the prophet.” Line 2 preserves the beginning of Isaiah 11:1: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse.” Jesse is King David’s father; the “stump of Jesse” [or, as Eisenman prefers to translate it, the “root of Jesse”—Ed.] is the standard formula referring to the messianic return of the Davidic line. Indeed, line 3 mentions the Branch of David and line 4 mentions the Prince of the Congregation and the Bran[ch of David]. There is no doubt that this is a messianic text of some importance.

Line 5 contains the critical word mentioned earlier, hmytw. Is the messianic figure doing the killing or is he killed?

Several Biblical commentaries that scholars call pesharim (singular, pesher) have been found at Qumran. Other Qumran texts also quote the Hebrew Bible. In these cases, the passage following the Biblical quotation is best understood as an 081interpretation of the preceding passage. As noted, line 2 in the so called Pierced Messiah text is a quotation from Isaiah 11:1. To appreciate this Biblical passage and its significance for the interpretation of the matter that follows, it will be helpful to have before us the passage of Isaiah from which the quotation comes:

“But a shoot shall grow out of the stump of Jesse,

A twig shall sprout from his stock.

The spirit of the Lord shall alight upon him:

A spirit of wisdom and insight,

A spirit of counsel and valor,

A spirit of devotion and reverence for the Lord.

He shall sense the truth by his reverence for the Lord:

He shall not judge by what his eyes behold,

Nor decide by what his ears perceive.

Thus he shall judge the poor with equity

And decide with justice for the lowly of the land.

He shall strike down a land with the rod of his mouth

And slay the wicked with the breath of his lips.

Justice shall be the girdle of his loins,

And faithfulness the girdle of his waist.”

Isaiah 11:1–5

The Prince of the Congregation, referred to in line 4 of the Qumran text, is no doubt synonymous with the Branch of David, that is, the messiah. Both the verbs “to judge” and “to slay” (= “to kill”) appear in the fragment. They also appear in this passage from Isaiah. In the passage from Isaiah, the messianic figure does the judging and the killing (Isaiah 11:4). Thus, this passage provides an unimpeachable sense within the Isaiah context of a victorious messiah, rather than a messiah who is slain.

This interpretation is entirely consistent with other sectarian texts from Qumran. A commentary on Isaiah (4Q161, fragments 8–10) cites this same passage from Isaiah and then applies this passage to the triumphant eschatological “[Branch] of David” (line 16), who is to rule over all the nations and judge them by his sword (lines 20–21).

Likewise, in the Blessing of the Prince of the Congregation from another Qumran text (1QSb 5:20–29) inspired by this same passage from Isaiah, the messiah figure is expected to destroy the earth and slay the wicked (or the wicked one).

082

Another element supports the interpretation that in the so-called Pierced Messiah fragment the messianic figure does the slaying. This Qumran fragment is not a five-line fragment—it includes part of a cut-off sixth line. [Eisenman did not attempt to decipher this sixth line, which is sliced in half.—Ed.] This line contains the upper part of only eight letters. These partial letters, enhanced by the Oxford computer, can now be identified (see figure, where the partial letters are much easier to see than in the accompanying photo of the fragment). This line contains the phrase, “[the s]lai[n] of the Kitti[m].” In another well-known Qumran scroll, the Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness, this phrase is used in reference to the defeated final enemy (1QM 16:18, 19:13). In the same manuscript, the Jewish war leader is called the Prince of the Congregation (1QM 5:1).

By a somewhat indirect path, Kittim can be identified as the fallen one whom the messiah figure defeats in the fragment we have been considering. Line 2 of the fragment begins with three letters (one only partial) before the quotation from Isaiah 11:1. As Dr. Timothy H. Lim, the secretary of the Oxford Forum, noted, these are the last three letters of the preceding verse in Isaiah, that is, Isaiah 10:34, so the manuscript must originally have contained this verse as well. Knowing this helps with our interpretation. Isaiah 10:34 reads as follows:

“The thickets of the forest will be cut down with an axe,

and Lebanon by a majestic one will fall.”

In a Qumran Cave 4 manuscript already referred to, the Commentary on Isaiah, the fallen trees and Lebanon are identified as the Kittim, conquered by the “majestic one,” that is, God’s “great one,” the Branch of David, leader of the House of Israel, who is called Prince of the Congregation. Indeed, the association in Isaiah 10:34 of Lebanon and its cedars with the final enemy of Israel is part of mainstream Jewish exegetical tradition.¹ An atmosphere of eschatologial victory permeates all these texts. The partially preserved sixth line tells who is slain the Kittim—and since the verb “to kill” is followed by “him” in the singular, possibly the king of the Kittim, mentioned in 1QM 15:2. It should be recalled here that according to 2 Baruch 40, the ruler of Rome was to be judged and put to death by the Jewish messiah.²

In brief, the whole exegetical context of the sectarian texts from Qumran, and all the parallel uses of the titles “Prince of the Congregation”³ and “Branch of David”⁴ in that corpus, point to a triumphant messiah, Branch of David. Nothing would justify an understanding of line 4 in our fragment as indicating that the messiah figure was slain on an eschatological battlefield.⁵ On the contrary, everything points to his triumph over the Kittim.⁶

Not long after the unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls became accessible last autumn, Professor Robert Eisenman of California State University, Long Beach, disclosed that he had discovered among the hitherto secret manuscripts a small, five-line fragment that has since become known as the Pierced Messiah text.