Are We Still Searching for the Teacher of Righteousness?

THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the figure known as the Teacher of Righteousness has captivated both scholarly and popular imagination. On the basis of the limited evidence available, early scroll scholars created a portrait of the teacher as a religious and political figure who established the scroll community in the face of fierce opposition. Some even identified this individual with the high priest and Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus or a historical figure known as Judah the Essene referenced by Josephus.^a

But how does the early assessment of the Teacher of Righteousness hold up after decades of additional discovery and study? How might we reimagine this figure, given what we now know about both the scrolls and the site of Qumran?

Among the more than 950 scrolls that have been discovered, the Teacher of Righteousness is explicitly mentioned in just two: the Damascus Document and the Commentary on Habakkuk. In addition, the Thanksgiving Hymns have long served as the third leg for historical understandings of the teacher.

The Damascus Document offers a chronology that, at least to early scholars, appeared to situate the Teacher of Righteousness in the mid-second century BCE. The Commentary on Habakkuk played a similar role in the historical identification of the teacher and his contemporaries. The latter’s references to the “Teacher of Righteousness,” the “Sons of Zadok,” and the “Man of the Lie” linked it early on to the Damascus Document. The Commentary is still considered to be the most important text for understanding the teacher, whom it presents in a dramatic rivalry with other figures who contended with him for authority. Some argued that it was necessary to identify these figures with known historical individuals, and proceeded to do so, generally in ways that accorded with a second-century chronology.

Scholarly assessments of the historical value of the Commentary have undergone significant change, however, moving from strong optimism to dark pessimism. For instance, the second-century dating derived from the Damascus Document and affirmed by once-established interpretations of the Commentary has been vigorously challenged by new understandings of Qumran. Jodi Magness’s examination of the site’s archaeology has posed a serious challenge to the long-standing view that Qumran was established in the second century, arguing instead for a first-century date.¹ Her compelling reexamination of the site, independent of the textual evidence, has forced scholars to reevaluate the second-century theories about the identification of the teacher and other “historical” figures.

In addition to the Damascus Document and the Commentary, early scholars turned to a third source for their understanding of the teacher: the Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot). Early on, Eliezar Sukenik proposed that certain hymns from this scroll were the autobiographical meditations of the teacher himself. Sukenik based this theory on his own readings of the vivid imagery and emotional character of these first-person hymns, specifically those found in columns 9–17 of the scroll, a subgroup that quickly became known as the Teacher Hymns. Similarly, in 1956, Frederick F. Bruce wrote that “many of [the hymns] strike a personal note which strongly suggests that they were first composed to express the experience and devotion of one man, and that one man could hardly have been anybody other than the Teacher of Righteousness.”² Such a view was largely driven by the strong voice of the speaker in these hymns and their supposed allusions to events detailed in other texts, such as the Commentary, especially passages that speak of the teacher’s rivals.

While some scroll scholars were persuaded by the truth-telling quality of these supposedly autobiographical writings, I have argued that such works follow the predictable contours of fiction, with only the illusory effects of historical writing.³ So the assumption that historical facts can be recovered from first-person prayers is methodologically problematic. Based on studies of the abundant prayers from the scrolls, we know that the compositional techniques for such texts relied heavily on stereotypical phrases and biblical language, thus making it very difficult to extract reliable historical information.

Moreover, the unique characteristics and striking imagery of the hymns led to the problematic reasoning that there could have been only one such remarkable individual in the community. Such a claim clearly presumes a scrolls community that emerged at a single decisive moment, a view that was resoundingly refuted in recent decades with the work on the Community Rule.⁴

Now that all of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been published, scholars are acutely aware that no new textual evidence has emerged about the Teacher of Righteousness. As a result, new perspectives on the teacher require a revised assessment of the evidence we already have. In one such approach, Charlotte Hempel has described the primary driving force behind Qumran scholarship as one of historical reconstruction.⁵ Hempel illustrates a visible shift away from historical origins with two brilliant (albeit quite modern) analogies to represent the changing understandings of the Teacher of Righteousness: (1) John Wayne as he gallops onto the scene to rescue a community in distress and (2) the veiled and more obscure Wizard of Oz whose persona looms larger than his actual reality. As she and others have shown, one of the major areas of development in understanding the scrolls is the recognition that the texts do not reflect the unmediated concerns of one group, but instead should be appreciated as offering highly mediated understandings of multiple communities and experiences over time.

Meanwhile, scholars of religion have moved away from attempting to reconstruct historical origins and are now more interested in recovering how these texts reflect the lived experience of religion. They no longer read the texts about the teacher at face value, instead highlighting the possibility that the teacher was a conceptual or even mythical figure emerging from the exegesis of biblical prophetic texts.

Additionally, the key text associated with the teacher—the Commentary on Habakkuk—is highly dramatic and vivid, presenting the teacher within a supercharged conflict with his rivals. Such scenes prime readers’ sympathies, urging them to reexperience these foundational events (whether historical or mythical) and to respond emotionally to the conflict and the tragic experiences of betrayal and outrage over the behavior of wicked enemies. Such emotional responses can contribute in significant ways to the formation of group identity.⁶

Although early understandings of the Teacher of Righteousness were marked by an optimism concerning what can be reconstructed from this time period, scholars today are no longer convinced that it is possible to recover such a historical figure with certainty. Instead, their attention is redirected to questions about the religious beliefs, practices, and traditions of the Qumran community, insofar as they can be reconstructed from the writings that have survived.