The device of pseudepigraphy offered many advantages to writers of the hellenistic period, most obviously the prestige of antiquity.¹ In the pseudepigraphic writings found at Qumran, another factor is prominent. Several of them utilize the antiquity of the pseudonymous author to present a pseudo-prophecy that outlines a long expanse of history after the fact. Examples are found in the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch; in Daniel 10-12; in Jubilees 23; in 4Q390 (Pseudo-Moses) and in the Pseudo-Daniel fragments. This device of prophecy after the fact, authorized by a venerable pseudonym, is well known throughout the hellenistic world from Persia to Rome. On the one hand, it conveys a sense that history is pre-determined, since it could be predicted centuries in advance. On the other, it inspires confidence in the real prediction with which these prophecies typically conclude. There is another feature of these prophecies, on which I wish to focus here, which comes at or near the point of transition between prophecy after the fact and real prediction. This concerns the rise of an elect group which is foretold from ancient times and thereby legitimated. It is reasonable to suppose that the real authors of the works in question belonged to these elect groups.

    Since the best known elect group to emerge in the second century BCE was the Dead Sea sect, the question of the relationship between these pseudepigraphic writings and that sect inevitably arises. Many scholars have argued that the books of Enoch and Jubilees derive from a parent movement of the Dead Sea sect, and Daniel is sometimes also included in the same broad movement.² In her contribution to the Madrid Qumran Congress, Devorah Dimant claimed that the Pseudo-Moses text, 4Q390, "now provides for the first time solid textual data for reconstructing different strands within the growing corpus of works related to the Qumran community."³ While this claim, in my opinion, exaggerates the significance of the Pseudo-Moses text, we do indeed have a complex body of data relevant to this issue. In this paper I wish to take up Dimant's challenge by outlining some of the different strands in this literature and reflecting on the significance of the pseudepigraphic attributions.

The Enoch Apocalypses

    The figure of Enoch is the subject of a few enigmatic verses in Genesis: he lived 365 years; then he walked with Myhl) and was no more, for God took him.⁴ It would seem that he was already associated with the solar calendar in Genesis. His primary qualification as a pseudepigraphic author, however, lies in the claim that he walked with Myhl), whether that word is understood to refer to God or to angels. Enoch's journeys to the ends of the earth in the Book of the Watchers may be understood as an attempt to spell out how he walked with Myhl). Consequently, he was uniquely qualified to impart wisdom about the mysteries of cosmos and history. The earliest Enochic writings, the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book, contain compendia of cosmic revelations, including such matters as the movements of the stars, the storehouses of the elements and the abodes of the dead.

    The extant Enoch literature contains several hints there was a community in the hellenistic period that claimed to possess a wisdom derived from Enoch. The clearest allusions to this community are provided by the Apocalypse of Weeks in 1 Enoch 93:1-10; 91:11-17. This apocalypse pays much less attention to cosmic revelations than was the case in the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book. Instead, it presents a schematic outline of patriarchal and Israelite history that highlights a pattern of sin and salvation. In the second week, culminating in the Flood, great wickedness arises, but a man (Noah) is saved. After the Flood, iniquity grows again but at the end of the third week "a man will be chosen as the plant of righteous judgment and after him will come the plant of righteousness for ever." The pattern continues until the seventh week, which is dominated by an apostate generation, but "at its end the chosen righteous from the eternal plant of righteousness will be chosen, to whom will be given sevenfold teaching concerning his whole creation." At this point the course of history changes and sinners are destroyed by the sword. The sword continues to rage in the eighth generation and at the end the elect acquire houses because of their righteousness and "a house will be built for the great king in glory for ever." In the ninth "week" the world is written down for destruction and in the tenth the judgment of the Watchers takes place and the old heaven is replaced with a new one.

    It is clear that the rise of the "chosen righteous" is a pivotal moment in this process and that one of the purposes of the apocalypse is to accredit this group as the elect of God. The author of the Apocalypse of Weeks most probably belonged to the number of the chosen righteous. We are not told much about this group, except that it is given "sevenfold teaching concerning the whole creation." Since the entire apocalypse is attributed to Enoch, it is reasonable to assume that this teaching is related to other books in the Enochic corpus, such as the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book, both of which purport to describe "the whole creation." The Book of the Watchers uses the phrase "the plant of righteousness" to refer to the emergence of righteousness on earth after the Watchers are destroyed (1 Enoch 11:16). Books are important for this group. Enoch reads from books. But the righteous are not necessarily reclusive scholars. They are evidently willing to wield the sword by which the wicked are destroyed. It is arguable that the mention of the sword in the eighth week is a reference to the Maccabean revolt but the apocalypse is clearly written before the building of the "great house" at the end of that week. Even if the sword is part of the real prophecy, however, and is still in the future from the perspective of the real author, it is clear that the Apocalypse endorses the use of violence. We have, then, a group that is both learned, in its way, and militant, playing an active role in implementing the divine judgment.

    If there is doubt as to whether the Apocalypse of Weeks is referring to the Maccabean revolt, there is no such doubt about the Animal Apocalypse. Here too there is an elect group, identified allegorically as "small lambs." The character of this group is even more difficult to discern than was the case in the Apocalypse of Weeks because of the allegorical language. They are said to open their eyes and to see, in contrast to the blindness of their contemporaries. Whether their vision entailed "a sevenfold teaching about all creation," like the Apocalypse of Weeks, is not stated. When we are told that "horns came upon those lambs," however, the symbolism is clear, and when "a big horn grew on one of those sheep" the reference is unmistakably to Judas Maccabee. ⁵ Many scholars have identified the "lambs" with the Hasidim of the Maccabean books who are described as "mighty warriors" (1 Macc. 2:42)⁶ and whose leader is said to be Judas Maccabee (2 Macc. 14:6). The Hasidim may also have been, or at least included, scribes.⁷ In 1 Macc. 7:12-13 the statement that a group of scribes appeared before the High Priest Alcimus is followed by a statement that the Hasidim were the first among the Israelites to seek peace.

    There is no apparent reason why a vision predicting the rise of a militant group should be attributed to Enoch. If militancy were the defining characteristic of the group, more suitable pseudonyms could be found, such as Joshua or Elijah. Presumably the pseudonym was chosen for other reasons and the author of this apocalypse comes from the same circles that produced the other early Enochic writings, such as the Book of the Watchers and the Apocalypse of Weeks. The Animal Apocalypse at least shows familiarity with the myth of the Watchers. It seems reasonable to associate the lambs of the Animal Apocalypse with the chosen righteous of the Apocalypse of Weeks. If the lambs are the circle from which the author of this Enochic apocalypse came, however, we should attribute to them a range of interests in cosmic speculation that are otherwise unattested for the Hasidim. Conversely, the Hasidim are represented in 1 Macc. 2:42 as devoted to the law rather than to esoteric wisdom.⁸ There may have been more than one group of militant scribes that supported the Maccabean revolt.⁹

    If we include the Epistle of Enoch in the profile of the Enoch movement, then this group would seem to come from a socially underprivileged class, despite its literacy, since much of the criticism of the Epistle is directed against the rich. ("Woe to those who build their houses with sin, for from their whole foundation they will be thrown down, and by the sword they will fall; and those who acquire gold and silver will quickly be destroyed in the judgment. Woe to you, you rich, for you have trusted in your riches, but from your riches you will depart, for you did not remember the Most High in the days of your riches," 94:7-8). The Apocalypse of Weeks, also, hopes for "houses" for the righteous in the eschatological time. Again, there is no apparent reason why Enoch should be chosen as the mouthpiece of social criticism. Presumably he was the pseudonym of choice because of the wisdom revealed to him and because of the literate character of the group. The social criticism of the Epistle was incidental to the pseudonymity.

    In her Compendia article of 1984 Devorah Dimant suggested that the "lambs" of the Animal Apocalypse correspond to the Dead Sea sect, which is described as a "plant root" in CD (the Damascus Document).¹⁰ Her main argument is that the time of emergence appears to be the same in both documents. In Col. 1, as the passage is usually read, God causes a "plant root" to spring from Aaron and Israel 390 years after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.¹¹ Dimant takes as her starting point 605 BCE, the date of the accession of Nebuchadnezzar, so that the plant root would emerge in 215 BCE and the Teacher of Righteousness in 195. She also calculates the chronology of the postexilic period in the Animal Apocalypse from 605 BCE and arrives at a date of 199 BCE for the emergence of the lambs. It is doubtful, however, whether the chronological data can be pressed in this way.¹² The 390 years of CD is a symbolic number and should not be taken precisely, and even if it were, the calculation should more reasonably begin from 586 BCE.

    It is true that both the Enochic apocalypses and the Dead Sea sect regard the Second Temple as polluted. (This does not appear to be the case with the Hasidim).¹³ According to the Apocalypse of Weeks, the Second Temple generation is apostate. According to the Animal Apocalypse, the bread offered in the Second Temple was unclean and impure (1 Enoch 90:73). Calendrical disputes, and specifically the solar calendar, figure prominently in both corpora, as does the metaphor of planting.¹⁴ Nonetheless, the character of the "plant root" of CD appears to be quite different from that of the "lambs." The movement in CD is said to grope in blindness at first and then to recognize that they were guilty men. It is, in short, a penitential movement concerned with the observance of the Torah, as CD proceeds to make clear.¹⁵ There is no hint of militancy and the movement does not arise in reaction against foreign rule. Conversely, the Torah of Moses receives scant attention in the Enochic apocalypses and there is no admission of guilt on the part of the "lambs," although they appear to have been in blindness before they began to see. The Torah is acknowledged in the Apocalypse of Weeks (93:6: "a law for all generations") and the Animal Apocalypse singles out Moses as a sheep that became a man (89:38) but the revelations of Enoch are not derived from or based on the Torah of Moses. Enoch came first and his revelations concern matters on which the Torah had little to say. Although the Enochic writings were preserved at Qumran and CD makes reference to the Watchers of heaven, it seems quite unlikely that these two groups should be identified with each other.

Daniel as a Pseudonym

    The name of Daniel is also used to lend authority to a group or movement in the second century BCE. The biblical book of Daniel develops the identity of the protagonist in a collection of Aramaic stories about Jewish courtiers in Babylon. The second half of the book purports to report the visions of one of these sages, which point to climactic events in the hellenistic period. Daniel 11 builds up to a crisis when "the people who know their God stand firm and take action." The heroes of the story, however, are the Mylyk#m, the wise among the people who give instruction to the common people. These are the ones who are singled out to shine like the stars at the resurrection. It is reasonable to suppose that the authors of the Book of Daniel belonged to the circles of these Mylyk#m.¹⁶ Like the elect in the Apocalypse of Weeks, these people are distinguished by their wisdom; as Philip Davies has noted, books play a prominent role in Daniel, even more than in 1 Enoch.¹⁷ Like the "lambs" of the Animal Apocalypse, the Mylyk#m emerge in response to a political crisis. Unlike the lambs, however, they do not appear to take up arms. At most, they regard the Maccabees as "a little help" (11:34) and it is not clear that they regarded them as any help at all. While these Mylyk#m bear some similarity to the group or groups described in the Enoch literature, they can not be simply identified with them. Neither can they be identified with the Torah-oriented tradents of Jubilees or CD, since Daniel barely refers to the Law of Moses.

    The specific associations evoked by the choice of Daniel as a pseudonym would seem to be two-fold. First, there is the claim to revealed wisdom, grounded in Daniel's reputation as an interpreter of dreams and mysterious signs. Second, there is the political context. Daniel functions as adviser and critic to kings and predicts the rise and fall of kingdoms. The apocalyptic predictions of Daniel 7-12 are similarly political in character. If we take the court tales in Daniel 1-6 as in some sense indicative of the social roles to which the Mylyk#m aspired, we might cast them in the role of religious advisers in political affairs, not unlike some of the ancient prophets, but such a correlation of narrative and social roles is admittedly risky.¹⁸

    The name Daniel occurs in three manuscripts found at Qumran which are not part of the Book of Daniel, 4Q243, 244 and 245, known respectively as Pseudo-Daniel a, b, and c.¹⁹ 4Q243 and 244 overlap, and clearly belong to the same manuscript. Milik tentatively proposed that 4Q245 belonged to the same work,²⁰ but this now seems doubtful.²¹ 4Q243-244 present a speech by Daniel in a royal court. His speech is an overview of history, beginning with Noah and the flood and continuing down to the hellenistic period. The document contained several personal names. Only one, Balakros, is preserved. This name was borne by several figures in the early hellenistic period. 4Q245 contains a long list of names. In part, this list gives the names of High Priests from the patriarchal period (Qahath) down to the hellenistic age (Onias, Simon). It then continues with a list of kings, including David, Solomon and Ahaziah. It is difficult to see how these lists could be integrated into the document preserved in 4Q243 and 244. The latter document views Israel in the context of universal history and is concerned with the problem of foreign domination. 4Q245 is focused on the internal history of Israel. The two documents may come from the same or related circles but their relationship seems to be one of complementarity rather than identity. The so-called "Son of God" text, 4Q246, is also often called "Pseudo-Daniel" and uses phrases that are also found in, and probably derived from, the biblical book. Since the name Daniel is not found in the extant fragments, however, we shall not consider it in the present discussion.

    The text preserved in 4Q243 and 4Q244 is in a very fragmentary state. We have 40 fragments of 4Q243 and 14 fragments of 4Q244. Both manuscripts are written in Herodian script (late first century BCE). Milik found affinities between this text and the Book of Daniel in allusions to seventy years and a four kingdom schema, while he found a reference to resurrection in 4Q245. Neither the seventy years nor the four kingdom schema is actually found in the fragments. The reconstruction of "seventy years" seems more plausible than any alternative in 4Q243 fragment 16. The reference, however, is not necessarily to the Exile, as it is in Daniel 9. (4Q390, the Pseudo-Moses text, has two references to seventy years, neither of them in an exilic context). The four kingdom schema is inferred from the fourth line of the same fragment which reads

    ]dq )twlkm )yh. Milik restored )tymdq "first." This reconstruction is problematic on two counts. First, two lines earlier in the same fragment we read that "he will save them." It seems unlikely that an act of salvation would be followed immediately by the inauguration of the first of a series of Gentile kingdoms. Second, if Milik's interpretation were correct this would be the only case where the four kingdom sequence (familiar from the Book of Daniel and the fourth Sibylline Oracle) is inaugurated after deliverance from the Exile.²² The first kingdom is always either Babylon or Assyria. Alternative reconstructions are possible. The phrase can be read as

    )t#ydq )twlkm "holy kingdom" and the passage may be located in the eschatological phase of the prophecy.

    4Q245 survives in four fragments, one of which contains the list of names already noted. The second fragment contains a passage reminiscent of CD 1, where some people are said to wander in blindness. There follows a statement that "these then will rise" (Nwmwqy). Milik saw here a reference to resurrection and a parallel to Daniel 12, but the verb Mwq is not used in Daniel 12 and does not necessarily refer to resurrection. The following line says that some people "will return" (Nwbwty). There is, then, little evidence for direct literary dependence of these texts on the Book of Daniel. There is no mention of dreams or visions in either text. Each refers to a writing and this may have been expounded by Daniel. Both texts presuppose that Daniel is an authoritative source of historical revelations and, while this presupposition may derive from the biblical book, it could arguably be derived from part of the Daniel tradition, such as the stories preserved in Daniel 1-6, which circulated independently before the Maccabean era. The pseudo-Daniel texts do not necessarily derive from the same Mylyk#m to whom we ascribed the Book of Daniel.

    Both 4Q243-4 and 4Q245 appear to have had eschatological conclusions and to have spoken of elect groups in the eschatological time. 4Q243 frg. 24 speaks of the gathering of the elect and frg. 25 seems to imply an eschatological battle ("the land will be filled ... with decayed carcasses"). Pseudo-Daniel a-b shares several motifs with other quasi-prophetic pseudepigrapha of the time. Israel at large lives in error, due to the influence of demonic spirits. Eschatological restoration is the destiny of an elect group which walks in the way of truth, in contrast to the "error" of others. The eventual emergence of this elect group is surely one of the major themes of this work. In this respect it resembles such works as the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks which we have discussed above. Unfortunately little can be said about this group, however, because of the fragmentary state of the text. It seems clear enough that the elect are only a segment of Israel and that their emergence is set in the context of foreign oppression. It is not clear whether they constitute an organized community or are scattered individuals who adhere to the way of truth. There are distinct parallels between the Pseudo-Daniel text and CD in the account of the Exile as the giving of Israel into Nebuchadnezzar's hands, for the desolation of the land (cf. CD 1:12; 5:20. Cf. also 4Q390 1.7-8). Yet there is no mention of a dxy and no unambiguously sectarian language. Pseudo-Daniel's relation to the Dead Sea sect may be analogous to that of Jubilees or the Enoch literature, which were evidently treasured at Qumran but which derived from separate, older movements.

    4Q245 also envisages a group that wanders in blindness and another group that "returns." The key to the provenance of this document, however, lies in the list of names. The priestly names include hynwx (Onias) and, in the following line, Nw(m# (Simeon). The name preceding Simeon ends in N- and the trace of the preceding letter seems more like t than n. It is possible (though not certain) that the text refers to Jonathan and Simon Maccabee (especially since Onias is represented as hynwx, rather than Nnxwy).²³ The final fragment of this text speaks of people wandering "in blindness and error" and envisages some eschatological reversal. It is not clear whether the "error" is due to the priests at the end of the list or to some other cause. Whether the list included the early Maccabees or not, I would suggest that the separate lists of kings and priests was meant to show that the two offices, the kingship and the high priesthood, had always been distinct (even Jonathan and Simon had not laid claim to kingship). In this case, the lists of priests and kings in 4Q245 may be setting up a critique of the combination of priesthood and kingship under the Hasmoneans. Such a critique would be highly compatible with the expectation of two messiahs, of Aaron and Israel, at Qumran.²⁴ While much of this cannot be proven, due to the fragmentary state of the text, it is certainly the case that the Danielic writings focus on political events and institutions, in contrast to the halachic focus of works like Jubilees and the Damascus Document. While they were evidently congenial to the Dead Sea sect, their focus and sphere of interest are somewhat different and we should hesitate to ascribe them to one and the same movement.

Moses as Pseudonym

    The use of pseudonymity in connection with Moses is somewhat different from the cases of Enoch and Daniel. With the exception of the Testament or Assumption of Moses which is presented as the farewell speech of Moses to Joshua, Moses is not usually the speaker. In contrast, such works as 4Q390 and the Temple Scroll are presented as divine speech addressed to Moses. In Jubilees, the principal speaker is the angel of the presence but again Moses is the addressee. As we might expect, the Torah is of central importance in all these Mosaic writings and there is extensive influence of the Book of Deuteronomy. We will confine our attention here to the use of ex eventu prophecy, especially as it relates to group formation.

    The Book of Jubilees shares several areas of interest with the Enoch literature, notably the calendar and the origins of demonology. It differs from the Enoch literature, however, in one important respect: it has a pervasive interest in halachic rulings. The evils that later generations do are specifically related to transgression of the Sinai covenant (1:5), even though the halacha of Jubilees often differs from that of the Pentateuch.

    The fate of future generations is most explicitly addressed in an ex eventu prophecy in Jubilees 23, although the historical allusions are not as transparent as in the Enochic books.²⁵ The passage refers to "an evil generation that transgresses on the earth and practices uncleanness and fornication and pollution and abominations" (23:14).²⁶ This generation is characterized by a decline in the human lifespan. It is marked by strife between the generations, and also by calendrical error (23:19). Moreover, some in that generation "will take their stand with bows and swords and other weapons of war to restore their kinsmen to the accustomed path, but they will not return until much blood has been shed on either side" (23:20). The deeds of that generation will bring retribution from God, who will "abandon them to the sword and to judgment and captivity" and "stir up against them the sinners of the Gentiles" (23:23). Most scholars have taken these verses as allusions to events of the Maccabean period.²⁷ The allusions, however, take on a mythical quality: "the heads of the children will be white with grey hair" (23:25).

    In this context, as in the Enoch apocalypses, we find a decisive turning point towards final salvation. In this case the turning point comes when "the children will begin to study the laws, and to seek the commandments, and return to the paths of righteousness." It is not clear that the reference here is to a specific group. The point may be simply that the turning point will come when people begin to study the law. The "children" are not said to take up arms like the "lambs" of the Animal Apocalypse. The earlier reference to those who do take up arms is ambivalent at best, and may be read as disapproving. The "children" of Jubilees are closer to the "plant root" of CD than to the Enoch movement. While the calendar remains a common concern in all these books, the interest in the law indicates a closer link between Jubilees and CD.

    The law is also of central importance in 4Q390. The problems that befall the people of Israel come about because "they will not walk [in] my w[ays], which I command you so that you may warn them" (4Q390 1.3). Like other pseudepigrapha that we have discussed, this one is critical of the Second Temple establishment: "the sons of Aaron will rule over them, and they will not walk [in] my w[ays]." A notable, and unique, exception is made for "the first to come up from the land of their captivity in order to build the temple" (4Q390 1.5) but this variation hardly alters the document's ideological stance. As Dimant has shown, the text is not only indebted to Deuteronomy but shows great affinity with Jubilees and CD.²⁸ The affinities with Jubilees include a division of history into jubilees and various stylistic and terminological parallels. Especially noteworthy is the reference to the Angels of Mastemoth, to whom the Israelites are given over in punishment. In Jubilees, the Satan figure is called Mastema, and he is called "Angel of Mastema" in CD 16:5 and 1QM 13:11.²⁹ The Pseudo-Moses text also refers, however, to "the rule of Belial." The name Belial, which occurs frequently in the Scrolls, is not found in Jubilees and may indicate that this text is closer than Jubilees to the cultural milieu of Qumran. This impression is strengthened by the numerous terminological parallels between 4Q390 and CD that have been pointed out by Dimant.³⁰

    Dimant has also suggested a correlation between the Angels of Mastemoth and the angelic shepherds to whom Israel is handed over in the Animal Apocalypse: "As a matter of fact, the Angels of Mastemoth play precisely the role assigned by the Animal Apocalypse to the shepherds. In both texts they serve as instruments for the punishment of Israel, in both the Israelites are unaware of the source of their distress. In addition, both works place the evil rule of these angels in a chronology of sabbatical years and jubilees."³¹ While all this is true, there is also an important difference between the Angels and the Shepherds. The Shepherds are most satisfactorily explained as the patron angels of the nations, who also appear as the adversaries of Israel in Daniel 10.³² In 4Q390, there is no such national correlation. The Angels of Mastemoth are functionally indistinguishable from Belial, and should be regarded as the agents of his reign. Here again, the Pseudo-Moses text is closer to the cultural milieu of Qumran than are the other pseudepigraphic apocalypses. The division that it envisages is not between Israel and the nations but between God and Belial, righteous and unrighteous. This division is not far removed from the dualism of light and darkness that we find in the Community Rule and the War Rule at Qumran.

    By analogy with other examples of ex eventu prophecy, it is reasonable to suppose that 4Q390 predicts a decisive turn for the better in the eschatological time. Unfortunately, that part of the document is not extant. Consequently we do not know whether it speaks of an elect group or what language it might use to describe it. It should be noted that the Testament of Moses, which has a fully preserved ex eventu prophecy in the name of Moses and has many parallels with 4Q390, does not refer to an elect community within Israel, although it singles out the mysterious Taxo and his family for a special role. But neither does the Testament of Moses have significant parallels with the sectarian rule books from Qumran. What it shares with 4Q390 and CD is simply the heritage of Deuteronomy, which was available to all strands of ancient Judaism. 4Q390 is much more likely to have envisaged an elect community. One thing that we may safely infer is that if such a community was envisaged, it would be defined by its fidelity to the Torah of Moses, whatever halachic interpretations it might have.

The Absence of Pseudepigraphy in the Sectarian Scrolls

    We have seen several texts which speak of the elect groups which will emerge in the eschatological time and establish the legitimacy of these groups by the authority of a famous ancient figure. I have argued that the groups in question should not be conflated. Rather we should postulate a multiplicity of groups in the early second century BCE, groups that were probably quite small and loosely structured. In a recent essay on the social location of Ben Sira, Benjamin Wright suggested that the Enoch books, Aramaic Levi and Ben Sira represent "competing groups/communities (and with Ben Sira and 1 Enoch competing notions of wisdom), who know about each other, who don't really like each other and who actively polemicize against each other, although not necessarily directly."³³ In the case of Ben Sira, the group or community consisted simply of a teacher and his pupils and the Enoch group may not have been much more complex. The various groups I have discussed in this paper, however, did not necessarily dislike each other, although they had different emphases. It may well be that they all came together eventually in the community of the new covenant which we know from the Scrolls but we should probably imagine them as distinct communities or schools, nonetheless.

    None of the texts we have considered gives any indication of the social organization of the group in question and it remains unclear how far they were organized at all. The use of pseudepigraphy seems to coincide with low group definition. It may be that the pseudo-prophetic texts are intended to encourage the formation of the groups in question rather than reflect well-established entities.

    CD 1 has served as a point of comparison for each of these texts mentioning the rise of an elect group. The Qumran text, however, is not pseudepigraphic and it does not use the device of ex eventu prophecy to provide legitimization for the group. The same can be said of all the major sectarian scrolls, such as the Community Rule, War Rule, or the pesharim. Those who were like blind men groping their way (CD 1:9) may well have found comfort in ostensibly ancient prophecies which spoke of blindness and error while predicting that the elect would prevail. Once "God raised up for them a Teacher of Righteousness," however, the revelations of Enoch and Daniel faded to secondary importance. The prophets of old were superseded. According to the pesher on Habakkuk, God made known to the Teacher all the mysteries of the words of his servants the prophets (1QpHab 7). New prophecies, in the names of ancient prophets, would still be in need of interpretation and would in turn be subordinated to the authority of the Teacher. While the sectarians evidently took an interest in the pseudepigraphic Enoch and Daniel writings, perhaps because they seemed to predict the rise of the sect, there is no clear case of a new pseudepigraphic prophecy composed to legitimate the rise of the Dead Sea sect itself, although the provenance of the pseudo-Daniel and pseudo-Moses texts remains uncertain.

    Two reasons suggest themselves for the lack of pseudonymity in the sectarian scrolls. One is the new authority of the Teacher of Righteousness and the other is a new method of self-legitimization, through the exegesis of biblical prophecy. We might have expected that the Teacher himself would be depicted as the fulfillment of prophecy, as Jesus is in the New Testament, and to some degree this is so. The title "Teacher of Righteousness" implies that he is the fulfillment of Hos. 10:12. 1QpHab identifies the Teacher as "the one who runs" in Hab. 1:2. On the whole, however, there is remarkably little concern (or need) to justify the authority of the Teacher. Presumably he established his own authority by the charisma of his personality.

    Yet, unlike Jesus in the Gospels, the Teacher does not teach in his own name. Rather he appears as the expositor of the traditional scriptures. He is the interpreter of prophecy, rather than its fulfillment. Primary authority is vested in the Torah and the prophetic books.

    Interpretation of older scripture is not incompatible with pseudepigraphy, as can be seen from the case of Daniel 9. Yet exegesis plays only a minor role in the pseudepigrapha of Enoch and Daniel. One would scarcely infer the existence of a canonical or quasi-canonical scripture from the Enoch writings or pseudo-Daniel. The books that they expound are fictive writings, unavailable to the actual readers of the hellenistic period. The Mosaic pseudepigrapha are more similar to the sectarian scrolls but even Jubilees and the Temple Scroll are reformulations of the Torah rather than interpretations of it, thus demonstrating a different understanding of revelation than what we find in CD or the pesharim.³⁴

    The interpretation of scripture, no less than ex eventu prophecy, could also be used to establish the place of the sectarian community in the divine plan. CD expounds the "priests, Levites and sons of Zadok" of Ezek. 44:15 so that "the Priests are the converts of Israel who departed from the land of Judah, and (the Levites are) those who joined them. The sons of Zadok are the elect of Israel, the men called by name who shall stand at the end of days" (CD 4:2-4). Those who go out into the wilderness, according to 1QS 8:12-14, do so in order to fulfill the prophecy of Isa. 40:3. It seems to me then that the sectarian scrolls evidence a view of prophecy and legitimization that is quite different from what we find in the pseudepigraphic apocalypses.

    In recent years we have had a growing appreciation of the diversity of traditions, and probably also of social groups, that went into the composition of the Dead Sea sect. What emerges from the evidence reviewed here, sketchy as it is, is a picture of several small parties or conventicles in the Maccabean era, with interests that overlapped in some respects and differed in others. It is a commonplace in the study of ancient Judaism that divergent biblical interpretation was a major factor in the rise of sectarianism.³⁵ The material we have reviewed here suggests that this is only half the picture. The incipient movements described in the pseudepigraphic apocalypses do not find their raison d'être in biblical interpretation but in the quest for esoteric wisdom. These movements surely played a part in the emergence of the Dead Sea sect.³⁶ But biblical interpretation was also a flourishing enterprise in the early second century, as we see from the veneration of the Torah in Ben Sira and from the new sapiential texts from Qumran.³⁷ The Teacher, whose authority prevailed at Qumran, was evidently more sage and interpreter than apocalyptic visionary. Under his tutelage, the Dead Sea sect dispensed with pseudepigraphy, but the pseudepigraphic prophecies retained an important place in the sectarian library.³⁸

    ¹ See the overviews by B. M. Metzger, "Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha," JBL 91(1972) 3-24; W. Speyer, "Religiöse Pseudepigraphie und literarische Fälschung im Altertum," in Frühes Christentum im antiken Strahlungsfeld (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989) 21-58; W. Speyer, "Fälschung, pseudepigraphische freie Erfindung und 'echte religiöse Pseudepigraphie'," in Frühes Christentum im antiken Strahlungsfeld, 100-39. [Back to text]

    ² E.g. M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1.175-80; D. Dimant, "Qumran Sectarian Literature," in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (ed. M. E. Stone; Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 2.2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 542-47; F. García Martínez, "Qumran Origins and Early History: A Groningen Hypothesis," Folia Orientalia 25(1989) 119; P. R. Davies, Behind the Essenes (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 107-34. [Back to text]

    ³ D. Dimant, "New Light from Qumran on the Jewish Pseudepigrapha - 4Q390," in The Madrid Qumran Congress. Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Montaner; Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 2; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992) 2.447. [Back to text]

    ⁴ On the figure of Enoch see most recently J. C. VanderKam, Enoch. A Man for All Generations (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995). [Back to text]

    ⁵ See P. A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) 355. [Back to text]

    ⁶ Note, however, J. Kampen, The Hasideans and the Origin of Pharisaism (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988) 95-107, who argues that the phrase could equally well be translated as "leading citizens." [Back to text]

    ⁷ V. A. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (New York: Atheneum, 1970) 197-98; Tiller, A Commentary, 109; J. Sievers, The Hasmoneans and their Supporters (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) 39-40. [Back to text]

    ⁸ Kampen, The Hasideans, 107-14. [Back to text]

    ⁹ Cf. Tiller, A Commentary, 114-5, who argues that the Animal Apocalypse should not be ascribed to the Hasidim. [Back to text]

    ¹⁰ Dimant, "Qumran Sectarian Literature," 544. [Back to text]

    ¹¹ On the difficulties of reading CD 1, see P. R. Davies, The Damascus Covenant (Sheffield: JSOT, 1982) 61-72. [Back to text]

    ¹² J. J. Collins, "The Origin of the Qumran Community: A Review of the Evidence," in To Touch the Text (ed. M. P. Horgan and P. J. Kobelski; New York: Crossroad, 1989) 169-70. [Back to text]

    ¹³ Tiller, A Commentary, 104-05. [Back to text]

    ¹⁴ Davies, Behind the Essenes, 130-32. [Back to text]

    ¹⁵ Compare 4Q306, "Men of the People who Err," the subject of a presentation by T. H. Lim at the annual SBL meeting in New Orleans, Nov. 24, 1996. [Back to text]

    ¹⁶ See further J. J. Collins, Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 385-86. [Back to text]

    ¹⁷ P. R. Davies, "Reading Daniel Sociologically," in The Book of Daniel (ed. A. S. van der Woude; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993) 352-55. [Back to text]

    ¹⁸ Davies, "Reading Daniel Sociologically," 355, attributes to the Mylyk#m a more direct political ambition. [Back to text]

    ¹⁹ See the edition of these texts by J. J. Collins and P. W. Flint, "Pseudo-Daniel," in Qumran Cave 4. XVII. Parabiblical Texts, Part 3 (ed. G. Brooke et al.; DJD 23; Oxford: Clarendon, 1996) 95-164. See also J. J. Collins, "Pseudo-Daniel Revisited," RevQ 17(1996) 111-35 and P. W. Flint, "4Qpseudo-Daniel arc and the Restoration of the Priesthood," RevQ 17(1996) 137-50. [Back to text]

    ²⁰ J. T. Milik, "'Prière de Nabonide' et autres écrits d'un cycle de Daniel," RB 63 (1956) 411-15. [Back to text]

    ²¹ Collins, "Pseudo-Daniel Revisited," 112. [Back to text]

    ²² On the four kingdom sequence see Collins, Daniel, 166-70. [Back to text]

    ²³ See Collins and Flint, "Pseudo-Daniel," 160. [Back to text]

    ²⁴ See further J. J. Collins, The Scepter and the Star (New York: Doubleday, 1995) 74-101. [Back to text]

   [Back to text] ²⁵ See the cautionary comments of R. Doran, "The Non-dating of Jubilees: Jub 34-38; 23: 14-32 in Narrative Context," JSJ 20 (1989) 1-11. [Back to text]

    ²⁶ Jub. 23:10-13 is found at Qumran in 4Q221 (DJD 12.70-71) but the following passage is not. [Back to text]

    ²⁷ G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 77. [Back to text]

    ²⁸ Dimant, "New Light on the Jewish Pseudepigrapha," 437-39, 444-45. [Back to text]

    ²⁹ 1QS 3 23 refers to the domain of the Angel of Darkness as
wtm+#m tl#mm. [Back to text]

    ³⁰ Dimant, "New Light on the Jewish Pseudepigrapha," 444-45. [Back to text]

    ³¹ Dimant, "New Light on the Jewish Pseudepigrapha," 442. [Back to text]

    ³² Tiller, A Commentary, 51-54. [Back to text]

    ³³ B. G. Wright, "Putting the Puzzle Together: Some Suggestions Concerning the Social Location of the Wisdom of Ben Sira," SBL Seminar Papers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) 146. [Back to text]

    ³⁴ Cf. the argument of L. H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983) 17, that the grounding of legal rulings in the Temple Scroll is fundamentally different from what we find in CD, since the rulings of the latter are derived by interpretation. [Back to text]

    ³⁵ See e.g. J. Blenkinsopp, "Interpretation and the Tendency to Sectarianism: An Aspect of Second Temple History," in Jewish and Christian Self-definition. Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman Period (ed. E. P. Sanders; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 1-26. [Back to text]

    ³⁶ I have explored the continuities between the apocalypses and the scrolls in my book, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1997). [Back to text]

    ³⁷ The wisdom texts from Qumran are lucidly presented by D. J. Harrington, Wisdom at Qumran (London: Routledge, 1996). [Back to text]

    ³⁸ The first generation of the Christian movement also dispensed with pseudonymity, under the charismatic influence of Jesus and Paul, but pseudonymous writing flourished in the following century. See D. G. Meade, Pseudonymity and Canon (Tübingen: Mohr, 1986). [Back to text]