The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

BETZ The Qumran Halakhah Text 4QMMT 179
the Teacher of Righteousness. 11 For Schiffman, 4QMMT revolutionizes
the question of Qumran origins. It forces us to reconsider the
entire hypothesis, that the Qumran community is identical with the
Essenes as described by Philo, Josephus, and Pliny the Elder. 12 He
holds that the collection of Qumran texts consists of biblical
manuscripts, the sect's special texts plus a whole variety of other
writings, collected by the people who lived at Qumran. The relationship
of these other texts to the sect is unclear. They were apparently
brought from elsewhere and held there, because they had some
affinities with the beliefs of the Sectarians. These Sectarians were
either not Essenes but Sadduceans, or else the Essene movement must
be redefined as having emerged out of Sadducean beginnings. 13
B. Flavius Josephus on the Three Religious Groups in
Judaism and 4QMMT
At a first glance 4QMMT and Schiffman's evaluation of it do not fit
into the picture of the three religious parties in Judaism during the
time of the Second Temple, which is based on the testimony of Flavius
Josephus and supported by the New Testament. According to
Josephus, the Sadducees and the Essenes are sharply opposed to each
other, while the Pharisees stand between them, being closer to the
Essenes. 14 This becomes especially clear from the different attitude of
these three groups toward the free will of humans and the role of fate
(heimarmene), that is the decree of God (predestination). According
to Ant. 13.171-73 (see War 2.162-66), the Essenes consider fate as
the determining force; for nothing in human life occurs without the
11. L.H. Schiffman, 'Miqsat Ma'ase ha-T6rah and the Temple-Scroll', in
F. Garcia Martinez (ed.), The Texts of Qumran and the History of the Qumran
Community, RevQ 14.3 (1990 No. 55), pp. 435-57; idem, The New Halakhic
Letter (4QMMT) and the Origins of the Dead Sea Sect', BA 55 (1990), pp. 64-73;
idem, "The Significance of the Scrolls: The Second Generation of Scholars—Or is it
the Third?' Biblical Review 6.5 (October 1990), pp. 19-27.
12. 'The Sadducean Origins', p. 42.
13. "The Sadducean Origins', p. 40; 'I have been able to show, that the origins
of the Qumran sect are Sadducean' (p. 41).
14. The haburoth of the Pharisees have much in common with the organization
and discipline of the Qumran community (C. Rabin, Qumran Studies [Oxford, 1957]
passim; R. Marcus, 'The Qumran Scrolls and Early Judaism', Biblical Research 1
[1956], pp. 25-40).