The Essenes Community Rule describes a prophet as well as two messianic figures. Does this suggest that the early church may have been mistaken about the messianic identity of Jesus?
Question:
According to the Community Rule (1QS) 9:11 (DSS), [Editor’s note: This is a reference to a publication by the Essene group at Qumran in the first century AD, and was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls] there was an expectation of the coming of a “Prophet” and “two Messiahs”. Does this suggest that the earliest Christians may have been mistaken in identifying Jesus alone as the fulfillment of Israel’s messianic expectations, and that they overlooked or abandoned the expectation of the other anticipated figures mentioned in Jewish tradition?
Answer:
It is true that the Essene community had an expectation of two different messiah-figures. Different Jewish groups have had a variety of ideas about their Messiah over the many centuries. What all Jewish groups have had (or perhaps nearly all?) is the idea that God will send a Messiah/Savior to them at some time in the future. That one group had the thought of two different Messiah-figures is an interesting fact of the history of Judaism, but it has no impact whatsoever of what the actual meaning of the prophetic statements in the Hebrew Bible.
The question is this: What was the true expectation of the Messiah given to them by God in their Scripture? (In other words, what the Essenes thought tells us about them, but not about what God taught in the Hebrew Bible)The answer is this: All of the legitimate messianic expectations were met in Jesus of Nazareth. Like Jesus said in Luke 24:44 “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” These, of course, are the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible. Jesus claimed that he was the fulfillment of all the messianic prophecies. He said in John 5:39 to the Jewish teachers of the Law, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
Of course, it is our “job” to decide if we believe Jesus’ claims here, but speaking for myself, and having studied the Scripture very carefully for many years, I believe that Jesus fulfilled literally every legitimate messianic prophecy, as he claimed in Luke 24:44. You can judge for yourself. For this reason, I find the Essene expectation to be an interesting historical data point, but, no, this does NOT suggest the earliest Christians may have been mistaken in identifying Jesus alone as the fulfillment of Israel’s messianic expectations—at least those expectations which were taken from the Scripture. The Essenes, like other Jewish groups, may have expected the Messiah to ride into Jerusalem as a conquering hero, freeing them from their political enemies, but this is a Jewish misinterpretation of the actual Messiah of Old Testament prophecy—one who would ride into Jerusalem, not on a horse, with soldiers behind him, but instead on a humble colt of a donkey (Zechariah 9:9), bringing peace, not war.
John Oakes
