The Jesus Connection to the Dead Sea Scroll's Wicked Priest
The Man of Righteousness & the Wicked Priest
The dead sea scrolls seem to discuss the all to typcial struggle between ones in power of religious institution and ones of virtue holding the religious law so deeply that they reject those who have corrupted it.
This struggle is not so unusual throughout the ages & even happening today, thus it repeats itself in many stories throughout history.
Therefore just because it sounds the same doesn't mean the accounts and proper time line of the story should be missconstrued or falaciously accounted as being Jesus with his sect opposing against the Pharisee, it just means this scene pops up again and again in history and the compiled Jesus figure by chance mirrors it a bit if you don't know what this particular struggle was about.
The truth of the matter is the man of righteousness mentioned in the scrolls can't be Jesus nor James, because the time period shows it much sooner. It also reveals the conflict as one over rights of power through religious holy lineage opposing those who ruled through aristocracy who were doing wicked things in power, something that has nothing to do with the HaNotzrim sect who were neither. The scrolls show the man of righteousness had to be a head priest of the Hasidim, a sect which had strict observances, maybe to strict and zealous but faithful none the less. The time line through events shows a Zadokite affiliation according to
4Q 256 ,258 The hierarchy would have been Priests of Aarons lineage which is attributed to this Zadokite high priestly family. This could have only existed up to the Maccabees era around 164 BC because of the destruction by Antiochus and because of the period of this mans rise mentioned in the Damascus Document I 5-11.
At this same time we see the wicked priest was called out on truth but ended up changing into a liar perhaps leading people into a wrong sort of worship or violence. (IQpHab, 4QpPsa,CD)
The time line shows this individual existed between the reign of Antiochus like I said before around 164 BC (some say 168BC) and the founding of the Qumran sect around 150-140BC.
The person would have been a high priest which there were 5 at that time. The 3 hellenizers like Menelaus have to be rejected as the persona since the wicked priest was said to be in truth in the beginning. The other two Greek influenced priests Jason & Alcimus also fail to fit the character because neither were killed by an enemy.
That leaves only the Maccabee brothers-Jonathan & Simon.
Both fit the profile causing violence and dying violent deaths.
Since Jonathan died by the hands of his Greek enemies he fits more so then Simon who died by his son in law. (I Mac. xvi, 14-16).
Jonathan qualifies as the wicked Priest because he accepted from the throne from a heathen named Alexander Balas the pontificate raiment which Johnathan was not even entitled to wear. Later he was killed by Tryphon, a General of this same apointee. (Imac. xiii, 23)
If some remember my historical Jesus essay, you will remember me mentioning Simons son named John HyrcanusI the nephew of this wicked Priest.
John was on a list of false prophets, he existed reigned around 135-104 BC, hated the Pharisee as did his son (Jannaeus) who sent them to the cross and existed at the same time of Yeshu. There was another John Hyrcanus II, the son of Jannaeus & the grandchild of the false prophet by the same name and therefore the great grandson of the wicked priest's brother. The wife of Alexander Jannaeus and mother of Hyrcanus II was named Salome.
Salome was known to be a follower of Yeshu who was
born about the year 120-117BC as well as related to him, which is how Salome get's in the Book of Mark as a follower even though these figures existed a century before the created and compiled image character named Jesus who also despised the Pharisee.
(3 accounts on The mother of Hyrcanus, named Salomè):
-Dr. Franz Hartman , & Gerald Massey's Lectures Originally published in a private edition c. 1900
& John Blanchard from the book: "Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?"
Now proof of these family ties connecting with the bible story of Jesus:
We know the story of another John-
John the Baptist;
John had his own followers, the Mandaeans, who exist even today. If you ask them the story of their Master, they will tell you that he was betrayed by Jesus. And indeed, if you read the gospel of Thomas you would realize the close relationship Jesus had with Salome (John HyrcanusII's mom).
Now Salomè was the woman who asked the decapitation of John the Baptist. After the death of John, Jesus took over the leadership of the Zealots. It is quite obvious why the Mandaeans see Jesus as the traitor.
The story of Jesus following John at first before taking his flock is nothing new to the Christian mythology as many preachers admit this fact.
So we see Jesus can't be the wicked priest or Man of Righteousness in the scrolls but he is related and involved in that wicked helenized branch.
He also lied about being in the Zadokite lineage for high preisthood by claiming himself after the order of Melchizedek (messenger/prophet line of Zadok)
Hebrews 5:6, 5:10, & 6:20 say Jesus is after the Order of Melchizedek.
We see the actual opposite of this in truth his family lines fought against those who were the Kohanim and messianic (zadokite ) lineage.
Source for Scrolls & Maccabee era:
Geza Vermes Professor of Oxford book titled "The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English."
IMPORTANT NEW ADDITION:
After studying the lineage chart I noticed that even Josephus Flavius was related to the wicked Priest.
because his lineage goes through the wicked Priest's (Jonathan, one of the Maccabee's)daughter.
Matthew Ephlias married Jonathan Apphus Daughter and Joesphus Lineage runs through that line. In a distant way his great relatives were related to those who Salome Married into and if Salome is related to Yeshu then Josephus was somehow distantly related to Yeshu which makes this all the more interesting as far as keeping it in the family.
