Dead Sea Scrolls’ ‘Right Teacher’ Wrote Book of Daniel, Scholar Argues

A California scholar has suggested that the final author of the biblical Book of Daniel was also the revered teacher, never named, who later founded the Jewish desert community that produced the famed Dead Sea Scrolls.

If the argument by John C. Trever of Claremont in the current issue of Biblical Archaeologist gains scholarly acceptance, it would illuminate a period of Jewish history, about 165 BC, when apocalyptic dreams of God rescuing the righteous from foreign oppression were dashed. The “end times” predicted in Daniel did not come.

Trever contends that the response of a pacifist Jewish group at that time was to follow a man they called the “Right Teacher” into the wilderness at Qumran near the Dead Sea, still hoping that God would devastate the evildoers.

Dead Sea Scrolls Researcher

“Almost all scholars studying the scrolls have pointed to the importance of the Book of Daniel for Qumran studies; not one, however, has suggested its direct link with the Right Teacher. Ample evidence now indicates such an approach should be seriously considered,” wrote Trever, a pioneer in Dead Sea Scroll research.

In February, 1948, at an archeological institute in Jerusalem, Trever became the first American consulted on the value of the first four scrolls brought there by a Syrian Orthodox monk. Now retired, Trever serves as voluntary director of the Dead Seas Scrolls Project at the School of Theology at Claremont.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is considered one of the most important archeological finds this century. The series of discoveries in caves presented religious scholarship with the oldest-ever copies of books in the Hebrew Bible as well as apocalyptic and other writings by a sectarian movement eventually known as the Essenes. The Qumran community of the Essenes evidently was destroyed when the Romans crushed a Jewish revolt in AD 66-70.

The Book of Daniel, one of the last writings incorporated into the Hebrew Bible, is a favorite source of cryptic imagery used by many evangelical and fundamentalist preachers to decipher alleged signs that modern nations are lurching toward Armageddon, a worldwide conflict heralding the return of Jesus.

Refuse to Compromise Beliefs

The writing tells of refusals in the 6th Century BC by Daniel and his friends to compromise their religion despite severe tests of their faith by King Nebuchadnezzar. Conservative scholars usually accept the work as written in that period, and they often see the apocalyptic visions in the writing as pointing to events today.

However, mainstream scholars contend the document was really written in the 2nd Century BC by more than one author in reaction to the reign of Antiochus IV, who attempted to Hellenize the Jews by destroying their religious faith and customs.

(One Old Testament specialist who has taught at Yale, Stanford and the Pacific School of Religion has written that “in its present form, Daniel can be positively dated after Antiochus’ desecration of the (Jewish) Temple” in 168 or 167 BC and before its restoration in 164 BC.)

Trever said it was a common literary device to attribute a religious work to a famous figure of the past, as if it were written then and accurately predicted subsequent events.

‘Hope to Suffering Compatriots’

But the Book of Daniel’s primary purpose apparently was to give “hope to suffering compatriots,” as Trever put it, that God would protect them just as it happened once before with Daniel.

Trever’s theory that the anonymous final author-compiler of Daniel is identical to the Dead Sea Scrolls’ unidentified Right Teacher (also translated “Teacher of Righteousness”) would further place the Book of Daniel in the historical context of the 2nd Century BC.

Trever said in an interview that he hopes that the popular fascination with the Dead Sea Scrolls will encourage more dialogue between conservative and liberal interpreters of the Bible.

He conceded, however, that many conservatives maintain that since the end-times predictions in Daniel 11:40-45 were not fulfilled then, they must refer to the future since the biblical writers were divinely inspired and would not convey mistakes. The same principle of interpretation is applied to the unmet expectations of some New Testament writers that Jesus would return within their generations.

Trever, on the other hand, assumes that the texts speak more to a specific period of disappointments during Greek oppression.

Prediction Fails

Antiochus IV, also known as Antiochus Epiphanes, died under circumstances quite different from what the author had predicted. “His own faith in his prophetic mission must have been severely shaken as a result,” Trever said.

Trever proposed that the anonymous author of Daniel became the leader of a pacifist faction of pious Jews who refused to follow militants in the Maccabean Revolt beginning about 167 BC.

Trever said the pacifism of the Qumran sectarians is reflected in the line, among others in the scrolls, that says that judgment lies with God, that “I will not grapple with the men of perdition until the Day of Revenge.”

Like many Jewish leaders before him, the author of Daniel would have looked to earlier sacred writings for an explanation, Trever said. The sectarians may have found consolation in the words of Habakkuk (2:3) that “the vision awaits its time. . . . If it seems slow wait for it.” A commentary on Habakkuk found among the scrolls says the “final age shall be prolonged,” but also says it will exceed all that earlier prophets have predicted.

Perhaps more important to the disappointed followers, Trever said, could have been Isaiah 40:3, which could have been interpreted as a call to go into the wilderness “to prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Trever suggested that the fact that 18 copies of Isaiah have been found in 11 Qumran caves (only the 30 copies of Psalms and the 23 of Deuteronomy were more common biblical books) indicated the importance of the text for the community.

Rules of Fellowship

One of the scrolls that outlines the community rules at Qumran says of those who want to join the fellowship, “they shall separate from the habitation of ungodly men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare there the way of the LORD,” followed by the Isaiah 40:3 quotation.

At the Qumran setting, which Trever said may have been organized between 150 and 142 BC, there was to be a new emphasis on end times through study of the Torah, or Jewish law. Trever cited a number of linguistic and literary parallels between Daniel and certain Dead Sea writings to support his case for a link between the biblical work and the sect.

Vincent Wimbush, a biblical scholar at the School of Theology at Claremont, said none of the parallels seem convincing by themselves. Wimbush said, however, that the most promising argument for a link may lie in the similar apocalyptic viewpoints expressed in Daniel and Qumran materials. “Trever has made a good beginning,” Wimbush said.

Dead Sea Scroll studies, no less than biblical studies, often yield only tentative conclusions about the authorship and origins of texts, even after years of debate. The same issue of Biblical Archaeologist, the quarterly publication of the American Schools of Oriental Research, in which Trever’s article runs, has an article by Norman Golb of the University of Chicago, who challenges the prevailing scholarly opinion that the scrolls were produced by a monastic community at Qumran called the Essenes.

Trever said in an interview that he disagrees with Golb on a number of points. To Golb’s contention that the excavated ruins of the Qumran look more like a military post, Trever said the lack of living quarters made it more appropriate for an ascetic religious community than for soldiers.

To Golb’s argument that some scrolls contradict one another in content (and thus may have been hidden in caves by Jews fleeing from Jerusalem or elsewhere), Trever said, “The ideological differences are not that great; you would expect there to be mutations over a period of 200 years.”