JESUASTHEHum PMSSTL MSSSMH S Y : PAR 1 T

Juurnal for the Study of the Historical Jesus

wi g? S H ig 5 * 2

Crispin HH`.Fletcher-Louis
St Mary!s Bryanstcm Square London, UK

Vol. 4.2 pp. 155475 DO1: 1(1.1177476869006064S73

200 SAGEPubiicatiu London, Oaks, CA 6 Thousand ns

and New Delhi http:HJSH..sagcpub.ccm

ABSTRACT

Recent study ofthe priesthood in Second Temple life and thought invites a reconsideration of`}esus! self-understanding. The appeal to Psalm 1i0 and Daniel 7.13 indicates that Jesus thought that, although not of priestly lineage, nevertheless he would ultimately be the nati0n!s king and priest after the order of Meichizedek. Mark 1-6 contains a programmatic statement of Jesus" claim to a high priestly identity as the "ho1y one of God! (1.24), with a high priestly contagious holiness (1.40-45; 5.25-34; 5.35-43), freedom to forgive sins{2.1-i2) and the embodiment of divine presence in a Galilean corneld (2.23-28). As true high priest he makes divine presence "draw near! to God!s people (1.15), where before they had to "draw near! to the Jerusalem temple. The hypothesis that Jesus thought he was 1sraei!s long-awaited eschatological high priest resolves otherwise intractable probiems in historical Jesus schoiarship. This is Part l of a two-part essay.

Key words: blasphemy, contagious purity, Clmoskampf Day of Atonement, divine warrior, Enoch, forgiveness, high priest, John the Baptist, Meichizedek, messianism, political theology, Sabbath, Son of Man, temple

Jilrgen Becker saysthat "if anything is incontrovertible from the Jesus material, it is that there is not the slightest connection between Jesusand the theological self-understanding of the Jerusalempriesthood? This fairly statesa scholarly consensus. However, reection on the history of biblical scholarship and what, in fact, can be known of Jesus!historical context provokes a consideration of someimportant evidence that Jesus thought of himself asIsrael!s eschatological high priest,and that this self-perceptionelucidatesotherwisepuzzling aspects of his behaviour and teaching.

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J. Becker, Jesus of Nazareth (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1998), p. 215; cf. J.D.G. Dunn, Luiuuu "* Eerdmans. 2003), p. 654. mmml n1' Rapids:

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ThePriesthood: A Poriczhqfibiicai Scholarship

The possibility that Jesusthought of himself in priestly terms hasnot received much seriousconsideration.Reection on the nature of historical Jesus scholarship within the wider contextof biblical studies generally, and the modernchurch and academyin particular, suggests the prejudices of our times have createdthis lacuna. In general, priesthood hasbeen marginalized in modern biblical studies.In the Old Testament the prieSthooditsordination, clothing, sacricial and other responsibilities-is described with considerable detail; within the Pentateuch (Exodus-Numbers),in theworks ofthe Chronicler and in other texts(e.g. Ezekiel, Zechariah 3-6, Malachi, Joel). But Old Testamentscholarship has Sometimes judged suchmaterial a lamentabledecline in lsraelite religion from the pure faith of the prophets and the Deuteronomist into a post-exilic obsessionwith cultic order and institutional religiosity. J.We1lhausen!s brazen derision of the Priestly material inthe Pentateuchis a paradeexampleof this prejudice.2And Wellhausen is, in this respectof course,a clear example ofthe commitmentsand values of a certain (liberal) Protestantismthat has dominated biblical Scholarship for the majority of the modern period. Disinterest in, for example, the description of Aaron!s garments in Exodus 23 and the minutiae of the Tabernacle measurementsand upholstery in Exodus (chs.25-3 l, 35-40), reects,for this scholarly tradition, a deeply felt antipathyto anything thatsmacks of a high churchspirituality. That antipathyhas,until thepostmodernresurgence of interestin metaphor, story, drama and sacrament, been validated by the modern fear of mystery,allegory and ritual (a.k.a. "magic!) and myth. Happily, Old Testament scholarship is now more attentive to these aspects of biblical religion and, thanksin particular to the leavening inuence of Jewish members of the academy,the vital contribution of the priesthood and priestly theology for biblical religion is at lastreceiving the attention it desewes. The impact of this revisionism on New Testament scholarship,however, is only just beginning. E.P. Sandershas done much to advancethe casefor a Jesus setin a temple- and cult-centred Judaismandhis causehasbeentaken up in different ways by the likes of N.T. Wright, Bruce Chilton and Paula Fredricksen.3

2. As J. Blcnkinsopp (Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, l977], pp. 18-23) points out. 3. Bruce D. Chilton, TheTempl qfJesus: His SacryiciolProgramwithin a CulturalHise PA: Pennsylvania StateUniversity Press, l992); N.T. Wright, tory ofSocrpice (University Park, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996); and P. Fredrikseu, Jesus of Nazareth, King .;.1... 1-....A Tawtsh ljfn !tmeJ'QHC # Oi Ltrrrtottumty riuurmuii. ...... . . H12 . .lR1M\'.' . . .l(:' Ha mad -..4 the .r.- 1.un15m... -...,,..,..,.,,.,. ,.rri1-;.t-umirn. {London; rum. Macmillan, 2000). nf A WISH LAIE uliu un:

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However, Sandersand his followers are primarily concernedto relate Jesus to the Temple.4Jesuslooks forward to a new temple (Sanders), or actively sets about establishing an alternative (Wright) or distinctive (Chilton) temple programme. For none of thesedoes Jesus have a particular view ofthe priesthood: he is not interested in a particular political or cultic view of the priesthood. He doesnot seehimself asIsrael! s true high priest;neither asclaimant to Caiaphas! oice, nor asthe sacerdotalhead of a new cultic community outside Jerusalem. On the face of it, ofcourse, it would seemimpossible for Jesusto think in these termsbecausehe is not of priestly lineage. There is also,perhaps,a reluctanceto pursue a priestly Christology for fear of possibletheological consequenceswa snpercessionist Jesus though historical analogiesat Shechern, Leontopoiis even and Qumran provide clear precedentsfor a heterodox leadership proclaiming itself to be the true priesthood. Scholarly reconstructionsof Jesus!political views have also,no doubt, hinderedany appreciationof Jesus!vision for the priesthood.The Third Questcanbe loosely divided into two camps. First,thereare thosewho follow A. Schweitzerin thinking that Jesusexpectedan imminent divine intervention and a thoroughly otherworldly new age.This "apocalyptic! Jesus hasno interestin politics because he expectsthe imminent end to be wrought by God not by any human political programme. This Jesus is unlikely to have thought concretelyabout the role of a high priest in Israel!s future leadership, not to have set about ways to bring in a transformation of Israel!s priestly polity.5 Secondly,there are thosewho espouse a non political Jesus who standsagainsteverything the temple and apocaiyptic the priesthoodrepresented:Jesus prornulgatesa brokerless Kingdom, free from institutional oppression, social hierarchies and lovelesspurity codes.Again, on this view, Jesus is unlikely to have thought in anything but negative tenns ofthe category"priesthood!. Both theseviewsareproblematic.The rst iniputes to rstcentury Judaism a dualistic, and therefore necessarilyapolitical, worldview for which there is precious little evidence.The second paints a notvery portrait of Jesus deprived of so many of the colours on the palette of the (canoniJewish cal and historically superior) Gospel texts.

4. The rediscovery of the Temple by Sanders and his successors has also been utterly lacking in any real appreciation of the Temple!s mythology; its cosmic and primeval signincance, which is now widely acknowledged in Old Testament and post-biblical scholarship. 5. Sec, for example, E.P. Sanders, The Iiistorical Figure qfjesus (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993), p. 188. 6. See the critique in C.H.T. Fletcher"Apocalypticisrn!, in S.E. Porter and Louis, T. Holmn(eds.), TheHandbookofthe Studyofthe Historical Jesus(Leiden:Brill, forthcoming) and C.H.T. Fletcher-Louis, Apocalypticisnf, in S.E.n.ru.i Porter and T. 1-lolmn - :*....1.. . ..J`I}m .."Jesus ,. I-H1nvi .,,,. and ,._:-- v.-..- |n ..:.1M-. Rrill fm-thcominszl. , T . -u ., si;rnl .IE.\'l1S L.ElC l5I1L Dul l, n.unn
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Journal for the Study ofthe Historical Jesus

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In all this there has been a failure to appreciate the role and identity ofthe priest in Jesus!Jewish world, to which we now turn.

For a proper assessmenof the possibility that Jesusthought of himself as a t as Israel!s true high priest, a fresh examination of (a) priestly priest or, even, identity and (ls) the position of the priesthood within the (competing) vision(s) of Israel!s polity, is necessary.
TheJewish Priest: A Divine and Humor: Ojice Here I rely on the arguments of earlier publications to summarize.? The description ofthe high priestly ofce in the Pentateuch(esp. Exod. 28-29, 3940) was intended, and was taken in the rst century, to describe an ofce that was at once human, divine and cosmic.

Th Hig Priestho inJesu ! Jewis Worl e h od s h d

7. See generall C.H.T. Fletcher"The High Priest as Divine Mediator in the Louis, Hebrew Bible:y Dan 7.13 as a Test Case!, SBLSP (1997), pp. l6l-93; ident, "The Worship of Divine Humanity and the Worship of Jesus!, in C.C. Newman, J.R. Davila and G. Lewis (eds.),

TheJewishRootsofChristologicol Monotheis Popersjiro theSt. AndrewsConferenc on m.of Jesus (JS.lSup, m e pp. l l2-28; the Historical Origins ofthe Worship 63; Leiden: Brill, l999), ident, "Wisdom Christology and the Partingsof the Ways Between Judaismand Cli.ristianity!, in S.E. Porter and B.W.R. Pearson (eds.), Jewish-Christian Relations Through the Centuries (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2000), pp. 52-68; idem, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Seo Scrolls (STD], 42; Leiden: Brill, 2002) and see further idem, "God!s Image, His Cosmic Temple and the High Priest; Towards an Historical and Theological Account ofthe lncarnaticn!, in T.D. Alexander and S. Gathercole (eds.), Heaven on Eorth: The Templ in Bibl ical Theolog (Carlisle:PatemostePress,2004),pp. Sl-99; idem,"The Temple e y Theological Anthropology r Cosmology of P and in the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira!, in C.A. Evans(eds.),Of Scribe ondSogesEorhtJewishInterpretatio and Transmissio of Scripture s Temple . Studies, 50; SSEJC, 9; n London: T&T Clark n International, 2004), (Library of Second pp. 69-I 13; ident, "The Worship of the Jewish High Priest by Alexander the Great!, in l...T.
Stuckenbruck and W.S. North (eds.), Early Christian ond Jewish Monotheism (JSNTSup, 63; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 7 1-l 02; ident, "The Image of God and the Biblical Roots of Christian Sacramentality!, in C. Hall and G. Rowell (eds.), The Gesrures of God Explorations in Socromentality (London: Continuum, 2004), pp. 73-89. Many of the arguments in these publications overlap with those of Margaret Barker; seeesp. her "I'he High Priest and the Worshipof .lesus!,in Newman,Davila andLewis (eds.), TheJewishRoots of Christologicol rravmrhptent py. nn. lo-. 93-l .1r l: , ........., ident, .The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000), 1WUHUt.ru:mm, ..- .-.

chs. 1-3; ident, The Great High Priest: \..|.11x ninmrrnsnuuut, 2.....rata.-it tnmmurinnal. 2003).

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Fletcher-Louis Jesusos theHigh Priestly Messiah

159

First, the high priest is obviously a human being. He is the new Adam,8 wearing the garmentsthat Adam lost on leaving Eden,9doing what Adam failed to do in the templeasrestoredHe represents,or embodies, the people Eden.m of God, israel (who are, in turn, the true humanity); wearing on his breastpiece and lapels the names ofthe twelve tribes of Israel (Exod. 28.9-21). I-le brings humanity and Israel to Godll I-Iealso brings the cosmos,the created world, to God sincethis is representedby his garmentsin their various parts.This idea is widely attestedin post literature,12andcan alreadybe discerned inthe mind of P, the author responsible for the nal form of the bullc of the Pentabib1ical

teuch.' 3 Secondly, the high priest brings the one creator God to Israel and to
the created world. 1-Ieembodies God!s Glory,'4 wearing "the garment(s) of
8. See, for example: Ezek. 28.12-16; the priestly characterization of Adam in Gen. 2-3 (discusse by, e.g., G.J. Wenham "Sanctuar Symbolism in the Garde of Eden Sto1y! in d Hess and D.T. Tsumura , [eds.], 7Studied1nscrqtions_om y n the Flood ANE , Literary R. before and Linguistic Approaches to Gen 1-11 [Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994], pp. 399-404) and the equation ofthe high priest in Ben Sira 50 with Adam through the parallelism between 50.1 and 49.16 (discussed, with parallels, in C.T.R. Hayward, TheJewish Temple: A Non-biblical Sourceboo [London:Routledge 1996} pp. 45-46).A longerdiscussio would demonstrat k , of Aaron ,is fundamental to the theology n of P. e that the Adamic identity 9. E.g. Pseudo-Philo!s Biblical Antiquities 26.6. 10. In his Biblical Antiquities 26.6 Pseudo-Philo faithfully spells out the narrative logic of the intratextuality between Gen. 2-3 and the vision of Aaron in the restored Eden of the Sinaitic Tabernacle. lt is the priesthood that discerns between good and evil (Lev. 27.12) as Adam and Evewere suppose to. The Levitesguar andkeepthe sanctuar as Adam was calledto (Gen. 2.15; Num. of Edenis restorey at the sanctuaryand so on. d 3.8, 38). The fecundityd 11. His relationshi with Israel is such that sin will bring guilt on the d his own persona , people (Lev. p 4.3). And, conversely, the peop1e!s guilt isltransferred and borne by the high priest (Exod. 28.38). High priest and people coinhere: their identities are perichoretic.
12. Ben Sira 50.6-12; Wis. 18.24; Philo, Mos. 2.117-26, 133-35, 143; Josephus, Ant. 3.180, 183-87. l3. Besides the obvious vegetative language for the high priest! s garments (Exod. 28.1314 [cf. 1 Kgs 7.17, 43]; 28.33-34) and the homology of textiles and colours between Aaron!s garments and the tabemacle(-as-microcosm) materials, note the way in which the making of the priestly garments in Exod. 39 is structured so as to recall the tenfold sequence of creative acts of Genesis 1 (see C.J. Labuschagne, Numerical Secrets ofthe Bible: Rediscovering the Bible Codes {North Richland Hills, TX: Bibal Press, 2000}, pp. 44-46). This seems to say that the "manui`actur of Aaron!s garment by Bezalel, the onewho has divine Wisdom and the e! of God (Exod. 31.1-3),recapitulate s Spirit God!s own creationofthe cosmos. 14. Ben Sira 50.7; 4Q405s23.ii.9 (Fletcher-1.ouis,All the Glory ofrldam, pp. 374-77) and the mar!eh cohen of the musoph prayer for Yom Kippur all identify the high priest with the anthropomcrphic Glory of Ezek. 1.26-28. Cil generally Aristeas 96-99 (where the high priest in his garments is "the fullment of G1ory!); losippon 10.11-12 and Samaritan Chronicle 11 130a (see Fletcher-Louis, " Priest !, pp. 98-102); robe") T Levi and 8.5 . no - -....13... i:ur\nl'nU 'STDAT1Vl'1 IXUIV UUU -Worship 2..Vl.-vu t ofthe Vvrvi Jewish r..;-,... High .......x.!... ns 1...1..75-77, and Ul-'UV' honoured
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Gl01y!.l5On the stage of the cultic microcosm he is the creat0r,! and divine warrior surrounded by clouds of incense(Exod. 40.27, 34; 1 Kgs 8.10; 2 Chron. 5.11; Lev. 16.124 3; ci Lev. 9.22-24), cerryingerjy coals, dressedin garb that (according to Josephus, BJ 5.23l;Am". 3184) symbolizesthunder and lightning, his garments sprinkled with the blood of God!s victories (Exod. 29.1921;of esp.Isa.63.1-6, but also Deut. 33.2-3; Eudg.4-5; Ps,68.8-9, 18).*7He is divine Wisdom! sAvatar}3 According to a brief and tantalizing passage in Josephushe is, in effect, called Yahweh, "the mosthonoured of revered names! (BJ 4.16364). Israe1!s cult was anieoriic,we have beentold. But this view is mistakensince, at least for one dominant strand of biblical thought, the high priest is the true idol, the image (tselem, Gen. 1.26-27), of the one creator God.] And as the "statue! of the living God he is rightly the recipient of cultic devotion; of wor ship.2Ali this, it must be stressed, is true ofthe high priestly ojce (that is rituaiiy prescribed for particular times, a particular place, to specic garmentsand liturgical acts).None of this applies-at leastnot di1eetly the various private to individuals who held that ofce when they were about their daily activities outside the bounds of that ofce. You are to worship the high priest at the right

the language of Glory used ofthe (high priestly-Enochic) Son of Man in the Similitudes and of the Son of Man in the Gospels. l5. This is the post-biblical expression (Sirach 50.11; 2 Enoch 22.8) that derives from Exod. 28 .2, 40 where Aaron!s garments are made l"17REJl'l *7 'IWZD'7("for glory and for beauty!), 1 slr; Trwiv xori 560rv ("forhonour and for giory!) (cf. generally Pss. 29.1; 96.7; Job 37.22; LXX Job 40.10; Ps. 8.6). See also 1QSb 4.28; 4Q511 35 4; Ardsteas 97-99, and the peculiar expression for the (high) priestly ministry "in" God!s Glory in Sirach 45.7 and 4Q405 23 ii. 16. This is the burden ofthe complex intratextuality between Gen. l.12.4 and Exod. 2531 in Sirach 24 and 50 which 1have discussed in Fletcher-Louis, "Wisdom Christolo gy and the Partings ofthe Ways', pp. 52-68, Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory qfAdom, pp. 73-81 ; and FletcherLouis, "1`emp1eCosmology of P!. The notion is tiindamerrtal to P itself, as can readily be seen from the way in which Aaron!s tendin of the tabernacl menora at the Tamid sacrice g e h the day and night throug the (Exod. 27.20-21 30.7-8) recapituiate God!s separatio of ; of light and the boundaries s n and morning (Gen. 1.3-5). h creation of the evening 17. See further F1etcherLouis, All the Glory of Adam, pp. 81-83, 222-51; Barker, "The High Priest and the Worship of Jesus!, pp. 93-1 11 (and see Sirach 45.6-8; 40408 3; T Reub. 6.12). 18. Hence the precise parallelism between Wisdom!s and Simon!s prosopographies in Sirach 24.1-24 and 50.1-21. 19. See Fletcher-Louis, "God!s {mage,His CosmicTemple and the High Priest', pp. Bl-99; Fletcher-Louis, 'The Worship ofthe Jewish High Priest!, pp. 71-102 and Fletcher-Louis, "The Image of God', pp. 73-89; C.L. Meyers, Exodus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 242, 244-45 and Philo, On Dreams 1.208-215. 20. E.g. Pseudo-1-lecataeus in Diodorus Siculus XL.3 .4-6; ill Reub. 6.12; Ben Sira 50. 1-21 s -- -.. .. .- A- .r A r g. a.,...r.... am r 221-445: b. Yomo69a;40405 23 ii; 2Enoch (esp. vv. 20-21); 1 Mace. 14.4i;sosepnus,zrm. r..>3r555,.,. r.,....,. .,..., .,, .-- .
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F1etcher Jesusas the High Priestly Messiah 161 Louis moment on certain cultic occasionsin the temple courts, but not if you happen to bump into him in the Jerusaiernfruit market?

The High Priesthood in Jewish Political Theology Engagementwith the much-discussed question of Jesus!relationship to Jewish messianisrnhasbeenblighted by two conceptual mistakes.The rst of theseis the common assumptionthat Jewishrnessianism meansJewishexpectationof a future deliverer. A future messianichope is a vital concern,but "messianism! is before all else a question of alternativeand competing modelsof political leadership; it is a matter of political theology. In the period of the monarchy the king was lsrael!s messiah(anointed one) with a high priest acting ashis deputy(along with prophets,military commanders and othersin attendance). ln the Pentateuch, Aaron, the chief priest, is the messiah.In neither of theseis a future, eschato1ogi continuity cal, messiahawaited andmessianism is dynastic, therebyguaranteeing between the past,present andiirture. In the post-biblical period, as in someportions of the biblical text, a future messiahis looked for because,in the present one or other messianicofce is vacantor the current incumbentis deemedinadequate; a religious and political crisis must be rectied. To be sure, that crisis often has cosmological ramications and its resolution might entail cosmic transformation, but the political dimension remains. Jewishrnessianicexpectationalwayspresumesa particular political theology; by what leadershipthe nation will achieveits political goalsand, thereafter,how its ideal constitution should be governed in a time of peace.Once a particular group or tradition decides upon a particular political theology the degree to which it is yet unrealized in the presentdecides in what ways political actors, such asroyal (military) leaders,prophets andpriests,are expectedin the future. So too, in the caseof Jesus,a primary historical question mustbe, "what view of Israel's ideal leadership (whether in this or in some new age) did the prophet from Nazarethtake?' The answerto that question then leadsus to another; "what view of his own role in the nation!s leadership (in the present or "messianic age") did he have"?! Of course,in answering these questions,at times, the primary sourceswill have to be usedto work backwardsfrom the secondto the rst question:a particular expectationof the future arrival of a new David maytell us that a group believed the nation should be led by a king. On the other hand, other evidence may indicate that that group!s political theology was diarchic, with the future royal messiahsubordinateto a priest already satisfactorily installed in his oice.22So, too, if Jesus endorsesa Davidic messianichope, it doesnot mean
21. The high priest is forbidde to wear his sacre garment outsidethe sanctuar (Lev. n For the Hasmoneans d this s meant keeping the y 2l.10-12; Ezek. 42.14; 44.19). garments in the Antonia fortress that was evidentlyconsidere to fall within the bound of the sanctuar prescribedby Leviticus and Ezekiel (see d Josephu Ant. 20.9 -92).s y an 1~r.:.. al wucrc urwc r .......-.wIma-pa - V JA- tn t- the -.1... erhrmtnn ..:....:~. ar Uumraur nrrmmn wh;-rn there was already an #Sl3l7llSl!lCl '7'7 'I `hm AHHTDXIHIHIBS LU UIC nuuuuun s, cn. yu.--; 1
-

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thathe envisagesno future role for a high priest, alongside,above or beneaththe nation!s king. Nor does it mean he excluded the possibility that he would himself be both that royal messiahand the nation!s priestly one.All this meansthat our historical task mustbe attentiveto the shapeof Jewish political theologies, not just instancesof a future hope, if we are to make senseof Jesusand his options as a self-consciousleaderof a movementvying for a place in the political game. The second weakness of historical Jesusresearch is its xation on royal messianism. This is understandable.In the Gospelsroyal languageis obvious to the casualreader. And throughout theNew TestamentJesus is hailed "rnessiah!, " Son of David!, where it is only Hebrews,at themargins ofthe canon, that there is any explicit interestin Jesus'high priesthood.Although, asI shall argue,there is priestly language in the Gospels, it is not obvious and the average modern readerof the New Testamentknows little ofthe material in the Pentateuchthat brings it to light. Priestly categorieshave played a signicant role in Eastem Christianity, but in the (especially Protestant)West, they have all but disap-

peared . But, asis now widely recognized,on closeinspectionthere is not the interest
in royalty and royal messianic expectation in the Gospels or their historical context that the reader might expect. According to the extant Gospel records, lesus freely spoke of himself as"prophet! andas "Son of Mani He was reluctant to acceptthe title "messiah! or its royal associations, at least until his nal entry into Jerusalem and showdown with the authorities (Mk 10.46-52 and 11.1-ll with parallels). And even then, at his trial, just as he had qualied Peter's messianicacclamation at Caesarea Philippi (Mk 8.29-3 l; Mt. 16.16,20-21 ; Lk. 9.20-22), he prefers to speak of the "Son of Man! rather than of "David! (or of the royal messiahwho is "the son of Godlthe blessed!).23 The popular assumptionthat all rst-century Jewswere eagerly awaiting a royal gure astheir sole messianichope of releasefrom (Roman) oppression is also not sustainedby the evidence.24 We have perhapsjust one or two textsthat

high priesthood at least for someof the movement! history, thougha future royal, warrior , was awaited (see esp. lQSb). s prince
23. Mt. 26.63-64; Mk 14.6l; Lk. 22.69-70. The way the title "messiah' is qualied by "son of`God1'son of the blessed' in the high priest!s questioning of Jesus is best explained by the fact that "messiah! itself is an open title with several possible meanings. The appositional "son of God' makes clear that Caiaphas thinks lesus claims to be a royal rnessiah, given the preponderance ofthe phrase "son of God' in royal contexts (e.g. Ps. 2; 2 Sarn. 7.13-I4). 24. For those who have seena minimal (royal) messianicexpectation in Jesus!Jewishcontext seeW.S. Green, introduction. Messiahin Judaism:Rethinking the Question', in J. Neusner, W.S. Green and E. Freriehs (eds.), Judaisms and Their Messiahsat the Turn ofthe Christian Era (CambridgeCambridg University Press,1987) pp. I -l 3; J.l~l.Charlesworth"l`heConJu.. W Hana: anu r r. n nant . +'t\1r l\/lntitilh H1 [HC l"5Cl.lLlUU\KilJ 1H1. *** " . " " vr.r....-:..1. " ' ' ' t.-. " the'- - D=rrdnnrrnr1rla` t'-- ----J--1! in W CEDE :01 LUG Nuiaoruu e ur use x ........ , " "J-lsmcrwmrll-l_l"zm1)OfIl1l( , #(lS.),AU_fl'#gUWd

Fletcher-Louis Jesusas the High Priestly Messiah

l63

unequivocally testify to sucha royal messianicexpectation in the centuriesirrunediately prior to the ministry of Jesus(Psalms of Solomon l7-18; cf Sibylline Oracles 3.652-56). A sensitiveand responsibleuse of (a) the evidence for probably royal !messianic" movementsin the rst and secondcenturies,25 (b) postAD 70 pseudepigraphical literature (Sibylline Oracl es 5, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch), (c) traditionswhich speakin unspecifrc termsof a (sometimes heavenly)redeemer (e.g. Dan. 7.13; Lk. 1.78), (d) the Targumsand (e) the possible rnessianicmotivations in the !translations" ofthe Hebrew Bible into Greek (the LXX), createsa picture of some Jewssome of the time pinning their hopes and aspirations for the future on a royal messiahgure.2 Somehave exaggeratedthe absenceof a belief in a royal messiah. But much of the material that does attesta royal 27 messianiehope assumes that that individual will actin tandemor overlap with a high priestly one. Evidence for belief in a sole royal gure at Israel"s head is hard to ndzs Whether they were already exercising a political programme or looking forward

Niealergang der Rdmischen Welt (ANR PI (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter, 1979), ll. 19. 1, pp. 188-218 (2l7); .l.H. Charlesworth,O !From Jewish Messianology to Christian Christology: Some Cavats and Perspectives', in Neusner, Green and Frerichs (eds.), Juclaisrns and Their Messiahs, pp. 225-64 (29); E.P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Bel ief 63 BCE66 CE(London: SCM Press, 1992) p. 295. , is, movements described by Josephus and from what we can learn of the leaders 25. That ofthe second and third Jewish revolts in ll5l7 and 132-35 AD. Though it should be noted that many of the revolutionarymovement andsevera of the key actors in the rst Jewish l revolt as described by Josephus s are priestly. 26. For this approach see esp. W. I-lorbury, Jewish Messianism and the Cult afCl1rist (London: SCM Press, 1998); idem, !Messianism in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha "in J. Day (eds.),King andMessia in Israel andtheAncientNearEast: Proceeding of , Oxford Old Testament Seminar h s Press, l 998), the (JSOTSup, 270; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic pp. 402-33. 27. Sanders (Practice and Belirgf p. 296) is mistaken, for example, in claiming the War Scroll (XQM, 4QM) from Qumran has no royal military messiah. lt does, as 1QM 5.1 and, now, 4Q285, show. 28. The Psalms qfS0lomon-the one apparently obvious example of a belief in a single

royal messiah-is not, on close examination, devoid of comment on the role ofthe high priesthood. The Hasmoneans are arrogant sinners who have, with the arrival of Pompey, been dethroned (17.4-10). The new Davidic king is to do what the Hasmoneans failed to do. He will glorify the name of God, the Lord (17.30-32) as the !Lord messiah" (contrast 17.6 where the l-lasmoneans 'did not glorify your honourable name"a traditional high priestly duty, as lQSb 4.28 shows) and he will cleanse Jerusalem of its sin and impurity, ashad Judas Maccabeus in the previous century (1 Mace. 4.36-41). Whilst the king takes over some ofthe responsibilities

that had previously been those of the high priesthood, the Psalms nowhere deny a continuing 1'0l# #m high !.Sil!l0. uiuraru ur we r..............--.. ! {GT ' till?. ` .lBI'\.!S3l ! ! pt`1E !* ~'Ami And ur Miticism nf the 1-lasmoneans .,....,, seems to imply the
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164

Journal for the Studyofthe Historical Jesus

to a new (eschatological and,perhaps,transcendent)future, the vast majority of Jews believed in one or other of three possible Godgiven forms of govern-

ment. Thesewerethateither, 29

1. the nation should be ruled by one (!an0inted") high priest, and a priest alone: the Samaritans,Heoataeus of Abderafu Ben Sira(?),3i Daniel,32the Oniad connmmity at Leontopo1is(!?), Judith,34theAni33 mal Apocahzpse, the Epistle of Aristeas, the TestamentofMoses,35 the view to Pompey (63 BC) asking 35 of some who send embassies

29. This brief overview of the sources would need a much longer explanation to be fully demonstrate And I haveomitted the role of Mosaic, Levitical andpropheticofces, andthe part d. to be played by a supreme council, a Sanhedrin, that complicate the picture f`urther. I {ind no evidence to support E.P. Sa.nderss " proposal that someJewsdid not believe in the messiah because they thought God alone would bring about the eschatological clnouement (Practice and Belief pp. 297-98). 30. Hecataeus (in Diodorus Siculus 40.3) describes a temple state ruled by priests for which reaso !the Jewsneverhavea king". 3l. n Seeesp. M. Himmelfarb, !The Wisdomofthe Scribe, the Wisdom ofthe Priest, andthe Wisdom ofthe King according to Ben Sira", in R.A. Argall, B.A. Bow and R.A. Werline (eds.), For a Later Generation:The Transformatio of Tradition in Israel Early JudaismandEarly Christianity (HarrisburgTrinity International2000),pp. S9-99The assignme of cern Press : , to the priest perhaps puts . nt in the next catetain roles usually associated with kingship Ben Sira gory--(b), and it is not absolutely clear that Ben Sira and his grandson (Sirach) would not allow a diarchic government-(c). 32. Danie1"seschatological expectation and worldview is primarily priestly. The !one like a son of man" is a high priest (see below), in 9.24-27 the !messianism" is obviously priestly and inthe man Daniel himself Israelite royalty (1 .3-7) is divested ofthe normal responsibilities of kingship and made an exemplar of a more general apocalyptic piety. 33. The direct literary evidence (from Josephus)and the likely indirect evidence of Joseph andAsenethindicatesthat the OniadcommunityatLeontopoli hadan entirelypriestly leader - that ship. The community"s military role in supporting sthe Ptolemaic rule in Egypt suggests they had little room for a royal leader alongside their Zadokite head. (See ABD, Ill. 1065-66.) 34. In 5.3 the Assyrian Holofemes asks who rules over the Jews asking. ln what follows the answer is given by the Ammonite Achior and the work"s eponymous heroine: the Jews do not have a king, because God is their king (5.5-22; 9.12). But the nation does have a (high) priesthood (4.6-15; 15.8-10) that takes responsibilities for military matters like the high priest Simon (Ben Sira 50.4), the Oniad"s of Leontopolis and, later, the Maccabean Jonathan (e.g. l Macc. l0.18-2l). 35. Judas Maccabeus plays the key role (90.9- 14), not a king. But, pace J.J. Collins, The Sceptreand the Star: The Messiah of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Ancient Literature (New York: Doubleday l995), p. 34 this doesnot meanthat the Animal Apocalypse lacks s messianismit vision ofthe white , simply mean the !messianism ispriestly. And the climactics ; " bull with huge black s horns in 90.37-3 is of a new Adam with no clear royal, let alone , Davidic, characteristics. .. . .. 9 .t.:.. -- re r r 1 .1\ ami lrmlm Fmward to the coming 36. T Mos.deride lsrael"s recentkings (5.1-2; o.1-2 ), anu tucks tomato .. . a ,.!.. 1unl\r-lu|n*mT1 l'l1"l'l HUGS!. I. l\J1JH in 11 the UN-' ! *""!! #HlV*uLuuaii 1......... 1,.;.4. Nasal `. no eschatological dnouement. Of E I'lB3V relive. ... s instr 1

Fletcher-Louis Jesusas the High Priestly Messiah

Rome to restore a hierocracy (Diodorus Siculus 40.2; Josephus, Ant.

165

14.41), or
2. it should be ruled by an !anointed one" who is both priest and king 37 (a priest who is also a king).3SThe Aramaic Levi Document,39 some (pre-Christian) material in the Testament ofTwelve Patriarchs,! the Hasmoneansfrom John Hyrcanus I onwards, (some) Sadduceesfn

som Pharisees,Josephu preferre stat ,*3 TheSimilitadesof e 42 s" d e

37. The viewsexpressein someofthesetexts might in fact belon to thosewho believe druled by one who is both priest and king. For g example, when Hccatacus d thc nation should bc describe the Judais known to him hc neednot know, or faithfully report, thc fact that the s m thc high priest at thc headof thc templestatebelievehim to bc bcxhpriest Jcws who worship cmdking. 38. Because in Genesis 1-2 Adam has both royal characteristics {in 1.26-30 and in ch. 2 asGod"s gardener) and priestly ones (sec c. g. Wcuham, !SanctuarySymbolism in the Garden cf Eden St01y",pp. 399-404} and becauseSecond Temple political theology sought to replicate the conditions ofthe paradisai Urzcit, thc combination of king and priest in one {igurc will have been conceptually far more attractive than modem scholarship has appreciated. D.W. Rcokc thinks that the Hasmcnca p1icsth00dadoptio ofkiugship is an aberratio andEquivalent n thc worst kind "s " {!Kingship n as Pricsthocd:TheRelationshi n to blasphem of betwee thc High y Pricsthcmd amdthc Monarclf, in J. Day [cd.}, King and Messiahp in Israel andnthe Ancient Near East. Proceedings ofthe Oxford Old Testament Seminar {Shefeld: Shci"f1cld Academic Press, 1998], pp. 187~20S [207-208]). She docs not discuss the material that follows and there is no direct cvidcnccthat anyon thoughtthclater Hasmoncapositionblasphcmcus The taking up ofkingship into priesthood is already a feature -: e n of thc vision of P,.where (pace Rocks:) Aaron wears garbpreviously associate with (sacral kingship (Exud. 28). 39. In this third century BC text Levi absorb thc characteof kingship. Isaiah 11.2is d ) s r applied to Levi in 4QTL.cvi col. I. 14 (= Testament ofthe Twelve Patriarchs ms.c = Athcs Cod. 39, 8). Sec M.E. Stone and J. C. Grccniicid, !Thc Prayer of Lcvi", JBL 112 (1993), pp. 247-66 (261),and cf. I Levi 2.3; 4.5; 18.7.Languag in thc royal blessin of Juda (Gcn. 49.10) is h c. 5-6; ci TZLevi transferred to Kchath in the Aramaic eLevi Document 66-67 g(= Camb. Cul. 11.5, noted by M.E. Stone and J.C. Grecniicld, !Rcmarks on thc Aramaic Testament of Levi from thc: Gcniza", RB 86 [1979], pp. 214-30 {223-24]). The statement that Kohath !n< T6 cmppc udmu Eccvmn qpxhBacukwv izpdrzupu TC;`| probably meansKohath { !amd his though x seed will bc thc beginning of kings, apriesthood for] Israel`, pcu17\ " it might envisage diarchic rule: ! .. .will bc a ruler of kings, a priesthoo for IsracI". This all provide vital evidenc that thc combinatio of priesthoo andkingship in thc oneruler antcdatc dynasty. d s thc Hasmonca e Reub. 6.12, TI Dan 5.10 and portions of s TZLevi 18. n n 40. E.g. TZ d 41. The Sadducccs who support HyrczmusI against a Pharisaic attack cmhis legitimacy
presumably accept his claim to bc thc nati011"spricsbking-prophct (Am. 13.288-96). 42. All parties, Pharisees included, in J0scphus" story of thc previous moteapparently acceptthc legitimacy in principle cfm}:-:by onewho is bothpriest andking. The issuefor thc Phariscc Elcazat is thcpcssibility that Hyrca11us" mother was raped while in captivity rcmdcring him an illegitimate high priest according to Lev. 2 1.14 (so also thc rabbinic version of this story: b. Qiddushin 66a). 43. J0scphusherois JohnHyrcanuswho perfectly embodie thc high priesthood king. 4 Ama D !}!H. A11!] ami.: 1uu1.u sw [hBtl' ua- I.1BbB6I` ,,,-,.|...-.. I 1 ASIrn. Auf ... IW 12 `} nam Ami JOS5[Jl|Ll:z Impnlmq gggghimszlfas #T0f " s , szhinand r0hBGV ($66 U--]-

I've now changed my mind about 2 Enoch and think it belongs in another category - its interest in Melchezedek puts it in a similar place to the gospels and Orlov is 166 Jourmzlfor theStudyoftheHistorical Jesus wrong in thinking that in 2 Enoch Enochfm 2 Ertoch,45 or Enoch is king
3. it should bc ruled jointly by an !an0intcd" priest and an !an0intci" king,46with the latter subordinate to the former: Jubilees (31.1 l-20), Qumran some (pre-Christian) material in the Testament Esscnism, of the Twelve Poiriorchsfw Pseudo-Pi1ilo"s Biblical Antiquities,43 Siracli(!?), (probably) thc founders of thc !fourEh pl1i1osophy",4

that aristocratic, Hasmonean, tradition (Josephus is priest and prophet: B.JQ3.352; Josephus is priest and descendent of 1-lasmoneanroyalty: Vita l-6; Ant. 16.187; he thinks the Mosaic constitution is a clerical theocracy-an aristocracy: C. Ap. 2.164; 185-89; Ant. 4.2l4, 218 (cf. Deut. 17.9); 6.83-84; 11.11l, 326-39; 20.224-29). And perhaps, as Bruce Chilton has suggested, he was seeking himself to be given aposition of high priestly governance in Judaea by his Flavian patrons (The Temple qfJesns, p. 77). At Ant. 4.223-224 (cf. 6.157) he concedes the possibility

of a constitutional

monarchy, but only as a lesser form of government and provided the king is

subordinat to the priesthoo andSanhedri (48.10;52.4)ofthe Similitudesis identiedthroughouthe e 44. I takeit that d the !messiahn. " Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels. Christology and t Soteriology text with Enoch (so C.ll.T.
[WUN'1`, 2.94; Ttibingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1997], pp, l 5 1-52, following the seminal insights of l.C. VanclerKam, !Righteous One, Messiah, Chosen One, and Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37-7 l ", in .l.ll.Charlesworth [eds.], The Messiah: Developments in EarliestJudaism and Christianity [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992], pp. 161-91). 1also take it that the identication of Danie1"s !one like a son of man" (in Eth. Enoch 46.1 and thereafter) with Enoch is based on the axiomatic identication of both Enoch and the gure in Daniel 7.13 as lsrae1"s true (proto-, or eschatological) high priest. The Son of Man-rnessiahof the Similitndes is not aking, much less a son of David, but he has absorbed the trappings of royalty, as the use of Isa. 11 in 49.1-4 and 62.2, and apossible inuence of Ps. 1 10 (M. Hengel, Studies in Earhz Christology [Edinburgh: T. &. T. Clark, 1995], pp. 184-85) shows. That the Similitucles has such an explicit priest-king messianic expectation will partly explain why it has not been found in the Qumran caves. 45. This appears to be the logic of the claim that Enoch is the founder of the line of the
true priesthood (22.8-10; 68-72) and that, as the seventh from Adam, he possesses Adam"s divine kingship (30. l 2) (on this see A.A. Orlov, !On the Polemical Nature of 2 [Slavonic] Enoch: A Reply to C. Bottrich" , JSJ 34 [2003], pp. 274-303), The true lineage of high priests will pass to Melchizedek (chs. 7l72). The same view may be expressed in the earliest Enochic

literature(1 Enoch 1-36 etc. ...), wherethe priestly Enochtakesover the role ofthe Mesopo tamianking-priest.
46. This view, of course, nds precedent in biblical texts such as Jer. 33.17-22; Zech.

4.l4; 6.1 i-13 and, in effect, this is the position of the Deuteronomist (Deut. 17.18-20). 47. E.g. TZJudah 21.1-2; YZSim. 7.1-2. 48. Anointed priest: 48.2 (Phinehas); 51.7 (Samuel); anointed king: 51.6. The difcult material surrounding the Judahite Kenaz and the high priestly garments in chs. 25-28 appears to have in mind a diarchic constitution for the nation. 49. They are called Zadok and Judah (Josephus, Ant. 18.4), names that surely indicate a claim to a true diarchic leadership of priest and king. This circumstantial evidence is supported by textual material at Masada that has an Essenic provenance (see material in C.A. Newsom, Y. Yadin, S. Talmon and E. Qimron, Masada VI: Yigael Yadin Excavations, 1963-1965: Fina! Reports:HebrewFragments fom Masada[Israel ExplorationSociety, HebrewUniversity of
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Fletcher-Louis Jesusas theHigh Priestly Messiah

167

Josephus! acceptable,but not preferred state5 and the leaders ofthe third Jewish revolt (Bar Kosiba and Eleazar).5l
The absence of a purely royal rncssianisrn and the ubiquity of the priestly alternative in the political theology of the later years of the Second Temple should not surprise us.52This is thepicture presented by the Hebrew Bible. A description of the biblical vision-and its legacy in the post-biblical materialthat emphasizesthe presence of royal messianismis only possible if the Old Testamentis itself read without due attentionto its canonical shape. Although 53 it may be true that historically lcingship-that of Saul, David, Solomon and the rest--preceded a shift in the exilic andpost-exilic period to the rule of the priesthood, this is not the story the Bible tells. In its canonicalform the Sinaitic covenant, the institution of the tabernacle(as ideal temple) andthe supremacyofthe (high) priesthood of Aaron and the prophetic-teaching role of the Levite Moses dene the utopian vision of lsrael! s political existence. The Pentateuch is 54 almost devoid of royalty.55The highesthonour P givesto the older royal tribe of Judah is responsibility for temple architecture,craftsmanshipanclconstruction (representedby the role of Bezalel from the tribe of Judah in Exod. 31 .l-3), serving the needsofthe priests and the people.56 ln antiquity, unlike modernity,

two generation later with .ludah ! (grand)so Menahem playingthe role of royal messia (B-L s 444) alongside the priest( s "l) Eleazar n, h at Masada. 2.434, (BJ ,2.447), who then leads the movement

50. Ant. 2.223-24; 6.l57. 5 1 . Their diarchic leadership is clear on coins minted by the revolutionaries that mention "Eleazar the Priest! alongside Simon. SeeE. Schtirer, G. Vermes, F. Millar and M. Black, The History ofthe Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B. C.-A.D. 135) (3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1973-87), I, p. 544, who, without justication, refer to Simon only as "Bar Kochba!s deputy!. 52. Pace, e.g., Collins, The Sceptre and the Star, p. 95. 1have not included the evidence of

Typo Here: that should read Eleazar, not 'Simon

Philo thatis hardto dene,thoughit takesfor grante thepriestly hegemon of thePentaeuc 53. ln all the highly productive, detailed d examination of the Targums, the Septuagint and y h. the allusive interpretation of scripture in the pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls that is now undertaken in some quarters, there is a danger of missing the canonical narrative wood for the exegetical trees of the scriptures! individual portions.
54. Sanders (Practice and Belief} p. 297) sees the dominance ofthe priesthood in the biblical text, but not the full force of priestly hegemony in the narrative shapeof scripture.And ironically, in this regardhe cites the Deuteronomi (Deut. 31.9)with no referenc to P!s material. 55. Royalty is implicitly exalted (over priesthoodin Gen.49. But , st e the blessin of Moses (Deut. 33) that closesthe Pentateuc andperhap superced thatof Jacobdownplay the role ) g h, s s 24.7, l7 looks of Judah (33.7) at the expense of Levi (33.8-1 l). es The prophecy of , Numbers forward to a royal iigure, thoughmany in the postperiodread Ba1aam ! oracle in diarchic terms (esp. QL, but perhap also the LXX and the revolutionarie biblical s Bar Kosiba and s 35.11. s Eleazar). See also Gen 17.6, I6; 56. For the likelihoodthatP!s depiction Moses andthe Tabernacl a critique **1*1-..I'cmt]1B H1 Uuvutrurxur r 7 of Aaron, - Tpvirealnm v-2-.--1-... 1*-....-.1-. Gu is hmmtinrml -4-lr-,. ..1,1..- UHVIUJU rwavtrlin Temnla state eu-. sec -.l.D. LBVEHSOTL nt tha f\1t]CT usruprs. eww e

168

Journal for the Study ofthe Historical Jesus

what matters, what is trustworthy and authoritative, is what is oid And the Pentateuchis constructedto claim that the priestly temple stateon which the returneesfrom exile would model their life is basedon that of Sinai, and that, in turn, the Tabernacle-camprevealed to Moses at Sinai is a recapitulation of the originally intended order of creation. In the biblical story the monarchy came later and was bedevilled from the start by theological and political problems (1 Sam.8; l0.l7-l9; 12.12, 17-25).57 The prophets,by and large, seethe future in priestly terms (esp.Ezekiel, Zech. 1-8, Haggai, Joel, Malachi, Daniel), even

where future rule is sharedwith kings? Jesus! Jewish contemporariesdid not have the metanarrative of modern historical criticism in which (the reality of pre-exilic) kingship precedes the (ction of post-exilic) priestly hegemony.Whateverthe historical actuality,later Jewsread their Bible as a whole and took for granted its construal of israelite history. The competingpolitical theoriesthey espouse arisefrom different fonns of acco1n1noclationone is not clearly given in scripture itself-between where the priestly hegemony of the Pentateuchand the belief (outside Saniaritanism) that God had ordained, at least for a period, longs to rule the nation. The one striking example of a hope for a single royal messiah(Psalms ofSolcm0n 1718) is highly situational in outlook, respondingto the failure ofthe Hasmoneans after the triumph of Pon1pey.5 This single witness is hardly statistically sufcient to establisha resurgenceof widespread interestin David and the monarchy after the collapse of the Hasmoneans, as is sometimesclaimed. Much ofthe evidence noted above is for a political theology that is already realized (e.g. Hecataeus,Judith), not a messianic expectation for afuture redeemer.But even though priestsheld power to one degreeor another throughout

our period, somelooked forward to a future, when,becauseofthe contemporary corruption of the priesthood, an ideal priest would reign.6In addition, there is
and Visionary Experience!, in A. Green (ed.), Jewish Spiri1"uaIity. From the Bible through the Middle Ages (New York: Crossroad, 1986), pp. 32-61 (33-34). And for the anti-monarchic priestly vision of God!s intended order see NLG. Brett, "Earthing the Human in Genesis 1-3!, in N.C. l andS. Wurst (eds.), TheEarth Story in Genesi (Shefeld: ShefeldAcademic label pp. 73-86(77-78) s Press,2000), . 57. For a niceexampl of this sensitivity to the canonica narrativeshap of scriptureand e eseeBen Sira 44 the conseque supremac of the priesthoo in the lideal Israelite state Josephus ! preference for a priestly d aristocracyis also due to the narrative plot osrac-: 50. politint y 1!s cal history (see Josephus, Am. 6.83-84; 11.1 1l-12; 20.224-51). 58. The conclusion ot] for example Collins, TheSceptrearidthe Star, p. 95, to the effect s , found at Qumran and within Essenism- a reaction to the that dual messianism is only really Iposition- that the role ofthe priesthoo in messianis is anaberratio from as the biblical picture, is puzzling. lasmonean and d m n 59. Seeesp.Pss. Sel. 2 and17.4-10 60. E.g. Y Mos. 10.1 (where.the existing priesthood is corrupt-5.4;6. l-3; cf 7.3); Qume S.--.......:.. -. IL`.lefunn lem UYIBSIHDUU 15 "" true """ l !""'` - sulnnvn . . Han ....--.--..... ....:...1mm1 mmm andthe priesthoo oiciates ann. rnm1mm|hHTm' WHUITI [HE JCI ubmmu lJ*W'"' *"* UUUI-|lJ'* Z : d

Fletcher-Louis Jesusas the High Priesily Messiah

169

other circumstantial evidence that the priestly ofce and its accoutrements were the focus of messianic,revolutionary fervour. This is, no doubt, one reason why the Romans put the high priest!s garb under lock and key for much of the rst century of the Christian era.6lThat garb representedthewhole cosmosand both Romansand Jewswere alive to its potentpolitical symbolism for Jewish aspirations of freedom andworld dominionfz Also there was symbolic signicancein the choice of a new high priest by the revolutionaries at the beginning of the Great War with Rome. Judging by the evidence of Josephusand one rabbinic

text, that signicance was in part due to the numerical values in the lineage of priests leading up to his appointment. Josephussays that there were 70 high priests from the building of the rst temple up to this last high priest (Ant. 20.228) and that there were 28 from the times of Herod onwards (Ari!. 20.250). 70 is the multiple of 7 and 10. 28 is both the 7th triangular number (7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + l) and,also, aperfect number (a number that is the sum of its divisors: 1 + 2 + 4 + 7 + i4). i-le also indicatesthat the last,revolutionary, priest was the 84th from Aaron (Ani. 20.227; cf. YZ Yoma 1.1).84 is a multiple of 7 and 12. For some the revolutionaries! appointment of a high priest probably had Enochic
connotations since gematria on Enoclfs name is 84;63he would certainly have

been thought to embody salvation-historical completion and mystical transcendence.

Jesusand the Political Theology of His Age

What does the hierocratic fonn of Jewishpolitical theology mean for our quest for the historical iesus? The following general considerations now demand fuller investigation: 1.lf this sketchof high priestly identity is anywhere near the mark, then, as part of the question of Jesus!messianic selfthe possibility of him thinking he had a divine identity must be reopened. if Jesusthought of consciousness, himself in priestly categoriesthen he could, in theory, have believed that he was a singular embodiment of God!s own identity,just asthe high priest was (in the
down by the Dead Sea, ready in waiting for the community"s rise to power [lQSb, 4Q400405]); the soFourthPhilosophy(that is led, in part, by the Pharisai priest Zadok as an c against the high priest of alternative called revolutionary candidate for the nation!s priesthood over Roman choice, Joazar son of Boethus [Josephus, Ant. 18.2-4]). 61. Ant. 15.403-406; l8.90-95; 20.6-9. 62. Similar garment werefamously wornas a displayof military andpolitical powerby s Poliocerte in thethird centuryBC(seee.g. Plutarch!sLives, Demetrius the GreekDemetrius s XLI).
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l70

Journal for the Studyof the Historical Jesus

context of his ofce). Since the fact that Jesusthought of himself in priestly terms needsrst to be established, a detailed consideration of this possibility will have to be closed off for a future occasion.Instead,I turn in the restof this essayto more immediate questions:!what version of israel"s political constitution did Jesusenvisage'? aud, !did Jesusthink he was a priestly messiah?" As we shall see,knowing what we now know aboutthe divine identity of the (high) priest facilitates a full appreciation of Jesus" (high) priesthood. 2. In the light of our sketchof Jewish!messianis1nwe " should now expectto nd more interaction with priestly categoriesin the Jesus material than hashitherto been assumedby those who have worked within the royal-messiah paradigm. Even if we wereto decidethat Jesus did not, in any way, think in terms of his own priesthood, that itself would be a factthat called for historical comment. As it is, in what follows l will lay out someevidence that Jesus thought of himself asIsrael"s true, eschatological high priest and that this played a central role in his aims, self-perception and the reasonsfor his death. I make a number of assumptions. First, taking seriously the canonical texts" accountof him, that Jesus was not just a preacherof subversivewisdom, but that he identied himself andhis mission with the larger sweepof Israel"s story,her competingeschatological,that ispol i tical , aspirationsand, therefore,that, at the very least,he believed himself to be a prophet of restoration. Secondly,l assume thatthe Jewisheschatologies lcnownto him were not characterized by the kind of radical transcendenceof history that hassometimesin modem scholarshipbeen retrojected into the late SecondTemple period.64As a good lewish prophet of restorationhe maywell have hopedfor a transcendence of history-a transiiguration of time and space that would entail a transformationof Israel"s social,political and economic institutions. But, unlesshe dreamedup sucha scenario out of nothing, he could not have expectedthe new age to have meant a complete rejection of the institutions given to the nation in her canonical texts.Neither would his knowledge of, and participation in, an apocalyptic spirituality-any meditative reading of Daniel, 1 Enoch and other such texts nurtured an have essentialhostility to temple, Torah and priesthood. On the contrary, if he had visions ofthe kind recordedin the apocalyptic and mystical textsthat have come down to us he would perhaps have been drawn to think of himself in priestly terms. Bearing in mind theseassumptionswe arebound to askthis question: if (as arguedby E.P. Sandersandothers)he believed that thepresent temple state stood under judgment and was to be replaced by a new one, how did he think the nation would be led in the new age?He had ve options:

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Fletcher-Louis Jesusas the High PriesthzMessiah

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(i) Did Jesuslook for a return to the golden age of Hasmonean rule when a new high priest would function also as monarch?If he did he must have looked to another to be the new royal high priest, since,asa layman, he did not qualify for the post. (ii) Likewise, if Jesusbelieved the nation should be headedby a priest; free from royal responsibilities and without a separateking at his side, all he himself would need do was teach, prophesyand prepare the grormd for the coming of the man with the right credentials. (iii) Did Jesusbelieve that the nation should be led by a king alongside, but also subordinateto, a high priest? If so,then given that it is highly likely that during his ministry he was believed to have a Davidic lineage, he might havethought of himself asthe royal inessiah of that diarchic rule. And, ofcourse, there is some,albeit limited, evidence that Jesusthought he was a royal messiah.But in this case he should either have worked with a Levitical, Aaronic or Zadolcitepartner (like Judah working with Zadok in the founding of the !Fou1thPhilosophy", or Bar Kosiba teaming up with Eleazaras leadersof the third Jewishrevolt), or he should have spokenand acted in the belief that a rnessianicpriest was shortly to be given him. Did he hope for a rapprochement with Caiaphas,the aristocratic high priest accepting Jesus"royal statusalongsidehis own priestly messiahship? Nothing indicateshe did. In fact, there is no indication in the Gospel records,or other early Christian texts,that he held any of thesethree opinions. It is worth pondering the possibility that at an early stageof his ministry, and for his discipleswho rst followed him, Jesus operatedunderthe diarchic model with John the Baptist playing priest to his kingship. John had a priestly lineage (Lk. 1.5-25). Did the earliest disciples, when Jesus was closely associatedwith John,think that Jesus was the king destinedto rule in the new age alongsideand under their priestly prophet? The sources give no clear picture of what the earliest believers thought might happento a Jolin-the-Baptistplus esusmoveJ ment, which is hardly surprising since the Gospels are written after what did happen. And Jesus,we are told, broke away from Johu"s ministry while the prophet was in prison (Q 7. l 8-35), if not before (Mk 2.18-20). By the time John was beheaded,Jesuswas an independent spirit, acting and preaching without any obvious interestin sharing the leadershipof his rapidly growing movement. Jesusdid not look for a successorto John after his death. So the relationship between Jesus (in the line of David) and John (the priest) is important becauseit indicatesthat Jesus consciously rejected one ofthe !messianic" options open to him ! Jesusis left with two options. (iv) Perhapshe cameto believe that he was the diarchy. son of God, that is the royal messiah,and that he alone would rule at the dawn of the eschaton:there would be no future need of a high priesthood. (This, of course, is a common Christian reading of the Gospels, with the dawn of a thoroughly apolitical eschaton achieved at the cross and resurrection.) The nmhiam n.wAu here 10 is usun. that nun had uu he L. held that view. Jesuswould have been so odd asto U1 UULML11

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bt?barely intelligible to his disciples, the crowds and the authorities. There just wasn!t the widespread expectation for the royal messiah that this scenario assumes. The sourcesagree that a high priesthood hasto gure somewhere in the nation!s polity. But Jesusapparerttly scholarship has assuredus-has nothing to say on the subjectso ofthe ideal priesthood. And if Jesuserasesthe high priesthood from the eschatologicalpicture, why doeshe nowherecomment on the fact that the oliice is central to the Mosaic dispensation? The biblical pattern of prophecy suggestsJesusshould have said something about Israel!s future messianic arrangements.Why, if Jesuswas heard to state,or imply, the obsolescenceofthe priesthood, do the sourcesnot record that he was directly challenged on this point'?65 (v) Lastly, Jesus might havethought he wasIsrael! s designatedroyal messiah and, as such,he was also her true eschatological high priest. Again, for his followers, the crowds and the authorities this would have beena remarkable sort of messianism.There is hardly any precedent in post-biblical tradition for a king claiming the priesthood. For his Greco-RomanreadersJosephusis unequivocal on this possibility; Torah prohibits it.6And, of course,there is the grizzly tale of king Uzziah!s ill-fated attempt to assumethe priesthood as a warning to any future aspirant(2 Chron. 26.16-21; cf l Sam. 13.7-14).But, on the other hand,a biblically literate Jew knows mattersare not so straightforward. For David and his successors kingship entailedcertaincultic responsibilities.Furthermore,even though , the Davidic monarchy is subordinate salvation-historically to the priesthood, the Aaronic dispensationis itself subsequent to alternative political models that precededSinai. If lesus thought he was not only a royal messiah(for which he qualities at birth), but alsoa high priest,he hastwo biblical textswhich he can claim to full: the description of Adam in Genesisl3and Psalm 110.67
65. Il] as the Gospelsclaim, Jesus!nal mealwas investe with sacricial symbolismd mechanismfor the mediation ofthe the making of a new covenant and the setting up of a new forgiveness of sins-then it is, again, hard to seehow he did not consciously take a view on the properrole ofthe priesthood It was the Levite Moseswho inaugurate the covenan at Sinai . priests must presid over sacricial offerings. d t accordin to which The tradition that Jesu is g e that is found, for example, in Hebrews and Revelation s both sacricial victim and priest (victim: Rev. 5.6; priest: Rev. 1.13-16) is not simply the product of later theological reilection. Once Jesus is viewed as a sacrice, within the historical context of his life story, the question, "whieh priest offers that sacrice?!, follows immediately. 66. Ant. 20.226: "wherefore it is also a tradition that none should hold God! shigh priesthood save him who is of Aaron!s blood, and that no one of another lineage, even if he happened to be a king, should attain to the high priesthood!. That Josephus can so liatly reject kings being

priests, while idealizingthe Hasmoneamodel of priestsbeingkings, rellects the axiomatic priority of priesthoo in the political andreligioussphere n d 67. I leave aside here discussion of Genesiss. 1-3 in which Adam has both royal and m-iesrlv characteristics ( seeIn rr. JU 38 (luv above}. although wanna this su is ut important for Jesusnot least because PI l\;l.lJ* \1lA1\A.\ul IDLIUD \\.\. Iv}, u-nannvubna
the Son ofMan title has, at times, Adamic contours.

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ln Psalm ll0 one who is rst and foremost king (vv. 1-3) is also a priest !accordingtothe order of Me1chizedek"(v. 4). Melchizedek is a priest-king who, accordingto biblical chronology,precedes the Aaronide priesthoodby somefour centuries.For any Jew committedto the authority of antiquity, the supremacyof primeval and patriarchal history over subsequent!fallen" history, Melchizedek offers a potent alternative to the political models that give primacy to Sinai.68 With the partial exception of material from Zechariah,Psalm 110.1 is the only text to speakof a royal !messiah" that Jesus cites.And he cites it twice: once at his trial where the Psalrn"s priest is identied with the Son of Man of Daniel king 7.l3 and once, in a less confrontational scene,while teaching in the temple shortly before his arrest. In the latter context(Mk l2.3537 and parallels) Jesus askshis audiencehow it canbe that the royal messiahis the !son of David" if David himself speaks, in Psalm l 10.l , of him as his Lord, who is his superior. Jesus" question is not answered,but there should belittle doubt what Jesus was thinking. Psalm l l0 is the only biblical text that explicitly speaks of a king who is also a !priest". Melchizedek, whosepriestly kingship the lsraelite king is to follow, was a gure
who attracted considerable interest in Jesus" Jewish world; not because as a

mythical gure he was a screenonto which merely religious imaginative speculation could be projected (as so much Melchizedek scholarship has assumed), but because,in a world where religion and politics were inseparable, he offered a distinctive, pre-Mosaic, political solution to the fraught questions of priestly and royal functions in God"s Kingdom. The sources are eerily silent on the matter,7but it strains credulity to imagine that Melchizedek had not featured prominently in the, sometimes bloody, argumentsover the Hasmoneanfusion of royalty andpriesthood. Melchizedek was(along with his predecessorEnoch)to someJews what Arthur was for medieval kings of England: a mythical prototype for a political settlement.-"
68. It is not a coincidence that Jubilees ignores Melchizedek in its retelling of the patria1chal narratives: Jubtlees assiduously retrojects the Sinaitic dispensation into patriarchal narrative while advocatin a separatio of priestly androyal ofhces. s 69. Zechariah g 13.7 is cited n in Mark 14.27 and parallels. 70. l have suggested that Psalm l 10 inuenced the behaviour of Herod Agrippa at Caesarea Maritima (Josephus, Ant. 19.344-47; Acts 12.20-23) (Fletcher-Louis, All the Glow of Adam, pp. l25-26), but otherwise it is nowhere used of an historical gure in extant Second Temple sources. There is evidence that at points it has inuenced the Jewish messianic expectation in the Testament of the Twelve Patrlarchs and it was probably important for the Samaritans who located the Salem of Gen. 14 at Shechem (see the material in James L. Kugel, Traditfons ofthe Bible: A Guide to the Bible as it was at the Start ofthe Common Era [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998], pp. 159-60). 71. The role of the Melchizedekian priesthood in 2 Enoch (ch. 7l) deserves far greater attention as a witness to competing Jewish notions of political order than it has hitherto
received, Desnite the to a 1LAUuv11| modern reader it seems more concerned with ure-scientic JJU].JII.U Luv fact L\L that ui nt LU Q. Iuuuvl
IC U GIVU LI.

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it is absurd to imagine that Jesus!audience (and implied readers ofthe Gospels) did not have in mind the rest ofthe Psahn that Jesus cites.In fact it is only becausethey know what follows that Jesus can reasonablyexpecthis hearersto answer his question. The royal messiah is not adequately designatedDavid!s
son because, as verses l4 of Psalm 110 show, David himself speaks of that

characteras one superior to his own, relatively recent kingship. The monarchy of Psalm l 10 combines priesthood and kingship in a fuller fashion than he ever did,72and is of more ancient pedigree than the parvenu David and his troublesome heirs. In isolation, therefore, Mark l2.35-37 is Jesus! thinly veiled public statementon the question of Israel!s Godintended eschatological constitution: the nation should, and will, he thinks, be led by a king who is also a priest.73 Did Jesusthink he was that priest If he did, then he would have to king? carefully manage his declaration of rnessianic intent. More than any other messianicmodel this would get him into trouble. In the iirst place, it obviously entails a direct attackon the Sadduceanhigh priesthood. Secondly, few in the crowds would be sympathetic to this claim. Some may have hankered (like Josephus) after the Hasmoneanmodel, but thataccordedmore straightforwardly with the Mosaic priestly hegemony by having priestsbecomekings. Thosewho lamented the Hasmoneancorruption that openedthe door to Roman rule will have reacted violently to any suggestionof a fresh combination of priesthood andkingship. As the Uzziah incident remindedthem,a monarchwho usurpsthe priesthood incurswrath from on high. During his ministry his disciples too knew lesus! piety and would, therefore, have had little thought for the possibility that their leader wasabout to launch his candidacyasthe nation!s priest-king. If they thought he was a son of David, they would know that he could not also be a son of Aaron.

cosmology,obscur cultic instructionandbizarrereligiousexperienc it is a vital witnessto e Templeform of ahighly political genr in a continuou e, the late Secon traditionback throug 1 Enoch d(via Priestly material in Ben Sira), all the way notions of an antedilue to Mesopotamian s h
vian sacral kingship. lndirectly, 2 Enoch probably attests to the importance of Melchizedek for the Hasmoneans. 72. David is never called "priest! ('[ TID), though his nonreigning sons are in 2 Sam. 8.18, and israel !s oiiicial history ofthe monarchy limits the cultic responsibilities of the king (see, e.g., the role ofthe priests in 1 Kgs 8) while describing the sacral duties of kings in particularly negative contexts (1 Kgs 12; 2 Kgs 16). 73. Read this way, Mark!s version perhaps also becomes an attack on the scribes. Once Jesu has appeale to Psalm 110for the scripturalview of "the messiah! his audienc hear s d , messiah is ae s ! again his original question, "Why, indeed, do the scribes say that the Son of David? lf these are scribes who work for the temple establishment in support of the Sadducean priesthoodthe location of Jesus! teaching might suggest (cf 8.31; 10.33; 11.18, 27; 14.l, 43, as 53; 15.3 l)then they have a vested interest in lookin g only for a non-priestly Davidic messiah who would. as all assumed, be subordinate to the (existing) high priestly establishment.

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g g

So, if Jesusdid think he was a king-priest, he would have considerable political obstacles to negotiateand publicdmagehurdles to overcome.According to the Gospels he does not appealto Psalm ll0 until his last days in lerusalem and it is,ultimately, his self-referential interpretation of that passage that brings the charges against him to a head. This is precisely the story we would expect the Gospelsto tell if lesus did indeed see himself as Israel!s Melchizedekian priest-king. Is there any evidence that during his ministry he already thought of himself in terms of lsrael!s true priesthood?As hewanderedaround Galilee and Judaea, did he prepare his disciples for a revelation of his Melchizedekian aspirations? Is there anything in the pattern of his teaching and healing that betraysa priestly consciousness ? l offer in outline an ailirmative answer to thesequestions. In what follows Spaceis limited and a comprehensiveengagement with thesequestionsrelies on a full treatment ofthe Son of Man title.74Although that is not possible here, l have outlined a new interpretative paradigm for the Danielic "one like a son of man! elsewhere.-is The primary goal in the rest of this essay new reading of the programmatic Jesus material in Mark l6 ~a in part on a new understanding ofthe Son of Man title, that requires a brief review of that hypothesis."6 depends
[The second half follows in the next issue.]

74. Fuller discussion would show that the Son of Man title, along with other portions of the Gospel material, allows Jesu to exploit the other biblical precedenfor unication of priestly and royal oicesthe s original state of humanity before tthe fall in Gen. 23. 75. Fletcher-Louis, "Apocalypticism!, followed by Fletcher-Louis, "Jesusand Apocalypticism!; cf Fletcher-Louis, "The High Priest as Divine Mediator!, pp. 161-93; C.H.T. FletcherLouis, "The Revelation ofthe Sacral Son of Man: The Genre, History of Religions Context and the Meaning ofthe 'l`ranstiguration!, in F. Avemarie and H. Lichtenberger (cds.), AifersiehungResurrection. The Fourth Durham-Tiibingen-Sympolrium. Resurrection, Excitation, and Transformation in Old Testament, Ancient Judaism, andEar(y Christianity (WUNT, 135; Tiibingen: Mohr 2001),pp. 247-98 Siebecl<, . 7. l 3 is not entirely new. lt is anticipated by a minority of Daniel 76. My reading of Dan.

commentators (see esp. A. Lacocque, The Book ofDanieI [London: SPCK, 1979], pp. l24-25) mtv. have maria an uteuci Aimsmahla imnaor on m the discussion of the New Testament material. WH0 [MVC I lduc uu imuic i mpact uu e um`.