Evolving Paradigms? Divine Knowledge After the Age of Prophecy in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Abstract

This paper approaches the corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of underlining how a form of prophecy after (or besides) prophets is constructed in Second Temple Judaism. In contrast and parallel with other religions (saliently Islam), where prophecy is “sealed” and closed after a given event, Judaism links prophecy to text in the process of constructing an authorized corpus, as may be seen in phenomena such as the development of certain forms of exegesis. Nevertheless, some groups, like the Qumran community, give a central role to figures that are, at the very least, typologically related to early (biblical) prophets. I will approach these parallels in a systematic way, trying to define how text and inspiration are involved in the construction of prophets by another name in the corpus.

1. Introduction

It is often the curse of the scholar to grant prolonged life to old academic clichés and early taxonomies. Biblical and early Judaism studies are quite prone to this malaise. In this paper I will face one of these scholarly constructs: how the presumed distinct, competing, and/or sequential models of knowledge in Second Temple Judaism and their relationship with the text(s) of the Bible—understood in the centuries around the turn of the era as a still growing and plural corpus—may be reconsidered as continuity with the pre-Exilic cultural and religious milieu of Neo-Assyrian influence is brought to the forefront. Traditionally, two basic models have been studied as distinct and substantially divergent: prophecy and wisdom.1 This classification can be ultimately traced back to the traditional organization of the Hebrew Bible in the history of Judaism: books by and about prophets are classified in its second block, נביאים, whereas wisdom literature makes up a meaningful part of the third, כתובים.2 The application of this rationale to works outside the Bible would translate into the convoluted study of the relation between apocalypticism, prophecy, and wisdom which is still problematic, inasmuch it involves assessment of possible historical connections or issues of genre.3 Is apocalyptic literature an heir to prophecy or to wisdom? Is it relevant to understand them diachronically? Meaningful steps have been taken in the direction of weakening or dissipating the boundaries between the categories set by early scholarship. Thus, it is now considered that many biblical genres would be related or interdependent4 It is not my aim in this contribution to engage in a deep and detailed discussion or refutation of traditional concepts of prophecy, wisdom, and apocalypticism. I just plan to offer a small contribution on possible modes of interaction between the divine and human mediators after the presumed “cessation of prophecy” at some point during the Second Temple period. In turn, the issue of the temporal limits of prophecy in Judaism is not without its own small cadre of problems and projections.5 Furthermore, I find that there is a strong connection between certain assumptions about “cessation of prophecy” and scholarly attitudes towards the triangle of definition and distinction between prophecy, apocalypticism, and wisdom.

1.1. What Is an Echo?

The concept of a “cessation of prophecy” after the Exile, well-grounded in early Biblical scholarship, is explicitly attested in the Rabbinic period. The clearest, though still somehow ambiguous, statement can be found in t. Sotah 13:3–4: משמתו נביאים אחרונים חגי  ואעפ”כ היו משמיעין להם על בת קול  זכריה ומלאכי פסקה רוח הקדש מישראל. (“After the death of the late prophets, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, the Holy Spirit ceased in Israel; but even so they had hearings through the echo [sc. of the divine voice”6]). Similar statements may be found in b. Yoma 9b; b. Sanh 11a; b. Sotah 48b. Although the expression is not exactly transparent, it seems that the בת קול, ‘daughter of the voice,’ hence ‘echo,’ would refer to a different experience from prophecy as such, which would have ended with the last of the Twelve. Therefore, the Rabbinic legendarium both admits that divine communication with the community continues and clearly marks a difference with the early modes of prophecy.7 On the other hand, how much of this notion of “cessation of prophecy” was already in circulation during the Second Temple period and, specifically, at the time the Qumran community produced or adapted the materials?. Wellhausen’s early proposal on the replacement of prophecy with the Law defined, with few exceptions, the consensus until the mid-20th century (Wellhausen [1885] 1973, p. 402). Later, criticism to this hypothesis followed different paths: underscoring a Rabbinic context (Leivestad 1972–1973), possibly in the framework of polemic with Christianity, which, meaningfully, kept alive the figure of prophets and prophecy; “transformation” of the institution and/or practice of prophecy during the Persian period; or closure of an “authorized” prophecy in the context of a growing canonization of books of Scripture.8 Many of these proposals include interesting approaches and valid angles of analysis.9 Nevertheless, it seems to me that there is still room for criticism given the possibility that some of our conceptions are still mediated by a useful but potentially inaccurate desire of explanation through diachrony: could it not be the case that what has passed in most academic proposals as “transformation” of prophecy10 were nothing but a retention of earlier—monarchic period—forms of prophetic practice—at least in the generic sense of inspired access to a divine will or voice—which were overshadowed by the significance of the intuitive/inspired Biblical prophet? This situation is not exceptional in biblical studies and it can be related to similar phenomena and perhaps to an overarching cause: the centrality achieved by Dtr ideology in the post-Exile—strict monotheism as defined by a form of Law which is revealed to the foundational figure of Moses and transmitted by a continuous chain of prophets—would have brought about an idealized and distorted view of the pre-Exilic past of Israel and Judah. In this mytho-history, certain aspects of religious practice which disagreed with the Dtr conception of the Covenant would have been erased from the narrative or constructed under a negative light as “foreign” and “sinful.”11 The hypothesis that I am going to develop in these pages proposes that some methods of access to divine knowledge/will which were common in the first half of the 1st millennium b.c.e. among Israel and Judah’s neighbors were not alien to practices in the two kingdoms either and that they constituted a more or less uninterrupted line which continued well into the Second Temple period. Hence, their intentional omission from the biblical corpus for theological reasons12 would have created an illusion of (non-)attestation. As the Bible is one of our main, albeit complex, sources for Hebrew religious thought for the best part of the 1st millennium b.c.e., this perception has heavily conditioned academic approaches to the history of Israelite religion(s) and early Judaism. We scholars have therefore struggled with a “change” in the modes and rationales of divinely revealed knowledge, when actually that change fundamentally existed only within the mytho-history of the Law and not in the realm of historical facts and evidence, where a continuity of practices—versus the mythic exception qualities of the “Moses and the Prophets” narrative—seems far more likely.

1.2. Unboxing Divine Knowledge

And perhaps this projected perception has brought about not only the academic construct of “cessation of prophecy”13 as a reality in Second Temple history, but also, at least partially, the crafting of related theories which are potentially problematic. The concept of cessation or closing of prophecy would lead to proposals which saw apocalyptic literature as a fit continuation or development of either prophecy or wisdom.14 This has produced conflicting analyses in the study of Hebrew literature, from Bible to pseudoepigrapha. The most relevant part of these discussions for the study of divine knowledge in and around the Dead Sea Scrolls involves the two dimensions of relationship of apocalypticism on one side and either prophecy or wisdom on the other as its presumed ancestors: typology and diachrony.15 In other words, did apocalypticism develop as a “child of prophecy”16 after the cessation discussed in the previous paragraph? How much of the apocalyptic genre developed from prophetic literature? Is it even relevant to speak of apocalyptic literature in terms of genre? On the other hand, since (von Rad 1965) a similar debate took shape around the filiation of apocalyptic from wisdom literature. Scholars have argued for and against the influence of sapiential texts and their milieux in the development of apocalyptic literature (Najman 2014), at times incurring, in my opinion, in a sort of “boxing” or excessive definitional framing of key concepts, as if wisdom and prophecy (and later apocalypticism) were clear and distinct both in terms of literary genre and socio-historical context. For the reasons that I have outlined above, I think that the study of the knowledge of the divine in the centuries around the turn of the era would benefit from a more fluid model of analysis,17 where categories and genres are no longer understood as defined “schools” or “models” which follow and influence each other from clear positions or even historical circles or groups. In this sense, I find that a continuity of religious/intellectual professionals—the world of scribes with its many possible ramifications—could be the basis for a more suggestive approach. This is not to deny that the development of texts, practices, and conceptions of viable communication of divine will and knowledge existed in a historical setting and that development and change came with the passing of time.18 Nevertheless, when we focus on the problem in early Judaism and in the corpus of the Hebrew Bible, it has to be taken into consideration that even phenomena that have traceable coordinates of socio-historical change may be picked up and transformed into a textual construction which incorporated new codes of interpretation. This agrees with Martti Nissinen’s assessment of how oracular royal prophecy of the Neo-Assyrian period—as assimilated and developed by the Canaanite kingdoms of the 1st millennium b.c.e.—becomes a literary and scribal phenomenon in the Bible around the times of the Exile (Nissinen 2017, pp. 350, 354). Comparison and contextualization with Mesopotamia seem to indicate that, even though there were distinct methods of accessing the will of the gods, namely oracular—non-written—prophecy vis à vis technical divination related to a written corpus of scribal lore, history involved tension and interactions which, in turn, led to the progressive diminishing of prophetic oracles in favor of other mantic techniques related to the intellectual realm of scribes (Nissinen 2017, pp. 348–53). In the corpus of Hebrew literature, this phenomenon was more difficult to detect and evaluate, given the paucity of sources outside the very biased and self-referential Biblical books, where, as commented above, the strict Dtr ideology would have cast a glamor over representation of mantic activity: one kind of prophet and genre was overrepresented both quantitatively and qualitatively—as the נביא, “prophet”, was cast as the only authorized representative of the Yahwistic god—and other forms of consultation were banished to the shadows of either non-representation or proscription.19 If we set aside this intra-Biblical depiction, it is possible to understand a different dynamics of continuity and growth of models within the realm of scribal practices, myths, and ideas. This continuity and growth imply less closed categories and therefore an “unboxing” of the phenomena of (late) prophecy, sapiential approaches, and apocalypse into a more fluid network in Second Temple Judaism. In the following sections I will try to illustrate this in the corpus of the Dead Sea Scrolls, where, alongside the acknowledged prophets which ultimately will become part of the canon, other (ancient) forms of reclaiming legitimate access to divine revelation. After what I consider to be meaningful case studies, I will proceed to a global assessment of the evolving or perhaps competing paradigm as attested in a selection of the Qumran evidence.

2. Power and Knowledge in the Dead Sea Scrolls

In his analysis of magic in the Dead Sea Scrolls (García Martínez 2002), Florentino García Martínez describes a paradoxical situation in the textual corpus: whereas Qumran legal materials are not remiss in condemning magic and divination, not only in extant copies and fragments of Deuteronomy, but also in its re-writing in distinct works, like the Temple Scroll,20 the texts also include a relevant number of materials which imply interest in and practice of magic and divination among the members of the Qumran community. I agree with the explanation given by García Martínez, when he concludes that these tacitly accepted practices are fundamental for the worldview of the community: the two attested categories of magic in Qumran are divination and exorcism. Both of them would be a perfect fit in a deterministic, dualistic world where human and intermediate beings are confronted into camps of light and darkness (García Martínez 2002, p. 33): (inspired) knowledge of an individual’s fateful character would be aptly reflected in proficiency in different types of traditional divination. Furthermore, this can lead to the proposing that actual confrontation between the forces of light and darkness could be heralded by exorcistic incantation practices, either as prophylaxis or active banishment, where the ritualist would vanquish evil in a prefiguration of the eschatological battle (Piquer Otero 2022, p. 15). I would further propose that these could be understood not only as practical procedures, but also as a prefiguration of the eschatological conflict.21 I find the possibilty very relevant for the study of divine knowledge and prophecy in the Second Temple period and I will thus examine some of these texts in more detail.

2.1. Knowledge as Power: The Sage as Divine Intermediary Against Evil

The compositions of interest are two partially overlapping works (or editions of the same work), 4Q510 and 4Q511, often labelled as Songs of the Sage.22 It is a complex text and part of its relevance to my discussion actually lies in that complexity, as it is a composition that bridges genres and functions in a pretty unique way. While it clearly participates in expressions and vocabulary of the exorcistic genre (cf. Mizrahi and Patmore 2019), its function in the community would be harder to determine and it has been labelled as a sort of prophylactic ritual—a “preventive exorcism” of sorts—that would protect the community against the influence of negative forces (García Martínez 2002, pp. 21–23; Angel 2012). In any case, it is well established that the form used involves language and formulae common with exorcism incantations and, I would say, constitutes a particular type of incantation (Mizrahi and Patmore 2019, p. 240 and n. 4). The most explicit passage would be 4Q510 fr 1 1–6:

¹ … דברי הודות בתהלי ² [הוד]  לאלוהי דעות תפארת ג[בור]וֹת אל אלים אדון לכול קדושים וממש֗[לתו] ³ על כול גבורי כוח ומכוח גבור֗[ת]ו יבהלו ויתפזר֗ו כול ויחפזו מהד֗ר֗ מע֗[ון] ⁴  כבוד מלכותו〚 〛 ואני משכיל משמיע הוד תפארתו לפחד ולב֗[הל] ⁵ כול רוחי מלאכי חבל ורוחות ממזרים שדאים לילית אחים ו[ציים ·· ] ⁶והפוגעים פתע פתאום לתעות רוח בינה ולהשם לבבם

¹ …Words of thanksgiving in psalms ² of [splendor] to the God of knowledge; the glory of the Po[wer]s, God of Gods, Lord for all the Holy Ones; [His] real[m] ³ is above all the powerful mighty and before the might of his powe[r] all fear and scatter and flee before the aura of the glorious a[bo]de ⁴ of his majesty. And I am a sage who proclaims the splendor of his radiance to frighten and terri[fy] ⁵ all the spirits of the angels of destruction and the bastard spirits, demon, hyenas,23 Lilith, owls and j[ackals,] ⁶ and the unexpected strikers who lead astray the spirit of knowledge, to ravage their hearts.24

The passage makes clear that the maskīl25 acts as a direct representative of God and that his actions—and specifically his words—are functionally equivalent to the aura of God in vanquishing a rich list of powers of evil. In my opinion, this is a clear case for the construction of the identity of a sage as an individual endowed with divine authority and power, something which is emphasized not only in the content of the first-person statements of the Song, but also in the marked parallelism between the power of God’s radiance in lines 3–4 and the action of the Sage in lines 4–5. Also, part the list of demons and forces of darkness scattered by the power of God incarnated in the Sage is relevant in this sense, given that it has clear Enochian resonances (Angel 2012, p. 5), important parallels with terminology in other Qumran sectarian works, and references to demons unheard of in other Qumran works but in all likelihood taken from Isa 13:21–22; 34:13–14.26 In my opinion, this “mixed list of demons” is relevant in two points: (1) connections to the Enochian tradition of the Watchers and Giants could place the reader/listener in the mythic framework of Enoch and the Watchers, that is, a discourse of the licit knowledge of the inspired sage versus the illicit science of demonic corruption;27 (2) the composite character of the list could indicate that the author of the text saw no contradiction or clear difference between the demonology of private exorcistic lore and demons connected to apocalyptic cosmology in an eschatological context. Even if a difference in practical use in the community can be posited, the ritual particulars of the texts remain unclear (Angel 2012, pp. 25–27); in this light, I find more useful to consider the continuity between the realm of exorcism and a possible ritual function for the community in the eschatological milieu. Both functions would define the sage as a divine representative whose God-given knowledge sets him apart as a beacon in the fight against darkness. In this line, 4Q511 frags. 48. 49 + 51 1–3 is also revealing:

בעצת אל כיא [חכמ]ת֗ בינתו נתן [ב]לב[י ובלשוני ] ² הודות צדקו ו֗[…]ע֗ה ובפי֗ י֗פחד [כול רוחות

] ³ ממזרים …

… in God’s council. Because [the wisdo]m of his intelligence he has placed [in my] heart [and in my tongue] ² the praises of his justice and […]. And through my mouth he frightens [all the spirits of] ³ the bastards …28

Again, the text specifies quite eloquently how divinely infused wisdom and knowledge are the basis of the effectiveness of the Sage’s powers against the beings of darkness. The Sage, then, acts as God’s mouthpiece in a sequence similar to the one visible in the previous passage: (1) God grants divine knowledge; (2) the Sage uses that knowledge to chase away evil through a language-based manifestation. This manifestation would very probably be the utterance of the incantation/song itself, which, as it is often the case in ritual, could be understood in a performative sense.

A similar conception can be found in other fragmentary text, 4Q444, often considered an incantation or exorcism (Jokiranta 2024, p. 89). The opening formula in fr. 1 line 1 is quite revealing: […] קודשו ומרוח פי פתח אמתו ואני מיראי אל בדעת (“And I am one of those who spread the fear of God; with his knowledge of truth he opened my mouth and from his holy spirit […].”) (Edition in (Chazon 1999, pp. 367–68; García Martínez and Tigchelaar 2000, pp. 925–26). I agree with the interpretation of מיראי given in (García Martínez 2002, pp. 23–24), the “terrifier of God,” that is, a delegate who spreads the fear of God amongst the evil spirits. The expression may be formulaic as it also appears in 8Q5 (frag. 1 line 1), also a very fragmentary text: בשמכה [ג]בר אני מירא (“in your name, [H]ero,29 I spread fear.”) Edition in (Baillet et al. 1962, pp. 161–62; García Martínez and Tigchelaar 2000, pp. 1166–67). Both 4Q444 and 8Q5, even if seriously damaged, have preserved textual elements that suggest an exorcistic function (García Martínez 2002, pp. 23–24): a ritualist who acts as a conduit for God’s power and who enjoys divinely inspired wisdom;30 this wisdom is used in the form of utterances (emphasis on the mouth) and perhaps even with the invocation of divine or angelic names; its function is to affect the spirits or forces of evil.31

Together with these texts, where it is possible to see exorcistic elements in a perhaps wider context of community ritual, there is clear evidence in the Qumran finds of strictly private exorcistic incantations, namely 4Q560 (Edition in (Puech 2009, pp. 291–302; García Martínez and Tigchelaar 2000, pp. 1116–17). This damaged Aramaic scroll shows not only a description of demonic entities (frag. 1 col. 1), but also explicit references to the ritualist adjuring the demons (fr. 1 col. 2 lines 5–6): […] אותיתך רוחא […] ואנא רוח מומה (“and I, spirit, adjure […] I enchant you, spirit.”)

Even though the evidence is fragmentary and the contexts of function in the community are not totally clear, I find very likely that a strict distinction between private and community spheres may hinder our understanding of how exorcistic ritual power were conceived in Qumran: regardless of whether they were integrated within collective recurring prayer and prophylaxis or whether they were used for individual needs, medical or otherwise, the texts exhibit a similar worldview in which the role of the ritualist is defined by a combination of power, knowledge, and verbalized action which leads back to a form of divine inspiration. The sage as recipient of divine knowledge is thus a warrantor of justice, legitimacy, and spiritual and physical health in a continuum which involves both general and particular manifestations of cosmology. Both can be seen as connected in terms of relationships between macrocosm and microcosm (Piquer Otero 2022, p. 18), a model which will become highly relevant in later phases of Jewish magic and mysticism,32 but that may be already detected in constituent features of earlier systems of the ancient Near East. Mesopotamian magico-medical incantations are well-known for actively using historiolae that connect a particular ailment to a cosmic event or a creature of negativity—demonic or otherwise—to a genealogy leading back to the times of creation (cf. Schwemer 2014; Frankfurter 2001). Thus, on one hand, the sage’s effective knowledge of the world becomes a tool in the fight against demons, but, conversely, his wisdom is indicative of his favored status as a representative of the deity. This ritual and symbolic mindset can be appreciated in pre-Jewish and non-Hebrew materials and it is rather possible that it actually belonged to a cultural continuum which goes back to the 1st millennium Neo-Assyrian—and later Neo-Babylonian—intellectual world. In this sense, I find very meaningful an exorcistic text which circulated and was connected to different collections of the period, the so-called “Marduk’s Address to the Demons.”33 This composition offers a peculiar presentation of the god Marduk—under his monicker Asalluḫi, typical of his role as exorcist—speaking in the first person as a powerful ritualist who combats demons. It is thus interesting to compare the first section of the composite text, a standard incantation against demons, with the Marduk speech:

Incantation: Begone, evil; evil angel; evil demon; evil poltergeist; evil ghost;/evil devil; evil god; evil spirit;/Lamaštu; Labāṣu; Grabber;/Lilû; Līlītu; young lady of Lilû;/Lugal-urra; offspring of Šulpaʾeʾa;/that which falls from heaven; the flash of a star; the fall of Bennu;/Be you an image of Namtar; be you an image of the devil; be you any Evil that exists;/before the spell of Asalluḫi, the magician of the gods, son of Ea, the Sage,/begone, depart, Evil that is in front of me; make off enemy that is behind me34

So far, the text presents interesting analogies with the Qumran exorcistic materials: there is a quite specific list of entities of negativity followed by an address to the power of the spell, a power that derives from its attribution to Marduk, magician of the gods, who, in turn, is the offspring of Ea, qualified as a primordial sage (apkallu). Implicitly, the ritualist is an acting representative of the deity35 But the next section is different and quite unique: along 97 lines in its most complete form,36 Marduk-Asalluḫi speaks in the first person as a supreme exorcist:

I am Asalluḫi, magician of the gods, the holy god;/I am Asalluḫi, the holy god, the life giving exorcist;/I am Asalluḫi, lord of the abyss, whose spell is life37

I am Asalluḫi, lord of the incantation, before whom the devils and Namtar-demons go into hiding.38

I am Asalluḫi, who is wide in knowledge, superlative in intelligence.39

I am Asalluḫi, shining, wise, the noble sage of the gods;/I am Asalluḫi, who surveys the height of the distant heaven;/I am Asalluḫi, I know the depth of the vast Ḫubur-river.40

The text pays special attention to features related to knowledge, expressing the idea that Marduk is not only the patron deity of the exorcist priest, but also the divine blueprint or archetype of the perfect sage and ritualist. The presence in the composition of the god himself permits the development of interesting connections: as seen in line 12 and in lines 27 and 28, Marduk-Sage is also endowed with the knowledge of the most profound secrets of the universe: sovereignty of the depths of the sea and rivers (apkal apsî, “sage of the abyss”; ša ḫubur palkâti šupulša īde, “of the vast Ḫubur I know the depths”) and access and understanding to the highest spheres of heaven (ša šamê rūqūti mēlâšunu iḫīṭu, “of distant heaven the height he surveys.”) This motif of connection-continuity between practical knowledge of magic and cosmic lore and power could also be seen in some of the Qumran compositions treated above: In 4Q511, another copy/version of the so-called Songs of the Sage already seen above in the comments about 4Q510, there seems to be a correlation between divine wisdom and power against the forces of negativity and a statement of divine power and access to the furthest limits of cosmic secrets:41

¹ ח֗תמת֗[ה֗ ·· א]ר֗ץ ג֗°°[ ·· ² ] ויעמקוֹ [ … ה]ש֗מ֗י֗ם וֹתהומות ומח֗[…] . ·· ³ אתה אלי֗ ח֗ת֗מ֗תה בעד כולם ואין פותח. ולאשר֗ [… ⁴ ] הימדו בשועל אנשים מי רבה. וֹא֗ם בזרת[ יתכנו שמים . ומי בשליש] ⁵ יכול עפר האר֗ץ וישק֗[ו]ל בפלס֗ הרים וֹגֹב֗ע֗ו֗ת֗ ב֗מ֗וֹזנֹ[ים]

¹ You have seale[d… e]art[h…] and ² deep are [… the he]avens and the abysses and […] ³ You, my God, have sealed them all and there is nobody to open them. And to whom […] ⁴ Will the waters of the Deep be gauged in a human handful? Or [heavens will be measured] in palms? [And who, with a bushel] ⁵ can hold the dust of the earth and will weigh the mountains with scales and the hills with a balance?42

Even though the fragmentary state of 4Q511 precludes any firm conclusions,43 it is likely that a correlation similar to the “I am Asalluḫi” Akkadian text was operating in the Songs of the Sage: at least in the literary structure of the compositions, the ritualist is depicted as a sage who is implied to be connected to the divinity (Marduk or Yahweh) in some capacity. The pairing between divine wisdom, knowledge of the boundaries of the cosmos, and active agency against the forces of negativity is very revealing, even in the damaged state of the Qumran evidence.44

2.2. Power as Knowledge: Past and Future Kings

These ritual texts focused on both particular and community exorcism and prophylaxis have shown the recurring filiation of a religious professional as endowed with divine power and knowledge. But, although the ultimate model thereof is God himself, traditions in early Judaism and among its neighbors also offer a relevant series of mediators and archetypes of perfect sages who can be the basis of the Qumran professionals of divine knowledge and who coexist in parallel to the tradition of biblical prophets. In this respect, perhaps the clearest and more persistent figures in the history of the area since early times would be kings. This is doubtlessly connected to ancient conceptions of kingship constructed upon the idea of kings as fitting divine representatives which can be traced down to early—3rd millennium—Mesopotamia.45 If the king is to represent the ruling deity,46 he has to be depicted as a worldly equivalent or reflection of the god in his different attributes, from prowess in war and hunting—mundane correlates of gods fighting chaos—to the building of temples, palaces, walls, and similar public works—construction as terrene echo of the creative process of cosmogony. Knowledge of the world and the deepest secrets of the universe would be a divine attribute indeed and, consequently, intellectual activity is a recurring feature of representations of kings.47 This is a central conception in the imaginarium of the Hebrew Bible and its legacy, most known by the legend of Solomon’s wisdom.48 Biblical authors had accessible models in chronologically and geographically close motifs in Neo-Assyrian royal materials.49 The presentation of the king as a sage or skilled scribe is a recurring topos:

Sennacherib:50 The Lady of the Gods, Lady of procreation, in the womb of the mother who bore me looked at me with favor and auspicated my conception. And Ea gave me wide insides and granted me sharp understanding, as an equal to Adapa the Sage.51

Ashurbanipal:52 Marduk, the sage of the gods, gave me wide understanding and broad perception as a gift. Nabu, the scribe of the universe, bestowed on me the acquisition of all his wisdom as a present. Ninurta and Nergal gave me physical fitness, manhood, and unparalleled strength. I learnt the lore of wise sage Adapa, the hidden secret, the whole of scribal art. I can discern celestial and terrestrial portents and deliberate in the assembly of the experts. I am able to discuss the series “If the liver is a mirror image of the sky” with capable scholars. I can solve convoluted reciprocals and calculations that do not come out evenly. I have read cunningly written text in Sumerian, dark Akkadian, the interpretation of which is difficult. I have examined stone inscriptions from before the Flood, which are sealed, stopped up, mixed up.53

Regardless of how much of the kings’ vaunted scribal and intellectual skills did not agree with reality (Fincke 2003–2004, p. 122; Livingstone 2007; May 2013, p. 206), the symbolic model is clear. There is a combination of description of skills which imply the king’s apprenticeship and then mastery of a series of disciplines—with the marked presence of writing, astronomy, divination, and knowledge of ancient sources—and a quite explicit element of predestination, as the king has been appointed to knowledge by gods established as representatives of relevant portfolios: Marduk, as son of Ea, transmits the secret lore of the sages (in continuity with his role in the ‘I am Asalluḫi’ unit discussed in the previous section), as does Nabu, scribe of the gods. Warrior deities, like Ninurta and Nergal, grant physical might and fighting prowess. Acquisition and predestination seem to coexist without much conflict as two sides of the same coin and are probably grounded on some conception of kings being individually reared and created by the gods in Neo-Assyrian times (May 2008, 2013, pp. 203–4; Orosz 2023). There is also an implied genealogical and dynastic chain: the king can access the primordial wisdom of Adapa, perhaps a reference to the mythic sages of the prediluvian origins, that is the apkallū.54

I find this construction of a discourse where kingship is readily associated with superhuman knowledge and scribal skills very relevant for its continuity in early Judaism. Arguably, its basis, at least from the point of view of biblical compositions, may lie on the Solomon tradition, but Second Temple materials show more elements and points of contact with the Mesopotamia tradition. This could indicate that the texts on Solomon’s wisdom in the canonic books of the Bible were but a selection that somehow minimized the connection to the divine of the king, very likely due to the already-mentioned ideological reasons inherent to a Dtr or Dtr-like strict monotheistic framework: an equilibrium between praise of the foundational royal figures and sharp distance between God and any other intermediary, kings included.55 On the other hand, other works since the centuries around the turn of the era would see appropriate and in their best theological interests to resort to these traditions.

In this regard, it is interesting to see how the depiction of Solomon as a wise king varies between 1 Kings and extra-biblical sources: Whereas the biblical narrative includes an episode where wisdom is explicitly granted to adult Solomon as Yahweh’s reward to the king’s own request in a dream vision, later materials seem to run strikingly closer to Mesopotamian models of predestined sapient kings: בחר ביה יי עד דלא איתיליד ממעי דאימי רחם  ליה ובינות ליבא יהב וחכמתא דעתא עמיקין סתרין ליה ואחוי טמירין רזין ליה  יתיה גלא (Targum Esther Sheni 1:2).56 In this tradition, a connection between predestination and communication of divine knowledge that the Bible restricts to prophets57 is applied to a king. The tradition of innately predermined Solomonic wisdom could be earlier than what the lateness of the Targumic source suggests and have existed as a parallel legend on Solomonic power.58 It would fit seamlessly in a literary pattern that covers the other main elements of the sage-king as found in Neo-Assyrian sources commented above: (1) proficiency in the world of texts and writing;59 (2) knowledge of the secrets of the world;60 (3) a favorable comparison with the mythic sages of yore61 as a superior or apt successor.62

In Qumran, this pattern is applied to a different king, David, as portrayed in the collections of psalms of Cave 11. The eclectic anthology of 11Q5 combines canonical and extra-canonical psalms, excerpts from Sirach and composition not attested in other sources.63 One of these unparalleled texts contains a semblance of David:

² ויהי דויד בן ישי חכם ואור כאור השמש ו֑ס֑ופר ³ ונבון ותמים בכול דרכיו לפני אל ואנשים. ויתן ⁴ לו יהוה רוח נבונה ואורה . ויכתוב תהלים ⁵ שלושת אלפים ושש מאות ושיר לשורר לפני המזבח על עולת ⁶ התמיד לכול יום ויום לכול ימי השנה ארבעה וששים ושלוש ⁷ מאות ולקורבן השבתות שנים וחמשים שיר ולקורבן ראשי ⁸ החודשים ולכול ימי המועדות ולים הכפורים שלושים שיר ⁹ . ויהי כול השיר אשר דבר ששה ואבעים וארבע מאות ושיר ¹⁰ לנגן על הפגו֗עים ארבעה. ויהי הכול ארבעת אלפים וחמשים ¹¹ . כול אלה דבר בנבואה אשר נתן לו מלפני העליון64

This passage gives David some of the attributes we are used to see attached to Solomon, mainly wisdom and intelligence, but also the production of poetry. And the text goes even further in the direction of presenting David as divinely inspired Sage: (1) There is an explicit mention of David’s knowledge and literary skills deriving from the God-sent spirit of prophecy (line 11); (2) he is described as ואור כאור השמש, “a light like the light of the sun.” This is a reference to aura or radiance that brings to mind features of a deity65 or their angelic representatives66 discussed in previous sections. David’s aura of light and his qualification as a sage would fit neatly in his role as an exorcist, made explicit by the attribution to him of four “songs to play over the possessed.”67 It is not the only case where David is portrayed with a god-like aura. In pseudo-Philo’s Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, the conclusion of David’s duel with Goliath is very explicit in this sense:

Et dixit ei David: Antequam moriaris aperi oculos tuos, et vide interfectorem tuum qui te interfecit. Et respiciens Allophilus vidit angelum et dixit: Non solus occidisti me, sed qui tecum aderat, cuius species non est sicut species hominis. Et tunc David abstulit caput eius ab eo. Angelus autem domini erexit faciem David, et neo agnoscebat eum. Et videns Saul David, interrogavit eum quis esset, et non erat qui cognosceret eum.68

The passage presents David not only aided by an angel in his fight against Goliath but also transfigured by the angel’s aura as somebody who cannot be recognized by humans.69 This defines clear continuity with the exorcism/prophylaxis texts commented above, both in Qumran and in the Mesopotamian milieu. Other works found in Cave 11 seem to go further in this same direction: 11Q11 (also known as 11QApocryphal Psalms) (Edition in García Martínez et al. 1998, pp. 181–205). contains materials that, although damaged, seem to pertain to the category of exorcistic psalms.70 The texts in cols 5 and 6 have a Davidic adscription, one is an original psalm—actually called ‘incantation’71 in the composition itself—the other is substantially the canonical Psalm 91.72 There is a tantalizing possibility that these texts constituted the four “songs against the possessed” associated with David in 11Q5 col. 27 commented above. So (Fröhlich 2013) and (Evans 2011). In any case, the connection with David as a divinely (explicitly “prophetically”) inspired sage would be strong. One could argue, again, that these texts would have a role in the liturgical life of the community and be performed in a seasonal pattern, as were other songs ascribed to David in 11Q5.73 I find this possibility relevant for the conception of a sage or prophet-sage in Qumran, although, again, liturgical prophylactic usage should not be understood as substituting private ritual practices of healing/exorcism, but as different potential manifestations of divine power and knowledge being incarnated in the ritualist.74 If we connect this ascription of exorcistic psalms to the Sage David with traditions such as David’s visage transfigured by an angelic aura—David as Divine Warrior—it is possible to intuit a pattern that leads back to divine constructions of kings and heroes in the Mesopotamian (Neo-Assyrian in Israel’s most immediate background) tradition.75 Kings such as Ashurbanipal in the text commented above assimilated or incarnated aspects of the gods’ auras by indulging in activities connected to divine portfolios, be them war, hunting or cosmic knowledge. The Qumran texts that I have treated in this section are remarkable because they constitute a fusion of two fundamental divine attributes: wisdom (the role of the sage) and strength against evil (the role of the warrior).76 Exorcism conjoins both roles, as lore is actively used to fight and dispel evil. This fusion of portfolios shows a clear evolution of the Mesopotamian paradigm of the divinely inspired ritualists and kings, an evolution which very likely would have been triggered by the construction of Jewish communities77 with an eschatological mission and worldview.

3. Purity and Divination in Present Days and Days to Come

This eschatological worldview is, in my opinion, one of the strongest factors in the definition of specific elements of divinely inspired transmission of knowledge in the Qumran community and perhaps also in similar Jewish groups of the Second Temple period. As I have commented in the previous section, wisdom and warrior prowess become one as instrumental in the fight against evil which anticipates or brings about the End Times. Now I will turn to a different, albeit complementary, facet of knowledge in the context of Qumran eschatology: divination and interpretation.78 Both genres are well represented in the preserved materials and it is possible to establish a connection between some of these texts and the more abstract theological tenets of the community. This connection would be based on a clear but complex question: How are we to conceive knowledge of the world when—according to eschatological beliefs—we think and even hope that the world as we know it is going to end or at least change in a dramatic way? Said in other words, how can the sage’s access to the divine lore of the cosmos be valid when this cosmos is about to undergo an ultimate upheaval or dissolution? Qumran authors posed this question through a term which still tantalizes scholars, the רז נהיה, the “mystery of things that are”, or the “mystery of things to be” or likely both.79 The concept defies the traditional boundaries of the classical biblical genres, as it involves knowledge of the world-order, understood both in its material, cosmic, and legal orders.80 This unity of the worldview is an open door to one of the most relevant aspects of knowledge in Qumran, connecting eschatology to “traditional” wisdom of the world.81 This operates in terms that are analogous to those of knowledge as effective—exorcistic, healing, or prophylactic—power: an accurate interpretation of the order of the world is not only necessary to understand the truths of existence, but also to interpret a correct behavior in agreement with divine law. This interpretation is a necessary condition for the fulfilment of the purity strictures82 of a community, such as Qumran’s, which would involve complementary kinds of “wisdom”: (1) knowledge of the universe allows the sage to determine astronomical events like festivals and calendars; (2) in parallel, other mantic techniques allow access to less tangible but still fundamental information for the community, namely determination of an individual’s personality and spiritual nature; (3) finally, adequate interpretative techniques make possible a correct fulfilment of divine law by applying the right exegetical procedures on sacred texts. Evidently, all three aspects are linked to each other, as, for instance, a correct fulfilment of divine law would require knowledge and application of the “true” calendar for proper celebration of festivals. All these concerns are clearly evidenced in the Qumran corpus, both in practical texts and in more theological reflections: astronomy/astrology is clearly represented, along with the calendar concerns83 which so often are placed at the core of the raison d’être of the Qumran community; other forms of divination develop the astronomical framework with disciplines such as brontomancy or physiognomy.84 In turn, some texts give a clear background of the importance of these practices. For instance, 1QS, the Rule of the Community, includes a chapter on sacred anthropology, the so-called Treatise of the Two Spirits,85 where the disposition or determination of a human for good or for evil is considered according to influences and composition in his spirit. Within this conception, techniques to determine a human being’s nature (such as astrology or physiognomy) would not be hard to understand.

In this sense, I would like to underscore how this form of knowledge involves a sort of circularity: for the Qumran authors, perhaps the most crucial aim of fulfilling the Law is to achieve purity in order to create a community that meets eschatological expectations86—which will be treated below in my concluding remarks. Conversely, the knowledge required to access the deepest cosmic secrets and adequately interpret the Law requires a special disposition, that of a divinely inspired Sage who partakes of certain superhuman qualities.

Thus, a sage is a sage thanks to God-sent inspiration in modes and models discussed in the previous section, but, in turn, application of his knowledge allows for the amelioration of the community or its chosen representatives by correct practice of the Law.

In parallel to circularity, this adds a considerable level of performativity to the texts involving wisdom and action by inspired sages and masters: the sage’s knowledge of formulae, utterances, divination, and legal exegesis is powerful and accurate because it is acquired through God’s inspiration, but it having power also characterizes the sage as a representative of God, because he can act in the image of the divinity and exhibits the expected qualities.87

This is the paradigm that, since the beginning of this paper, I have presented as a retention of conceptions of knowledge and representation of divine power and wisdom in relevant individuals, like sages or kings.88 Nevertheless, a new factor would be the connection of this divine wisdom, both in its representational and practical functions, when faced with belief in end times and eschatological battles between good and evil such as presented in some trends of Second Temple apocalypticism. The knowledge of the sage would have a role to play in these end times, which, in parallel with considerations on purity and the Law that I have just discussed, manifests in two complementary aspects: inspired wisdom allows the community to know the eschatological mysteries—to interpret, for instance, end times events through exegesis of Scripture, as in pešer literature—, but also to act in a way that lets the community play a decisive role in the final battles against darkness: (correct) adherence to the Law and appropriate liturgies leading to the constitution of a community of pure members would be instrumental in the eschatological battle. This is clearly presented in the Rule of War literature of Qumran, best preserved in 1QM, the War Scroll. Although contents of the composition are clear at first sight, there has been a sustained debate on how the eschatological battle was conceived and what role the community played, where it was fought only by supernatural beings (angels vs. spirits of darkness) or with participation of humans and the community (or at least its priests and leaders).89 In any case, a pure community is expected and it is even described in explicit terms: וֹ[בני צ]ד֗ק יאירו לכול קצוות תבל הלוך ואור עד תום כול מועדי חושך.90 References to light are typical throughout the composition and hearken back to the presence of divine auras which I have discussed in the previous section. Thus, eschatology involves, again, two roles of wisdom, interpretation and active power, that are, fundamentally, a new spin on the construction of the inspired sage or the wise king.91 In other words, the two “particular” roles of a sage-ritualist, divination and incantation, transcend the boundaries of individual usage and of everyday community life and become an essential tool in management of end times conflict. Knowledge of the universe is supplemented by knowledge of scripture by applying certain modes of mantic practice to texts already taken as inspired during the Second Temple period.92 In a way, this would lead again to circular performativity of inspiration: Qumran leaders would present their access to the text as inspired as the text itself by appealing to a model of authority based on their own sanctity and direct contact with the divine in virtue of their correct interpretation of law and signs leading to a state of purity.93 Then, the effective power of the learned and inspired individual becomes an instrument in the fight against darkness. This will have important implications and lead to challenging problems in our vision of Second Temple Judaism at the turn of the era.

4. As a Preliminary Conclusion: With and Beyond Prophets: The Messianic Sage

I have focused this paper on the figure on the exorcist—and, to a lesser extent, the diviner—because I find, in agreement with García Martínez 2002, that the joining of both roles is very relevant for the worldview of the Qumran community. I would go further and propose that a sage that combines secret knowledge and sacred power against evil is, on one hand, a potential analogy on the personal level of the macrocosmic eschatological conflict between light and darkness (Piquer Otero 2022), and, on the other hand, the perfect synthesis of Qumran community aspirations as articulated in the concept of retrieval of “all the glory of Adam,” that is, reconstruction of the Edenic status of Adam before the Fall, a primaeval and perfect human being who would enjoy a quasi-angelic state and bask in the direct contemplation of God.94 This falls close to hypotheses that have proposed that ritual purity and correct legal and liturgical observance in Qumran could lead to the community or at least its leadership achieving a sort of angelic transformation and thus assuming an active—and perhaps crucial—role in the battle between light and darkness (Fletcher-Louis 2002; Navajas Espinal 2013). This could generate, in turn, a radical conception where the role of Messiah did not belong to a single predestined individual of royal or priestly stock, but—at least in the ritual space or among the selected leadership—manifested as a sort of communitarian or collective identity brought about by strict purity rules of life in this eschatological context (Steudel 1996; Steudel 2004). I find this theory of interest and highly compatible with the state of flux of the Second Temple period, where models of authority and divine inspiration were developing in competence and complementation. Whereas the Qumran community did acknowledge the inspired nature of the books of the prophets, found in the Qumran library and subject to extensive exegesis and to expansion or elaboration, part of the specifics of the community lead to maintaining, in parallel, an active and productive model of divinely inspired sage—and thus interpreter of the law and healer and protector of their flock—which hearkens back to the cultural continuum of scribal wisdom and professional sages inspired by deities in the background of pre-Exilic Israel. Models such as mythical pre-Diluvian sages and sage-kings would have been accessible to early Jewish authors and definitely played a role in configuring ascended/angelic/messianic beings in the period.95 I find this path of access to divine revelation a continuous line, from the monarchy (at least according to Assyrian practices and models) to the Second Temple and the turn of the era. Prophecy, on the other hand, constituted a sort of anomaly, a variation or exception to the model of the scribe-sage96 that became incorporated into the historical conceptions of Judaism and assumed a central position probably in the context of rabbinic Judaism since the 3rd century c.e.97 On the other side, Christianity developed a different path which shows a very remarkable eclecticism: Christian language keeps prophecy open,98 but paints the inspired transmitters of divine secret wisdom—gospel—in the hues of the sage-exorcist who heals and vanquishes demons.99

Our vision of Judaism in the period is very limited by the fragmentary state of the sources, by the few communities whose texts and views have come down to us, and by the dangerous temptation of projecting backwards consolidated models of later historical moments. The model of the biblical prophet has been given a central role in our conceptions of how the deity reveals its will and knowledge to a community. On the other hand, other models have been shadowed or confused in a self-limiting typology. Thus, with all required caution, I would like to recover some of the reflections advanced in my introductory paragraphs and propose that, against taxonomies, access to divine knowledge in early Judaism was substantially a scribal phenomenon and wisdom in its widest sense. Also, it incorporated as a very relevant aspect the practice of certain forms of magic—divination and healing/exorcism—as performative validation of the sage’s access to the divine. Any reader aware of the history of Judaism will see that this conception of knowledge stands very close to mysticism.100 Transition into mysticism will indeed constitute a new reframing of the paradigm with its own historical coordinates and academic quandaries and goes beyond the scope of this paper but, nevertheless, shows how boundaries and taxonomies are to be read with caution when revelation and codification of divinely inspired knowledge is a complex continuum.