that the Qumran community believed, on his teaching, that God would send two messiahs, not just one. These would be a priestly messiah and a kingly messiah, serving entirely different purposes, as can be inferred from their identities.
Politically, the Qumran community was anti Hasmonean, for apparently very good reasons, since the Hasmonean monarchs appear to have become murderous and unfaithful to the Jewish community as a whole. However, with the deep divisions in Jewish society during that time, factionalism also played its part.
This factionalism is apparent both in beliefs and in the use of scripture. The Qumran community had an interesting relationship to God and to angels, indicating a belief that human beings were capable of moving toward the status of angels by their behavior and worship (Charlesworth, 1992).
Feldman (1992) is helpful in placing the Qumran community in context. As he noted, this is a time during which apocalyptic visions have replaced prophetic visions. Visions of the end time predominated, and an atmosphere emotionally charged with the necessity of preparing for that. Therefore, the Qumran community, like other sects, was hostile to those Jews who did not believe what they believed or behave as they believed necessary in order to save the Jewish community. To them, the time of salvation was near at hand and the community needed to prepare itself as best was possible.
This seems to be quite a strict community, consumed with anger about the failures of the people of Israel and perceiving the God of Israel as wrathful and condemnatory. The emphasis is on the value of knowledge, wisdom, and righteousness, but there also seems to be a belief in predestination. The passage in the Damascus Rule states clearly that "from the beginning god chose them not" (p. 98). Nonetheless, God did choose the people of Israel and always preserved a remnant of that people.
Use of canonical scripture. T...