Publication at Catholic Theological Faculty |
2012
Abstract
The generaly known fact that the Qumran community had a priestly character in its origin, doctrine, structure, and religious practices, can get more clarity through the new edited texts. The community at the Dead Sea accepted both eschatological priestly concepts of her time, it is the liturgical and the messianic one.
Both of them helped to members of the community equilibrate the tension between the tradition and innovative tendencies. This concept of priesthood, however, was not an exclusive feature of this Jewish religious sect, but belonged to the largerly accepted models attested in the sources of the Judaism of the Second Temple period.