*********************************************************************** THE "KITTIM" IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS by Clare Bayard 13 May 1995 *********************************************************************** "The Heroes of the Kittim And the Horde of Assyria" -the War Scroll The Dead Sea Scrolls, as they are currently referred to, were found in caves overlooking the site of Khirbet Qumran. Of the many controversies surrounding the scrolls, one of the largest is the question of authorship. It is not even certain if the residents of Qumran were the same people who wrote the scrolls, but for the purposes of this discussion, it will be assumed with solid reasons that they are. The majority of scholars interested in the scrolls believe that the Qumran community was a Jewish sect called the Essenes. Other theories suggest alternative groups such as the Pharisees or Sadducees. Unfortunately, the scrolls refer to the community in such ambiguities as "the many," or "the people," and never mention a distinct name. Conclusions can not be based on anything more solid than guesswork, and it is hard to discard all but one of the hypotheses when there are so many contradictory angles from which to examine the texts. The ambiguous dividing lines between the many Jewish groups of the time also complicates the issue of naming the Qumran community. The texts make several references to doomed adversaries/avengers called the "Kittim." In the intensively pious world of the Qumran community, a mentality was cultivated in which the righteous and the wicked were very real but temporally unfixed concepts. Events in the outside world which affected the community helped to place groups in these roles. The attitude towards the Kittim, as displayed especially in the Nahum and Habakkuk peshers, reveals something about the nature of the community. This creates a window through which to examine the authors of the scrolls, and supplies information that may help in identifying them. The arguments for, and the problems with the Essene hypothesis have been outlined by several authors, including James C. VanderKam in his excellent _The Dead Sea Scrolls Today_. I feel that a basic reprisal of the sets of data which argue the two sides are unnecessary here. The most parsimonious conclusion is an open-ended compromise a la Larry Schiffman: the Qumranites were not Pliny's Essenes, but a conservative Essene-like "Zadokite" group of Sadducees. The ambiguous and mutable nature of the sects makes any sort of definitive nomenclature deceptive, but this is a reasonable proposal. The texts which discuss the Kittim reveal an attitude in the authors which also supports this hypothesis. The isolated, pious community at Qumran formulated its own views about the outside world, in which they cast themselves as the "sons of light." The texts contain a good deal of eschatological material, in which the sons of light are waiting for the great battle of the endtimes. The group which is positioned as their adversary in this fight is the Kittim, who by then will have carried out their other function as YHWH's tool in exterminating the wicked. Then the Kittim, wicked themselves, will face the sons of light as detailed in the War Scroll. The War Scroll provides a good deal of information about the Kittim, and the impression given is that the people being referred to are the Roman soldiers. The etymology of 'kittim" comes from Kition or Kitti, a Phoenician city on Cyprus, according to Josephus (Antiquities 1: 12.3). The word loses its original connotations, and is linked later to the Assyrians in Isiah 22 3:12, when the Assyrians conquer the Kittim. The Assyrian king Sargon II had a stele erected at Larnaca on Cyprus (Encyc. Judaica, p. 1079), cementing the association. In the War Scroll, the sons of light launch their attack "against the companies of the Kittim of Ashur." (War Scroll I.2) The outcome is that "Ashur will fall...; the rule of the Kittim will come to an end." (4Q496 Col I. frag 6) Ashur seems to be "a term to denote the gentile oppressor of Israel, whereas Kittim indicates more precisely where this oppressor comes from. " (Encyc. Jud. 1080) Then, in the Habukkuk commentary, the Kittim are quite obviously the godless and powerful Roman empire; they are depicted as "...the Kittim, who are swift and powerful in battle...they will vanquish many countries and will not believe in the precepts of God." (1QpHab Col. II :12) Their specific practices are also referred to; the prophet's depiction of the Chaldeans as catching men like fish and then paying divine honors to their nets is said to denote the Kittim's practice of offering sacrifice to their standards and worshiping their weapons. This last feature of the Kittim is reminiscent of the fact that Roman military standards are treated as sacred objects...the successors of Alexander the Great may have had a similar practice but the evidence in their case is scanty and ambiguous as compared with that for the Romans. (Encyclopedia Judaica p.1082) The use of the word "Kittim" by the authors of the text therefore varies to suit contemporary politics. Their eschatological views fit outside groups into convenient roles in their personal theological boardgame. Strangely enough, one of the very few glimpses of an awareness of real mortality and human memory comes in the 4QSapiental Work. The text instructs, "Do not embitter your holy spirit, for it has no price." This formulaic warning is repeated, like a prescription for sacrifices from the Temple Scroll. But other texts have a vindictive, sometimes nasty tone when preaching the certain doom coming to the Kittim. The question of continuity between works and authors is a valid one, but assuming that the same community produced both this optimistic altruism and the grim mutterings about the Kittim, what kind of group could accommodate this theological contradiction? Of course, any group with the confidence to reproduce such vast amounts of religious text as the Qumran community will have the self-certainty and righteousness to make its own rules. But what impressions did the Dead Sea scrolls people have of the Kittim in their various incarnations? The sons of light are secure in their belief that the agents of God will come to assist them in defeating the sons of darkness, Belial and his agents, the Kittim. Although, in the War Scroll, the Kittim are wicked and will "be crushed without a remnant" (1QM XVIII 3), the concern is mainly with exterminating evil, rather than a particular grievance against the Kittim. However, the Nahum Pesher states angrily, "Nineveh is laid waste; who will be sorry for her?" (4Q169 frags 3-4 col. III.6) What caused such bitterness in the holy spirits of the Qumran community? The military superiority of the Assyrian and Roman empires enabled them to deal Israel some serious pain. The deepest wound was the reduction of Israel "to a fractional vassal state" (Mays 1969, p. 91) by Tiglath-pileser, who took Gilead, Galilee, and even the resistant Damascus (Rogers 1912, p.312). In 701 (archaeological evidence; 2 Kings 18.13 miscalculates the year) (Rogers 1912, p.337), Sennacherib also invades Palestine. The Campaign Against Jerusalem tablet tells that he "besieged and captured...of Hezekiah, the Judaean, who had not submitted to my yoke...forty-six strong cities, with walls, the smaller cities, which were around them, without number." (col. 3 line 12- Rogers 1912, p. 326) The Qumran community considered the Assyrians to be completely alien. Though religion is always tied up with power, Judaism at least professes to be more interested in relationships with God than winning land. The Assyrian kings were interested in raw power. The Qumranites, whether Essenes, Sadducees, Pharisees, Zealots, or early Christians could not accept the blasphemy that passed by in Assyrian society; Sennacherib was slain by his sons in a temple. Some rulers, like Esarhaddon in his scheme to annex Egypt, excused their expeditions to conquer as attempts at creating peace by stopping rebellions. This can hardly be argued for the Assyrians when they hung the bodies of slain princes and governors on poles around the ravaged cities. (Rogers 1912, p.342) When Shalmaneser III invaded the Euphrates Valley around 850 B.C., his deeds became notorious and their legend may have persisted in regional memory. When he took Bit-Adini, pyramids of heads were piled up by the city gates and the torch applied to ruined villages. When all opposition had been beaten down the land was annexed to Assyria, placed under direct Assyrian rule, and repeopled with Assyrian colonists. (Rogers 1912, p. 288) While statements such as those on the Monolith inscription, "I heaped up their bodies, I filled the plain. I made their blood flow over the field." (Rogers 1912, p. 297) surely upset the pacifist Qumran community, the threat of personal attack would have combined their dislike with fear, creating real hatred. Nineveh fell to the Medes in 606, who "were men of action, not writers of tablets like the Babylonians." (Rogers 1912, p. 386) The authors of the scrolls were quite obviously writers of tablets rather than men of action, yet they were so opposed to the Kittim of Ashur that they could not identify or even sympathize with them. Their grudge must have been incredible, for the Medes who succeeded them were immediately recognizable as vicious people. Their first king, Cyaxares ended his rule, in 585, by which time he had already "made the name of Medes a terror." (Rogers 1912, p. 376) In 88 B.C., Alexander Janneus crucified over 800 Pharisees. Remaining Pharisees may have fled to Qumran, where they might not have been welcomed warmly, but probably would not have been turned away. The Nahum pesher condemns Janneus for committing an atrocity, but some scholars find no real anger in the text. VanderKam says that It is not self-evident that the Qumranites would have found Janneus' barbarous action overly offensive. The Nahum commentary mentions it without passing judgment on the incident. (VanderKam 1994, 101) And James Mays writes that the Nahum pesher's angry lion refers actually to Yahweh, who, rather than Janneus or the Kittim, "is the ultimate source of their wound, and he alone can heal them." (Mays 1969, p. 91) The Kittim are a strange cutout upon which to project their dissatisfaction with their own God, but perhaps their very nature as heathen aliens made them convenient for the purpose. H.W.F. Saggs notes that One finds from reading the Old Testament prophets, that where Assyria is condemned, the condemnation is in no case for barbarity nor even for administrative harshness. This is true even of Nahum's gloating over Assyria's fall. To Nahum, Assyria's offene was its participation in witch- craft coupled with its commercial success. (Saggs 1988, 209) The Qumranites had retreated into isolation out of their displeasure with their fellow Jews. Barbarity and administrative harshness were nothing they could ascribe as unqiue to the Assyrians, but witchcraft and whoredoms were suitably spectacular and godless sins to pin upon them. The OT prophets share the attitude of the Qumranites; "in Hosea, indeed, Assyria is not condemned at all: it is upon Israwl that the condemnation falls, for reliance upon the might of Assyria rather than upon God." (Saggs 1988, p. 214) This is a reiteration of the role of the Kittim, who elsewhere in the Dead Sea scrolls are given the task of destroying for God the wicked, and then being crushed themselves by the righteous sons of light. The overall attitude towards the Kittim is that they are not righteous or in God's favor, but that they are somehow fit to carry out his judgment through their might before they are destroyed by the holiest of holies, the sons of light. The idea of free will versus fate is key in determining a group's attitude towards another's actions. The Essenes, according to Josephus, "affirm that fate governs all things, and nothing befalls men but what is according to its determination." (Antiquities 13.5.9) The Sadducees take the other side, disposing of fate and giving men complete responsibility for their actions and fate. And the Pharisees have the middle ground by Josephus' testimony that "they say some actions, but not all are the work of fate, and some of them are in our own power, and that they are liable to fate but not caused by fate." (Antiquities 13.5 9) Which belief would have been most likely to produce the attitudes demonstrated towards the Kittim? The Essenes, who place compete belief in fate, would have displayed repulsion and resignment to the fate of the Kittim. Those who were born Assyrians or Romans just lost the holy lottery of salvation, and the extremely pious Essenes would have recoiled from them. The Sadducees, who believed in free will, would have no sympathy for the Kittim's planned extermination. As individuals, they had chosen to join the host of Belial and perform unrecoverably wicked deeds. Individuals chose their own paths, not pre-appointed by God. When the Babylonian king Nabonidus was struck with disease by God for his blasphemy, he suffered the punishment, prayed, and was healed. (4Q242 frags. 1-3.2) Since people were not born into judgment, even those who were technically ripe for wickedness could redeem themselves as Nabonidus did. According to 4QPseudo-Ezekiel, "he will not have pity on the poor. " (4Q386 col II.1) A determinist group would attribute the plight of the pitiful as God's choice rather than their own action, and would probably have some sympathy. The complication in this discussion is the extreme self-righteousness displayed by the Qumran community as being holier than everyone else, and this might have confused the tone of the text as far as it displays the authors' notion of fate. And here the circularity of speculation brings us back to the beginning. Was it Essenes, Sadducees, Pharisees, or some ambiguous hybrid? Analysis of the text in comparison to ancient sources cannot claim any more authenticity than an educated guess. The treatment of the Kittim in the Dead Sea scrolls seems to point towards a Sadduceean group, "Zadokites," with a belief in man's free will and a grudge against the Assyrians from reports and personal injury from their savagery, coupled with a displaced anger towards their own God Yahweh. BIBLIOGRAPHY Allegro, John M. _The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth_.Westbridge Books: Great Britain, 1979 Bury, J.B. et al., editors. _The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume III: The Assyrian Empire_ Macmillian: New York, 1929 _Encyclopedia Judaica_. Keter Publishing House: Jerusalem, 1973. Garcia Martinez, Florentino. _The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated._ E.J.Brill: the Netherlands, 1994. Mays, James Luther. _Hosea_. Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1969 Parrot, Andre. _Nineveh and the Old Testament_. Philosophical Library, Inc.: New York, 1955 Rogers, Robert William. _Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament_ Eaton & Mains: New York, 1912. Saggs, H.W.F. _The Greatness that was Babylon_ , Sidgwick & Jackson, Great Britain: 1988. VanderKam, James C. _The Dead Sea Scrolls Today_. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.: Michigan, 1994.