key text for the self-understanding of the community, the Yahad, which lies behind the Community Rule, 1QS (including the fragments from Cave 4), is »to atone for the land.«85
In the context of 1QS 8.1–10 the expression occurs twice:
(1) In the council of the Yahad there shall be twelve men and three priests, perfect in everything that is revealed from the whole (2) Torah, to do truth and justice and right judgment and compassionate love and a humble walking, each one with his neighbor, (3) to maintain faithfulness in the land with a firm purpose and a broken spirit and to atone for sin by doing justly, (4) and (to bear) affliction and to walk with everything according to the measure of truth and the regulation of time. When this happens in Israel, (5) the council of the Yahad stands firm in truth as an eternal planting, a holy house for Israel and a foundation of a holy of holies (6) for Aaron, witnesses for right judgment and chosen ones of (God’s) goodwill, to atone for the land and to render retribution to the wicked. This is the proven wall, the precious cornerstone, (8) whose foundations do not waver or tremble in their place. A most holy dwelling (9) for Aaron in all knowledge, for a covenant of justice, and in order to bring a sweet-smelling sacrifice, and a house of perfection and truth in Israel, (10) to establish a covenant in accordance with the everlasting laws. And they are agreable, to atone for the land86 and to establish judgment on iniquity; and there shall be no more iniquity.87
As temple, the community took over the atonement function that the sacrifices had in the Jerusalem Temple: the community saw itself as the temple. It performed its function of atonement in perfect behavior and in praise. In one extraordinary phrase there is even talk of »a temple (consisting) of people« (4Q174 1–2 I 6). The idea that worship can take the place of sacrifices in the temple is expressed in cultic language, which speaks of a »heave offering of the lips« (1QS 9.4; 10.6, 14).
1QS 9.3–6:
(3) When these things occur in Israel in accordance with all these provisions, (these men) become a foundation of the Holy Spirit in (4) eternal truth, to atone for wickedness and the sin of apostasy and for goodwill for the land, without the flesh of burnt offerings and without the fat of animal sacrifices, for a heave offering (5) of the lips in accordance with the decree is like a just appeasement and a perfect way (derekh) is like a pleasing freewill offering. At this time the men of the Yahad are to set themselves apart (6) as a holy house for Aaron to unite as a holy of holies and a house of Yahad for Israel, of those that walk perfectly.88
The petitioner vows to present his »offering of the lips« at all prayer times during feasts and during the day (1QS 10.6, 14).
The 15 men of 1QS 8.1 are also found in 4Q265,89 which displays a remarkable variety of themes and literary genres in fragment 7. Of these, Joseph Baumgarten notes: orders for the Sabbath, prohibition of priests performing sprinklings on the Sabbath, permission to walk two thousand cubits on the Sabbath for pasturing animals, the eschatological council of the Yahad, Adam and Eve in paradise, and purification after birth.90 The important passage in the present context is found in lines 7–9 of fragment 7:
(7) [When] there will be the council of the Yahad fif[teen men, as God foretold through his servants, the pr]ophets, the Council of the Yaha[d ] will be established [in truth as an eternal plant, truthful witnesses, and chosen by] (divine) will, and sweet odour to atone for the [l]and, an off[ering (?) (10) and the periods of deceit will come to an end by judgment and the [...].
Here too, as in 1QS 8.1–10, we find the atoning function of the Yahad with its core of twelve laymen and three priests. The number fifteen in 4Q265 fragm 7.7 looks like a quotation from 1QS 8.1.
Polemic against the »Wicked Priest«: date of the Day of Atonement
1QpHab 11.4–8 proves, first, that the group around the Teacher of Righteousness celebrated the Day of Atonement, and secondly, that it did so on a different date from the temple in Jerusalem. With this discovery, Shemaryahu Talmon contributed to the historical and theological classification of the Dead Sea finds.91 His remarks on the calendar were confirmed by subsequent discoveries. The drama of the incident in which, on the day the community around the Teacher of Righteousness celebrates the Day of Atonement, the serving Jerusalem High priest pursued him to the place of his exile and tried to destroy him on the Day of Atonement, points to the well-documented difference between the calendar of the Jerusalem temple and that of the Yahad of the Teacher of Righteousness.92
Distance from sacrifices among the Essenes93
The most important testimony is given by Philo (Prob. 75), when he says that the Essenes do not offer animals for sacrifice, but seek to equip their souls as befitting for holiness.94 Josephus makes a similar, if somewhat less clear, statement in Ant. 18.19:
Although they send votive gifts to the temple, they do not perform sacrifices (there) because of the difference in the purifications that are their custom. They have therefore also separated themselves from the common sanctuary and perform their sacrifices on their own.95
After a careful examination of the findings, Georg Klinzing comes to the conclusion that: »Taken as a whole it remains a remarkably little emphasized, but still sufficiently documented, indication that the Essenes did not participate in temple sacrifice.«96 In the Essenes we meet a Jewish community at the time of the existence of the temple, which may not have been a »community without a temple,« but a community without sacrifice. The broad consensus that the Yahad community by the Dead Sea had not only declared its separation from the Jerusalem temple cult and ceased to offer animal sacrifices there, has been contradicted by Jodi Magness97 on the basis of the deposits of animal bones and an altar within the settlement complex (L130). On the one hand, the animal bone deposits at Qumran resemble those of comparable ancient sanctuaries,98 but on the other hand in the area of L130 we find a free-standing altar in the first century BCE.99 A series of texts from the Qumran discoveries, such as the Temple Scroll, 11QPsa 27,4–7, 4Q394(MMT) and the Damascus Document pointed to a sacrificial practice on the part of the Yahad.100 It should be remembered that both the Temple Scroll and the Psalms Scroll 11QPsa are pre- or extra-Qumran Essene, that 4QMMT apparently comes from the early days of the Yahad, and also that the Damascus Document has the early days of the Yahad in view. So it seems entirely possible that into the first century BCE, animal sacrifices were performed at Qumran, and »that the Qumran sect observed the laws and lifestyle of the desert camp with the tabernacle in its midst, including offering animal sacrifices as mandated by biblical law.«101 But this does not alter the concept of cultic sacrifice transposing into rules and praise, as witnessed to in 1QS for the late second century BCE.
6.3 Guide to a Judaism without a temple—the Pharisees
The Pharisees, who came into being in the context of the Maccabean Revolt, were a lay movement who were not, like the priests, tied to the Temple by regular service. They set their focus on fulfillment of the commandments and prohibitions of the Torah, and transferred ideas of purity and holiness from the priestly Temple service to everyday life.
The Pharisees argued (...) that one should observe the laws of ritual purity even outside the temple, at home, precisely at the place where they were applicable, namely at the table. (…) The table in the house of any Jew is like the table of the Lord in the temple of Jerusalem. The commandment, ›You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation‹ was taken literally. The whole land was considered sacred.102
In transferring ideas of the holiness of the Temple to everyday life, the Pharisees laid a foundation on which rabbinic Judaism could build following the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 CE, in a time without a Temple. A late legend, about the teacher with whom the reorganization and reconstruction of post-70 Judaism is most closely associated, may illustrate this:
Once, when Rabban Yoḥanan