With today's episode, we will learn about the well-known House of Tzadok (the "Zadokites") from Hebrew Scripture. We will look at four specific aspects of their collective life as they wrote about it in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We will learn that
This is Episode 136 and Part 23 in this series about the life teachings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Yeshua HaMashiach. Join us for all these details and more on this episode of Real Israel Talk Radio.
With today's episode, we will learn about the well-known House of Tzadok (the "Zadokites") from Hebrew Scripture. We will look at four specific aspects of their collective life as they wrote about it in the Dead Sea Scrolls. We will learn that
This is Episode 136 and Part 23 in this series about the life teachings, death, resurrection, and ascension of Yeshua HaMashiach. Join us for all these details and more on this episode of Real Israel Talk Radio.
A) The Zadokites, or if you will, the Sons of the House of Tzadok, are NOT identical with a religious community known as the Essenes. According to Dead Sea Scrolls, Professor Rachel Elior of the John and Golda Cohen Department of Jewish Philosophy and Mystical Thought at the Hebrew University, a respected Israeli Professor who began her research and teaching career at Hebrew U in 1978 and whose specialty is in the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is NO conclusive scholarly evidence to assume this is the case.
In my speaking with Professor Elior, she made it clear that the term “Essene” in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek is NOT found, alluded to, nor even written down anywhere in any of the Scroll Discoveries in the Judean Desert. The only information we have concerning a religious community of the so-called Essenes is dated to the late first century, but nothing is written about them before the first century C.E. The earliest documentation that we have about the community of the Essenes comes from three late first-century sources:
Until there is solid conclusive evidence as to their exact identity, it is my studied opinion that if the Jewish sources of Josephus or Philo had written about the community of the “Essenes” within the context of the historical Maccabees or the Hasmoneans, then there might be a convincing argument. But we know from these sources that they spoke of no such community linked to those historical events. Therefore, until such evidence is found, I think it is best that we steer clear from making wild assumptions that the House of Tzadok and their allies or supporters were one and the same with late first-century literary references to the community of the Essenes.
B) The Priests of the House of Tzadok are identified from their written works to have had a well-established teaching tradition that they considered themselves earthly counterparts to Heaven’s sacred world of angels. The House of Tzadok wrote that they were the Elect of Israel or Chosen of Israel who will stand at the End of Days” in the Messianic era. From available Qumran literature, the leadership of the House of Tzadok Community believed that they were chosen to officiate on behalf of the Angels of Heaven on Earth, and thus, they called themselves in Hebrew, the “Yachad” – initiating direct contact between Heaven and Earth. Another name used concurrently with the Yachad was the “Sons of Light.”
We know from Hebrew Scripture that there is a vast celestial world of angels created to do the Divine Will of Yehovah on Earth. One such reference from scripture is…
The Priests of the House of Tzadok understood this paradigm, which overflows into a plentiful array of New Covenant references that speak about the works of the Angels of Heaven, such as:
There are also passages such as these:
C) The Qumran House of Tzadok Priests and their allies and supporters took their orders from One very special messenger of Heaven referred to as the “Angel of the Countenance” or “Angel of the Face,” who also was spoken of in Hebrew as, “Sar HaPanim” – the Prince of the Face. This is pure Qumran terminology, so it is no surprise that Sha’ul or Paul wrote:
From Sha’ul’s perspective, exactly who was this One, Heaven’s “Angel of the Face”? I think it was none other than the One who is written about in…
This One appears on Earth as the Angel of Yehovah or Sar HaPanim, mentioned by the writer of the New Covenant Book of Hebrews…
This Melchizedek – King of Tzadok – came down out of Heaven’s Shalem and appeared to Avram as a Priest and King of what would later come to be the family line of Levi; that is, the physical family of Levitical Priests manifest on earth. This, of course, gives us a good look into the Levitical King who was called – Melchizedek, the King or Ruling Head of the House of Tzadok, giving us pause to think about why the prophet Isaiah wrote in…
So, it appears to be that this is what was understood concerning Yeshua where it is written in the New Covenant:
The Qumran community of the House of Tzadok understood the Messianic prophecy of the Coming King of Shalem – Melchizedek – the True “Teacher of Righteousness” and celestial Head and Ruler over Earth’s House of Tzadok extensively written about in the Qumran literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This would certainly explain why Yeshua was quoted as saying:
Yeshua came in the Name of Earth’s Sons of Tzadok and functioned as the Son of Heaven’s Tzadok – Melchizedek, who was and forever remains over the celestial and terrestrial priesthood order of the Zadokites, who were called “The Chosen” or “the Elect":
The Rabbinic/Talmudic system of theology in Yeshua’s day did not adopt and use this lingo in speaking of themselves. They just did not speak this way. But it was a known language adopted by and belonging to the Qumran Sons of the House of Tzadok. And Sha’ul, or Paul, was a known Zadokite Associate and supporter of the House of Tzadok from his ancestry in the House of Benjamin. So, he wrote saying:
This appears to be precisely what was meant as Moses wrote it down in the Torah of…
All this was unmistakably adopted and used in the semantics of so much of the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls literature of the House of Tzadok. By order of divine authority, the Sons of the House of Tzadok faithfully served Yehovah under the spiritual Kingship of this One Melchizedek of Heaven and Earth. Again, it was he – Melchizedek – who stood at the Head of Heaven’s priestly authority from His divine station as Sar HaPanim (The Prince of the Countenance or Face). He then conveyed His divine authority downline to the third of the six sons of Leah and Jacob, the one named Levi (“Levi” means Attached or Joined “to Yehovah”). He stands as the very foundation of the Israelites serving the body of Israel.
D) For the House of Tzadok, the priests defined their work as encompassing words of prophecy under an authority granted from Heaven at a time when true prophecy was considered finished.
The “bat kol” is a Talmudic term meaning “daughter of a voice” and tries to describe a form of communication between God and man after the completion of the true prophetic era. The idea of the “bat kol” suggests the sense of a lesser voice, distinguishing it from a voice that descends directly from Heaven (which could refer to traditional prophecy). The Talmudists likened the “bat kol” to the voice of an echo that emerges from within another voice. So, we learn from the Mishnah in Judaism’s second century that receiving divine revelation from the Holy Spirit and angelic dictation was not tolerated:
This demonstrates to me that the words and prophecies of Yeshua and his followers were not accepted, though they were among the supporters and allies of the House of Tzadok as it appears so from …
This one hallmark sign of the Community of the House of Tzadok was that of divine revelation under the influence of the Holy Spirit, which included angelic dictation. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the House of Tzadok priesthood were said to be the prophetic “knowers” of Yehovah’s hidden things, referred to in Hebrew as protectors of the “razim” – the mysteries. They understood their calling from …
For the House of Tzadok, Scripture was NOT a closed canon because divine revelation was considered ongoing and prophetic in their day. I think this is what Yeshua was driving at when he said:
In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the priests, teachers, and scribes of the House of Tzadok Community were keepers of a divine and holy tradition of special revelation, and their judgments were ordained and not derived by exposition or exegesis of a text as it was known among the Sadducees, the Pharisees and their scribes who did NOT permit the knowledge of Heaven to be disclosed through any other authority other than their authority. This is what I think was behind the question that was posed to Yeshua, who comes across as the incarnate Melchizedek (see Hebrews 6:20) – the Ruling King of Tzadok and The Angel of the Face:
Among Yeshua’s further responses, he was quoted:
In contrast with the House of Tzadok, who said that Scripture was NOT a closed canon because divine revelation was considered ongoing and prophetic, the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Scribes believed the opposite, that the canonized texts of Hebrew Scripture were a firmly closed body of literature to which nothing could be added or removed through any prophetic form of divine revelation. And so, judged them saying…
All this is the backdrop for our understanding of the Qumran House of Tzadok:
TO BE CONTINUED...