The War Scroll and Roman Weaponry Reconsidered

THE WAR SCROLL AND ROMAN WEAPONRY RECONSIDERED

RUSSELL GMIRKIN

This article takes a new look at the dating of the War Scroll (1QM) and War Rule (4QM) of the Dead Sea Scrolls sectarians.' By carefully comparing the weaponry, tactics, and military formations found in the War Scroll with those of the Roman legions before and after the reforms of Marius in 104-103 BCE, this paper will demonstrate that these documents reflect Roman military practices of the second century BCE, not the first century BCE as commonly assumed based on Yadin's incomplete analysis. The proposition that the War Scroll might reflect military tactics and weaponry of the second century has never been properly investigated before. In his masterful work, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, Yigael Yadin conclusively demonstrated that the War Scroll weaponry, formations, and tactics closely resembled those of the Romans, not the Hellenistic armies of the Seleucids or Ptolemies. Dead Sea Scrolls scholars have generally adopted Yadin's conclusions that the army of the War Scroll was patterned after the Roman legions, more specifically those of Julius Caesar and Augustus in the second half of the first century BCE.1

1 Initial publication of the War Scroll was by E.L. Sukenik, The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University (Magnes Press: Jerusalem, 1955) pls. 16-34, 47; transcription, 1-19. For the full critical edition see Y. Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1962). For the critical edition of the War Rule see M. Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4 III (4Q482-4Q520) (DJD VII; Clarendon: Oxford, 1982) 12-72; pls. 5-8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 24, 26. For a convenient translation of War Scroll, War Rule and other related texts in a Loeb edition format, see J. Charlesworth (ed.), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 2: Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents (Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project 2; John Knox Press: Louisville, 1995). 2 A dating in the time of Herod the Great is accepted by J.T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (SCM Press: London, 1959) 39, 122-23; E. Schürer, revised with eds. G. Vermes, F. Millar, and M. Goodman, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC-AD 135): A New English Edition 90

However, Yadin's dating of the War Scroll to the first century BCE was not demonstrated with the same rigor as his general demonstration of Roman weapons and tactics in the War Scroll. An implicit assump- tion permeating Yadin's book is that Jewish soldiers of the second and early first centuries BCE must have used the Hellenistic weaponry and tactics of the Seleucids.1 Conversely, for Yadin the evidence for Ro- man weaponry and tactics in the War Scroll implied that the scroll should be dated to the Roman period, i.e. after the conquest of Jerusa- lem in 63 BCE by the Roman general Pompey, Caesar's contemporary. This led Yadin to look for special correlations between the War Scroll and the Roman legions starting with Caesar's time, and to neglect pos- sible correlations with the Roman military of earlier times. In a key chart summarizing the results of his investigation, Yadin compared the weaponry, formations, and tactics in the War Scroll army against those of the "Pre-Roman Hellenistic-Hasmonean" army prior to 63 BCE and the Roman army after 63 BCE.' Yadin's chart omitted any information on the Roman army prior to 63 BCE, which is symptomatic of Yadin's limited analysis of the Roman evidence. The phrases "Roman period" and "pre-Roman period" recur throughout Yadin's book, framing the debate in such a way as to exclude the discussion of Roman evidence prior to 63 BCE.' The possibility that armies from Maccabean or Hasmonean times might have been organized along Roman lines is completely ignored in Yadin's 1955 Hebrew edition. This possibility was first raised by M.H. Segal in 1958, who noted the diplomatic contacts between the Jews and Romans as early as the time of Judas Maccabeus. However, Segal conceded that he lacked the competence to argue his thesis of a second century date for the War Scroll based on a knowledge of

(T. and T. Clark Ltd.: Edinburgh, 1986) 3:403; G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (JSOT Press: Sheffield, England, 1995) 123. Yadin's military evidence found approval in T. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures (Anchor Press: Garden City, New York, 1976) 386-87, but the question of date was considered unresolved. A. Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran (Peter Smith: Gloucester, Mass., 1973) 167, inde- pendently dated the War Scroll to the Roman Period based on tactics and weaponry. A survey of alternative opinions, for the most part dating elements of the War Scroll to Maccabean times, can be found in P.R. Davies, IQM, the War Scroll from Qumran: Its Structure and History (BibOr 32; Biblical Institute Press: Rome, 1977) 11-20. 3 Yadin, 116, 245. 4 Yadin, 245. Sub-headingsfor the Roman period are "Whole Period," "63 BC-1 AD," and "1-70 AD." 5 Yadin, 110-11, 117, 136, 178-79, 245.