SOME REMARKS ON 4Q246 AND 4Q521 AND QUMRAN MESSIANISM

EMILE PUECH Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Messianism is surely one of the main themes whieh have drawn the attention of seholars of the Dead Sea SeraIls sinee the first publiea• tions 1 and it eontinues still to be a subjeet of passionate debate. In this note my aim is not to do a survey of Qumran Messianism but to eoneentrate attention on some specifie but important points related to this topie in two reeendy published manuseripts, 4Q246 and 4Q521.

I 4Q246-4QPseudo-Daniel d

Sinee its preliminary publieation,2 the unique fragment of 4Q246 or 4Qfseudo-Danield has been the objeet of intensive investigation,3 mainly may be beeause it has been sometimes designated as the "Son if God" text,4 and thus more easily included among the Qumran messianie eompositions.5

1 Joseph A. Fitzmyer, 7he Dead Sea Scrolls. Major Publications and Tools Jor Sturfy (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 164-67;JohnJ. Collins, "Bibliography," in 7he Scepter and the Star: 7he Messiahs qf the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Ancient Literature (New York: 1995), 216-4l. 2 Emile Puech, "Fragment d'une apocalypse en arameen (4Q246 = Pseudo-Dan d) et le «Royaume de Dieu»," RB 99 (1992): 98-13l. 3 For a bibliography, see Qjimran Cave 4. XVIL· Parabiblical Texts, Part 3, ed. George Brooke et al. (D]D 22; Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 165-84; Edward M. Cook, "4Q246," BulletinJor Biblical Research 5 (1995): 43-66; Annette Steudel, "The Etemal Reign of the People of God----Collective Expectations in Qumran Texts (4Q246 and 1QM)," RevQ 17 (1996): 507-25; John J. Collins, "The Messiah as the Son of God," in 7he Scepter and the Star, 154-72. 4 See particularly Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "4Q246: the 'Son qf God' Document from Qumran," Biblica 74 (1993): 153-74; John J. Collins, "The Messiah as the 'Son qf God' Text from Qumran," in From ]esus to lohn. Essays on ]esus and Christology in Honour qf Marinus de Jonge, ed. Martinus C. de Boer (Sheffield: JSNTSupS. 84, 1993), 65-82. 5 Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, "Röm 1,3 f und der davidische Messias als Gottessohn in den Qumrantexten," in Lese-Zeichen fir Annelies Find~ zum 65. Geburtstag am 15. März 1984, ed. Christoph Burchard and G. Theißen (Heidelberg: 1984), 103-13; John J. Collins, citati, idem, "The Son of Man in the First Century Judaism," NTS 546 EMILE PUECH

If the copy of the manuscript can be paleographically dated around 25 B.C., the composition of this Aramaie scroll is surely older and pre-Qumranic. Nothing of what is preserved indicates a date after 150 B.C. and an Essene origin. On the contrary, the similarity of the language and of the conte nt with Aramaie and Hebrew chapters of the book of Daniel greatly favor a date and an origin before the installation of the Essene community on the Dead Sea shore. It may be a product of the Hasidic movement.6 The unique mention of 'm '[ in 4Q246 and in lQM I 5; III 13 or of nMyr, 'swr, and ~rym are not a sufficient proof for such a conclusion (see 'mk in Daniel 12, etc.). But it is true in my opinion that 1QM mayaiso be depen• dent on 4Q246 as it depends on the book of Daniel. 7 Thus this text cannot give us any information, in the case it could have contained some, on Qumran messianism. This can explain why the first edi• tor, J6zef Milik, in his lecture at Harvard University in 1972, pro• posed to interpret the "son of God" as a negative figure and to identify hirn as the Seleucid king Alexander Balas. But for histori• cal background I have preferred a somewhat earlier Seleucid period and identified hirn with Antiochus IV Epiphanes, son of Antiochus III the Great, even if at the end of the preliminary edition I did not totally exclude a possible messianic interpretation.8

38 (1992): 448-66; John J. Collins, "Messiahs in Context: Method in the Study of Messianism in the Dead Sea Serails," in Methods qf Investigation qf the Dead Sea Serolls and the Khirbet Qymran Site. Present Realities and Future Prospects, ed. Michael O. Wise et al. (New York: Academy of Sciences, 1994), 213-27; Frank M. Cross, 7he Ancient library qfQymran and Modern Biblical Studies (Sheffield: Academic, 1995), 188-91; Craig A. Evans, "A Note on the 'First-Born Son' of 4Q}69," DSD 2 (1995): 185-201, esp. 189-200; Craig A. Evans, "The Recently Published Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus," in Stu4Jing the Historical ]esus: Evaluations qf the State qf Current Research, ed. Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 547-65;JohnJ. Collins, '''He Shall not Judge by What his Eyes See': Messianic Authority in the Dead Sea Scrolls," DSD 2 (1995): 145-62, esp. 155; Frank M. Crass, "Notes on the Doctrine of the Two Messiahs at Qumran and the Extracanonical Daniei Apocalypse (40146)," in Current Research and Technological Developments on the Dead Sea Serolls: Coriference on the Textsfrom the]udean Desert, ]erusalem, 30 April 1995, ed. Donald W. Parry and Stephen D. Ricks (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 1-13. 6 This text found in Cave 4 can in no way be called "sectarian," pace Joseph A. Fitzmyer, "The Aramaie 'Son of God,'" 175; Collins, Seepter and the Star, 166-67: because there is nothing messianic in this text, the given arguments are void. 7 For the dependence of I QM on Daniel, see, for instance, Alfred Mertens, Das Buch Daniel im Lichte der Texte vom Toten Meer (Stuttgart: Echter, 1971). 8 See my conclusion in RB (1992): 130: "Cette interpretation aurait I'avantage de ne pas faire intervenir une figure 'etrangere' dans le recit. .. Elle expliquerait au mieux les proximites et dependances de Dn." and 131: "Mais dans I'un et I'autre cas ... le peuple de Dieu vivra dans la justice et la paix messianique ... sans qu'on