The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of documents discovered at the archaeological site Qumran, by the Dead Sea, in the 1940s. Most scholars hold that they were written by the Essenes, who appear to be connected to the priests of the Jerusalem temple, though the Essenes broke away from them, believing the temple to be corrupt.
The authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls believed they were living in an age shortly before a massive war between “the sons of light” (themselves) and the “sons of darkness” (everybody else). They also expected a number of leaders to appear in the future. One was a prophet, and two others were known as the Messiah of Aaron and the Messiah of Israel.
“The prophet” was a figure mentioned in Deuteronomy 18:15-19, where Moses says that God will raise up a prophet like him for the Israelites. The literal sense of this text appears to refer to all the prophets God would send, but some interpreted it to refer to a single specific prophet who would be a lot like Moses. Thus, in John 1:21, John the Baptist is asked if he is “the prophet,” and he says no. It’s also why, in John 7:40, some identify Jesus as “the prophet.”
It wasn’t just kings who were anointed. Priests also were, and the “Messiah of Aaron” was a future high priest—a descendant of the original high priest, Aaron. By contrast, the “Messiah of Israel” would be the Davidic Messiah who would rule over all Israel. Since the Essenes likely sprang from a group of dissident priests, in some ways the Dead Sea Scrolls gave the higher position to the Messiah of Aaron.
Not all of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by the Qumran community. Some were documents in general circulation, and it can be difficult to tell whether a given document was authored by the community. One such text is the Messianic Apocalypse. It was likely written in the mid-first century B.C., and it describes the messianic age. It says the Lord will perform several specific acts:
The heavens and the earth will listen to his Messiah,
For [the Lord&91; will honor the pious upon the throne of an eternal kingdom,
Freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out the twisted.
And the Lord will perform marvelous acts such as have not existed, just as he said,
For he will heal the badly wounded and will make the dead live;
he will proclaim good news to the poor (2:2:1, 7-8, 11-12).
This is very similar to what Jesus says in reply to a query from John the Baptist:
Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is he who takes no offense at me” (Matt. 11:2-6).
Jesus definitely was not a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls community. He taught multiple things that contradicted their views (e.g., he had much more relaxed views of ritual purity). Scholars, therefore, have proposed that the Messianic Apocalypse reflects the views of Jews more generally—not just those of the Dead Sea sect.
It thus would be no surprise that the Messianic Apocalypse, Jesus, and John the Baptist held that the messianic age would be characterized by miracles such as the blind, lame, and deaf being healed, lepers being cured, and the dead being raised—as well as the poor having good news or a “gospel” preached to them. We thus see evidence that Jews in this period understood the Messiah as a miracle worker.
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