Temple Scroll: A Jewish Theocracy

 In commenting that theocracy (a term coined by Josephus) is today seen as the rule by cleric (and the abolishment of difference between church and states), Rabbi Jonathan Sacks comments that “this is not what the Torah envisages at all.  Jewish theocracy is not rule by priests.  What it means is that power within the state is delegated power”.  However, in examining the Temple Scroll, this perilously close to what is being delineated: rule by priests.  In a divergence to the Masoretic text, the Temple Scroll indicates that “they” shall write for the King a scroll of torot, as opposed to ‘he’ writing a scroll for himself.  The torot of the priests further limit the power of the king from what the Torah text itself says.  For example, such as the king only being able to marry in his father’s house, and not remarry while his first wife is alive; whereas the Deuteronomy asks him not to accumulate wives and marry within his people.  The king may only wage optional war after consulting the ‘Urrim v'Turim’ of the high priest, must be guarded by a priestly council lest he sin, and must rule in a priestly manner in order not to disrupt the purity of the Temple City.

Fraade views this limitation of the kings, not as a responsive to particular corrupt Hasmonean kings, but as “an articulation of [their] ideological and rhetorical culture[]”; one that is “intertwined with the dialectical diarchy of priest and king”.  This is well taken, as the source is (according to Shiffman) pre-Qumranic, without any ostensible messianism, and more reflective of its Sadducean sources, that is intertwined with the elite culture of the priesthood.  The Temple Scroll seeing itself as a complete Sinaitic revelation, and which views the Priestly order (in all its particulars) as ordained in Sinaitic revelation, without any overt interpretation.  This potentially would have been seen the Qumranic community as the order of things that would be restored in any imminent redemption.

This is contrasted by Fraade with the Rabbinic view that (usually) honours the king above the priests.  He brings the example of when mourning a High Priests, most people have to sit on a stool but the king may sit on a couch.  However, ‘honour’ is not necessarily coextensive with ‘importance’ in a political sense, or in the ability to exercise power.  As per constitutional monarchies today (e.g. in UK), the amount of honour is inverse to the effective prerogative powers they have. In these sources, the king must still get council before war, just with the council of 71, rather than the high priest.  Even when the rabbis (in Sifre) ‘rabbanise’ the king by making him a sage conversant in rabbinic source, he is not the legislator or judge in such manners; but act as a further constraint upon him. 

Not to mention the fact that where necessary the king (especially if overreaching in his powers) is asked to not overstep boundaries of the priesthood (cf. Kiddushin about King Yannai: “Suffice yourself with the keter malchut and leave the keter kahuna to the descendants of Aaron”).  Thus less a “dialectic of diarchy”, the rabbis talk about the tripartite division of powers as represented by the three crowns (ketarim): Kingship, Priesthood and Torah.  Even in the Temple Scroll theology, the ‘Torah’ of Purity may act a constraint on individual priests themselves, and the external conditions needed for the indwelling of G-d in the temple.

Interesting in this is two opposing forces.  The first is the “undetermination of theory by fact”.  The perceived gap in the biblical text – i.e. not knowing the contents of the Kings scroll – gives considerable latitude to ‘construct’ this Torah and come with very different conceptions of the relative powers of this triad based on their “ideological and rhetorical cultures”.  On the other hand, they are also very much constrained by the text that (in words of Stuart Cohen) “authorised officers of all three ketarim must combine to in order to give constitutional effect to acts of political significance” – such as prophet, priest and king present in appointing of King Solomon.  Thus while there is constant tension between these constitutional elements, instruction, priesthood and executive power must all be present in any interpretation.