The Punishment of the Wicked Priest and the Death of Judas

Abstract

In a recent reassesment of Jonathan the Hasmonean as the Wicked Priest of the Qumran pesharim, the claim has been made that all other theories have been refuted once and for all.' There appears to have been little response to this claim, perhaps in part because that identification already enjoys something of a consensus. One of the main arguments for Jonathan has always been his death at the hands of gentiles (executed by Tryphon in 142 BCE), which is supposed to agree with what is said of the demise of the Wicked Priest in lQpHab and 4Q17 1.2 According to H. Stegemann, the Habakkuk pesher even agrees with Jonathan's death outside Judea.3 On the other hand, there are a number of reasons why such confidence in identifying Jonathan as the Wicked Priest is misleading. To begin with, Stegemann's assertion was based on a highly questionable interpretation of the above-mentioned pesher.4 J. Carmignac and W. Brownlee have criticized taking as past events what could actually refer to future punishment, according to the verb tenses.5 The