Teacher of Righteousness

The Teacher of Righteousness (Hebrew: מורה הצדק, romanized: more haṣṣeḏeq) is a mysterious figure found in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, most prominently in the Damascus Document (CD), which speaks briefly of the origins of the sect, 390 years after the Neo-Babylonian Empire captured Jerusalem in 586 BCE.

From this, it could be concluded that there was no High Priest for these years, and indeed Josephus, drawing heavily on 1 Maccabees at this point in his history, comes to that conclusion (Ant.

[5] Alvar Ellegård follows this line and argues that the Teacher of Righteousness was not only the leader of the Essenes at Qumran, but was also considered something of a precursor to Jesus Christ about 150 years before the time of the Gospels.

The religious leadership in Jerusalem eventually killed the Teacher, and his followers said he was a messianic figure who had been exalted to the presence of God's throne.

They then anticipated that the Teacher would return to judge the wicked and lead the righteous into a golden age, which would take place within the next forty years.

[8] Rabbi Harvey Falk identifies Hillel the Elder as the Teacher against a "wicked" Shammai, a significant conflict mentioned in the Jerusalem Talmud, Shabbat 1:4.

[9] Most scholars date the Damascus Document and many of the Dead Sea scrolls to the decades around the year 100 BCE, vastly predating Hillel and Shammai.

[10][11] This theory is rejected by mainstream scholarship, as the Dead Sea scrolls date to around 100 BCE, predating James by almost 200 years.

[12] Barbara Thiering questions the dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls and suggests that the Teacher of Righteousness preached a future fiery judgment, has said "the axe is laid to the roots of the tree," called people "vipers," practiced baptism and lived in the wilderness of Judea.