The Sons of Aaron in the Dead Sea Scrolls

This paper argues that the priestly terminology in the scrolls, especially the terms sons of Aaron and sons of Zadok, do not appear to be employed entirely randomly and synonymously. Rather, a line of development appears to have left its mark on the literature:
a. We have a sizeable group of texts that speak of the sons of Aaron in a non-community-specific, national context. These texts usually emphasize the cultic duties of the sons of Aaron and do not refer to the sons of Zadok at all.
b. A second group of texts speak of the sons of Aaron with reference to the make-up of the community, in particular its priestly (versus lay) component. “Sons of Aaron” is never used to refer to the community as a whole as is the case with the sons of Zadok in CD III–IV.79
c. A third group of texts refers to Aaron to describe the priestly messiah, who is expected alongside a lay or royal messiah.
d. Finally, the sons of Aaron appear as authority figures alongside the sons of Zadok in a number of community-specific texts, esp. the Community Rule and 1QSa. In this context we emphasized the important witness of one element of the tradition that employs sons of Aaron terminology in a community-specific context to the exclusion of the sons of Zadok in several manuscripts, see esp. 1QS V 21 // 4QSd II 1–2 and 1QS IX 7 // 4QSd VII 7. This shared element of common ground between 1QS and 4QS seems to me to come from an early period in the growth of the S tradition.
The view that the Zadokites played a key role at the very beginning of the community’s existence and that matters of priestly descent were crucial in the events that led to the parting of the ways has gradually been losing ground. The results of the survey offerd in this paper and the profille that can be derived from it also speak rather in favour of the sons of Aaron as the earlier strand in the scrolls even in community-specific contexts. Moreover, it is stressed that a number of passages dealing with the earliest forms of communal life lack interest in the genealogical background of the priestly leadership altogether (cf. 1QS VI 2–4 and 1QS VIII 1).
There has been a considerable amount of scholarly interest in the equally complex portrayal of the sons of Aaron in the Hebrew Bible. I am particularly intrigued by the way in which the evidence of the scrolls, which goes back to a later period, seems to mirror the complexity of the Hebrew Bible. The impression one gets is that the developments that left their mark on the Bible are coming around in further waves in writings of a later time. It is argued that despite the complexity of the evidence, a certain trajectory can be traced based on the use of sons of Aaron terminology across a varied spectrum of non-biblical texts from the corpus of the scrolls.