The Messiah at Qumran

Among the most intriguing of the newly released Dead Sea Scrolls is a fragment that was originally called “On Resurrection.” It was assigned for publication to Abbe Jean Starcky, who died in 1988 without publishing it. After Starcky’s death, it was given to Father Emile Puech of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, who is the present “official editor.”¹ Shortly before the Biblical Archaeology Society published its facsimile edition of previously unpublished scroll photographs in 1991,² a photograph and preliminary translation of this text appeared in BAR.³

The official editors have now changed the name of this text to the “Messianic Apocalypse.” It may be easier just to call it 4Q521—that is, document 521 from Qumran Cave 4. The more we study it, the clearer the conclusion becomes: 4Q521 is an extremely important text.