ANOTHER TEXT FROM Qumran that is relevant for our subject is the so-called Daniel Apocryphon. It refers directly to the Son of Man in the biblical Book of Daniel and has drawn attention from numerous scholars.1 This is the fragment of an Aramaic scroll dating from the late Herodian period—that is, the last third of the first century BCE. Its particular significance comes from its unique, straightforward way of mentioning a “Son of God” and “Son of the Most High.” Here is a translation based on the Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition:2
Column I:
(1) [ ] settled [up]on him and he fell before the throne
(2) [k]ing forever. You are angry, ???
(3) [ ] your vision, and everything that shall come forever.
(4) [m]ighty ones, oppression will come upon the earth
(5) [ ] and great slaughter in the provinces
(6) [ ] king of Assyria [and E]gypt
(7) [ ] and he will be great (rav) over the earth
(8) [ ] they [will d]o, and all will serve
(9) [gr]eat (rabba) will he be called and he will be designated by his name.
Column II:
(1) He will be called son of God (bera de-’el), and they will call him son of the Most High (bar ‘elyon). Like the sparks
(2) that you saw, so will their kingdom be; they will rule (several) year[s] over
(3) the earth and crush everything; a people will crush another people, and a province another provi[n]ce.
(4) vacat Until the people of God (‘am el) arises and makes everyone rest from the sword. vacata
(5) His/Its3 kingdom will be an eternal kingdom, and all his/its paths in truth. He/It will jud[ge]
(6) the earth in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease from the earth,
(7) and all the provinces will pay him/it homage. The great God (el rabba) (is) his/its strength,
(8) he will wage war for him/it; he will place the peoples in his/its hand and
(9) cast them all down before him/it. His/Its rule will be an eternal rule, and all the abysses
All scholars agree that column II, lines 4ff., recall Daniel 7. This pertains in particular to the “people of God” in line 4, which corresponds to the “people of the holy ones of the Most High” in Daniel 7:27 as well as to the emphasis of the kingdom as an eternal kingdom or eternal rule in lines 5 and 9, parallel to the everlasting dominion and kingdom in Daniel 7:14, 18, and 26–27. Also the promise that “and all the provinces will pay him homage” (line 7) clearly reflects the sentences “all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him” (Dan. 7:14), and “all dominions shall serve and obey them” (Dan. 7:27). These and other observations have brought scholars to conclude that the section following the blank at the beginning of line 4 describes the “eschatological period, at which time the people of God will be granted eternal dominion over the world.”4
So far, so good. But then who is the “Son of God” and “Son of the Most High” in column II, line 1? In view of the statements in lines 4ff., it is tempting to identify him with the “one like a human being” or Son of Man in Daniel 7, or at least a royal Messiah figure5 or eschatological savior figure such as Melchizedek, Michael, and the Prince of Light in the Qumran scrolls.6 In the Melchizedek fragment from Qumran (11Q13), between the late second century and the mid-first century BCE, Melchizedek is the leader of the Sons of Light, who with his armies ushers in the year of grace and rule of judgment over the nations led by Belial, the Prince of Darkness. Psalm 82:1 refers to him,7 which translates literally as, “Elohim will stand in the assembly of El; in the midst of Elohim he judges.” The second Elohim is presumably to be understood as “gods” (“in the midst of the gods he judges”).8 The Melchizedek fragment thus plainly distinguishes between “Elohim,” who is identified with Melchizedek, and “El,” who is evidently equated with the Most High God. That “Elohim” stands for Melchizedek becomes clear at end of the fragment, where “Your God (elohaikh) is king” from Isaiah 52:7 also refers to Melchizedek, “Your God is [Melchizedek].”9
The fragment continues with a discussion of the relationship between the most high God El and Elohim-Melchizedek. Although Psalm 82:1 states that Elohim-Melchizedek holds judgment in the midst of the other gods, the judgment at the end of days is actually reserved for the Most High God El, as becomes clear from Psalm 7:8–9, which is cited immediately thereafter: “Return! El will judge the peoples.”10 The fragment determines that God is and remains the true judge, and that Melchizedek, however, once he liberates the Sons of Light from the hand of Belial, carries out God’s judgment: “But, Melchizedek will carry out the vengeance of Go[d’s] (El) judgments.”11 Melchizedek is the second God (Elohim) beside the Most High God (El),12 who acts as an agent and executive power of the Most High God. A similar picture is obtained from the War Scroll of Qumran (1QM). It is God himself who from the heavens leads the Sons of Light in war against the Sons of Darkness,13 yet at the same time he appointed the Prince of Light14 or the most high angel Michael to lead the Sons of Light in this final battle to the glorious victory:15
He [God] sends everlasting aid to the lot of his [co]venant by the power of the majestic angel for the sway of Michael in everlasting lights, to illuminate with joy the covenant of Israel …, to exalt the dominance of Michael above all the gods (elim), and the dominance of Israel over all flesh.
In view of these parallels, it seems appropriate to interpret the son of God or son of the Most High in the Daniel Aprocryphon as an angelic, second divine figure next to the Most High God.16 This interpretation is supported by a surprising parallel from the New Testament. In the annunciation pericope in Luke 1:26–38, the angel Gabriel is sent by God to Mary to tell her that she will bear a son whom she should name Jesus:17 “He will be great (megas), and will be called the Son of the Most High (hyios hypsistou)” (1:32). He will sit on David’s throne and there will be no end to his kingdom (1:32–33). In response to Mary’s question, how that should happen since she is not married, the angel answers, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High (dynamis hypsistou) will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy (hagion); he will be called Son of God (hyios theou)” (1:35). This text sounds like a paraphrase of Daniel and the Apocryphon of Daniel. The same expressions are used as in the Daniel Apocryphon—“great” (col. I, line 9), “Son of the Most High” and “Son of God” (col. II, line 1)—and also the sonship of David and his everlasting kingdom (col. II, line 5) are mentioned. Some scholars therefore argue that Luke is directly dependent on the Daniel Apocryphon or at least that both sources are based on the same Jewish tradition.18
Other scholars are less impressed by these parallels, and even doubt the positive interpretation of the titles “Son of God” and “Son of the Most High” as a messianic or eschatological savior figure. In this respect, they refer to the context of the apocryphon and choose to interpret the Son of God / Son of the Most High in light of the indisputably negative tone of column I as one of the Hellenist kings, who were known for their divine ambitions.19 Supported by Daniel 7 and Psalm 82:6, Michael Segal suggests that our hero should definitely have a negative connotation, though not as a historical Hellenist king but instead as the heavenly representative of one of the four Hellenist kingdoms in Daniel: “He is neither the human sovereign over an earthly kingdom nor a divine messianic figure”—and certainly not the Son of Man in Daniel 7.20 Segal’s strongest argument for the negative interpretation is the literary structure of the fragment, which he summarizes as follows:21
(a) I, 1–I, 8: Negative—time of trial and tribulation under the kings of Assyria and Egypt
(b) I, 9–II, 2:22 ???
(c) II, 2–3: Negative—nations fighting against one another
(d) II, 4–9: Positive—eschatological sovereignty of the people of God
Segal finds it highly unlikely that the style of the fragment oscillates back and forth between the negative and positive poles—that is, at first from negative (lines I, 1–I, 8) to positive (lines I, 9–II, 1), then back to negative (lines II, 2–3), and finally back to positive (lines II, 4–9). He prefers to read the entire narrative up to line II, 3, as negative, having the positive turn not begin until line II, 4—highlighted by the vacat at the beginning of line II, 423 and the transitional preposition ‘ad (until).
There are some merits to this argument, but I do not find it truly convincing. My reluctance does not come from the objection that the positive interpretation of the Son of God or Son of the Most High in the New Testament rules out its negative interpretation in the Daniel Apocryphon, because the author of the Gospel according to Luke could hardly have used these epithets for Jesus if they had been used just a little earlier in such a negative and disparaging way to refer to a Seleucid king.24 There are essentially two other reasons for my hesitation. First, despite all the weight of the narrative structure of the fragment, I am not convinced that the admittedly more chaotic shifts from negative to positive to negative to positive (that is, more chaotic than a simple transition from negative to positive) should be ruled out. It is well known that such apocalyptic texts are rarely as logical as we would like to see them.25 Second and more important, it is unclear exactly how the statements on the events at the end of days in column II, lines 5ff., are to be understood. What is in fact the antecedent of the masculine third-person suffix (-eh, “his kingdom,” etc.) in these lines? In the English translation by Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, which is the one Segal used,26 the suffix is translated throughout as “his,” and the text is understood such that the directly preceding “people of God” (‘am el) in column II, line 4, is the antecedent of the suffix. This is by no means necessarily the case. For one thing, in the context of the fragment, the suffix in lines 5ff. can also refer back to the Son of God / Son of the Most High in line 1: the evil kingdoms will reign until the people of God rise up, and then the kingdom of the Son of God / Son of the Most High will be an eternal kingdom. Furthermore, it is striking that also in Daniel 7, malkhuteh (his kingdom) refers to both the kingdom of the Son of Man (Dan. 7:14) and the kingdom of the people of the holy ones of the Most High (7:27). Therefore, in my above translation I have offered both options—namely, the reference to the people of God as well as to the Son of God / Son of the Most High.27
If we now take a closer look at what is said specifically about the people of God or Son of God / Son of the Most High, these statements too can refer to both—though with one important exception: the judgment on earth in lines 5–6 cannot refer to the people of God but only to the Son of God / Son of the Most High. The judgment at the end of days is never carried out by the people of God, but always only by God himself or his messenger, the Messiah. Classic examples of this are not least the Melchizedek text discussed above and the Davidic Messiah-King in the Psalms of Solomon, who shall “purge Jerusalem from gentiles who trample her to destruction” (Ps. Sol. 17:22), “destroy the unlawful nations with the word of his mouth” (17:24), and “judge peoples and nations in the wisdom of his righteousness” (17:29).
I would therefore like to suggest that the ambiguity of the suffix -eh in column II, lines 5ff., is not coincidental but rather deliberate, and that the corresponding statements refer to both of the possible subjects, both the people of God and the Son of God / Son of the Most High. Just as the Son of Man in Daniel 7 represents the people of Israel in heaven, the Son of God / Son of the Most High in the Daniel Apocryphon is the representative of the people of God on earth. Both are given an everlasting kingdom, but the final act of salvation, the judgment, is reserved for the Son of God / Son of the Most High.28 In light of this interpretation, the Son of God / Son of the Most High is clearly to be understood as a positive figure similar to the Son of Man, but with epithets extending far beyond the model familiar from Daniel. This figure, no longer the most high angel, but expressly a Son of God, thus gains an unprecedented proximity to God—and yet here too the distance to God is preserved, as it is ultimately the “great God” who comes to his aid, and makes the final victory of his son and his people possible.
a Vacat (or blank) indicates that the scribe wanted an empty space at the beginning and end of this line.