Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [192]
But both the perception of the problem and the perception of the solution are provided by a mythical Islamist ideology which so distorts the actual causes of distress in the Muslim world as to to make any impartial assessment or determination of amelioration impossible. Few other people in their situation would have explained it that way but the religious fundamentalist education they received limits their choices for analysis on this crucial topic. So in a real sense, they produce their own problematic, for which violence and terrorism against the West is the solution. One sees the same notion at work on the so-called Muslim street. By believing that Israel was the true culprit in the World Trade Center attack, they preserve their sense that all problems in the Muslim world are due to demonic outside attack and every Muslim attack on the West is essentially a well-deserved defense against aggressive and murderous Western intervention.
The Dead Sea Scrolls Again
SO TOO ON THE world stage and even in ancient history: Fundamentalism and millenarianism both arise out of dissatisfaction and doubt of a colonial or even a scientific ideology overspreading a traditional culture, just as Hellenism was overspreading Judea. We have, for instance, seen that the Dead Sea Scrolls are millenarian and also deeply related to priestly tradition, so there can be no cogent argument with Cook’s understanding of the source of the apocalypticism we have seen there. The question is only whether this excludes the Dead Sea Scrolls group from being “alienated,” “marginalized,” or “deprived,” as Cook maintains.
Some traditional priests were in danger of being deprived of their independent rulership in Hasmonean Judea and the Roman Empire, and therefore they Hellenized to keep power. They themselves (the Sadducees) were active in the revolt against Rome in 66 CE, so they did have feelings of deprivation which they remedied by warfare. Another group of priests were so alienated by the claims of the Hasmoneans to both kingship and the high priesthood that they withdrew to the desert to found their own community. The Qumranites were doubly deprived, first by the Romans, and second by the Hellenized priesthood. They founded a mystical, martyr-oriented group that, nevertheless, considered themselves the most privileged, indeed angels already. But it was an ideology that reversed their very deprived state in the desert. Deprivation of both religious and material needs-in this case, deprivation from their traditional roles and lack of access to their traditional redemptive media-is a necessary precondition for millenarianism.
Other predisposing factors are also present. These frustrations may produce some of the literature that we find in the Enoch cycle. One extremely important factor is the presence of a leader (The Teacher of Righteousness) whose personal example and teachings help galvanize people’s hopes toward a specific religious goal, with the attendant necessary means of achieving it. Furthermore, and this is most important, there must be a tendency to impose religious meaning on events and to be searching for a more satisfactory system of religious values.
Sometimes, it is the leader who provides this expectation; but normally the society has traditionally sought religious solutions to historical problems before the leader arises, though he or she may preach a new variation on the solutions available in the society. Thus, the factors of felt troubles and deprivation, anxiety, strong leadership, and promise of a better society under the aegis of religion, all affect the production of millennialist or Messianic movements. We see this clearly in the revelations of the seer who is known to us only as Daniel. This religious innovation, granted to Daniel as a prophetic dream, provides the basis for the new understanding of the cult. Its