Lies, Man of
LIES, MAN OF
LIES, MAN OF (Heb. אִישׁ הַכָּזָב, Ish ha-Kazav), a person mentioned in some of the Qumran texts because of his opposition to the *Teacher of Righteousness. In the Damascus Document the figure of approximately 40 years marks the interval "from the day that the Unique Teacher was gathered in until the consuming of all the men of war who returned with the Man of Lies" (6qd 20.14ff.). In view of the fact that the members of the Qumran community called themselves "the poor," it may be that they derived the term "Man of Lies" from Proverbs 19:22, "A poor man is better than ish kazav." The reference to the consuming of all the men of war is probably based on Deuteronomy 2:14–16, where all the "men of war" who came out of Egypt perished within 38 years. The identification of the scriptures underlying the Zadokite author's language, however, does not help much to identify the persons he has in mind. The Man of Lies may have been the leader of a rival sect; sometimes the bitterest expressions of hostility and charges of apostasy are made between groups which an outsider could hardly distinguish one from another. One possibility that has been aired is that the Man of Lies is the Pharisaic leader *Simeon b. Shetaḥ, who returned from exile to enjoy a position of influence in Judea when Alexander *Yannai died in 76 b.c.e.; the "men of war" might then be his fellow exiles who came back with him.
The Habakkuk Commentary from Qumran Cave i has two references to the Man of Lies: one in which the words of Habakkuk 1:5 ("a work… which ye will not believe if be told you") are interpreted as "the traitors (apostates) with the Man of Lies, because they did not [listen to the words] of the Teacher of Righteousness from the mouth of God" (1qpHab. 2:1–3); the other in which the words of Habakkuk 1:13 ("wherefore lookest Thou, when they deal treacherously, and holdest Thy peace when the wicked swalloweth up the man that is more righteous than he?") are said to concern "the house of Absalom and the men of their counsel, who were struck dumb when the Teacher of Righteousness was chastised, and did not aid him against the Man of Lies, who rejected the Law in the midst of all their congregation" (1qp Hab. 5:9–12). Some help might be expected from the mention of the "house of Absalom," but in every generation from the Hasmonean revolt to the war of 66 c.e. an Absalom can be produced – from an envoy sent by Judah Maccabee to Lysias in 164 b.c.e. (ii Macc. 11:17) to a lieutenant of *Menahem in 66 c.e. (Jos., Wars 2:448). If the Man of Lies could be confidently identified with the Prophet of *Lies, then it might be possible to think of a rival religious teacher to the Teacher of Righteousness, whose rejection of the latter's interpretation of Scripture would be tantamount in the eyes of the community to rejection of the Law itself. Otherwise he could be any enemy of the Teacher and the community, and thus identified according to the period in which the Teacher is dated; thus H.H. Rowley thinks of Antiochus iv, W.H. Brownlee of John Hyrcanus, A. Dupont-Sommer of Hyrcanus ii (identical with the *Wicked Priest), C. Roth of Simeon Bar Giora, G.R. Driver of several possibilities, including Agrippa ii and John of Giscala.
bibliography:
H.H. Rowley, Zadokite Fragments and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1952), 33, 40, 43, 60, 70; G.R. Driver, Judaean Scrolls (1965), 152ff., 271ff.
[Frederick Fyvie Bruce]