Thanks for the link and info, DC. Those are tantalizing article titles. Too bad I can't see them without paying for them, so I probably won't get to.
I'm also interested in seeing an article by another early proponent of the idea that the DSS (or at least the Damascus Document) were Jewish Christian, George Margoliouth, called The Sadducean Christians of Damascus, which appears to be excerpted here in an article by Moore from 1911 (before the other DSS were discovered).
Mr. Margoliouth presents his complete hypothesis as follows:—
The natural and apparently inevitable conclusion of the whole matter, therefore, is that we have here to deal with a primitive Judaeo-Christian body of people which consisted of priests and Levites belonging to the Boëthusian section of the Sadducean party, fortified—as the document shows—by a considerable Israelitish lay element, besides a real or contemplated admixture of proselytes. They acknowledged, as we have seen, John the Baptist, as a Messiah of the family of Aaron, and they also believed in Jesus as a kind of second (or, perhaps, as pre-eminent) Messiah whose special function it was to be a “Teacher of Righteousness.” Paul they abhorred; and they strove with all their might to combine the full observance of the Mosaic Law, as they understood it, with the principles of the “new covenant,” again as they understood it. On the destruction of the Temple by Titus, finding that it would not serve any good purpose to linger in Judaea, they determined to migrate to Damascus, intending to establish their central organization in that city, and to found communities of the sect in different parts of the neighboring country. It was at this juncture that the manifesto, bearing as it does unmistakable marks of personal touch, was composed by a leader of the movement.
https://jupiter.ai/books/PD5D/
While I have some issues with the details here (as I do with Eisenman, and, from what I can so far tell anyway, Teicher), it's nice to see that someone from so long ago entertained the possibility of a Jewish Christian connection to the Damascus Document.
Margoliouth's reference to priests is interesting since I want to bring up Hegesippus and Epiphanius' accounts of James as being a priest (or at least priest-like). I don't understand why this strikes people as a fantasy. Even in Acts Jewish Christians are presented as having daily meetings at the Temple, being concerned with rituals, and attracting priests to the movement.
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts (Acts 2:46).
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon (Acts 3:1).
Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah (Acts 5:42).
So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith (Acts 6:7)
And James is presented as being particularly concerned with sacrifice.
There are four men with us who have made a vow. Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law ... The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them. (Acts 21:23-26).
Then it presents all of Jerusalem rioting because Paul was thought to be polluting the Temple (which is one of the "three nets of Belial" that trapped Israel in the Damascus Document).
When the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul at the temple. They stirred up the whole crowd and seized him, shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” (They had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and assumed that Paul had brought him into the temple.)
The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.
The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks. When Paul reached the steps, the violence of the mob was so great he had to be carried by the soldiers. The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Get rid of him!” (Acts 21:27-36).
So even in Acts Jewish Christians at least have a strong attachement to the Temple and its rituals and attracted "a large number of priests."
This is in keeping with what Hegesippus says about James' death.
And while they were thus stoning him [James] one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, ‘Cease, what do ye? The just one prayeth for you.’ And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus he suffered martyrdom. And they buried him on the spot, by the temple, and his monument still remains by the temple.
And whether he is right or wrong, Epiphanius thought that this Rechabite priest was Simon bar Clophas (who Hegesippus says was Jesus' cousin and the second bishop of Jerusalem).
In Epiphanius, Hær. LXXVIII. 14, these words are put into the mouth of Simeon, the son of Clopas; from which some have concluded that Simeon had joined the order of the Rechabites; but there is no ground for such an assumption. The Simeon of Epiphanius and the Rechabite of Hegesippus are not necessarily identical. They represent simply varieties of the original account, and Epiphanius’, as the more exact, was undoubtedly the later tradition, and an intentional improvement upon the vagueness of the original.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf20 ... .xxiv.html
And I noticed some discussion on a recent thread about the identity of John, an early "witness" who is said by Polycrates in EH 5.24 (whether he is right or wrong) to have been a priest.
So there is at least a strong priestly and/or pro-Temple "vibe" about Jewish Christians even in Orthodox writings, which in my view is supported by Hegesippus.
He [James] alone was permitted to enter into the holy place; for he wore not woolen but linen garments. And he was in the habit of entering alone into the temple, and was frequently found upon his knees begging forgiveness for the people, so that his knees became hard like those of a camel, in consequence of his constantly bending them in his worship of God, and asking forgiveness for the people.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.