to be appropriations of the principal agent category we have identified.26 In the Christian adaptation of Jewish divine-agent traditions and categories, however, there were momentous and apparently unparalleled developments. For one thing, it was an astonishing move to identify a recently executed contemporary as holding this position. I know of no analogy of an authentically Jewish group identifying its leader or founder as the heavenly vizier of God. The Qumran sect referred to its Righteous Teacher’