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THE EXPLOSIVE CONTENTS OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS AND
HOW THE CHURCH CONSPIRED TO SUPPRESS THEM
MICHAEL BAIGENT &
RICHARD LEIGH
Some part of it, full text can be read on the link I put below the text
The Dilemma for Christian Orthodoxy
There is virtually unanimous agreement among all the concerned
parties - apart, of course, from the international team themselves and
the Ecole Biblique - that the history of Dead Sea Scroll scholarship does
constitute a 'scandal'. And there would seem to be little doubt that
something irregular - licit, perhaps, but without moral or academic
sanction - lurks behind the delays, the procrastinations, the
equivocation, the restrictions on material. To some extent, of course,
this irregularity may indeed stem simply from venal motives - from
academic jealousy and rivalry, and from the protection of vested
interests. Reputations do, after all, stand to be made or broken, and
there is no higher currency in the academic world than reputation. The
stakes, therefore, at least for those 'on the inside', are high.
They would be high, however, in any sphere where a lack of
reliable first-hand testimony had to be redressed by historical and
archaeological research. They would be high if, for example, a corpus of
documents pertaining to Arthurian Britain were suddenly to come to
light. But would there be the same suppression of material as there is in
connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls? And would one find, looming as
a supreme arbiter in the background, the shadowy presence of an
ecclesiastical institution such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith? The Nag Hammadi Scrolls are a case in point. Certainly, they
afforded ample opportunity for venal motives to come into play. Such
motives, to one or another degree, may indeed have done so. But the
Church had no opportunity to establish control over the texts found at
Nag Hammadi. And, venal motives notwithstanding, the entire corpus
of Nag Hammadi material found its way quickly into print and the
public domain.
The Church's high-level involvement in Dead Sea Scrolls
scholarship must inevitably foster a grave element of suspicion. Can
127
one ignore the possibility of a causal connection between that
involvement and the shambles that Qumran research has become? One
is compelled to ask (as, indeed, many informed 'outsiders' have)
whether some other vested interest may be at stake, a vested interest
larger than the reputations of individual scholars - the vested interest
of Christianity as a whole, for example, and of Christian doctrine, at
least as propounded by the Church and its traditions. Ever since the
Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered, one single, all-pervasive question
has haunted the imagination, generating excitement, anxiety and,
perhaps, dread. Might these texts, issuing from so close to 'the source',
and (unlike the New Testament) never having been edited or tampered
with, shed some significant new light on the origins of Christianity, on
the so-called 'early Church' in Jerusalem and perhaps on Jesus himself?
Might they contain something compromising, something that
challenges, possibly even refutes, established traditions?
Certainly official interpretation ensured that they did not. There is,
of course, nothing to suggest any deliberate or systematic falsification
of evidence on the part of the international team. But for Father de
Vaux, his most intensely personal convictions were deeply engaged and
were bound to have exerted some influence. The key factor in
determining the significance of the scrolls, and their relation, or lack of
it, to Christianity, consisted, of course, in their dating. Were they pre-
or post-Christian? How closely did they coincide with Jesus' activities,
around AD 30? With the travels and letters of Paul, roughly between
AD 40 and 65? With the composition of the Gospels, between AD 70
and 95? Whatever the date ascribed to them, they might be a source of
possible embarrassment to Christendom, but the degree of
embarrassment would be variable. If, for example, the scrolls could be
dated from well before the Christian era, they might threaten to
compromise Jesus' originality and uniqueness - might show some of
his words and concepts to have been not wholly his own, but to have
derived from a current of thought, teaching and tradition already
established and 'in the air'. If the scrolls dated from Jesus' lifetime,
however, or from shortly thereafter, they might prove more
embarrassing still. They might be used to argue that the 'Teacher of
Righteousness' who figures in them was Jesus himself, and that Jesus
was not therefore perceived as divine by his contemporaries. Moreover,
the scrolls contained or implied certain premises inimical to subsequent
images of 'early Christianity'. There were, for example, statements of a
militant messianic nationalism associated previously only with the
Zealots - when Jesus was supposed to be non-political, rendering unto
Caesar what was Caesar's. It might even emerge that Jesus had never
dreamed of founding a new religion or of contravening Judaic law.
128
The evidence can be interpreted in a number of plausible ways,
some of which are less compromising to Christendom than others. It is
hardly surprising, in the circumstances, that de Vaux should have
inclined towards and promulgated the less compromising
interpretations. Thus, while it was never stated explicitly, a necessity
prevailed to read or interpret the evidence in accordance with certain
governing principles. So far as possible, for example, the scrolls and
their authors had to be kept as dissociated as possible from 'early
Christianity' - as depicted in the New Testament - and from the
mainstream of lst-century Judaism, whence 'early Christianity' sprang.
It was in adherence to such tenets that the orthodoxy of interpretation
established itself and a scholarly consensus originated.
Thus, the conclusions to which Father de Vaux's team came in their
interpretation of the scrolls conformed to certain general tenets, the
more important of which can be summarised as follows:
1. The Qumran texts were seen as dating from long prior to the
Christian era.
2. The scrolls were regarded as the work of a single reclusive
community, an unorthodox 'sect' on the periphery of Judaism, divorced
from the epoch's main currents of social, political and religious
thought. In particular, they were divorced from militant revolutionary
and messianic nationalism, as exemplified by the defenders of Masada.
3. The Qumran community must have been destroyed during the
general uprising in Judaea in AD 66-73, leaving all their documents
behind, hidden for safety in nearby caves.
4. The beliefs of the Qumran community were presented as entirely
different from Christianity; and the 'Teacher of Righteousness', because
he was not portrayed as divine, could not be equated with Jesus.
5. Because John the Baptist was altogether too close to the
teachings of the Qumran community, it was argued that he wasn't
really 'Christian' in any true sense of the word, 'merely' a precursor.
There are, however, numerous points at which the Qumran texts,
and the community from which they issued, paralleled early Christian
texts and the so-called 'early Church'. A number of such parallels are
immediately apparent.
First, a similar ritual to that of baptism, one of the central
sacraments of Christianity, obtained for the Qumran community.
According to the Dead Sea text known as the 'Community Rule', the
129
new adherent 'shall be cleansed from all his sins by the spirit of
holiness uniting him to its truth . . . And when his flesh is sprinkled
with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made
clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God.'i
Secondly, in the Acts of the Apostles, the members of the 'early
Church' are said to hold all things in common: 'The faithful all lived
together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and
possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according
to what each one needed. They went as a body to the Temple every day
. . . ' 2 The very first statute of the 'Community Rule' for Qumran states
that 'All. . . shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions
into the Community . . .' 3 According to another statute, 'They shall eat
in common and pray in common . . . ' 4 And another declares of the
new adherent that 'his property shall be merged and he shall offer his
counsel and judgment to the Community'. 5
Acts 5:1-11 recounts the story of one Ananias and his wife, who
hold back some of the assets they are supposed to have donated to the
'early Church' in Jerusalem. Both are struck dead by a vindictive divine
power. In Qumran, the penalty for such a transgression was rather less
severe, consisting, according to the 'Community Rule', of six months'
penance.
Thirdly, according to Acts, the leadership of the 'early Church' in
Jerusalem consists of the twelve Apostles. Among these, according to
Galatians, three - James ('the Lord's Brother'), John and Peter - exercise
a particular authority. According to the 'Community Rule', Qumran
was governed by a 'Council' composed of twelve individuals. Three
'priests' are also stressed, though the text does not clarify whether these
three are included in the twelve of the 'Council' or separate from them. 6
Fourthly, and most important of all, both the Qumran community
and the 'early Church' were specifically messianic in orientation,
dominated by the imminent advent of at least one new 'Messiah'. Both
postulated a vivid and charismatic central figure, whose personality
galvanised them and whose teachings formed the foundation of their
beliefs. In the 'early Church', this figure was, of course, Jesus. In the
Qumran texts, the figure is known as the 'Teacher of Righteousness'.
At times, in their portrayal of the 'Teacher of Righteousness', the
Qumran texts might almost seem to be referring to Jesus; indeed,
several scholars suggested as much. Granted, the 'Teacher of
Righteousness' is not depicted as divine; but neither, until some time
after his death, was Jesus.
If the Qumran texts and those of the 'early Church' have certain
130
ideas, concepts or principles in common, they are also strikingly similar
in imagery and phraseology. 'Blessed are the meek', Jesus says, for
example, in perhaps the most famous line of the Sermon on the Mount,
'for they shall inherit the earth' (Matt. 5:5). This assertion derives from
Psalm 37:11: 'But the meek shall possess the land, and delight
themselves in abundant prosperity.' The same psalm was of particular
interest to the Qumran community. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is a
commentary on its meaning: 'Interpreted, this concerns the
congregation of the Poor . . .' 7 The 'Congregation of the Poor' (or the
'meek') was one of the names by which the Qumran community
referred to themselves. Nor is this the only such parallel: 'Blessed are
the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven', preaches Jesus
(Matt. 5:3); the 'War Scroll' from Cave 1 states: 'Among the poor in
spirit there is a power . . . 8 Indeed, the whole of the Gospel of
Matthew, and especially Chapters 10 and 18, contains metaphors and
terminology at times almost interchangeable with those of the
'Community Rule'. In Matthew 5:48, for instance, Jesus stresses the
concept of perfection: 'You must therefore be perfect just as your
heavenly Father is perfect.' The 'Community Rule' speaks of those 'who
walk in the way of perfection as commanded by God'. 9 There will be,
the text affirms, 'no pity on all who depart from the way ... no comfort
. . . until their way becomes perfect'. 10 In Matthew 21:42, Jesus invokes
Isaiah 28:16 and echoes Psalm 118:22: 'Have you never read in the
scriptures: It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the
keystone.' The 'Community Rule' invokes the same reference, stating
that 'the Council of the Community . . . shall be that tried wall, that
precious corner-stone'. 11
If the Qumran scrolls and the Gospels echo each other, such echoes
are even more apparent between the scrolls and the Pauline texts - the
Acts of the Apostles and Paul's letters. The concept of 'sainthood', for
example, and, indeed, the very word 'saint', are common enough in
later Christianity, but striking in the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
According to the opening line of the 'Community Rule', however, 'The
Master shall teach the saints to live according to the Book of the
Community Rule . . .' 12 Paul, in his letter to the Romans (15:25-7), uses
the same terminology of the 'early Church': 'I must take a present of
money to the saints in Jerusalem.'
Indeed, Paul is particularly lavish in his use of Qumran terms and
images. One of the Qumran texts, for example, speaks of 'all those who
observe the Law in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver . . .
because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of
Righteousness'. 13 Paul, of course, ascribes a similar redemptive power
to faith in Jesus. Deliverance, he says in his epistle to the Romans (3:21-
131
3), 'comes through faith to everyone . . . who believes in Jesus Christ'.
To the Galatians (2:16-17), he declares that 'what makes a man
righteous is not obedience to the Law, but faith in Jesus Christ'. It is
clear that Paul is familiar with the metaphors, the figures of speech, the
turns of phrase, the rhetoric used by the Qumran community in their
interpretation of Old Testament texts. As we shall see, however, he
presses this familiarity to the service of a very different purpose.
In the above quote from his letter to the Galatians, Paul ascribes no
inordinate significance to the Law. In the Qumran texts, however, the
Law is of paramount importance. The 'Community Rule' begins: 'The
Master shall teach the saints to live according to the Book of the
Community Rule, that they may seek God . . . and do what is good and
right before Him, as He commanded by the hand of Moses and all His
servants the Prophets . . .' 14 Later, the 'Community Rule' states that
anyone who 'transgresses one word of the Law of Moses, on any point
whatever, shall be expelled' 15 and that the Law will endure 'for as long
as the domain of Satan endures'. 16 In his rigorous adherence to the
Law, Jesus, strikingly enough, is much closer to the Qumran texts than
he is to Paul. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:17-19), Jesus makes
his position unequivocally clear - a position that Paul was
subsequently to betray:
Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you
solemnly . . . not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the
Law until its purpose is achieved. Therefore, the man who infringes
even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do
the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven . . .
If Jesus' adherence to the Law concurs with that of the Qumran
community, so, too, does his timing of the Last Supper. For centuries,
biblical commentators have been confused by apparently conflicting
accounts in the Gospels. In Matthew (26:17-19), the Last Supper is
depicted as a Passover meal, and Jesus is crucified the next day. In the
Fourth Gospel (13:1 and 18:28), however, it is said to occur before the
Passover. Some scholars have sought to reconcile the contradiction by
acknowledging the Last Supper as indeed a Passover feast, but a
Passover feast conducted in accordance with a different calendar. The
Qumran community used precisely such a calendar - a solar calendar,
in contrast to the lunar calendar used by the priesthood of the
Temple. 17 In each calendar, the Passover fell on a different date; and
Jesus, it is clear, was using the same calendar as that of the Qumran
community.
132
Certainly the Qumran community observed a feast which sounds
very similar in its ritual characteristics to the Last Supper as it is
described in the Gospels. The 'Community Rule' states that 'when the
table has been prepared . . . the Priest shall be the first to stretch out his
hand to bless the first-fruits of the bread and new wine'. 18 And another
Qumran text, the 'Messianic Rule', adds: 'they shall gather for the
common table, to eat and to drink new wine ... let no man extend his
hand over the first fruits of bread and wine before the Priest . . .
thereafter, the Messiah of Israel shall extend his hand over the bread'. 19
This text was sufficient to convince even Rome. According to
Cardinal Jean Danielou, writing with a 'Nihil Obstat' from the Vatican:
'Christ must have celebrated the last supper on the eve of Easter
according to the Essenian calendar. 120
One can only imagine the reaction of Father de Vaux and his team on
first discovering the seemingly extraordinary parallels between the
Qumran texts and what was known of 'early Christianity'. It had
hitherto been believed that Jesus' teachings were unique - that he
admittedly drew on Old Testament sources, but wove his references
into a message, a gospel, a statement of good news' which had never
been enunciated in the world before. Now, however, echoes of that
message, and perhaps even of Jesus' drama itself, had come to light
among a collection of ancient parchments preserved in the Judaean
desert.
To an agnostic historian, or even to an undogmatic Christian, such
a discovery would have been exciting indeed. It probably would have
been with a certain sacred awe that one handled documents actually
dating from the days when Jesus and his followers walked the sands of
ancient Palestine, trudging between Galilee and Judaea. One would
undoubtedly, and with something of a frisson, have felt closer to Jesus
himself. The sketchy details of Jesus' drama and milieu would have
broken free from the print to which they had been confined for twenty
centuries - would have assumed density, texture, solidity. The Dead Sea
Scrolls were not like a modern book expounding a controversial thesis;
they would comprise first-hand evidence, buttressed by the sturdy
struts of 20th-century science and scholarship. Even for a non-believer,
however, some question of moral responsibility would have arisen.
Whatever his own scepticism, could he, casually and at a single stroke,
undermine the faith to which millions clung for solace and
consolation? For de Vaux and his colleagues, working as
representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, it must have seemed as
though they were handling the spiritual and religious equivalent of
dynamite - something that might just conceivably demolish the entire
133
edifice of Christian teaching and belief.
https://archive.org/stream/TheDeadS...ea_scrolls_deception_-_baigent_Leigh_djvu.txt
HOW THE CHURCH CONSPIRED TO SUPPRESS THEM
MICHAEL BAIGENT &
RICHARD LEIGH
Some part of it, full text can be read on the link I put below the text
The Dilemma for Christian Orthodoxy
There is virtually unanimous agreement among all the concerned
parties - apart, of course, from the international team themselves and
the Ecole Biblique - that the history of Dead Sea Scroll scholarship does
constitute a 'scandal'. And there would seem to be little doubt that
something irregular - licit, perhaps, but without moral or academic
sanction - lurks behind the delays, the procrastinations, the
equivocation, the restrictions on material. To some extent, of course,
this irregularity may indeed stem simply from venal motives - from
academic jealousy and rivalry, and from the protection of vested
interests. Reputations do, after all, stand to be made or broken, and
there is no higher currency in the academic world than reputation. The
stakes, therefore, at least for those 'on the inside', are high.
They would be high, however, in any sphere where a lack of
reliable first-hand testimony had to be redressed by historical and
archaeological research. They would be high if, for example, a corpus of
documents pertaining to Arthurian Britain were suddenly to come to
light. But would there be the same suppression of material as there is in
connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls? And would one find, looming as
a supreme arbiter in the background, the shadowy presence of an
ecclesiastical institution such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith? The Nag Hammadi Scrolls are a case in point. Certainly, they
afforded ample opportunity for venal motives to come into play. Such
motives, to one or another degree, may indeed have done so. But the
Church had no opportunity to establish control over the texts found at
Nag Hammadi. And, venal motives notwithstanding, the entire corpus
of Nag Hammadi material found its way quickly into print and the
public domain.
The Church's high-level involvement in Dead Sea Scrolls
scholarship must inevitably foster a grave element of suspicion. Can
127
one ignore the possibility of a causal connection between that
involvement and the shambles that Qumran research has become? One
is compelled to ask (as, indeed, many informed 'outsiders' have)
whether some other vested interest may be at stake, a vested interest
larger than the reputations of individual scholars - the vested interest
of Christianity as a whole, for example, and of Christian doctrine, at
least as propounded by the Church and its traditions. Ever since the
Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered, one single, all-pervasive question
has haunted the imagination, generating excitement, anxiety and,
perhaps, dread. Might these texts, issuing from so close to 'the source',
and (unlike the New Testament) never having been edited or tampered
with, shed some significant new light on the origins of Christianity, on
the so-called 'early Church' in Jerusalem and perhaps on Jesus himself?
Might they contain something compromising, something that
challenges, possibly even refutes, established traditions?
Certainly official interpretation ensured that they did not. There is,
of course, nothing to suggest any deliberate or systematic falsification
of evidence on the part of the international team. But for Father de
Vaux, his most intensely personal convictions were deeply engaged and
were bound to have exerted some influence. The key factor in
determining the significance of the scrolls, and their relation, or lack of
it, to Christianity, consisted, of course, in their dating. Were they pre-
or post-Christian? How closely did they coincide with Jesus' activities,
around AD 30? With the travels and letters of Paul, roughly between
AD 40 and 65? With the composition of the Gospels, between AD 70
and 95? Whatever the date ascribed to them, they might be a source of
possible embarrassment to Christendom, but the degree of
embarrassment would be variable. If, for example, the scrolls could be
dated from well before the Christian era, they might threaten to
compromise Jesus' originality and uniqueness - might show some of
his words and concepts to have been not wholly his own, but to have
derived from a current of thought, teaching and tradition already
established and 'in the air'. If the scrolls dated from Jesus' lifetime,
however, or from shortly thereafter, they might prove more
embarrassing still. They might be used to argue that the 'Teacher of
Righteousness' who figures in them was Jesus himself, and that Jesus
was not therefore perceived as divine by his contemporaries. Moreover,
the scrolls contained or implied certain premises inimical to subsequent
images of 'early Christianity'. There were, for example, statements of a
militant messianic nationalism associated previously only with the
Zealots - when Jesus was supposed to be non-political, rendering unto
Caesar what was Caesar's. It might even emerge that Jesus had never
dreamed of founding a new religion or of contravening Judaic law.
128
The evidence can be interpreted in a number of plausible ways,
some of which are less compromising to Christendom than others. It is
hardly surprising, in the circumstances, that de Vaux should have
inclined towards and promulgated the less compromising
interpretations. Thus, while it was never stated explicitly, a necessity
prevailed to read or interpret the evidence in accordance with certain
governing principles. So far as possible, for example, the scrolls and
their authors had to be kept as dissociated as possible from 'early
Christianity' - as depicted in the New Testament - and from the
mainstream of lst-century Judaism, whence 'early Christianity' sprang.
It was in adherence to such tenets that the orthodoxy of interpretation
established itself and a scholarly consensus originated.
Thus, the conclusions to which Father de Vaux's team came in their
interpretation of the scrolls conformed to certain general tenets, the
more important of which can be summarised as follows:
1. The Qumran texts were seen as dating from long prior to the
Christian era.
2. The scrolls were regarded as the work of a single reclusive
community, an unorthodox 'sect' on the periphery of Judaism, divorced
from the epoch's main currents of social, political and religious
thought. In particular, they were divorced from militant revolutionary
and messianic nationalism, as exemplified by the defenders of Masada.
3. The Qumran community must have been destroyed during the
general uprising in Judaea in AD 66-73, leaving all their documents
behind, hidden for safety in nearby caves.
4. The beliefs of the Qumran community were presented as entirely
different from Christianity; and the 'Teacher of Righteousness', because
he was not portrayed as divine, could not be equated with Jesus.
5. Because John the Baptist was altogether too close to the
teachings of the Qumran community, it was argued that he wasn't
really 'Christian' in any true sense of the word, 'merely' a precursor.
There are, however, numerous points at which the Qumran texts,
and the community from which they issued, paralleled early Christian
texts and the so-called 'early Church'. A number of such parallels are
immediately apparent.
First, a similar ritual to that of baptism, one of the central
sacraments of Christianity, obtained for the Qumran community.
According to the Dead Sea text known as the 'Community Rule', the
129
new adherent 'shall be cleansed from all his sins by the spirit of
holiness uniting him to its truth . . . And when his flesh is sprinkled
with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made
clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God.'i
Secondly, in the Acts of the Apostles, the members of the 'early
Church' are said to hold all things in common: 'The faithful all lived
together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and
possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according
to what each one needed. They went as a body to the Temple every day
. . . ' 2 The very first statute of the 'Community Rule' for Qumran states
that 'All. . . shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions
into the Community . . .' 3 According to another statute, 'They shall eat
in common and pray in common . . . ' 4 And another declares of the
new adherent that 'his property shall be merged and he shall offer his
counsel and judgment to the Community'. 5
Acts 5:1-11 recounts the story of one Ananias and his wife, who
hold back some of the assets they are supposed to have donated to the
'early Church' in Jerusalem. Both are struck dead by a vindictive divine
power. In Qumran, the penalty for such a transgression was rather less
severe, consisting, according to the 'Community Rule', of six months'
penance.
Thirdly, according to Acts, the leadership of the 'early Church' in
Jerusalem consists of the twelve Apostles. Among these, according to
Galatians, three - James ('the Lord's Brother'), John and Peter - exercise
a particular authority. According to the 'Community Rule', Qumran
was governed by a 'Council' composed of twelve individuals. Three
'priests' are also stressed, though the text does not clarify whether these
three are included in the twelve of the 'Council' or separate from them. 6
Fourthly, and most important of all, both the Qumran community
and the 'early Church' were specifically messianic in orientation,
dominated by the imminent advent of at least one new 'Messiah'. Both
postulated a vivid and charismatic central figure, whose personality
galvanised them and whose teachings formed the foundation of their
beliefs. In the 'early Church', this figure was, of course, Jesus. In the
Qumran texts, the figure is known as the 'Teacher of Righteousness'.
At times, in their portrayal of the 'Teacher of Righteousness', the
Qumran texts might almost seem to be referring to Jesus; indeed,
several scholars suggested as much. Granted, the 'Teacher of
Righteousness' is not depicted as divine; but neither, until some time
after his death, was Jesus.
If the Qumran texts and those of the 'early Church' have certain
130
ideas, concepts or principles in common, they are also strikingly similar
in imagery and phraseology. 'Blessed are the meek', Jesus says, for
example, in perhaps the most famous line of the Sermon on the Mount,
'for they shall inherit the earth' (Matt. 5:5). This assertion derives from
Psalm 37:11: 'But the meek shall possess the land, and delight
themselves in abundant prosperity.' The same psalm was of particular
interest to the Qumran community. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is a
commentary on its meaning: 'Interpreted, this concerns the
congregation of the Poor . . .' 7 The 'Congregation of the Poor' (or the
'meek') was one of the names by which the Qumran community
referred to themselves. Nor is this the only such parallel: 'Blessed are
the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven', preaches Jesus
(Matt. 5:3); the 'War Scroll' from Cave 1 states: 'Among the poor in
spirit there is a power . . . 8 Indeed, the whole of the Gospel of
Matthew, and especially Chapters 10 and 18, contains metaphors and
terminology at times almost interchangeable with those of the
'Community Rule'. In Matthew 5:48, for instance, Jesus stresses the
concept of perfection: 'You must therefore be perfect just as your
heavenly Father is perfect.' The 'Community Rule' speaks of those 'who
walk in the way of perfection as commanded by God'. 9 There will be,
the text affirms, 'no pity on all who depart from the way ... no comfort
. . . until their way becomes perfect'. 10 In Matthew 21:42, Jesus invokes
Isaiah 28:16 and echoes Psalm 118:22: 'Have you never read in the
scriptures: It was the stone rejected by the builders that became the
keystone.' The 'Community Rule' invokes the same reference, stating
that 'the Council of the Community . . . shall be that tried wall, that
precious corner-stone'. 11
If the Qumran scrolls and the Gospels echo each other, such echoes
are even more apparent between the scrolls and the Pauline texts - the
Acts of the Apostles and Paul's letters. The concept of 'sainthood', for
example, and, indeed, the very word 'saint', are common enough in
later Christianity, but striking in the context of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
According to the opening line of the 'Community Rule', however, 'The
Master shall teach the saints to live according to the Book of the
Community Rule . . .' 12 Paul, in his letter to the Romans (15:25-7), uses
the same terminology of the 'early Church': 'I must take a present of
money to the saints in Jerusalem.'
Indeed, Paul is particularly lavish in his use of Qumran terms and
images. One of the Qumran texts, for example, speaks of 'all those who
observe the Law in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver . . .
because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of
Righteousness'. 13 Paul, of course, ascribes a similar redemptive power
to faith in Jesus. Deliverance, he says in his epistle to the Romans (3:21-
131
3), 'comes through faith to everyone . . . who believes in Jesus Christ'.
To the Galatians (2:16-17), he declares that 'what makes a man
righteous is not obedience to the Law, but faith in Jesus Christ'. It is
clear that Paul is familiar with the metaphors, the figures of speech, the
turns of phrase, the rhetoric used by the Qumran community in their
interpretation of Old Testament texts. As we shall see, however, he
presses this familiarity to the service of a very different purpose.
In the above quote from his letter to the Galatians, Paul ascribes no
inordinate significance to the Law. In the Qumran texts, however, the
Law is of paramount importance. The 'Community Rule' begins: 'The
Master shall teach the saints to live according to the Book of the
Community Rule, that they may seek God . . . and do what is good and
right before Him, as He commanded by the hand of Moses and all His
servants the Prophets . . .' 14 Later, the 'Community Rule' states that
anyone who 'transgresses one word of the Law of Moses, on any point
whatever, shall be expelled' 15 and that the Law will endure 'for as long
as the domain of Satan endures'. 16 In his rigorous adherence to the
Law, Jesus, strikingly enough, is much closer to the Qumran texts than
he is to Paul. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:17-19), Jesus makes
his position unequivocally clear - a position that Paul was
subsequently to betray:
Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the
Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete them. I tell you
solemnly . . . not one dot, not one little stroke, shall disappear from the
Law until its purpose is achieved. Therefore, the man who infringes
even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do
the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven . . .
If Jesus' adherence to the Law concurs with that of the Qumran
community, so, too, does his timing of the Last Supper. For centuries,
biblical commentators have been confused by apparently conflicting
accounts in the Gospels. In Matthew (26:17-19), the Last Supper is
depicted as a Passover meal, and Jesus is crucified the next day. In the
Fourth Gospel (13:1 and 18:28), however, it is said to occur before the
Passover. Some scholars have sought to reconcile the contradiction by
acknowledging the Last Supper as indeed a Passover feast, but a
Passover feast conducted in accordance with a different calendar. The
Qumran community used precisely such a calendar - a solar calendar,
in contrast to the lunar calendar used by the priesthood of the
Temple. 17 In each calendar, the Passover fell on a different date; and
Jesus, it is clear, was using the same calendar as that of the Qumran
community.
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Certainly the Qumran community observed a feast which sounds
very similar in its ritual characteristics to the Last Supper as it is
described in the Gospels. The 'Community Rule' states that 'when the
table has been prepared . . . the Priest shall be the first to stretch out his
hand to bless the first-fruits of the bread and new wine'. 18 And another
Qumran text, the 'Messianic Rule', adds: 'they shall gather for the
common table, to eat and to drink new wine ... let no man extend his
hand over the first fruits of bread and wine before the Priest . . .
thereafter, the Messiah of Israel shall extend his hand over the bread'. 19
This text was sufficient to convince even Rome. According to
Cardinal Jean Danielou, writing with a 'Nihil Obstat' from the Vatican:
'Christ must have celebrated the last supper on the eve of Easter
according to the Essenian calendar. 120
One can only imagine the reaction of Father de Vaux and his team on
first discovering the seemingly extraordinary parallels between the
Qumran texts and what was known of 'early Christianity'. It had
hitherto been believed that Jesus' teachings were unique - that he
admittedly drew on Old Testament sources, but wove his references
into a message, a gospel, a statement of good news' which had never
been enunciated in the world before. Now, however, echoes of that
message, and perhaps even of Jesus' drama itself, had come to light
among a collection of ancient parchments preserved in the Judaean
desert.
To an agnostic historian, or even to an undogmatic Christian, such
a discovery would have been exciting indeed. It probably would have
been with a certain sacred awe that one handled documents actually
dating from the days when Jesus and his followers walked the sands of
ancient Palestine, trudging between Galilee and Judaea. One would
undoubtedly, and with something of a frisson, have felt closer to Jesus
himself. The sketchy details of Jesus' drama and milieu would have
broken free from the print to which they had been confined for twenty
centuries - would have assumed density, texture, solidity. The Dead Sea
Scrolls were not like a modern book expounding a controversial thesis;
they would comprise first-hand evidence, buttressed by the sturdy
struts of 20th-century science and scholarship. Even for a non-believer,
however, some question of moral responsibility would have arisen.
Whatever his own scepticism, could he, casually and at a single stroke,
undermine the faith to which millions clung for solace and
consolation? For de Vaux and his colleagues, working as
representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, it must have seemed as
though they were handling the spiritual and religious equivalent of
dynamite - something that might just conceivably demolish the entire
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edifice of Christian teaching and belief.
https://archive.org/stream/TheDeadS...ea_scrolls_deception_-_baigent_Leigh_djvu.txt
