The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

^{38. Ruins of a settlement at En el-Ghuweir near to the graves. The ruins have been dated to the Herodian period.}

^{39. The pyramidal hill at Gamla in the Golan where the final citadel stood. Here, on 10 November 67 AD, 4,000 zealots died fighting the Romans and another 5,000 killed themselves by jumping over the cliff. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide an insight into the rationale which lay behind the mass suicides.}

^{40. The ruins of Masada where, on 15 April 74 ad, 960 Zealots — men, women and children — killed themselves rather than surrender to the Romans.}

Thus the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls may be thought of as ‘Essenes’, but not in the sense as defined and described by Josephus, Philo and Pliny. The accounts of the classical chroniclers prove to be altogether too circumscribed. They have also prevented many modern scholars from making the necessary connections — perhaps, in some cases, because it was not deemed desirable to do so. If the connections are made, a different and broader picture emerges — a picture in which such terms as ‘Essene’ and ‘the Qumran community’ will prove to be interchangeable with others. Eisenman effectively summarises the situation:

Unfortunately for the premises of modern scholarship, terms like: Ebionim, Nozrim, Hassidim, Zaddikim… turn out to be variations on the same theme. The inability to relate to changeable metaphor… has been a distinct failure in criticism.²⁴

This, precisely, is what we are dealing with — changeable metaphors, a variety of different designations used to denote the same people or factions. Recognition of that point was urged as early as 1969 by an acknowledged expert in the field, Professor Matthew Black of St Andrews University, Scotland. The term ‘Essene’ was acceptable, Professor Black wrote:

provided we do not define Essenism too narrowly, for instance, by equating it exclusively with the Dead Sea group, but are prepared to understand the term as a general description of this widespread movement of anti- Jerusalem, anti-Pharisaic non-conformity of the period. It is from such an ‘Essene-type’ of Judaism that Christianity is descended.²⁵

There is support for Professor Black’s contention in the work of Epiphanius, the early Christian writer who spoke of the ‘Ossenes’. Epiphanius states that the original ‘Christians’ in Judaea, generally called ‘Nazoreans’ (as in the Acts of the Apostles), were known as ‘Jessaeans’. These ‘Christians’, or ‘Jessaeans’, would have conformed precisely to Professor Black’s phraseology — a ‘widespread movement of anti-Jerusalem, anti-Pharisaic non- conformity’. But there is an even more crucial connection.

Among the terms by which the Qumran community referred to themselves was ‘Keepers of the Covenant’, which appears in the original Hebrew as ‘Nozrei ha-Brit’. From this term derives the word ‘Nozrim’ one of the earliest Hebrew designations for the sect subsequently known as ‘Christians’.²⁶ The modern Arabic word for Christians, ‘Nasrani’, derives from the same source. So, too, does the word ‘Nazorean’ or ‘Nazarene’, which, of course, was the name by which the ‘early Christians’ referred to themselves in both the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Contrary to the assumptions of later tradition, it has nothing whatever to do with Jesus’ alleged upbringing in Nazareth, which, the evidence (or lack of it) suggests, did not even exist at the time. Indeed, it seems to have been the very perplexity of early commentators encountering the unfamiliar term ‘Nazorean’ that led them to conclude Jesus’ family came from Nazareth, which by then had appeared on the map.

To sum up, then, the ‘Essenes’ who figure in classical texts, the ‘Ossenes’ mentioned by Epiphanius, and the ‘Osi’m’, the Qumran community, are one and the same. So, too, are the ‘Jessaeans’, as Epiphanius calls the ‘early Christians’. So, too, are the ‘Nozrei ha-Brit’, the ‘Nozrim’, the ‘Nasrani’ and the ‘Nazoreans’. On the basis of this etymology, it becomes clear that we are indeed dealing with Professor Black’s ‘widespread movement’, characterised, as Eisenman says, by shifting metaphor, a variety of slightly different designations used for the same people, shifting with time, translation and transliteration, just as ‘Caesar’ evolves into ‘Kaiser’ and ‘Tsar’.

It would thus seem that the Qumran community was equivalent to the ‘early Church’ based in Jerusalem — the ‘Nazoreans’ who followed James, ‘the Lord’s brother’.²⁷ Indeed, the ‘Habakkuk Commentary’ states explicitly that Qumran’s ruling body, the ‘Council of the Community’, was actually located at the time in Jerusalem.²⁸ And in Acts 9:2, the members of the ‘early Church’ are specifically referred to as ‘followers of the Way’ — a phrase identical with Qumran usage.

12. The Acts of the Apostles

Apart from the Gospels themselves, the most important book of the New Testament is the Acts of the Apostles. For the historian, in fact, Acts may be of even greater consequence. Like all historical documents issuing from a partisan source, it must, of course, be handled sceptically and with caution. One must also be cognisant of whom the text was written for, and whom it might have served, as well as what end. But it is Acts, much more than the Gospels, which has hitherto constituted the apparently definitive account of the first years of ‘early Christianity’. Certainly Acts would appear to contain much basic information not readily to be found elsewhere. To that extent alone, it is a seminal text.

The Gospels, it is generally acknowledged, are unreliable as historical documents. Mark’s, the first of them, was composed no earlier than the revolt of ad 66, and probably somewhat later. All four Gospels seek to evoke a period long predating their own composition — perhaps by as much as sixty or seventy years. They skim cursorily over the historical backdrop, focusing essentially on the heavily mythologised figure of Jesus and on his teachings. They are ultimately poetic and devotional texts, and do not even purport to be chronicles.

Acts is a work of a very different order. It cannot, of course, be taken as absolutely historical. It is, for one thing, heavily biased. Luke, the author of the text, was clearly drawing on a number of different sources, editing and reworking material to suit his own purposes. There has been little attempt to unify either doctrinal statements or literary style. Even Church historians admit that the chronology is confused, the author having had no direct experience of many of the events he describes and being obliged to impose his own order upon them. Thus certain separate events are fused into a single occurrence, while single occurrences are made to appear to be separate events. Such problems are particularly acute in those portions of the text pertaining to events that predate the advent of Paul. Further, it would appear that Acts, like the Gospels, was compiled selectively, and was extensively tampered with by later editors.

Nevertheless, Acts, unlike the Gospels, aspires to be a form of chronicle over a continuous and extended period of time. Unlike the Gospels, it constitutes an attempt to preserve an historical record, and, at least in certain passages, to have been written by someone with a first-, or second-, hand experience of the events it describes. Although there is bias, the bias is a highly personal one; and this, to some extent, enables the modern commentator to read between the lines.

The narrative recounted in Acts begins shortly after the Crucifixion — generally dated at ad 30 but possibly as late as ad 36 — and ends somewhere between ad 64 and 67. Most scholars believe the narrative itself was composed, or transcribed, some time between ad 70 and 95. Roughly speaking, then, Acts is contemporary with some, if not all, of the Gospels. It may predate all four. It almost certainly predates the so-called Gospel of John, at least in the form that that text has come down to us.

The author of Acts is a well-educated Greek who identifies himself as Luke. Whether he is the same as ‘Luke the beloved physician’, mentioned as Paul’s close friend in Colossians 4:14, cannot be definitively established, though most New Testament scholars are prepared to accept that he is. Modern scholars also concur that he would seem, quite clearly, to be identical with the author of Luke’s Gospel. Indeed, Acts is sometiiries regarded as the