The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

exterminated by the victorious Romans. But they would have been separated from their menfolk and from each other. And many of them would have been enslaved, raped, consigned to Roman army brothels and thereby defiled, bereft of their ritual purity according to the Law. At Masada, separation and defilement were feared more than death, since death, for the ‘Righteous’, would have been only temporary. Here then, among the ferocious defenders of Masada, is a principle of bodily resurrection virtually identical to that of later Christianity.

The garrison who defended Masada can hardly be reconciled with traditional images of placid, peace-loving Essenes — who, according to adherents of the consensus, made up the community at Qumran. And indeed, as we have noted, adherents of the consensus continue to insist that no connection can possibly have existed between the Qumran community and the garrison at Masada, despite the discovery at Masada of texts identical to some of those found at Qumran — found at Qumran and, in at least two instances, found nowhere else — and despite the use by the defenders of Masada of precisely the same calendar as that used by the Qumran material: a unique solar calendar, in contrast to the lunar calendar of the official ‘Sadducee’ establishment and of later rabbinical Judaism.

Once again, there can be discerned the configuration of what Eisenman has described: a broad messianic nationalistic movement in which a number of supposed factions, if there was ever any distinction between them, effectively merged. Eisenman’s explanation accommodates and accounts for what has previously seemed a welter of contradictions and anomalies. It makes sense, too, of the mission on which Paul is dispatched by James and the hierarchy of the so-called ‘early Church’ — the ‘Nazorean’ enclave — in Jerusalem. In biblical times, it must be remembered, ‘Israel’ was not just a territory, not just a particular tract of land. Even more important, ‘Israel’ denoted a people, a tribe, a ‘host’. When Paul and other ‘evangelists’ are sent forth by the hierarchy in Jerusalem, their purpose is to make converts to the Law — that is, to ‘Israel’. What would this have meant in practical terms, if not the recruitment of an army? Since Old Testament times, and especially since the ‘Babylonian Captivity’, the ‘tribe of Israel’ had been scattered across the Mediterranean world and beyond, on into Persia — where, at the time of Simeon bar Kochba’s rising in ad 132, there was still enough sympathy to elicit at least a promise of support. Were not the emissaries of the Jerusalem hierarchy sent to tap this potentially immense source of manpower — to ‘call to the colours’ the dispersed people of ‘Israel’ to drive the Roman invaders from their native soil and liberate their homeland? And Paul, in preaching a wholly new religion rather than mustering recruits, was, in effect, depoliticising, demilitarising and emasculating the movement.⁷ This would, of course, have been a far more serious matter than merely lapsing from dogma or certain ritual observances. It would have been, in fact, a form of treason. For the Law, as it figures in the Dead Sea Scrolls, is not wholly confined to dogma and ritual observances. Running throughout the Qumran texts, as a sacred duty, there is clearly a thrust to build a legitimate messianic persona, whether royal, or priestly, or both. By implication, this would involve the re-establishment of the ancient monarchy and priesthood, to drive out the invader, to reclaim and purify the Holy Land for the people chosen by God to inhabit it. In the words of the ‘War Scroll’: ‘The dominion of the [invaders] shall come to an end… the sons of righteousness shall shine over all the ends of the earth.’⁸

16. Paul — Roman Agent or Informer?

With this grand design in mind, it is worth looking again at the confused and sketchy description of the events that occur towards the end of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul, it will be remembered, after a prolonged evangelistic mission abroad, has again been summoned to Jerusalem by James arid the irate hierarchy. Sensing trouble, his immediate supporters exhort him repeatedly, at each stage of his itinerary, not to go; but Paul, never a man to shrink from a confrontation, remains deaf to their appeals. Meeting with James and other members of the community’s leadership, he is again castigated for laxity in his observation of the Law. Acts does not record Paul’s response to these charges, but it would appear, from what follows, that he perjures himself, denying the accusations against him, which his own letters reveal to have been justified.^lIn other words, he recognises the magnitude of his offence; and however fierce his integrity, however fanatic his loyalty to ‘his’ version of Jesus, he acknowledges that some sort of compromise is, this time, necessary. Thus, when asked to purify himself for seven days and thereby demonstrate the unjustness of the allegations against him, he readily consents to do so. Eisenman suggests that James may have been aware of the true situation and that Paul may well have been ‘set up’. Had he refused the ritual of purification, he would have declared himself openly in defiance of the Law. By acceding to the ritual, he became, even more than before, the ‘Liar’ of the ‘Habakkuk Commentary’. Whatever the course of action he chose, he would have damned himself- which may have been precisely what James intended.²

In any case, and despite his exculpatory self-purification, Paul continues to inspire enmity in those ‘zealous for the Law’ — who, a few days later, attack him in the Temple. ‘This’, they proclaim, ‘is the man who preaches to everyone everywhere… against the Law’ (Acts 21:28). The ensuing riot is no minor disturbance:

This roused the whole city: people came running from all sides; they seized Paul and dragged him out of the Temple, and the gates were closed behind them. They would have killed him if a report had not reached the tribune of the cohort that there was rioting all over Jerusalem. (Acts 21:30-31)

The cohort is called out — no fewer than six hundred men — and Paul, in the nick of time, is rescued, presumably to prevent civil upheaval on an even greater scale. Why else would the cohort bother to save the life of one heterodox Jew who’d incurred the wrath of his fellows? The sheer scale of the tumult attests to the kind of currency, influence and power the so-called ‘early Church’ must have exercised in Jerusalem at the time — among Jewsl Clearly, we are dealing with a movement within Judaism itself, which commands loyalty from much of the city’s populace.

Having rescued him from the incensed mob, the Romans arrest Paul — who, before he is marched off to prison, asks permission to make a self-exonerating speech. Inexplicably, the Romans acquiesce to his request, even though the speech serves only to further inflame the mob. Paul is then carried off for torture and interrogation. As was asked previously, interrogation about what? Why torture and interrogate a man who has offended his co- religionists on fine points of orthodoxy and ritual observance? There is only one explanation for the Romans taking such an interest — that Paul is suspected of being privy to information of a political and/or military nature.

The only serious political and/or military adversaries confronting the Romans were the adherents of the nationalistic movement — the ‘Zealots’ of popular tradition. And Paul, the evangelist of the ‘early Church’, was under threat from those ‘zealous for the Law’ – forty or more of them in number — who were plotting to kill him, vowing not to eat or drink until they had done so. Saved from this fate by his hitherto unmentioned nephew, he is bundled, under escort, out of Jerusalem to Caesarea, where he invokes his right as a Roman citizen to make a personal appeal to the emperor. While in Caesarea, he hobnobs in congenial and intimate fashion with the Roman procurator, Antonius Felix. Eisenman has emphasised that he is also intimate with the procurator’s brother-in-law, Herod Agrippa II, and with the king’s sister — later the mistress of Titus, the Roman commander who will destroy Jerusalem and eventually become emperor.³

These are not the only suspicious elements looming in the background of Paul’s biography. From the very beginning, his apparent wealth, his Roman citizenship and his easy familiarity with the presiding establishment have differentiated him from his fellows and from other members of the ‘early Church’. Obviously, he has influential connections with the ruling elite. How else could so young a man have become the high priest’s hatchet man? In his letter to the Romans (16:11), moreover, he speaks of a companion strikingly named ‘Herodion’ — a name obviously associated with the reigning dynasty, and most unlikely for a fellow evangelist. And Acts 13:1 refers to one of Paul’s companions in Antioch as ‘Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch’. Here, again, there is evidence of high-level aristocratic affiliation.⁴

Startling though the suggestion may be, it does seem at least possible that Paul was some species of Roman ‘agent’. Eisenman was led to this conclusion by the scrolls themselves, then found the references in the New Testament to support it. And indeed, if one combines and superimposes the materials found at Qumran with those in Acts, together with obscure references in Paul’s letters, such a conclusion becomes a distinct possibility. But there is another possibility as well, possibly no less startling. Those last muddled and enigmatic events in Jerusalem, the nick-of-time intervention of the Romans, Paul’s heavily escorted departure from the city, his sojourn