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The Dead Sea Scrolls - In Search of a Christian Heritage

Posted on 2004-02-28 at 08:03

Abstract:
Concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls and their relationship to Christianity. Not my most academic work, this paper fits the assignment given and offers some useful tidbits.

Paper:
As I stood at the check out line at the grocery store the other day, my friend and I spotted an article in the Weekly World News titled "Did Jesus Write the Dead Sea Scrolls?" This sparked an interesting discussion in which she informed me that several members of our congregation had been concerned that they should be familiarizing themselves with these "Dead Sea Scrolls" since they seemed to unlock some hidden Christian secrets. Certainly I can understand this notion, since every check-out-line newspaper seems intent upon drawing a connection between Christianity and these scrolls. Even the Discovery Channel has joined the fray with its own mini-series in which certain academic individuals were heard to claim such things as "Jesus inspired and/or founded the Qumran community (the community which apparently wrote the scrolls)." For these reasons, I have decided to address the issue here so as to stem the flow of wild speculation and hopefully give each of you a clearer understanding of the relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls to Christendom.

To begin I should discuss briefly what the Dead Sea Scrolls are and what they are not. The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of writings found near Qumran at a site in which archeological evidence suggests there existed a community of Hebrew people. Many scholars believe that the Hebrews living there were of the Essene sect of Judaism. That is to say, they were a monastic group living an ascetic life of purity in the cliffs of the Qumran area. The Essenes chose this way of life because of a conscious decision on their part to break away from the temple and the wickedness that they associated with the more social lifestyles of other Jewish sects. While at the Qumran site, it is believed by many scholars, they wrote and stored the texts that we would later call the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those texts can be divided into three primary categories: biblical, pseudopigrapha, and sectarian (Barnstone, 201).

The biblical scrolls are those that were found to be early copies of books found in the Old Testament. Among the fragments recovered from the various Qumran caves, archeologists have found pieces of every book in the Old Testament except for Ester. The pseudopigraphical texts consist of Jewish writing not found in the Old Testament such as Enoch and the Genesis Apocryphon. The last genre of writings found, the sectarian texts, are those works which detail the rules and dictates of the Qumran community. Examples of this include the Manual of Discipline and the Zadokite Document---both of which give written accounts of the rules and mores of the residents of the community. All told, nearly ten full scrolls have been discovered in the caves as well as thousands of scroll fragments (c.f., Barnstone, 201).

Now that you've been given a crash course in Dead Sea Scroll lore, it may help to try to understand why so many people relate these documents to Christianity. Are there any real and direct correlations between the two? Some would say yes---though for varying reasons. Some of these people would claim that Jesus was an Essene himself or at least closely tied to the Essene sect. They cite prove such as theological similarities between the two. Both renounced the worldly aspects of life and both seemed to hold what the temple had become as an anathema to the Jewish faith. Both, it might seem, emphasized the corruption of the world in general. But upon closer examination of the information, fundamental differences begin to show themselves. Jesus, by all accounts in the New Testament, did not live an ascetic lifestyle, not did he entirely renounce the world. Jesus ate healthily and enjoyed his wine as well. He seems to have purposefully sought out persons of a worldly nature to accompany him (tax collectors, "harlots", etc...). Perhaps the most fundamental way in which the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Jesus differ is in their approach to dealing with the anathema of the world. The Qumran people clearly sought to distance themselves from it physically and spiritually. They moved to the desert away from the temptations of society to set up an exclusive community of like-minded individuals who would support the ascetic way of life for which they were striving. Spiritually they distanced themselves through theology that set them apart from the non-followers:

Whereas the Qumran community thought of their relationship to the sinners of the world as a war (c.f., The War of the Sons of Light With the Sons of Darkness, 235ff.), Jesus preached that it was a mission. Christians were told to reach these people with the message of communal salvation as opposed to retreating from them to work on personal salvation. The analogy of the circle of witness might be an appropriate way to demonstrate the difference. In Christianity, the faith community is in a continuous cycle that moves from a proclamation of the Holy Spirit to the shared fellowship of the community as manifest through worship and praise. At that point it also moves to an external sharing through missionary witnessing to those not in the faith which keeps the faith from becoming exclusive. From there it moves to guidance and training and to further inspiration or edification and finally back to the proclamation of the Holy Spirit. This circle of witness is at the heart of Christian self-understanding. Not so with the Qumran community! Their self-identity is rooted not in their relationship to external communities but rather to the internal community (to the exclusion of others). This is a strong difference which betrays Jesus as a man who's beliefs, at heart, do not mesh with those of the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls---that is the Essenes, if we are to accept popular scholarly opinion.

There are other scholars, seeking to synchronize Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, who would point to the strong messianic imagery found in many of the documents as proof of their "Christianhood". In fact, one could hardly argue the basic premise here. There is a strong interest in the messiah and messianic salvation in the Qumran literature that we've recovered. The Manual of Discipline (ix:9), The Zadokite Document (vi:10, vii:21) and other references talk about a messianic savior. Phrases like the "Son of Man" are used (The Manual of Discipline, 222), purposefully evoking Messianic imagery. While most Christians (myself included) find these Jewish messianic texts fascinating, we must not forget to take two evaluative factors into account when examining their relationship to Christianity.

First, for the most part, the Qumran authors did not possess the same understanding of the messiah that the Christian community has come to accept. Rather than a single messianic figure, they envisioned a dual messiah. In the Qumran tradition, it seems common to refer to two separate messiahs---a priestly one and a kingly one. Take a look at the following passage for an example of this:

Here the author is making mention of a messiah to fulfill the priestly duties from the line of Aaron of the Old Testament and a messiah to rule, as a king, the nation of Israel. Whatever differences Christians may have between each other, we do share the common understanding of the messiah as manifest in one person---Jesus Christ. The Qumran community did not share this view.

The second point to consider when evaluating the messianic imagery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is that this is not an anomaly in Jewish history. The Old Testament and Apocrypha are ripe with references to an imminent Messiah (Genesis 49:10, Numbers 24:17, Isaiah 9:2-7, Isaiah 11:1-9, Isaiah 55:3-5, Jeremiah 23:1-8 [especially 5-6], Micah 5:2-6, Hosea 3:5, Amos 9:11-15, Zechariah 9:9, Daniel 7:13-14, 2 Esdras 7:28-29 and many other passages) and so references to a messiah in the Judaic Qumran literature is not exceptional. The Jewish community generally believed in a messianic figure to come---the Qumran community was not alone in this. It is, in fact, this messianic expectation which gave Christian faith the ability to exist. Without that Jewish background, Christianity would've been an anomaly at best and non-existent at worse. Yet it is important to note that Neither the Old Testament nor any of the recovered Qumran texts, however, make any explicit reference to Jesus as such---no matter what you may have read in a previous issue of the National Inquirer.

That point brings me to the final question to be asked. Are there any legitimate ties between Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls? The answer is yes. They are a valuable piece of Jewish history. That is enough of a reason for any Christian to want to study them. Jesus was a Jew. His followers were Jewish. A great many of the people to whom he preached were Jewish. It is invaluable for us, as Christians, to come to grips with our own Jewish religious heritage. We did not spring from nothingness. We are the result of an ancient Jewish faith. So were the Qumran people. Were they Christian? No, but they were as Jewish as Jesus was. If we are ever fully to understand our own Christianity we must understand the Judaism which we came from. Much like modern Christianity is divided into denominations and sects, ancient Judaism was too. Also like modern Christianity they were not just aware of their differences, they were acutely aware of their similarities. They all had a Jewish identity. To an extent, so do we. The Qumran authors, be they Essene or otherwise, are as much a part of our past as the Pharisees, the Sadduccees, or the Zealots. All have helped to brings Judaism and Christianity to the point that it's at now. To ignore the Jewish side of our heritage is to know only in part. To embrace and try to understand our Jewishness is to begin to know fully. What better goal to have as Christians than that?

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