Those Mysterious Dead Sea Scrolls

The War Scroll

Courtesy of Matson Photo Service 

Have you ever wondered what's really in those Scrolls? Yes, the Bible but what else? Yesterday someone asked me this on Quora. True, it's not "Christ and him crucified" but the Dead Sea Scrolls are still cool. They give us an idea of what was going on in the background while Jesus and his students trod the dusty pathways of Judea.

________________________

Q: What are the other books that were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls besides the books of the Old Testament?

A: Of the 944 scrolls found at Qumran, 211 are “biblical” and 733 are “nonbiblical.” This latter group contains all sorts of writings. For example books from the Pseudepigrapha were found such as Jubilees and 1 Enoch along with apocalyptic books related to Enoch, such as The Book of Giants (1Q23) and Melchizedek (11Q13). (FYI, the notations with a Q in them tell you what cave they were found in and the manuscript number. This is how scholars denominate the different scrolls and fragments. “Etc.” after a notation just means there are too many copies to list them all).

There are numerous songs and liturgies thanking God for his deliverances, while other psalms claiming to be authored by David and Solomon are for exorcising demons causing various ailments, such as a "fever demon" or a "chest-pain demon." The Psalms Scroll contains not just the biblical psalms but a number of others, some of which were already known from different sources while others were entirely new to us.

The community that produced the scrolls (we’re not as sure it was the Essenes nowadays) penned several scriptural commentaries using a particular type of interpretation called "pesher" so as to find themselves featured in the Hebrew scriptures. The Commentary on Habakkuk (1QpHab) is an example of this. They also wrote directly about themselves, producing procedures and regulations such as the Rule of the Community, The Halakhic Letter, and the Damascus Document. There are many copies of these, and Damascus Document was originallly found in the 19th century all the way up in Syria, long before additional copies were discovered among the scrolls.

They produced their own apocalyptic prophecies, the most famous of which is The War Scroll which details the final battle between "the Sons of Light" and "the Sons of darkness." Wisdom literature has been found, including Wiles of the Wicked Woman (4Q184), Mysteries (1Q27, etc), and Instruction (1Q26, etc.). A copy of Sirach (aka Ecclesiasticus), which has long been known through the apocrypha, was there. A set of beatitudes, rather different from Jesus', was discovered there too (4Q525).

This really just scrapes the surface but should give you an idea of what was found besides the biblical texts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library has all the scrolls and intends to provide complete transcriptions and translations in the future.

Two excellent translations of the nonbiblical scrolls are The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated by Florentino Garcia Martinez, and The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation by M. Wise, M. Abegg, and E. Cook.

Peter & Paul: Conflicting Gospels?

Peter and Paul
(4th century carving)

(A Quora question I answered yesterday.)

Q: Did Peter and Paul preach conflicting gospels or messages?

A: Not really. Both Peter and Paul preached the same gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached: That God’s universal kingdom had been inaugurated at the cross with Jesus as its king, that everyone was invited to give him their allegiance and join (at which point their sins would be wiped away).

The disagreement came about when some Jewish members asked, “But… don’t you have to become a Jew first?” The answer, hammered out at the Jerusalem Conference (c. AD 49), was, “No.”

It’s hard to understand just what an earthquake this was to the Jewish believers. They were the chosen people. The Messiah had come from them. Paul gives an entire list of “advantages” that the Jews had in the Letter to the Romans. That pagan gentiles could just waltz into the family of God on exactly the same terms as the Jewish people was extremely difficult for some to wrap their minds around. Some (often called “Judaizers” by scholars) never did, and roamed the Mediterranean world trying to convince members of the Christian movement that they needed to become Jews (via being circumcised, observing the Sabbath, and adopting other rituals) for their conversions to be valid.

Paul stood up to judaizing teachers wherever he encountered them because they were putting unnecessary obstacles in the way of followers of Jesus.

Peter

Peter, to his credit, got this. In fact, the Book of Acts portrays him as being among the first to get it. Paul attests to this himself in his Letter to the Galatians, where he describes how Peter was happy to eat with Gentiles in the city of Antioch, and even,“live[d] like a Gentile and not like a Jew.” “Table fellowship” was much more than just eating food in the ancient near east; it meant you accepted and respected the people you were with.

But, rather in line with his character as the Gospels describe him, Peter got spooked by men from “the circumcision party” who arrived from and withdrew his table fellowship with the gentile members. Paul roundly chewed him out for that.

But there is no evidence of any significant difference in the gospel Paul and Peter proclaimed, other that what is mentioned right before the Antioch incident in Galatians: “I (Paul) had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles).

What Kind of Messiah Did They Expect?

Coins minted by a Messiah

courtesy of Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. 

Jesus of Nazareth came as Israel's Messiah and did the Messiah's work, inaugurating the the new age of God's Kingdom promised by ancient prophets by being resurrected from the dead. That's what we were talking about on Monday.

I've never felt right making major assertions without giving something to support them. Especially on a site dedicated to explaining Christianity to interested parties, asking you to just trust me isn't terribly convincing.

So today is going to be a bit of a wonky day. Today I'd like to show you all the technical information that lies behind saying, as I did in the last post, that, "broadly speaking most people agreed [the Messiah] would: be a warrior, ride into Jerusalem, defeat the enemies of God (i.e., the Romans, naturally), purify the temple, and set up the Kingdom of God, which ushered in an age of unending bliss."

Just to warn you ahead of time, this may be incredibly boring. Then again, you might find it fascinating. I sure do...