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                                                                                RELIGION, Page 56

Is Jesus In the Dead Sea Scrolls?


Newly revealed texts offer tantalizing -- and controversial
-- evidence on Christian origins

By RICHARD N. OSTLING


     The Dead Sea Scrolls are an endless source of
sensationalism. Supermarket tabloids would have us believe that
these ancient Jewish texts reveal visitations from outer space,
the cure for AIDS and the date the world will end. In a new book
somehow inspired by the scrolls, Barbara Thiering of Australia's
University of Sydney tells of a Jesus who was crucified but
secretly revived at the Dead Sea and who wed a woman bishop at
midnight on March 17, A.D. 50.

    Amid all the hokum, however, the latest discoveries on
actual details in the scrolls are startling enough to generate
legitimate headlines. Texts that are only now becoming widely
available establish the first connection between the scrolls and
Jesus' New Testament words about his role as the Messiah. The
debate over all the possible interpretations is bound to be
fierce.

    At one extreme, liberal scholars will undoubtedly argue
that early Christian writings may have been largely
mythological, derived from the scrolls or other earlier Jewish
texts. On the other side, Christian conservatives will reply
that such scrolls demonstrate more clearly than ever that the
Gospels are authentic, reflecting 1st century conditions, and
that God was preparing the Jews for the Messiah's advent.

    The new evidence is just being revealed because many
scrolls remained unpublished for decades after they were found,
in the years following World War II, near the site of ancient
Qumran. The scrolls came under the control of a cliquish
committee that currently consists of Christian and Jewish
scholars loosely overseen by the Israeli government. Most of the
major texts were issued long ago, including ancient copies that
demonstrated anew how remarkably accurate scribes were in
transmitting the Old Testament.

    The unpublished material was mostly thousands of
fragments, making reconstruction extremely difficult and
interpretations open to dispute. Scholars on the official
committee worked on these remaining texts at a painfully slow
pace while granting others severely limited access. By the late
1980s, scholarly temperatures reached the boiling point. One
recent book claims Roman Catholic priests beholden to the
Vatican conspired to cover up the texts lest they shake the
doctrinal foundations of the mother church. The true reasons are
more mundane: too few scholars monopolizing too much material,
team members' personal problems, shortage of money, political
and academic intrigue and plain incompetence.

    The breakthrough on access occurred in the fall of 1991
when Biblical Archeology Review of Washington capped a lengthy
crusade by publishing a bootleg computerized reconstruction of
the texts. Specialized research libraries then decided to ignore
scholarly protocol and allowed outside experts to examine photos
of the unpublished scrolls. Finally the Review published its own
photo books.

    A co-editor of the photo books is Robert Eisenman,
religion chairman of California State University at Long Beach,
inveterate foe of the official team and idiosyncratic theorist.
Eisenman assumes the Gospels were completed in the 2nd century,
although most scholars today date them considerably closer to
the time of Jesus. He consequently views the Dead Sea Scrolls
as a more authentic account of primitive Christianity than the
Gospels.

    The leader (perhaps more than one leader) of the Qumran
sect was known as the Teacher of Righteousness. Years ago, some
scholars theorized that Jesus might have been that teacher, but
the idea is seen as untenable, in part because the writings so
clearly reflect the Jewish situation in the second century
before Christ. Eisenman contends that the later Qumran scrolls
were written by a messianic movement that blended into early
Christianity. He thinks the teacher was James, the New Testament
"brother of Jesus" and martyred leader of the Jerusalem church.
James' Qumran faction, says Eisenman, was "aggressive,
apocalyptic, nationalist, messianic and violent. Very violent."
This wing bitterly opposed the Apostle Paul and his Hellenized
movement, which rejected Jewish law and was "otherworldly,
cosmopolitan, forgiving."

    Such links with Christianity, of course, depend on whether
the scrolls were written in Jesus' era or an earlier, more
distant time. The official team dates them variously from 200
B.C. to A.D. 67, based on handwriting styles and radioactive
carbon tests. Eisenman argues that handwriting is uncertain, the
carbon tests were inadequate, and the contents put some scrolls
in the 1st century A.D.

    An apparently fatal flaw in such theories of Christians at
Qumran is that none of the Dead Sea Scrolls mentions Jesus by
name. Efforts are still under way to substantiate a scholar's
sensational claim that one Qumran scrap contains part of the
Gospel of Mark. Almost everyone dismisses that idea. But the
scrolls do speak of the coming Jewish Messiah (or Messiahs). Two
of the fragments made newly available in the Review's photo
books are especially striking:

    Text 4Q521. Eisenman and Michael Wise of the University of
Chicago have prepared new translations of this text. Although
some missing letters and words need to be extrapolated, the most
important phrases are clear. Apparently referring to the coming
Messiah, the text declares that he will "heal the wounded,
resurrect the dead [and] preach glad tidings to the poor." The
passage closely resembles the words of Jesus in the Nazareth
synagogue (Luke 4) that caused his townspeople to try to kill
him.

    The text will be analyzed in the next issue of the Journal
for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha by Wise and James Tabor of
the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Tabor notes that
Jesus spoke virtually the same words about resurrection in Luke 7
when John the Baptist asked for proof that he was the Messiah.
This, Tabor says, is the closest parallel yet found between the
Dead Sea Scrolls and the recorded words of Jesus. It is also the
only Dead Sea text that refers to resurrection, a central
Christian belief that was held by many 1st century Jews. The
scholar officially assigned to publish this crucial text,
Catholic priest Emile Puech of Jerusalem, is expected to come
out shortly with his own interpretation.

    Text 4Q285. Eisenman and Wise reported last fall that this
mutilated scrap, the size of a matchbook, said the Prince of the
Congregation, presumably a Messiah figure, would be killed. The
text, which echoes Isaiah 11, also anticipates another primary
New Testament teaching, that the Messiah must die as Jesus did.
However, the translation is disputed in Britain's Journal of
Jewish Studies. Geza Vermes, a Qumran expert at Oxford
University who used a computer image enhancer to clarify the
writing, says the Prince does the killing, rather than the other
way around. That also applies to a later reference to "wounds,"
which Eisenman linked with the famous messianic prediction in
Isaiah 53: 5: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was
bruised for our iniquities."

    "I personally have no objection to discovering that the
text was speaking of a suffering or slain Messiah," Vermes
maintains. "Proving this wrong is not my concern. My concern is
simply to find out what this text means." He asserts that here
and in parallel passages, the Dead Sea Messiah "appears as
triumphant -- as is usually the case. That is the normal Jewish
tradition." Eisenman says either translation is possible,
whereas Wise concludes that the matter will always remain
uncertain because of textual problems.

    If Eisenman is right, there will be furious debate over
whether the Dead Sea Scrolls undermine the traditional Christian
faith. The texts could be interpreted as buttressing skeptical
contentions that the New Testament was purposely shaped to fit
Jewish expectations and did not recount actual events. However,
Wise, Eisenman's sometime ally, says the evidence could equally
back the conservatives who believe God prepared the way for the
true Messiah: "Many of Christianity's ideas were there at the
time of Jesus. I believe the things that happened wouldn't have
happened if the ground were not already fertile." The scrolls
have another important effect, underscoring anew the Jewishness
of Jesus.

    In any event, those angry, locked-out Dead Sea scholars
turn out to have been correct in their assertions that highly
important material remained tucked away for decades. When young
scholars like Wise are old men, the wars over interpreting the
Dead Sea Scrolls will doubtless be as heated as ever.