TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=92TT2078> <title> Sep. 21, 1992: Is Jesus In the Dead Sea Scrolls? </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992 Sep. 21, 1992 Hollywood & Politics </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> RELIGION, Page 56 Is Jesus In the Dead Sea Scrolls? </hdr><body> 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 The new evidence is just being revealed because many scrolls remained unpublished for decades after they were found, in the years following World War II, near the site of ancient Qumran.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 The unpublished material was mostly thousands of fragments, making reconstruction extremely difficult and interpretations open to dispute.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. </body></article> </text>