The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran

by Robert Feather

  These legends, together with references in Isaiah 18:7 and Zephaniah 3:10, tend to confirm that the Falasha Community originated before the Babylonian exile period. Any possibility of the Falashas being part of the ‘dispersions’ are refuted by the same arguments that I have previously applied to the Assyrian and Babylonian ‘dispersion’ theories in relation to Elephantine, but even more so because of the added distance.

  So here we find a community in Ethiopia, which I surmise was drawn from the most advanced society in the world suddenly transplanted into a relatively uncivilized environment. It would not be surprising to find that, with their superior base of knowledge, they would have had a profound effect on the development of Ethiopian society. In fact, one would expect that to be the case, and so it was.

  Whilst a caucus of Falasha-Hebrews have remained devoutly faithful to their beliefs through the centuries, their influence on the surrounding ‘Amhara’ people and their culture led them to dominate the entire country. Their Semitic-based language, which is still spoken by 50 per cent of Ethiopians, became the dominant language of the country.31 When Christianity finally arrived, in the fourth century, it found Hebrew-type teachings so strongly entrenched in Abyssinian society that it was obliged to adopt many pseudo-Jewish practices. Even today, the Ethiopian Church follows many Judaic customs, including circumcision, a form of Sabbath and dietary laws similar to those in the Torah.

  There are, however, many differences in the form of the Judaism practised by the Ethiopian Jews from that practised by mainstream Jews at the time of Kind David (or since), and there are in fact strong links to the type of Judaism prevalent in the Elephantine region. Except for a handful of words the Falashas do not speak Hebrew, but the dialects of their neighbours instead. Their religion is based on an essentially literal observance of the Old Testament injunctions. They do not know anything about post-biblical Hebrew writings.

  Their priests read from scriptures written in Old Ethiopic and offered sacrifices on the Biblical feasts. Like the Qumran-Essenes they did not observe the festivals of Chanukah or Purim. They had no knowledge of Hebrew as a language. Groups of priests lived in monastic communities, observing particularly rigorous purification ceremonies. Ritual washing and immersion was an essential part of the Falasha regime, as was animal sacrifice. Family life was strictly monogamous, and circumcision was performed on male children on the eighth day after birth. Most significantly, wives had equal rights to their husbands in marriage, just as in the Elephantine Community.

  The Bible the Falashas now follow was translated not from Hebrew but from a version of the original Greek Septuagint, made about the fifth century CE. It is written in classical old Ethiopian Ge’ez, as are a number of specifically Falasha manuscripts, such as their ‘Precepts of the Sabbath’ and ‘Book of Angels’. They are strongly influenced by the Books of Jubilees and Enoch – books that trace their antecedents back well before the times of King David – and that were also of particular significance for the Qumran-Essenes.

  They celebrate a November festival called the ‘Seged’. It involves a ‘pilgrimage’ or processional in which members of the Community carry stones up a hill, as an act of contrition, place them in a circle around the priests and recite prayers. Three times during the day handfuls of seed are placed on the stones to commemorate the dead and for birds to eat. On returning to their ‘synagogue’ prayers are said over bread and beer.32

  The festival appears to be quite unique, although one scholar, Shoshana Ben-Dor, relates the ‘Seged’ to the Atonement Festival performed by the Qumran-Essenes.33 There is another connection to the Qumran-Essenes that, I believe, may be of significance. In the cemetery at Qumran, at its western extremity, there is a group of three tombs that are different from the other types so far excavated. One of the bodies in these tombs was found to have been buried (unlike all the others at Qumran) in a wooden coffin. The tombs are marked by a ‘circle of stones’.34

  TOMB KV55

  This brings me to another mystery worth mentioning at this juncture, related to the body mentioned above buried under the ‘circle of stones’.

  The body of Akhenaten has never been positively identified, although his fragmented red granite sarcophagus was found at Amarna. A Royal Tomb, cut into the eastern cliffs, had been prepared for him and his wife Nefertiti at Akhetaten, but if it was occupied, their bodies were not found there. Don’t worry. I am not going to propose that the body found in the cemetery at Qumran was that of Akhenaten! There was a body in the Royal Tomb at Amarna, but it has been identified as that of one of the the King’s six daughters, Meketaten, who died at some twelve years of age.

  In 1907 a tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings, near Thebes, which has caused endless controversy. The tomb, now known as KV55, had been prepared for Tiyi, Akhenaten’s mother, but the coffin bore the insignia of Akhenaten. The body in the tomb has proved to be that of a male, aged about twenty-five – too young to be that of Akhenaten. The general consensus is that this body was that of the transient pharaoh Smenkhkare, Tutankhamun’s brother. Without going into the complexities of the arguments, it looks as though someone, probably Tutankhamun, arranged for the bodies of his Royal relatives to be taken from Akhetaten (El-Amarna) and reinterred in a tomb closer to his capital.

  When the body in KV55 was discovered, the left arm was bent with the hand on the breast and the right arm was straight with the hand on the thigh.35 These hand positions were usual for female corpses but not for males. Royal male corpses that are found in situ invariably have their hands crossed at the wrists and lying centrally on their chests. I make the observation and do not profess to have an explanation, but the skeleton found at Qumran under the ‘circle of stones’ ‘was lying on its back, its head to the south, the left hand on the pelvis and the right on the chest’.36

  What are we to make of the behaviours and beliefs of the Falashas, in the light of my suppositions about their beginnings? Their religious characteristics are a peculiar mixture of selective Judaism, with local Christian descriptive words and pseudo-Egyptian customs. Many of their religious practices are, however, entirely consistent with Akhenatenism:

  monogamy

  equal rights for women

  excessive washing and cleanliness

  circumcision

  ritual immersion

  extreme sabbatical reverence.

  And with the practices of the Qumran-Essenes:

  non-observance of Purim and Chanukah37

  a unique ‘Seged’ Festival equatable to the Atonement Festival of the Qumran-Essenes

  their texts refer to the struggle between angels of light and angels of darkness.

  Animal sacrifice is the one obvious exception to the teachings of Akhenaten, and one must assume that the misinterpretation arose from the instructions on sacrifice received at Elephantine from Jerusalem in relation to the ‘Passover’ sacrifice, or from their later readings of the translated Old Testament in the fifth century CE.

  Until the arrival of Christianity in Abyssinia in the fourth century, whatever religious books the Falashas possessed would not have referred to anything beyond the time of Moses. This helps to explain why they did not celebrate the Jewish Festivals of Chanukah (the re-dedication of the Second Temple c.164 BCE) or Purim (Esther saving the Jews from persecution during the Persian period, pre-330 BCE). They would instantly have recognized the earlier parts of the Bible (the Pentateuch) as being part of their own people’s story and would, quite naturally, have adopted a version (translated into Ge-ez), as their own religious template. This they have preserved faithfully up to the present day.

  Their own manuscripts, versions of which have survived up to today, are another matter. They might well have originated from an earlier era, prior to any contact with the outside worlds of Christianity or Canaanite Judaism. Their ‘Book of Angels’ is of particular relevance in this context. It describes the fate of the soul after death when the Angel of Light and the Angel of Death struggle for its posses
sion – themes very reminiscent to the teachings, unique in Jewish experience, to the Essenes but entirely Egyptian in their origin. During prayers, the Falasha priests wave a fly whisk or flail (nekhakha), similar to that held by pharaohs as a sign of high office.

  The DNA Factor

  This, I believe, is one of the most telling pieces of evidence that demonstrates the ‘separateness’ of the Falashas’ form of Judaism, and that they originated from an hereditary lineage quite different from the rest of the Jewish population.

  The Ethiopian Jews physically resemble their non-Jewish countrymen, and they practise an unconventional form of Judaism; but through Israel’s laws of return they are recognized as Jews, and are entitled to Israeli citizenship. War, famine and oppression in Ethiopia prompted Israel to stage two massive airlifts, in 1984 and 1991, to rescue 50,000 Falasha Jews from Ethiopia and settle them in Israel, leaving only some 100 who did not wish to return. The fairy-tale soon became tarnished, however, as the new immigrants encountered serious problems in their welfare, treatment and acceptance into Jewish society.

  In January 1996 the Hebrew daily newspaper, ‘Ma’ariv’, reported that blood donated by Falashas had been routinely and secretly destroyed. This disclosure exacerbated an ongoing outcry that the Ethiopian Falashas were not being allowed to integrate into Israeli society. No official explanation was given for the action, until a later investigative report noted that Falashas accounted for more than a third of the 1,386 HIV+ cases identified in Israel up to 1997.38 In his explanation to the Ethiopians for the non-use of their blood donations, the President of Israel, Mr Weitzman, made the enigmatic comment, ‘They had reasons – harsh, basic reasons.’

  It could be that there are other reasons behind the action being taken, and that it is a measure to keep what is conceived of as Jewish and non-Jewish blood from mixing. It has also been the practice for blood from non-Israeli donors to be taken and then to be disposed of, and the State refuses to import blood from other suppliers, such as America. One explanation for the action taken against the Falashas’ blood donations could be that it is the genetic difference of the Falashas, revealed by DNA testing, that has caused the authorities to try and keep their blood out of general circulation. The government’s Navon Commission, set up to study the problem, recommended a policy that identified blood donors not on the basis of ethnic origin, but on the basis of a series of questions regarding residence in countries where HIV was prevalent.

  Genetic evidence does show, however, that the Falashas are different from the Jews of Israel and from those elsewhere in the world. Work on DNA, in Israel, indicates that all groups of Jews throughout the world are genetically connected, except for those from the Yemen – who show similar genetic coding to Arab peoples – the Samaritans and the Falasha from Ethiopia.39

  All this lends credence to the previous conclusion, that Ethiopian Jews could not have originated from Jews dispersed subsequent to the exodus from Egypt. In fact, they could well be the direct descendants of the priests of Akhenaten and the ancient Hebrews who did not leave Egypt with Moses, and in some ways have more claim to be the original Jews than any other modern group.

  If the Falashas were Holy Land migrant Jews who came from the time of King David, or King Solomon, via Southern Arabia, or down the Nile Valley to Ethiopia, they would not have had different DNA typing, nor would they have followed all the non-mainstream forms of Judaism they practised. They would have had Hebrew as their traditional language, maintained the traditional festivals, known about the Oral Laws, and would not have had affiliations to Akhenatenist ideals.

  If the Falashas were ethnic Ethiopians who were converted by Holy Land migrants, the same observations would apply, except that their DNA typing would be different from mainstream Jews.

  The histories of the monotheistic communities at Elephantine Island and Lake Tana are further evidence that fundamental Judaistic beliefs came out of Egypt and were later refined into the pure stream of Judaism. These communities were not re-introduced Jews, who came back into Egypt or Ethiopia at a later date, but were descendants of a residual people left behind at the Exodus. They did not follow the beliefs that Moses can only have taught the Hebrews after the Exodus.

  The Prophet Hosea talks about God’s dissatisfaction with the Children of Israel, when they do not follow his Commandments:

  How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

  How surrender you, O Israel?

  How can I make you like Admah?

  Render you like Zeboim?

  I have had a change of heart.

  All my tenderness is stirred.’

  Hosea 11:8

  Ephraim is the younger son of Joseph.

  I the Lord have been your God

  Ever since the land of Egypt.

  I will let you dwell in your tents again

  As in the days of old.

  Hosea 12:10

  Hosea therefore confirms that the progeny of Joseph are his ‘special’ people, and the time that the beginning of God’s special relationship commences is not, as referred to in previous books of the Old Testament, in the time of Abraham, but ‘ever since the land of Egypt’.

  There is indeed a reference to the Ethiopian Jewish settlement by the Prophet Amos in the Old Testament, which dates the settlement to pre-Diaspora times. Amos lived from approximately 783 to 743 BCE and wrote:

  ‘Are ye not as children of the Cushites [Ethiopians] unto me, O children of Israel?’ saith the Lord. ‘Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?’

  Amos 9:7

  Cush (Ethiopia) also finds mention in a number of Psalms, including Psalm 68 and 87, both of the early Biblical period: ‘Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.’ (Psalm 68:31, from the Authorized Version of the Bible.)

  Both these Psalms are attributed to be of the earliest date and pre-Exilic times, and Psalm 68 is considered one of the oldest known psalms.

  The lifeline of the Akhetaten priests that runs through the history of Judaism, on into Christianity and Islam, explains so many puzzles in the Biblical texts and in religious behaviours that its essential truth is hard to discount. Many of these puzzles have been discussed in this book, others remain for the reader and others to consider and resolve.

  The place the predecessors of the Falasha people originally sought out, from the myriad of havens they might have chosen, was not, I believe, a random choice. They settled on the shores of Lake Tana, in complete isolation, close to an abundance of water. Water in large quantities was a vital requirement for their frequent ritual immersions – as it had been on the Island of Elephantine – as it had been at Akhetaten on the shores of the Nile – as it was on the shores of the Dead Sea at Qumran – the place where a quirk of fate had left hidden for 2,000 years one of the oldest and strangest relics of our time – the Copper Scroll – the key to unlocking so many mysteries.

  A SEURAT40 OF POINTS TO COMPLETE THE PICTURE

  In retrospect it might be said that the examples of correlation between Egyptian experience and Biblical scriptures have been carefully selected to fit the ‘Proposition’ that Egypt and Egyptian religious/cultural ideals have had a more profound effect on the Old (and to a lesser extent) the New Testaments than any other country or culture. More effect than contemporary commentators care to admit. The ‘Proposition’ is that those ideals were the result of development and refinement over thousands of years in the white hot furnace of Egyptian civilization, and which reached their peak in the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During that period, Akhenaten, perhaps in cooperation with Jacob and Joseph, took the essential wisdoms of his country’s religious philosophies and distilled them into a defined belief in one God, to the exclusion of all others. A century and a half later, Moses, imbued with the same belief, brought out from Egypt not just the Children of Israel, but the fundamental ideals of monotheism as well.

  It is certainly the case, as we
have seen, that the Bible has borrowed from the mythologies of Sumerian, Mesopotamian and other Eastern cultures, but the correlations tend to be weaker in content and limited to the very early parts of the Old Testament. This is exactly as one would expect. The pre-1500 BCE myths and experiences, garnered from the regions of the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, feature less and less as the recollections of Abraham’s clan become increasingly more vague in the process of being handed down from generation to generation.

  The points of correlation with Egypt do not need probing selection. They are on record in prolific profusion. Most of the points of non-correlation with the Bible have been omitted because they are inconsistent with the overall progression of monotheism, are cluttered by complex idolatry, do not contribute to a progressive representation of man’s struggle towards God or are plainly pornographic in modern terms.

  However, the points of correlation have, I believe, undoubtedly coloured the Biblical stories from those of creation onwards and are far too numerous to be put down to mere coincidence. The consequential deductions answer many previous conundrums in the Bible. For these combined reasons the points of correlation, which together form a Seurat-like pointillistic picture, create an overall coherent feeling of veracity, which in itself is far more convincing than the sum of the individual points.

  I believe these deductions justify a reappraisal of how the roots of monotheism were originally nurtured, and how they relate to views currently held by Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The links that have been drawn and that are self-evident between the three great monotheistic religions are profound, forming chains that unite their adherents together as true brothers and sisters – bonds far stronger than any of their differences.