The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

by Michael Baigent

  Certainly the Qumran community observed a feast which sounds very similar in its ritual characteristics to the Last Supper as it is described in the Gospels. The ‘Community Rule’ states that ‘when the table has been prepared… the Priest shall be the first to stretch out his hand to bless the first-fruits of the bread and new wine’.18 And another Qumran text, the ‘Messianic Rule’, adds: ‘they shall gather for the common table, to eat and to drink new wine… let no man extend his hand over the first fruits of bread and wine before the Priest… thereafter, the Messiah of Israel shall extend his hand over the bread’.19

  This text was sufficient to convince even Rome. According to Cardinal Jean Danielou, writing with a ‘Nihil Obstat’ from the Vatican: ‘Christ must have celebrated the last supper on the eve of Easter according to the Essenian calendar.’20

  One can only imagine the reaction of Father de Vaux and his team on first discovering the seemingly extraordinary parallels between the Qumran texts and what was known of ‘early Christianity’. It had hitherto been believed that Jesus’ teachings were unique — that he admittedly drew on Old Testament sources, but wove his references into a message, a gospel, a statement of’good news’ which had never been enunciated in the world before. Now, however, echoes of that message, and perhaps even of Jesus’ drama itself, had come to light among a collection of ancient parchments preserved in the Judaean desert.

  To an agnostic historian, or even to an undogmatic Christian, such a discovery would have been exciting indeed. It probably would have been with a certain sacred awe that one handled documents actually dating from the days when Jesus and his followers walked the sands of ancient Palestine, trudging between Galilee and Judaea. One would undoubtedly, and with something of a frisson, have felt closer to Jesus himself. The sketchy details of Jesus’ drama and milieu would have broken free from the print to which they had been confined for twenty centuries — would have assumed density, texture, solidity. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not like a modern book expounding a controversial thesis; they would comprise first-hand evidence, buttressed by the sturdy struts of 20th-century science and scholarship. Even for a non-believer, however, some question of moral responsibility would have arisen. Whatever his own scepticism, could he, casually and at a single stroke, undermine the faith to which millions clung for solace and consolation? For de Vaux and his colleagues, working as representatives of the Roman Catholic Church, it must have seemed as though they were handling the spiritual and religious equivalent of dynamite — something that might just conceivably demolish the entire edifice of Christian teaching and belief.

  9. The Scrolls

  It is not feasible or relevant in this book to list all the texts known to have been found at Qumran, or even to have been translated and published. Many of them are of interest solely to specialists. Many of them consist of nothing more than small fragments, whose context and significance cannot now be reconstructed. A substantial number of them are commentaries on various books of the Old Testament, as well as on other Judaic works known as apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. But it is worth at this point noting a few of the Qumran documents which contain material of special relevance — and two in particular which will prove not only most illuminating, but most controversial indeed.

  The ‘Copper Scroll’

  Found in the Qumran cave designated number 3, the ‘Copper Scroll’ simply lists, in the dry fashion of an inventory, sixty-four sites where a treasure of gold, silver and precious religious vessels is alleged to have been hidden. Many of the sites are in Jerusalem proper, some of them under or adjacent to the Temple. Others are in the surrounding countryside, perhaps as far afield as Qumran itself. If the figures in the scroll are accurate, the total weight of the various scattered caches amounts to sixty-five tons of silver and twenty-six tons of gold, which would be worth some £30 million at today’s prices. It is not a particularly staggering sum as such things go — a sunken Spanish treasure galleon, for example, would fetch far more – but not many people would turn their noses up at it; and the religious and symbolic import of such a treasure would place it, of course, beyond all monetary value. Although this was not publicised when the contents of the scroll were originally revealed, the text clearly establishes that the treasure derived from the Temple — whence it was removed and secreted, presumably to protect it from the invading Romans. One can therefore conclude that the ‘Copper Scroll’ dates from the time of the Roman invasion in ad 68. As we have noted, certain members of the international team, such as Professor Cross and the former Father Milik, deemed the treasure to be wholly fictitious. Most independent scholars now concur, however, that it did exist. Nevertheless, the depositories have proved impossible to find. The directions, sites and landmarks involved are indicated by local names long since lost; and the general configuration and layout of the area has, in the course of two thousand years and endless wars, changed beyond all recognition.

  In 1988, however, a discovery was made just to the north of the cave in which the ‘Copper Scroll’ was found. Here, in another cave, three feet or so below the present surface, a small jug was exhumed, dating from the time of Herod and his immediate successors. The jug had clearly been regarded as very valuable, and had been concealed with extreme care, wrapped in a protective cover of palm fibres. It proved to contain a thick red oil which, according to chemical analysis, is unlike any oil known today. This oil is generally believed to be balsam oil — a precious commodity reported to have been produced nearby, at Jericho, and traditionally used to anoint Israel’s rightful kings.1 The matter cannot be definitively established, however, because the balsam tree has been extinct for some fifteen hundred years.

  If the oil is indeed balsam oil, it may well be part of the treasure stipulated in the ‘Copper Scroll’. In any case, it is an incongruously costly commodity to have been used by a community of supposedly isolated ascetics in the desert. As we have noted, however, one of the most important features of the ‘Copper Scroll’ is that it shows Qumran not to have been so isolated after all. On the contrary, it would seem to establish links between the Qumran community and factions associated with the Temple in Jerusalem.

  The ‘Community Rule’

  Found in Cave 1 at Qumran, the ‘Community Rule’, as we have seen, adumbrates the rituals and regulations governing life in the desert community. It establishes a hierarchy of authority for the community. It lays down instructions for the ‘Master’ of the community and for the various officers subordinate to him. It also specifies the principles of behaviour and the punishment for violation of these principles. Thus, for instance, ‘Whoever has deliberately lied shall do penance for six months.’2 The text opens by enunciating the basis on which the community define and distinguish themselves. All members must enter into a ‘Covenant before God to obey all His commandments’;3 and he who practises such obedience will be ‘cleansed from all his sins’.4 Adherence to the Law is accorded a paramount position. Among the various terms by which the community’s members are designated, one finds ‘Keepers of the Covenant’5 and those who have ‘zeal for the Law’.6

  Among the rituals stipulated, there is cleansing and purification by baptism — not just once, but, apparently, every day. Daily prayers are also specified, at dawn and at sunset, involving recitations of the Law. And there is a ritually purified ‘Meal of the Congregation’7 — a meal very similar, as other scrolls attest, to the ‘Last Supper’ of the so-called ‘early Church’.

  The ‘Community Rule’ speaks, too, of the ‘Council’ of the Community, made up of twelve men and, possibly, a further three priests. We have already discussed the interesting echoes of the ‘cornerstone’ or ‘keystone’ image in relation to the Council of the Community. But the scroll also states that the Council ‘shall preserve the faith in the Land with steadfastness and meekness and shall atone for sin by the practice of justice and by suffering the sorrows of affliction’.8

  In their eagerness to distance the Qumran community from Jesus and his ent
ourage, scholars promoting the consensus of the international team stress that the concept of atonement does not figure in Qumran teachings — that Jesus is to be distinguished from Qumran’s ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ in large part by virtue of his doctrine of atonement. The ‘Community Rule’, however, demonstrates that atonement figured as prominently in Qumran as it did with Jesus and his followers in the so-called ‘early Church’.

  Finally, the ‘Community Rule’ introduces the Messiah — or perhaps Messiahs, in the plural. Members of the Community, ‘walking in the way of perfection’, are obliged to adhere zealously to the Law ‘until there shall come the prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel’.9 This reference is usually interpreted as meaning two distinct Messiahs, two equally regal figures, one descended from the line of Aaron, one from the established line of Israel — i.e. the line of David and Solomon. But the reference may also be to a dynasty of single Messiahs descended from, and uniting, both lines. In the context of the time, of course, ‘Messiah’ does not signify what it later comes to signify in Christian tradition. It simply means ‘the Anointed One’, which denotes consecration by oil. In Israelite tradition, it would seem, both kings and priests — in fact, any claimant to high office — were anointed, and hence Messiahs.

  The ‘War Scroll’

  Copies of the ‘War Scroll’ were found in Caves 1 and 4 at Qumran. On one level, the ‘War Scroll’ is a very specific manual of strategy and tactics, obviously intended for specific circumstances, at a specific place and time. Thus, for example: ‘Seven troops of horsemen shall also station themselves to right and to left of the formation; their troops shall stand on this side…’10 On another level, however, the text constitutes exhortation and prophetic propaganda, intended to galvanise morale against the invading foe, the ‘Kittim’, or Romans. The supreme leader of Israel against the ‘Kittim’ is called, quite unequivocally, the ‘Messiah’ — though certain commentators have sought to disguise or dissemble this nomenclature by referring to him as ‘Thine anointed’.11 The advent of the ‘Messiah’ is stated as having been prophesied in Numbers 24:17, where it is said that ‘a star from Jacob takes the leadership, a sceptre arises from Israel’. The ‘Star’ thus becomes a sobriquet for the ‘Messiah’, the regal warrior priest-king who will lead the forces of Israel to triumph. As Robert Eisenman has stressed, this prophecy linking the Messiah figure with the image of the star occurs elsewhere in the Qumran literature, and is of crucial importance. It is also significant that the same prophecy is cited by sources quite independent of both Qumran and the New Testament — by historians and chroniclers of 1st-century Rome, for example, such as Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius. And Simeon bar Kochba, instigator of the second revolt against the Romans between ad 132 and 135, called himself the ‘Son of the Star’.

  The ‘War Scroll’ imparts a metaphysical and theological dimension to the struggle against the ‘Kittim’ by depicting it as a clash between the ‘Sons of Light’ and the ‘Sons of Darkness’. More importantly still, however, the scroll contains a vital clue to its own dating and chronology. When speaking of the ‘Kittim’, the text refers quite explicitly to their ‘king’. The ‘Kittim’ concerned cannot, therefore, be the soldiers of republican Rome, who invaded Palestine in 63 BC and who had no monarch. On the contrary, they would have to be the soldiers of imperial Rome, who invaded in the wake of the revolt of ad 66 — although, of course, occupying troops had been present in Palestine since the imposition of imperial Roman prefects or procurators in AD 6. It is thus clear that the ‘War Scroll’ must be seen in the context not of pre-Christian times, but of the 1st century. As we shall see, this internal evidence of chronology — which advocates of the ‘consensus’ contrive to ignore — will be even more persuasively developed in one of the other, and most crucial, of the Qumran texts, the ‘Commentary on Habakkuk’.

  The ‘Temple Scroll’

  The ‘Temple Scroll’ is believed to have been found in Cave 11 at Qumran, though this has never been definitively established. As its name suggests, the scroll deals, at least in part, with the Temple of Jerusalem, with the design, furnishings, fixtures and fittings of the structure. It also outlines specific details of rituals practised in the Temple. At the same time, however, the name conferred on the scroll, by Yigael Yadin, is somewhat misleading.

  In effect, the ‘Temple Scroll’ is a species of Torah, or Book of the Law — a kind of alternative Torah used by the Qumran community and other factions elsewhere in Palestine. The ‘official’ Torah of Judaism comprises the first five books of the Old Testament — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. These are deemed to be the books of laws which Moses received on Mount Sinai, and their authorship is traditionally ascribed to Moses himself. The ‘Temple Scroll’ constitutes, in a sense, a sixth Book of the Law.

  The laws it contains are not confined to rites of worship and observance in the Temple. There are also laws pertaining to more general matters, such as ritual purification, marriage and sexual practices. Most important and interesting of all, there are laws governing the institution of kingship in Israel — the character, comportment, behaviour and obligations of the king. The king, for example, is strictly forbidden to be a foreigner. He is forbidden to have more than one wife. And like all other Jews, he is forbidden to marry his sister, his aunt, his brother’s wife or his niece.12

  There is nothing new or startling about most of these taboos. They can be found in Leviticus 18-20 in the Old Testament. But one of them — that forbidding the king’s marriage to his niece — is new. It is found elsewhere in only one other place, another of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ‘Damascus Document’. As Eisenman has pointed out, this stricture provides an important clue to the dating of both the ‘Temple Scroll’ and the ‘Damascus Document’ — and, by extension, of course, to the other Dead Sea Scrolls as well. As we have noted, the consensus of the international team regards the Dead Sea Scrolls as pre-Christian, dating from the era of Israel’s Maccabean kings. But there is no evidence that the Maccabean kings — or any Israelite kings before them — ever married their nieces or ever incurred criticism for doing so.13 The issue seems to have been utterly irrelevant. Either marriage to one’s niece was accepted, or it was never practised at all. In either case, it was not forbidden.

  The situation changed dramatically, however, with the accession of Herod and his descendants. In the first place, Herod was, by Judaic standards at the time, a foreigner, of Arabian stock from Idumaea — the region to the south of Judaea. In the second place, the Herodian kings made a regular practice of marrying their nieces. And Herodian princesses regularly married their uncles. Bernice, sister of King Agrippa II (ad 48—53), married her uncle, for example. Herodias, sister of Agrippa I (ad 37-44), went even further, marrying two uncles in succession. The strictures in the ‘Temple Scroll’ are thus of particular relevance to a very specific period, and constitute a direct criticism of the Herodian dynasty — a dynasty of foreign puppet kings, imposed on Israel forcibly and sustained in power by imperial Rome.

  Taken in sum, the evidence of the ‘Temple Scroll’ runs counter to the consensus of the international team in three salient respects:

  1. According to the consensus, the Qumran community had no connection with, or interest in, either the Temple or the ‘official’ Judaism of the time. Like the ‘Copper Scroll’, however, the ‘Temple Scroll’ establishes that the Qumran community were indeed preoccupied with Temple affairs and with the governing theocracy.

  2. According to the consensus, the supposed ‘Essenes’ of Qumran were on cordial terms with Herod. The ‘Temple Scroll’, however, goes out of its way to include certain specific strictures — strictures intended to damn Herod and his dynasty.14 These strictures would be meaningless in any other context. 3. According to the consensus, the ‘Temple Scroll’ itself, like all the other Qumran texts, dates from pre-Christian times. Yet the internal evidence of the scroll points to issues that would have become relevant only during the Herodian
period — that is, during the 1st century of the Christian era.

  The ‘Damascus Document’

  The ‘Damascus Document’ was known to the world long before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. In the absence of a context, however, scholars were not sure what to make of it. Towards the end of the last century, the loft of an ancient synagogue in Cairo was found to contain a ‘geniza’ — a depository for the disposal of worn-out or redundant religious texts’ — dating from the 9th century ad. In 1896, a few fragments from this ‘geniza’ were confided to one Solomon Schechter, a lecturer at Cambridge University who happened to be in Cairo at the time. One fragment proved to contain the original Hebrew version of a text which, for a thousand years, had been known only in secondary translations. This prompted Schechter to investigate further. In December 1896, he collected the entire contents of the ‘geniza’ — 164 boxes of manuscripts housing some 100,000 pieces — and brought them back to Cambridge. From this welter of material, two Hebrew versions emerged of what came to be known as the ‘Damascus Document’. The versions from the Cairo ‘geniza’ were obviously later copies of a much earlier work. The texts were incomplete, lacking endings and probably large sections in the middle; the order of the texts was scrambled and the logical development of their themes confused. Even in this muddled form, however, the ‘Damascus Document’ was provocative, potentially explosive. Schechter published it for the first time in 1910. In 1913, R.H. Charles reprinted it in his compilation The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament.