In the ‘Habakkuk Commentary’, Eisenman, continuing this line of thought, found one particularly important such variation — the ‘Osei ha-Torah’, which translates as the ‘Doers of the Law’.22 This term would appear to be the source of the word ‘Essene’, for the collective form of ‘Osei ha-Torah’ is ‘Osim’, pronounced ‘Oseem’. The Qumran community would thus have constituted, collectively, ‘the Osim’. They seem, in fact, to have been known as such. An early Christian writer, Epiphanius, speaks of an allegedly ‘heretical’ Judaic sect which once occupied an area around the Dead Sea. This sect, he says, were called the ‘Ossenes’.23 It is fairly safe to conclude that the ‘Essenes’, the ‘Ossenes’ of Epiphanius and the ‘Osim’ of the Qumran community were one and the same.
28. Qumran, showing the marl terraces. The photograph was taken from the ruins looking west towards the Judaean hills, with Cave 5 on the extreme left and the two openings of Cave 4 just to the right. The original entrance to Cave 4 can be seen above the right-hand opening.
29. The ruins of Qumran. Caves 4 and 5 can be seen at the end of the nearer eroded cliff-face.
30. The interior of Cave 4, Qumran, where the largest number of fragments were discovered in 1952. Fragments of up to 800 different scrolls were retrieved.
31. The Qumran ruins from the fortified tower. In the foreground are the remains of the circular weapons forge, to the left of which part of the water conduit has been exposed.
32. Remains of the main waterway into the Qumran community. The site had a complex water system fed from seasonal water flowing in the Wadi behind the ruins.
33. A cistern cut into the desert floor on the rocky terraces near to the Qumran ruins. Water control and storage were vital to the survival of such a community.
34. The water supply to Qumran depended upon this water tunnel carved through solid rock in the cliff-face. The water was dammed in the Wadi and directed through this tunnel.
35. The exit of the water tunnel. From here the water flowed down the Waterway to the settlement itself.
36. Several of the 1,200 or so rock-covered graves slightly to the east of the ruins. Aligned north-south, contrary to normal Jewish practice, the graves appear to be unique to the Qumran-type of community. A small number of graves has been opened, and the remains of men, women and children found.
37. A dozen or so Qumran-type graves — aligned north-south — have been discovered some nine miles south of Qumran, at En el-Ghuweir. Clearly there was a settlement also on this site. The caves in the Wadi and cliffs behind may well have served as repositories for the same type of scrolls as were found near Qumran.
38. Ruins of a settlement at En el-Ghuweir near to the graves. The ruins have been dated to the Herodian period.
39. The pyramidal hill at Gamla in the Golan where the final citadel stood. Here, on 10 November 67 AD, 4,000 zealots died fighting the Romans and another 5,000 killed themselves by jumping over the cliff. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide an insight into the rationale which lay behind the mass suicides.
40. The ruins of Masada where, on 15 April 74 ad, 960 Zealots — men, women and children — killed themselves rather than surrender to the Romans.
Thus the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls may be thought of as ‘Essenes’, but not in the sense as defined and described by Josephus, Philo and Pliny. The accounts of the classical chroniclers prove to be altogether too circumscribed. They have also prevented many modern scholars from making the necessary connections — perhaps, in some cases, because it was not deemed desirable to do so. If the connections are made, a different and broader picture emerges — a picture in which such terms as ‘Essene’ and ‘the Qumran community’ will prove to be interchangeable with others. Eisenman effectively summarises the situation:
Unfortunately for the premises of modern scholarship, terms like: Ebionim, Nozrim, Hassidim, Zaddikim… turn out to be variations on the same theme. The inability to relate to changeable metaphor… has been a distinct failure in criticism.24
This, precisely, is what we are dealing with — changeable metaphors, a variety of different designations used to denote the same people or factions. Recognition of that point was urged as early as 1969 by an acknowledged expert in the field, Professor Matthew Black of St Andrews University, Scotland. The term ‘Essene’ was acceptable, Professor Black wrote:
provided we do not define Essenism too narrowly, for instance, by equating it exclusively with the Dead Sea group, but are prepared to understand the term as a general description of this widespread movement of anti-Jerusalem, anti-Pharisaic non-conformity of the period. It is from such an ‘Essene-type’ of Judaism that Christianity is descended.25
There is support for Professor Black’s contention in the work of Epiphanius, the early Christian writer who spoke of the ‘Ossenes’. Epiphanius states that the original ‘Christians’ in Judaea, generally called ‘Nazoreans’ (as in the Acts of the Apostles), were known as ‘Jessaeans’. These ‘Christians’, or ‘Jessaeans’, would have conformed precisely to Professor Black’s phraseology — a ‘widespread movement of anti-Jerusalem, anti-Pharisaic non-conformity’. But there is an even more crucial connection.
Among the terms by which the Qumran community referred to themselves was ‘Keepers of the Covenant’, which appears in the original Hebrew as ‘Nozrei ha-Brit’. From this term derives the word ‘Nozrim’ one of the earliest Hebrew designations for the sect subsequently known as ‘Christians’.26 The modern Arabic word for Christians, ‘Nasrani’, derives from the same source. So, too, does the word ‘Nazorean’ or ‘Nazarene’, which, of course, was the name by which the ‘early Christians’ referred to themselves in both the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Contrary to the assumptions of later tradition, it has nothing whatever to do with Jesus’ alleged upbringing in Nazareth, which, the evidence (or lack of it) suggests, did not even exist at the time. Indeed, it seems to have been the very perplexity of early commentators encountering the unfamiliar term ‘Nazorean’ that led them to conclude Jesus’ family came from Nazareth, which by then had appeared on the map.
To sum up, then, the ‘Essenes’ who figure in classical texts, the ‘Ossenes’ mentioned by Epiphanius, and the ‘Osi’m’, the Qumran community, are one and the same. So, too, are the ‘Jessaeans’, as Epiphanius calls the ‘early Christians’. So, too, are the ‘Nozrei ha-Brit’, the ‘Nozrim’, the ‘Nasrani’ and the ‘Nazoreans’. On the basis of this etymology, it becomes clear that we are indeed dealing with Professor Black’s ‘widespread movement’, characterised, as Eisenman says, by shifting metaphor, a variety of slightly different designations used for the same people, shifting with time, translation and transliteration, just as ‘Caesar’ evolves into ‘Kaiser’ and ‘Tsar’.
It would thus seem that the Qumran community was equivalent to the ‘early Church’ based in Jerusalem — the ‘Nazoreans’ who followed James, ‘the Lord’s brother’.27 Indeed, the ‘Habakkuk Commentary’ states explicitly that Qumran’s ruling body, the ‘Council of the Community’, was actually located at the time in Jerusalem.28 And in Acts 9:2, the members of the ‘early Church’ are specifically referred to as ‘followers of the Way’ — a phrase identical with Qumran usage.
12. The Acts of the Apostles
Apart from the Gospels themselves, the most important book of the New Testament is the Acts of the Apostles. For the historian, in fact, Acts may be of even greater consequence. Like all historical documents issuing from a partisan source, it must, of course, be handled sceptically and with caution. One must also be cognisant of whom the text was written for, and whom it might have served, as well as what end. But it is Acts, much more than the Gospels, which has hitherto constituted the apparently definitive account of the first years of ‘early Christianity’. Certainly Acts would appear to contain much basic information not readily to be found elsewhere. To that extent alone, it is a seminal text.
The Gospels, it is generally acknowledged, are unreliable as historical documents. Mark�
��s, the first of them, was composed no earlier than the revolt of ad 66, and probably somewhat later. All four Gospels seek to evoke a period long predating their own composition — perhaps by as much as sixty or seventy years. They skim cursorily over the historical backdrop, focusing essentially on the heavily mythologised figure of Jesus and on his teachings. They are ultimately poetic and devotional texts, and do not even purport to be chronicles.
Acts is a work of a very different order. It cannot, of course, be taken as absolutely historical. It is, for one thing, heavily biased. Luke, the author of the text, was clearly drawing on a number of different sources, editing and reworking material to suit his own purposes. There has been little attempt to unify either doctrinal statements or literary style. Even Church historians admit that the chronology is confused, the author having had no direct experience of many of the events he describes and being obliged to impose his own order upon them. Thus certain separate events are fused into a single occurrence, while single occurrences are made to appear to be separate events. Such problems are particularly acute in those portions of the text pertaining to events that predate the advent of Paul. Further, it would appear that Acts, like the Gospels, was compiled selectively, and was extensively tampered with by later editors.
Nevertheless, Acts, unlike the Gospels, aspires to be a form of chronicle over a continuous and extended period of time. Unlike the Gospels, it constitutes an attempt to preserve an historical record, and, at least in certain passages, to have been written by someone with a first-, or second-, hand experience of the events it describes. Although there is bias, the bias is a highly personal one; and this, to some extent, enables the modern commentator to read between the lines.
The narrative recounted in Acts begins shortly after the Crucifixion — generally dated at ad 30 but possibly as late as ad 36 — and ends somewhere between ad 64 and 67. Most scholars believe the narrative itself was composed, or transcribed, some time between ad 70 and 95. Roughly speaking, then, Acts is contemporary with some, if not all, of the Gospels. It may predate all four. It almost certainly predates the so-called Gospel of John, at least in the form that that text has come down to us.
The author of Acts is a well-educated Greek who identifies himself as Luke. Whether he is the same as ‘Luke the beloved physician’, mentioned as Paul’s close friend in Colossians 4:14, cannot be definitively established, though most New Testament scholars are prepared to accept that he is. Modern scholars also concur that he would seem, quite clearly, to be identical with the author of Luke’s Gospel. Indeed, Acts is sometiiries regarded as the ‘second half of Luke’s Gospel. Both are addressed to an unknown recipient named ‘Theophilus’. Because both were written in Greek, many words and names have been translated into that language, and have probably, in a number of instances, altered in nuance, even in meaning, from their Hebrew or Aramaic originals. In any case, both Acts and Luke’s Gospel were written specifically for a Greek audience — a very different audience from that addressed by the Qumran scrolls.
Although focusing primarily on Paul, who monopolises the latter part of its narrative, Acts also tells the story of Paul’s relations with the community in Jerusalem composed of Jesus’ immediate disciples under the leadership of James, ‘the Lord’s brother’ — the enclave or faction who only later came to be called the first Christians and are now regarded as the early or original Church. In recounting Paul’s association with this community, however, Acts offers only Paul’s point of view. Acts is essentially a document of Pauline — or what is now deemed to be ‘normative’ — Christianity. Paul, in other words, is always the ‘hero’; whoever opposes him, whether it be the authorities or even James, is automatically cast as villain.
Acts opens shortly after Jesus — referred to as ‘the Nazorene’ (in Greek ‘Nazoraion’) — has disappeared from the scene. The narrative then proceeds to describe the organisation and development of the community or ‘early Church’ in Jerusalem and its increasing friction with the authorities. The community is vividly evoked in Acts 2:44—6: ‘The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed. They went as a body to the Temple every day but met in their houses for the breaking of bread…’ (It is worth noting in passing this adherence to the Temple. Jesus and his immediate followers are usually portrayed as hostile to the Temple, where, according to the Gospels, Jesus upset the tables of the moneychangers and incurred the passionate displeasure of the priesthood.)
Acts 6:8 introduces the figure known as Stephen, the first official ‘Christian martyr’, who is arrested and sentenced to death by stoning. In his own defence, Stephen alludes to the murder of those who prophesied the advent of the ‘Righteous One’, or the ‘Just One’. This terminology is specifically and uniquely Qumranic in character. The ‘Righteous One’ occurs repeatedly in the Dead Sea Scrolls as ‘Zaddik’ 1 The ‘Teacher of Righteousness’ in the scrolls, ‘Moreh ha-Zedek’ derives from the same root. And when the historian Josephus speaks of a teacher, apparently named ‘Sadduc’ or ‘Zadok’, as the leader of a messianic and anti-Roman Judaic following, this too would seem to be a faulty Greek rendering of the ‘Righteous One’.2 As portrayed in Acts, then, Stephen uses nomenclature unique and specifically characteristic of Qumran.
Nor is this the only Qumranic concern to figure in Stephen’s speech. In his defence, he names his persecutors (Acts 7:53) — ‘You who had the Law brought to you by angels are the very ones who have not kept it.’ As Acts portrays it, Stephen is obviously intent on adherence to the Law. Again, there is a conflict here with orthodox and accepted traditions. According to later Christian tradition, it was the Jews of the time who made an austere and puritanical fetish of the Law. The ‘early Christians’ are depicted, at least from the standpoint of that stringency, as ‘mavericks’ or ‘renegades’, advocating a new freedom and flexibility, defying custom and convention. Yet it is Stephen, the first ‘Christian martyr’, who emerges as an advocate of the Law, while his persecutors are accused of dereliction.
It makes no sense for Stephen, a self-proclaimed adherent of the Law, to be murdered by fellow Jews extolling the same Law. But what if those fellow Jews were acting on behalf of a priesthood which had come to an accommodation with the Roman authorities — were, in effect, collaborators who, like many of the French under the German occupation, for example, simply wanted ‘a quiet life’ and feared an agitator or resistance fighter in their midst might lead to reprisals?3 The ‘early Church’ of which Stephen is a member constantly stresses its own orthodoxy, its zealous adherence to the Law. Its persecutors are those who contrive to remain in good odour with Rome and, in so doing, lapse from the Law, or, in Qumran terms, transgress the Law, betray the Law.4 In this context, Stephen’s denunciation of them makes sense, as does their murder of him. And as we shall see, James — James ‘the Just’, the ‘Zaddik’ or ‘Righteous One’, the ‘brother of the Lord’ who best exemplifies rigorous adherence to the Law — will subsequently, according to later tradition, suffer precisely the same fate as Stephen.
According to Acts, it is at the death of Stephen that Paul – then called Saul of Tarsus — makes his debut. He is said to have stood watch over the discarded clothes of Stephen’s murderers, though he may well have taken a more active role. In Acts 8:1, we are told that Saul ‘entirely approved of the killing’ of Stephen. And later, in Acts 9:21, Saul is accused of engineering precisely the kind of attack on the ‘early Church’ which culminated in Stephen’s death. Certainly Saul, at this stage of his life, is fervent, even fanatic, in his enmity towards the ‘early Church’. According to Acts 8:3, he ‘worked for the total destruction of the Church: he went from house to house arresting both men and women and sending them to prison’. At the time, of course, he is acting as a minion of the pro-Roman priesthood.
Acts 9 tells us of Saul’s conversion. Shortly after Stephen’s death, he embarks for Damascus t
o ferret out members of the ‘early Church’ there. He is accompanied by his hit-squad and bears arrest warrants from his master, the high priest. As we have noted, this expedition is likely to have been not to Syria, but to the Damascus that figures in the ‘Damascus Document’.5
En route to his destination, Saul undergoes some sort of traumatic experience, which commentators have interpreted as anything from sunstroke, to an epileptic seizure, to a mystical revelation (Acts 9:1-19; 22:6-16). A ‘light from heaven’ purportedly knocks him from his horse and ‘a voice’, issuing from no perceptible source, demands of him: ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ Saul asks the voice to identify itself. ‘I am Jesus, the Nazorene,’ the voice replies, ‘and you are persecuting me.’ The voice further instructs him to proceed to Damascus, where he will learn what he must subsequently do. When this visitation passes and Saul regains a semblance of his former consciousness, he finds he has been stricken temporarily blind. In Damascus, his sight will be restored by a member of the ‘early Church’ and he will allow himself to be baptised.
A modern psychologist would find nothing particularly unusual in Saul’s adventure. It may indeed have been produced by sunstroke or an epileptic seizure. It could equally well be ascribed to hallucination, hysterical or psychotic reaction or perhaps nothing more than the guilty conscience of a susceptible man with blood on his hands.
The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception Page 21