Is there a connection between the qumran scrolls and Jesus?

xdisciplex · Jun 13, 2006

Somebody wrote this here as a review to a book similar to Dan Brown's Da Vinci code. Are there really parallels?

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus began with 9 beatitudes. 8 short and 1 long. According to French scholar Emile Puech's reconstruction, Dead Sea scroll 4Q525 originally contained 9 very similar beatitudes (8 short + 1 long.) These original beatitudes were unknown in Hebrew literature until discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Anyone in the Sermon on the Mount audience who had been familiar with the Qumran version would have immediately recognized the reference that Jesus was making by phrasing his beatitudes as the Qumranites phrased theirs. (It's akin to beginning a speech with "five score and eight years ago..." and then talking vaguely about slavery and Lincoln. If you get it, you do. If you don't, you don't.) Immediately after the beatitudes, Jesus said "you are the salt of the earth." It is very possible that Qumran was the "salt city" of Flavius Josephus. It is patently obvious that the series of cisterns at Qumran were for evaporating salt water to make salt. Note that the community rule doesn't say anything about taking ritual purity baths in the drinking water, which is the only other explanation for the cisterns. It is equally obvious that the large, flat area commonly believed to have been an Essene dining area (Locus 77) was in fact designed as an evaporation floor. That its axis lines up with the summer solstice sunset, and water that had already passed through most of the evaporation cisterns was channelled onto it further supports this theory. Therefore, I contend the salt metaphor in the Sermon on the Mount was the second reference to Qumran. This supports the theory posited in "The Jesus Papers" that the Qumran sect and Jesus were intertwined. But not as much as the third reference...

After the allusion to salt city, Jesus next offered his assurance that he did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. This was the third, and most powerful Qumran reference - as he apparently meant he was to fulfill Isaiah 35:5-6, (eyes of the blind opened, lame shall leap, ears of the deaf unstopped), Isaiah 61:1-2 (bring good news to the poor) and scroll 4Q521 (heal the wounded, open the eyes of the blind, raise the dead, and bring good news to the poor). Scroll 4Q521 required two rather tall orders: the messiah would have to both heal the wounded and raise the dead. Neither of these two requirements were included in Isaiah, nor in the Old Testament.

In Matthew 11:4-5, Jesus sent a progress report to John the Baptist who was in prison. He said: "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them."

If neither Jesus or John were familiar with, nor felt obliged to fulfill scroll 4Q521, Jesus would not have included "the dead are raised" in his report. Also, note that Jesus apparently had not - to that point - been successful at healing the wounded.

As wounded people for Jesus to practice on were probably not all that plentiful, and he didn't want to wound anyone so he could heal them and thus fulfill the law, he probably decided to send Judas into town to have himself arrested so that he could apply the "heal the wounded" requirment to his own body.

As irony would have it, Jesus managed to fulfill this law by healing the severed ear of the leader of the mob that came to arrest him. (Note that he said: "Let me at least do this" as he reached out to touch the wounded man's ear. - Luke 22:51)

At that point, his job as messiah was complete. He had fulfilled all of the laws - including the two heavy Qumranite requirements. If three weeks later he married Mary Magdalene and raised a daughter in France or Nova Scotia or Brooklyn, (or wherever he might have wound up) it is immaterial. His role as messiah was established in the moment that he healed the severed ear and thus fulfilled the messianic requirements of the ancient TANAKH, and the Qumranite scroll.
Click to expand...

genesis12 · Jun 13, 2006

Jesus and John the Baptist are not mentioned in the scrolls. There is no mention of the scrolls in the NT. Since the group responsible for writing them lasted until destroyed by the Romans in 68 a.d., Jesus and John the Baptist would have known about them and perhaps knew some of the members. There is no evidence that either was a member.

The fragments are written mostly in Hebrew. Some are in Aramaic, some in Greek, languages quite familiar to those living in the Middle East during that time period. :type:

BobRyan · Jun 13, 2006

You can not seek out every stray bullet on the planet as the "path to truth". At some point -- pure truth has to be of interest.

The Da Vince Code market's ITSELF as pure fiction. The reader who pays no attention to that fact and tries to treat it as a reliable history is like the one that ignore the "pure fiction" disclaimer that Michael Moore gives to his work and tries to treat it as a "historic documentary".

Why GO to the sources that SAY they are "making stuff up" as your source of truth, fact, etc?

Why go to those who CLAIM they are distorting truth as the path to truth? Doesn't that show a flawed interest "At the start"?

In Christ,

Bob

Chemnitz · Jun 14, 2006

I think people tend to make a mountain out of a mole hill. I am not familiar enough with the non-canon related dead sea scrolls to make any specific comments, but I will say that I would not be surprised if their was overlap between the sayings in the Sermon on the mount and the qumran writings. There is overlap between Egyptian wisdom writings and the book of Proverbs. Does it make Proverbs any less the word of God? Hardly, it only proves that the Egyptians weren't complete dunces. The same could apply to the writings at Qumran.

xdisciplex · Jun 15, 2006

@ Bob
I'm not searching for this stuff, I only came across it.

I thought that the dead sea scrolls only contained stuff from the old testament. Did they also contain additional non-biblical writings?

Chemnitz · Jun 15, 2006

Yes they contained more than OT writings. They contained commentaries and apocryphal writings. The biggest part of the find is the great Isaiah scroll which has served to illustrate the accuracy of the transmission of the prophecies of Isaiah.

xdisciplex · Jun 15, 2006

Did these apocryphal writings talk about Jesus and say something contrary about him than the new testament?

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