The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity

It is possible to overstate the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the study of Christian origins.

There is at least one fundamental difference between the Essenes and Jesus. The Essenes were separatists but Jesus was an inclusivist.

The Essenes had withdrawn from mainstream Jewish life some years after the Graeco-Syrian assault on Israel two centuries before Jesus came on the scene. The identity of the Teacher of Righteousness, apparently the sects founder, remains unclear, though the dating of the formation of the sect to that era is broadly agreed.

The sect expressed its separation physically by living apart from others, whether as celibates at Qumran near the Dead Sea or as married people in the communes at the fringes of cities and towns. Because they intentionally followed a solar calendar, as opposed to the adjusted lunar calendar of the Temple authorities, they were always at odds with fellow-Jews, celebrating the religious feasts at their own times and in their own ways.

Admission to an Essene Community took several years and was stringently controlled. Among others not admissible were the 'mad, the blind, the lame, the deaf and children' (Damascus Rule xv). It is true that the Essenes shared their goods in common, but they did not (to my knowledge) share them with outsiders.

These and other features of the ancient Essenes make them the object of continuing fascination, both scholarly and popular, as witnessed by the outpouring of books and the present exhibition.

But - and this is my point - their relationship with Jesus was more one of contrast than similarity. Whereas the Essenes cut themselves off from their nation and individual Israelites Jesus engaged the nation and its individual members.

Jesus, like John the Baptist, was readily identifiable at that time as a prophet of Israel who, like prophets of former times, addressed the whole nation. Jesus message was that the hand of God was about to be revealed to Gods historic people. 'Turn back', therefore was his plea to them.

Chris McGillion (SMH 25 July) approves of Fidel Castro's view of Jesus as a champion of just one section of society, those at the bottom of the social pile. Certainly Jesus fraternised with disabled folk, with children and with the morally and ritually 'impure', in sharp contrast with the exclusivist Essenes. But he also mixed with individuals across the whole socio-economic spectrum of society - a middle class bureaucrat (Levi), the wife of the Galilee ruler's estate manager (Joanna), a wealthy out-sourced tax contractor (Zacchaeus), a synagogue president (Jairus), an eminent scholar and ruling council member (Nicodemus). Whoever they were - rich or poor- Jesus gracious invitation was, 'Come to me...'

As well, I cannot agree with Mr McGillion about a 'transition of the Christian movement' in the 'early years' that 'domesticated its radical potential'. He is only half right in speaking about Jesus 'in the backblocks of Galilee'. Jesus also spent much time in Jerusalem, the Holy City, in debate with hierarchs and theologians. He is less than half right in not noticing that Jesus 'social radicalism' was an expression of his prophetic and messianic radicalism in which he (obliquely) identified himself as the human instrument of the present intervention of God.

Jesus' messianic radicalism continued without interruption but with intensified zealous enthusiasm after the first Easter as his disciples became preachers in the Holy City and across the length and breadth of the Land of Israel. And their messianic preaching 'back to back' with his was happening fifteen years before Paul began taking the message westwards towards Rome.

Mr McGillion is also off the mark in implying that post-New Testament Christianity disengaged socially from the poor and needy. Rodney Stark, the eminent sociologist of religion, has now demonstrated that, if anything, it was precisely such engagement (especially in times of plague) that won the hearts and minds of so many within a mere two centuries of the advent of the Man from Nazareth.

Speaking personally, the only sense I can make of the origin of Christianity is to accept the opinion of its earliest documents, that God was 'in Christ', the Son of God, no less.