Qumran and Christian Origins

How the Dead Sea Scrolls Revolutionize our Understanding of Jesus, Paul, and the New Testament

In this guest blog series, Dr. Andrew Perrin explores key topics and texts from his new book Lost Words and Forgotten Worlds: Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls. Follow him on YouTube for more insights into ancient scribes, scrolls, and scriptures.

Beyond “Parallel-O-Mania” between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament

Part of the ongoing interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls regards their potential for enhancing our understanding of the early stage, story, and actors of Christian origins. Yet navigating the fine line of “parallel-o-mania” and new insights can be a challenging task. The Qumran community and early Jesus followers both grew up in the shared historical, social, cultural, and political contexts of Judea in the Second Temple period. This means that the parallel study of Qumran and early Christian writings is less about “connections” than common contexts.

This article sets the stage for a nuanced tandem reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament and provides samples illustrating how the scrolls shed new light on messianic theologies in the Gospels and put Paul’s language of justification in fresh perspective.

What the Dead Sea Scrolls Don’t Say about Jesus, John the Baptist, and the New Testament

When comparing the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, there is a long list of questions rooted in curiosity but, at times, landing in the realm of rushed conclusions or misguided answers. Many of these are not new. In fact, some took root shortly after the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the late-1940s through mid-1950s. And, like many fringe questions of conspiracy theories, they continue to have a life of their own. Here are some examples of misconceptions, claimed parallels, and quick correctives:

Was Jesus the “Teacher of Righteousness” referenced in the sectarian texts? (Nope, these references and the scrolls in general pre-date the days of Jesus).

Was Jesus’ locust eating, fur coat wearing, desert trekking cousin John the Baptist an Essene? (Unlikely, common ideas between the scrolls and John were due to a shared cultural context).

Did the Vatican suppress the Dead Sea Scrolls for fear the texts would overturn millennia of doctrine? (Sorry, wrong again. The scrolls took so long to publish because of the complexity of the task not the machinations of a secret society).

Were copies of New Testament books found among the Qumran scrolls? (No, but Greek texts from Cave Seven do reveal the development and translation of early Septuagint texts and perhaps writings of Enoch).

Or, my personal favorite: Do the Dead Sea Scrolls at last prove Jesus never existed? (Wrong again—this claim is found in an early Soviet tabloid in 1958 attempting to disprove Christianity and destabilize religion).

These are but a few examples of where the axes between Qumran and Christian origins often result in sensational yet unfounded claims in popular imagination and pseudo-scholarly circles. While the Dead Sea Scrolls don’t say anything of Jesus, John, Paul, or any other figure of their early movements, they do present a new opportunity to reconsider emerging Christian thought and texts within the social and cultural landscape of ancient Judaism in the Second Temple period.

The Early Jesus Movement and Christian Origins within Second Temple Judaism

One of the major and ongoing developments in New Testament studies over the last several decades is how we understand or need to rethink Jesus, Paul, and other figures, as part of not apart from their early Jewish contexts. In general, such approaches argue that for the ideas of the New Testament to make any sense, our interpretations must be rooted in a detailed understanding of the social, intellectual, religious, political, and cultural contexts of Judaism of the mid- to late-Second Temple period. Remember: this is also the world of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran community.

So, for example, when the Gospels depict Jesus in heated debate over purity or Sabbath laws with Jewish leaders, groups, thinkers, or other disciples of the day, it’s not because they have no idea what he is talking about. On the contrary: it is because all members on all sides of such debates are deeply invested in the finer points of Jewish tradition, law, belief, and practice…they just intensely disagreed on the details! If anything, we’re often the ones who don’t know what they’re talking about—we need to do our historical homework.

We live in a world where the better part of 2,000 years has galvanized Christianity and Judaism as separate and distinct religions. Yet at its genesis, what became Christianity began as a Jewish movement. This movement was led by a Jewish teacher, operating primarily in Judea, and engaging mostly with Jewish audiences and individuals about areas of common or contentious practice, belief, expectations, and identity. While there are hints that Jesus actions drew the ire and interest of non-Jews—and eventually the eyes of the Roman empire—it is the shared soil of Judaism in this period where we find the true opportunity to explore potential axes between the Dead Sea Scrolls and emerging Christianity.

With a few myths busted and a better model now in place for exploring Christian origins in the context of ancient Judaism, we are now in the position to hear what we have missed or misunderstood about Jesus’ identity in the Gospels or the hallmarks of Pauline thought.

The Messiah(s) of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christian Messianic Expectations

“Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. I feel that still needs to be said. Rather, it comes from the Greek χριστός, which approximates the Hebrew משׁיח , both essentially meaning “anointed one” or “messiah.” While the group at Qumran did not orient their identity around messianism—their beliefs and practices were much more defined by purity, calendar, scripture, and community—messianic ideas were an element of their future expectations. The Dead Sea Scrolls in fact reveal multiple messianic models as well as some exegetically driven understandings of the messianic age.

The Community Rule, for example, includes what seems to be a tag-team of messiahs (yes, plural) alongside the ascendancy of a prophetic figure: “They shall govern themselves using the original precepts by which the men of the Yahad began to be instructed, doing so until there come the prophet and the messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS 9:10-11). A variation of this multiple messiahs idea also shows up in the Rule of the Congregation, which articulates a priestly messiah apparently before and above a messiah of Israel:

"The procedure for the [mee]ting of the men of reputation [when they are called] to the banquet held by the party of the Yahad, when the messiah has been revealed among them: [the priest,] as head of the entire congregation of Israel, shall enter first, trailed by all [his] brot[hers, the Sons of] Aaron, those priests [appointed] to the banquet of the men of reputation. They are to sit be[fore him] by rank. Then the [mess]iah of Israel may en[ter]" (1QSa 2:11-13).

Other writings speak of messianic actors or ideas in terms remarkably similar to expressions in the Gospels. The Aramaic Apocalypse references an eschatological figure in the following terms: "[Also his son] will be called The Great, and be designated by his name. He will be called the Son of God, they will call him the son of the Most high." (4Q246 1:8-2:1).

Another Qumran Hebrew text, often called Messianic Apocalypse, decodes the signs of the messianic age through combined quotations of Psalms and Isaiah, while adding the explicit expectation of the revival of the dead. Sound familiar? Recall that Jesus’ answer to John the Baptist’s loaded messianic question includes a strikingly similar pastiche of scriptural quotes as well as a nod to resurrection (Luke 7:18-23). In this example, we find what appears to be a shared exegetical tradition drawing on the Hebrew Scriptures and evidence of a broader understanding that the messianic age would be marked by the dead being brought to life.

In the examples above, the rushed conclusion would be that the New Testament writers knew, used, borrowed, or stole from Qumran texts. That is incredibly unlikely, impossible to prove, and not terribly helpful. The nuanced, and more sophisticated insight, is that messianic expressions and expectations were part of the fabric of ancient Judaism. The early Jesus movement and members of the Qumran community may not have been talking to each other—as far as we know—but they were part of a larger social and cultural conversation. There does not appear to have been a single, dominant messianic model on offer in Judaism of this period. Yet understanding the larger ideas that took shape in this time allows us to illumine the New Testament rather than read it in isolation.

“Works of the Law” and Taking Paul Out of an Interpretive Vacuum

Paul and his later interpreters have profoundly influenced the development of Christian belief, practice, and traditions. Yet for all the generations of exegesis and debate centered on the apostle’s writings, it is only in recent decades that interpreters have prioritized encountering Paul on his home turf as a Jew living, writing, and immersed in his Second Temple context. In this regard, so-called “new perspectives on Paul” or takes on “Paul within Judaism” aim to recover something quite old or overlooked.

Of the many theological topics that are embedded or developed from Pauline thought, the torrent of ink spilled over one word outweighs them all: “justification” (δικαιοσύνη). What Paul meant by this word—specifically how one becomes justified and what that even means—has been the source of both debates, schisms, and about a billion dissertations. And to make interpretive matters even more challenging, the topic also must account for another allusive and elusive phrase, “works of the law” (ἔργων νόμου).

Take, for example, Galatians 2:15-21, which is central to Pauline thought and shot through with language of justification and/or/versus the law:

“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.” (NRSV, italics mine)

Before we can get at what Paul means here, we need to ask if we have fully heard him in the first place. The concept and phrase “works of the law” is tough to contextualize apart from Paul’s usage in Romans and Galatians. This is, or was, a problem until the discovery of a Hebrew writing known as 4QMMT among the Dead Sea Scrolls. This writing is a letter—whether it was sent or studied is a matter of debate—that outlines key principles and areas of contention over religious practice and identity that the Qumran group had with others in Jerusalem. 4QMMT is present in six copies, which seem to have been written between 75 BCE to 50 CE. 4QMMT concludes with the following comment:

“Now, we have written to you some of the works of the law (התור מקצת מעשי), those which we determined would be beneficial for you and your people, because we have seen that you possess insight and knowledge of the law. Understand all these things and beseech him to set your counsel straight and so keep you away from evil thoughts and the counsel of Belial. Then you shall rejoice at the end time when you find the essence of our words to be true. And it will be reckoned to you as righteousness (ונחשבה לך לצדקה), in that you have done what is right and good before him, to your own benefit and to that of Israel.” (4Q398 14-17 ii:2-8)

The terminological echoes here are resounding. Prior to the discovery of the scrolls, it seemed Paul had the proprietary use of the term “works of the law.” Now we can see this too was a term used in debates regarding the scriptural and legal framework for Jewish identity and practice before the time of Jesus and writings of Paul. 4QMMT also references a series of practices—at least 24 of them—touching on key topics like calendar, purity, and scriptural interpretation, which are said to be only “some of the works of the law” that are up for discussion between these groups. Paul’s focus seems to have fallen on a still shorter list of matters such as food laws, festivals, and circumcision (see Galatians 2:1-14; 4:10; Colossians 2:16). The lists in 4QMMT and Paul aren’t the same, but we shouldn’t expect them to be. This suggests that the umbrella category of “works of the law” in this period was flexible and could be used to frame up various elements of identity and practice rooted in the Torah and its interpretation. Like the writers of 4QMMT, Paul is part of this dialogue.

Are there more questions to ask and answer about the implications of this for Pauline studies? Absolutely. Even these preliminary observations remind us that Paul did not live, work, or write in a cultural vacuum. He was trying to make sense of a new reality in terms that were already in operation in his own day.

Conclusion

These are but a few examples that reveal the opportunity the Dead Sea Scrolls present for recovering the shared conceptual, cultural, and contextual worlds of the Qumran group and early Jesus movement in the Second Temple period. I invite you to delve deeper into the challenging yet fascinating intersection of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian origins in my new book, Lost Words and Forgotten Worlds: Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls, and by subscribing to my YouTube channel.