Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Between 1946 and 1956, a remarkable set of ancient scrolls was found buried in caves at Qumran, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank of Palestine. These scrolls proved to be the remains of the library of a Jewish community of the Second Temple Period, which most scholars identify with the sect of the Essenes. In addition to providing scholars access to the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, the scrolls included texts relating to the Essene community, including their apocalyptic beliefs as they anticipated the world’s end and their expectations of the Messiah. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will survey what the Dead Sea Scrolls tell us about the Essenes, and consider their relationship with the followers of Jesus and John the Baptist.

Join the livestream to participate in the discussion and to ask questions to our lecturer during the Q&A.

Other topics covered in this lecture include: Qumran, the Essenes, John the Baptist, Messianism, Apocalypticism

[fastballflakes]

Another fantastic Hamercopia of Knowledge tonight. Thank you so much to John and Leandro for allowing us into this community every week. Excellent topic this evening.

[davidfolts]

When it comes to deep dives into Biblical history, no one does it better than John Hammer.🎯🎯🎯

[arthursmom]

Hard working and committed you are amazing.. I know you’ve heard this but can’t emphasize it enough

[josepheridu]

Thank you for this interesting and deep lecture. I feel so fortunate to be alive in a modern time that we have access to these books that were almost lost to history, studying them from a modern perspective. I wonder how much more was lost.

[nopenope]

From Australia, I love your lectures.

[denaisaacthiswasgreat.thum]

John. You are the Best. You answer so many questions and yet you bring up so many more. It is the best educational journey I've been in some time. Thank you so much

[dorotakorsak]

Thank you so much for next awesome lecture! I can never watch it in real time as it's late night in my country but I always wait for the new lecture.

[johnerikstacy]

I think it is interesting that the gospels mention both the sadducees and pharisees in the context of being outgroups whereas the essenes are not mentioned. To me this seems consistent with a view from the inside of a group. It would be taken for granted that "this is us" and we don't have to say "we essenes call the sadducees and pharisees hypocrites." There is also the question of what they actually would have called themselves if anything.

[dynomiteslim]

Very grateful to have access to John's wonderful lectures. Thank you.

[pebystroll]

Fantastic as always, I hope to visit your church in Canada some day, greetings from Ireland

[lesliesewell]

Thank you so much for the videos! I've watched so many of them and looking forward to mamy more!

[paperback]

Yay. It's "Hamertime" !

[bothewolf]

my new job means I can only live watch 1 hour. Oh well! Great stuff even if I miss some live.

[daveg]

Book of Esther fragments were found among the Dead Sea scrolls in 2021. This is breaking news so many sources on the Dead Sea scrolls don’t include it. But there are reputable sources that can be Googled.


Keep up the good work!

[tyr]

please please please upload these talks as podcasts!

[Rannsack]

I think it would be a mistake to assume Qumran are the "quintessential" Essenes just because we happened to find their library. Josephus says there are Essenes who lived in the cities and who married. So Qumran doesn't have to match *exactly* with the Jesus movement in order for that movement to have been straight-up Essenes.

Josephus mentions there are 3 main Jewish schools of thought, Pharisee, Sadducees and Essenes. Sadducees and Pharisees are frequently criticized in the gospels. They are the enemies of Jesus. And yet the 3rd group of jews, Essenes are never mentioned. Either because 1) The Jesus movement did not consider them important enough to criticize, or 2) The Jesus movement had no disagreement with them. 3) The Jesus movement were largely Essenic themselves. (And 2 and 3 are almost the same thing for practical purposes).

John is widely seen as being either an Essene or very near to the Essenic tradition. The followers of Jesus come directly from John. John even baptized (initiated) Jesus into John's religion. Any other person in history who was baptized by an Essene into the Essene religion, we would label them an Essene. After Johns death, his followers then started following Jesus. If Jesus was fundamentally different from the Essenes, none of that make sense. As you mention both movements were apocalyptic, communal, aesthetic, and highly critical of the pharisees and Sadducees. Not labeling the Jesus movement as highly Essenic, displays a bias in modern scholarship that should be corrected. Why are we so hesitant?

Mandaeans claim they descend from Johns followers, but their symbol is a cross with a shroud on it (Drabsha). Why? There is no association between John and the cross (he was beheaded and his head put on a plate). I think it is more likely Mandaeans were originally Christian but came to distance themselves from Christian roots as a way of surviving Islamic persecution. And they have indeed been left alone while Christian group in Muslims countries have often not.

[deejannemeiurffnicht]

@ approx 18:00 ''no leap days or months''. They did have a two day Sabbath once a year (considered and counted as one Sabbath), which may have been their way to try to redress things?
I really like the way you have tied togther the chronology of the contesting factions, and how they all fitted in to the background of why the qumram community existed, and too, of what the state of the state was in Jesus time. REALLY tight work.

[adamchapman]

Thanks, John! There was a question on the connection between the dead sea scrolls and hekhalot literature. There's a professor at the Hebrew university, Rachel Elior, who claims there is. She wrote a nice book about it, but it's in Hebrew. I'm not sure there's an English translation available.

[Berean_with_a_BTh]

Problem is, though, the Documentary Hypothesis has been torn to shreds by other hypotheses, such as the fragmentary and supplementary hypotheses and there is no consensus as to which version of which hypothesis (all of which rely on circular reasoning, imagined conflicts in the text and unfounded evolutionary supposutions) might be correct.

[oscarmudd]

The Children of Light didn't go into those caves to practice their calligraphy; they went there to get their story straight.