Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

Twelve Essenes to Judge the World?

Or Twelve Apostles to replace them?

The 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls, found at mid-twentieth century in caves overlooking the Dead Sea, include remains from every book of the Bible except Esther. The crown jewel is the Great Isaiah Scroll, essentially complete, with little difference from the Book of Isaiah we read today.

But that's just the beginning of the story. The Scrolls included ruling documents of the Essene sect members that lived at Qumran by the Dead Sea, and writings about the End Times such as the book of Enoch.

In addition, there are pesher commentaries on many books of the Bible. A popular Bible commentary method of the time was to read each verse in a book and prophetically show its "pesher" interpretation for the current time. Daniel used this method when he read the handwriting on the wall, saying, "The interpretation (pesher) of the word is, God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it" (Daniel 5:26).  Jesus used the pesher method when he read from Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue, saying, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (Luke 4:21).

Among these Dead Sea commentaries is Pesher Isaiah, which suggests that a council of twelve men--symbolized as the twelve precious stones of the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve 'pillars' of the new Jerusalem--were to rule the Essene community. Moreover, these twelve leaders would sit in the twelve gates of the resurrected Jerusalem to judge Israel and the world in the End Times.

Did Jesus model his ministry on the ideals of the Essene sect? It has been alleged that Jesus was a member of the Essenes and received instruction in Qumran. The evidence for that idea is quite weak and we may discard the notion.

However, it has more strongly been alleged that John the Baptist was instructed by the Essenes "in the desert" at Qumran. John's rejection of Pharisee and Sadducee leadership was certainly in tune with Essene teachings. And John's theology of baptism resembles the Essenes' theology of ritual washing, in that no amount of dunking or washing would be effective without a cleansing of the inner person--of the heart. But John's offer of baptism to the common folk--anyone who repented of their sin--would have gotten John tossed out on his ear by the Essenes. They were an exclusive group, demanding that new entrants give up their fortunes to the sect, and undergo a three-year process of cleansing and instruction to be admitted as members.

And now we get to the connection. Some scholars say that Jesus was a disciple of the Baptist. Although the fourth Gospel has Jesus showing up several times in the vicinity of the Baptist, that's a weak argument. And although Jesus was baptized by John, John objected to that. But when John was put in prison, that kicked off Jesus' active preaching ministry, and he began it by preaching the message of the Baptist: "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand!"

I still can't buy the notion that Jesus had an Essene background. But it's almost certainly true that he knew of the Essenes and was aware of their core teachings. So what about the institution of the Twelve?

When Jesus began to accept disciples, that put him on a par (socially) with the Pharisees and Sadducees who had their own disciples. According to the fourth Gospel, he started with the requisite five disciples, plus an un-named sixth disciple who we commonly identify as John son of Zebedee. Essentially, Jesus was running an unlicensed school. But his teachings were never meant to come alongside the Pharisees and Sadducees--they were meant to replace them.

But Jesus did not come just to teach. He came to usher in the emerging Kingdom of God. Not just ethics and piety and social justice were in his hands, but the fate of the Universe and its inhabitants. So in the following year Jesus commissioned the Twelve, to be with him and to be his emissaries. These 12 replaced and superseded the Essenes, whose trademark teachings concerned the end times. Jesus was in charge and his 'saints' would be the leaders.

The apostle Paul learned this also, and taught it to his churches: "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?" (1 Cor 6:2). The old covenant has passed, and the new covenant will rule, when Jesus returns to rule the world for a thousand years. And Jesus, who rose from the dead, has already conquered death and the world. Marana Tha.

Since my book JOHN! Episode One deals with teenage John meeting the Baptist, I had to deal with the Baptist's Qumran background. Find out what I think may have happened at rolinbruno.com.

The insights from Pesher Isaiah were first brought forth by David Flusser, Dead Sea Scrolls scholar and Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His article may be found translated from the Hebrew in Judaism of the Second Temple Period, Volume 1, Qumran and Apocalypticism, pages 305-326.

Was Nathanael yanking on Jesus' chain?

Or was he the first to recognize the Son of God?

"Hey, Nate!" said Philip,

"We found the one that Moses and the prophets wrote about!

 It's Jesus of Nazareth!"

Nathanael, called Bartholomew [i.e. son of Tolmai] in the first three Gospels, blurts out the first thing that crosses his mind:

"Nazareth? Can anything good come out of Nazareth?"

Aside from the fact that Nazareth was a minor town of a couple hundred souls, Nathanael may have known that the Torah nowhere mentions a place called Nazareth, especially in regard to God's Anointed One (Messiah). But he follows Philip to meet Jesus anyway, where the following exchange takes place:

First let's deal with a small mistranslation in verse 51: the first "you" is singular, referring to Nathanael, but the second "you" is plural, referring to all Jesus' listeners, thus: "In very truth I tell you that all of you will see heaven standing open and angels ascending..."

Many writers and preachers extoll Nathanael's high praise when he meets Jesus. But Nathanael has already identified himself as a skeptic who does not hide his doubts, when he questioned the status of lowly Nazareth. In verse 48, he doubles down on his skepticism: "How do you know that about me?"

Here he has a stranger who claims to know stuff about him, a sign that he might be a prophet. (Another instance like this is at John 4:19 when Jesus meets a woman at a well, and reveals his knowledge of the five men in her past. She replies, "I see you are a prophet.")

Jesus responds to Nathanael in his trademark non sequitur fashion, "Hey, I saw you under the fig tree."

And here we come to the crux. For the majority of Bible teachers, this evokes Nathanael's awesome knowledge of the true identity of Jesus: the Son of God and the rightful King of Israel.

But this arises from a lack of appreciation for Hebrew and Aramaic humor. In actuality, here Nathanael is messing with Jesus because of the improbable response that he gave. Nathanael's joke says in effect, "Seriously? You saw me under the tree so you know all about me?"

Let's look at a couple instances of Hebrew humor, quite different from our modern forms:

Genesis 18:12-13. Sarah overheard the angel say she would bear a child at age 90+, and "laughed" spontaneously. This was no enjoyable belly-laugh, but a response to an improbable and unexpected prophecy--perhaps murmuring "humph" in disbelief. But in Hebrew terms, she "laughed," as confirmed by the angel. Abraham had the same reaction, at Genesis 17:17.

At Genesis 21:6, the improbable message of the angel came true, and Sarah says, "God has made laughter for me, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me!" Thus we see one form of Hebrew humor, where that which is unbelievable actually comes to pass.

Nathanael's response is in this same tenor: Jesus has mentioned the improbable conditions by which he learned Nathanael's disposition to never say anything which is false. But what was Jesus' response?

Jesus went along with Nathanael's joke!

He says, "So you believe the improbable? You're gonna see stuff a lot more improbable than that!"
Then Jesus leaves the humor behind and drops into a serious tone, teaching his disciples their very first lesson, to wit:

"You will all see that the Son of Man teaches not only earthly knowledge, but also knowledge which comes from heaven. Not only that, but heaven hears the entreaties of the Son of Man."

So was Nathanael the first to reveal the true nature of "the Son of Man?" In a sense, yes. Scripture has examples of even unbelievers speaking prophecy by the influence of the Holy Spirit. In spite of their unbelief (or emerging belief) the words they say are a testimony to the truth by which others may learn.

You can find and explore this entire exchange and more in John! Episode One: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B013NVWUT6

Why is John son of Zebedee down by the Jordan?

Why isn't he home fishing on the lake with pop?

A most peculiar question struck me the first time I read John 1:35-40, and I have not been able to shake it yet. What's John doing down by the Jordan River? Why is he following John the Baptist around? Why in the world would he call himself a disciple of the Baptist? What's going on here?

That question has been with me for since I was ten years old. At ten, I had an insatiable curiosity about the Bible, but no resources to guide me. No teacher. No commentaries. Just the black words on the page, set off by the red words when Jesus was speaking.

Before we can address the above question, we must address the question of identity. The book of John, like the other Gospels, is internally anonymous. The word "John" is used therein only as the name of the Baptist. The word "Apostle" does not appear in this fourth Gospel. The word "Zebedee" appears but once, in the Gospel's closing story of an emotionally charged final meeting between Jesus and his closest, earliest disciples. The writer of the Gospel then introduces himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved."

But back to our passage in John chapter one. Two initially anonymous disciples of the Baptist follow after Jesus, then one of them is identified as Andrew, the brother of the man who becomes known as Simon Peter, while the other remains anonymous. To me at age ten, from its placement in the unfolding story, It was obvious to me that this was John, son of Zebedee and future Apostle. Some well respected scholars today dispute that identification, and one (Richard Bauckham) denies that John son of Zebedee wrote the fourth Gospel. But I have never found a reason to question my initial identity of this anonymous disciple of the Baptist as the writer of our beloved Gospel.

And now back to my question. It is agreed by many scholars that John was the youngest, or one of the youngest, of Jesus' disciples. Instead of meeting John in the company of his elder brother Big James, we meet him in the company of Simon Peter's younger brother Andrew. This leads to the implication (or at least inference) that John son of Zebedee and Andrew son of Jonah are friends, and are likely of similar age.

Age: in ancient Judaism one became a man when he became a son of the Law (bar Mitzvah), usually around the age of thirteen or so. A thirteen-year-old male would not be identified in the bible as a child. He is a man. So it is entirely within the realm of possibility that the Disciple whom Jesus Loved was thirteen when he met Jesus. In my reading of the Gospels, it is possible that up to six of the Apostles were indeed teenagers. In other words, Jesus' first ministry assignment was the youth group. How many of us have started that same way?

But John has a devoted and protective mother, who wants the best for her son. He has a close and productive father, who heads up a commercial fishing consortium on the Sea of Galilee. John has a secure job as a fisherman in this business consortium. He has a secure future, for he and his brother will inherit leadership shares in this consortium. Fishing was big business on the Sea of Galilee. In the fish processing plant at Magdala, fish were dried, smoked, and salted, and packed into large jars for shipping to markets as far away as Rome. So again,

Why is John son of Zebedee following the Baptist around and calling himself a disciple?

We are not entirely clueless as to possible reasons, for we can look to the preaching of John the Baptist to see if there's something there that could draw in our teenage fisherman:

"REPENT! For the Kingdom of God is at hand!"

John and James became known as "Sons of Thunder." Is it possible that they had a loud and demanding father? Is it possible that John ran afoul of his father's expectations, or worse, committed some teenage trespass that got him in trouble? Did the younger son of Zebedee do something from which he needs to repent? Were teenagers in the first century anything like teenagers today?

Again, isn't it exciting that the Kingdom of God is at hand? Change is coming! Big things are on the horizon! The action is going on down by the Jordan, where a new prophet is teaching repentance and change. Wouldn't a teenager like to be close to the action?

The above is speculation, of course. But it helps us understand the impact and drawing power of the man who was the herald for the new Messiah. And it lays the groundwork for why two young men would suddenly leave their teacher and follow this new guy, Jesus of Nazareth, when the Baptist points him out.

Such are the assumptions that lie behind the beginning of my new book series, JOHN!
If you'd like a closer look at my answer to the above questions, you can find a preview on my author page on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B013NVWUT6

Enjoy!

Blogging on Amazon

Woo Hoo! Now you'll be able to find all my new blog posts at my Author Page on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B013NVWUT6. I'm going to be offering a series of posts on questions behind the writing of the story of JOHN! And you can always get my latest publishing scoop at https://facebook.com/AuthorRolinBruno.

Gospel Harmony and History - Part Three

Harmony of the Gospels:

What about History in the Gospels?

To create a harmony of the Gospels, we have to pay attention to the history inside the Gospels. We need some sense of the order of events to answer our questions about the apparent differences between the Gospels.

But some of us are looking for something different: We want some sense of the history that lays behind the Gospels; something that will make their distant, foreign, and long-ago experience more familiar and understandable to us today.

First a word of caution: If you are looking for history, you'll find history. If you are looking for Jesus, you'll find Jesus. The four Gospel writers each had something to teach, with different emphases for each writer. If you are reading the Gospels according to a historical reading guide or a Gospel harmony, you will miss lessons that the four writers felt were important. I recommend reading the Gospels as they stand first, starting with John, and proceeding through Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Then continue on to Acts, to gather the rest of Luke's lessons.

Now to the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke are quite similar in structure, and it is easy to read them and come to the conclusion that the ministry of Jesus lasted about a year. But these writers are not trying to teach a chronological depiction of what Jesus said or did. Instead, they often gather Jesus' teachings topic by topic, and arrange the narratives to fit the topics and advance the lessons of Jesus. There can be little doubt that Jesus had a "stump speech" which he repeated as he travelled from town to town, teaching that the "Kingdom of God was at hand."

John's Gospel, on the other hand, includes celebration of Jewish feasts as part of his narrative, especially the feast of  Passover. He tells us of three specific Passover occasions and possibly a fourth, which is identified only as a 'festival.'  Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that Jesus' period of ministry covered a span of three to four years. From this we learn why a harmony of the Gospels is organized on the apparent timeline of John's Gospel, with the input from the other three Gospels placed in appropriate time slots.

Speaking from the standpoint of being one of Jesus' disciples, John fills in much more of the early interactions between Jesus and his earliest disciples. From John we learn that Jesus had already spent months with his disciples before that famous day when he walked beside the Sea of Galilee and called four fishermen from their boats, saying "Follow me!" We get a better idea, then, what it may have been like for Father Zebedee as his two sons dropped their work and left him standing there while they departed in the footsteps of Jesus.

My book series JOHN! is a work of fiction based on such a harmony of the Gospels, based on the work of anonymous Christians many years past and brought up to date with my own analysis. It is enjoyable reading, plus you will learn things about the Gospels that you may have never noticed before. It includes endnotes for each story where the reader can refer to the actual scripture verses which form the basis for the story. And since it's about teens, it's a good read for teens!

Looking forward for these blog pages, I'm going to depart from all this boring generalization and get into the actual Bible stories to reflect on what it is that the Bible DOESN'T tell us and what may have happened with the real people who lived the stories.