The Not-So-Dead Sea Scrolls
I enjoy drilling down on articles in the National Geographic, and this week NG is highlighting an article on the Dead Sea Scrolls and what they tell us about the thinking at the time of the life of Jesus Christ, and thus how that thinking impacted the development of early Christianity. This piqued my interest for two reasons. First, my general interest in antiquity and specifically the history of such an interesting place as the Holy Lands, and secondly, the basis for our Judeo-Christian heritage. I developed some of that interest in the years that Kim and I traveled extensively in Israel and Palestine (not to mention Jordan and the rest of the Arab world prior to that). But today I am also within a week of heading to Beacon, New York for the wedding of my youngest son, Tom, to a lovely young woman he met at Cornell, Jenna Levine. As her last name implies, Jenna is Jewish, and thus the blending of Judeo-Christian heritage takes on new meaning to me.
I became much closer to the Jewish faith during my years at Cornell since it is very much a school of choice to the Metropolitan New York community, where there is a higher than normal (normal as defined by national demographics) concentration of Jewish families, many of which prize the value of higher education. I was a member of a fraternity which had a majority of Jewish members and thus, of my closest college friends, all but a few are Jewish. My best man at my first wedding was Jewish (rest his soul). I have attended enough Jewish ceremonies and holidays to have a feel for the conventions of the religion and have spent enough time with my Jewish friends to have a reasonable understanding of their cultural norms and ways of thinking. That was all even further advanced in my work life in banking where, despite a more balanced mix of Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues, I learned a host of Yiddish expressions and even a few “Baruchas” (blessings) used at Jewish Seders or gatherings.
That all came in handy as I forged a business partnership with a large Israeli company and spent more time in Israel about fifteen years ago, and then went on to work for two years as the CEO of the U.S. subsidiary of a large Israeli company. Kim and I spent several extended trips to Israel visiting all of the most notable Jewish, Christian and Muslim sites. The Holy Lands present a fascinating blend of history and culture that not only crosses many millennia, but also crosses the three major worldwide religious roots. We have had the opportunity to see many of the Old Testament and New Testament historic sites as well as some of the Muslim holy places like Temple Mount, a focal point for all three religions to this day. It is there at the Dome of the Rock where Abraham is thought to have been asked by God to sacrifice his son Isaac/Ismail and thereby set the tone for the theological basis all three religions share about the importance of the reverence to God’s will.
As my son Thomas grew up, his closest friends in our building in downtown New York City were Israeli immigrants, so he took my understanding of the Jewish faith and culture to a new level, even traveling to Israel at a much younger age than I had. His familiarity with Judaism and its ways greatly exceeds mine, so it is not surprising to me that he has found his soulmate in the ranks of his Jewish friends. Tom and Jenna have known each other since 2013 and have been together as partners since 2015, so presumably they have had lots of time to explore and understand the basis for any similarities and differences their respective backgrounds hold and how those figure into their future together. Apparently, Jenna’s lack of familiarity with the complete Star Wars anthology is the biggest gap they have. Kim and I have also had more than six years to get to know Jenna’s family and have come to count them among our close friends. We will be spending the Labor Day weekend with all of them and blending an even broader array of our respective families as always happens at weddings. We are very much looking forward to the process.
So, reading about the Dead Sea Scrolls, which we have seen at the Israeli Museum in Jerusalem, seems particularly meaningful to me right now. When Kim and I took our obligatory trip to Masada (I have been there four times since I consider it one of the most interesting places on earth) and drove along the West Bank of the Dead Sea, we passed Khirbet Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found seventy-five years ago. Those scrolls are mostly written in ancient Hebrew and are dated as having been inscribed between 300 B.C. until about 68 A.D., so, covering the lifespan of Jesus. Apparently, there is some doubt about Jesus’ ability to read ancient Hebrew, since it was more of a scholarly language then and the common language that he did speak was Aramaic. I did not know this, but even the Roman soldiers governing and occupying Palestine in those days tended to speak Greek rather than Latin since Greek was sort of the commercial language of common usage around the known world much as English is the lingua franca in today’s commercial world. We know that Jesus could speak Greek well enough to communicate with Pontius Pilate, but not so much ancient Hebrew. But there were translations of the important books of the day, almost all of which are the content of the Dead Sea Scrolls, into both Greek and Aramaic, so it is believed that Jesus, being the self-taught man that he was, would certainly have read the translations and been well versed in the ancient lessons held in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
What is clear to scholars is that the teachings of Jesus, including such famously captured teachings as his Sermon on the Mount at the Mount of the Beatitudes, reflect an abundance of Hebrew scripture and Jewish culture. In fact, while there are some interpretational differences, his teachings and sermons largely track and espouse the beliefs of Judaism, merely emphasizing the doing rather than just the saying. Since 700 of the 900 scrolls are not biblical, but rather describe Jewish cultural norms and historical ways of life, especially those during a turbulent time in Jewish history, they show how much Jesus’ life was colored by Jewish tradition. Indeed, since it was that time that spawned the following of Christ and the advent of Christianity, it could be called the most important moment in Judean history. It seems to me that the most important aspect of that moment is that the core tenets of Judaism were not just retained by Christ, but were fundamental to the foundations of Christianity. It almost seems to me like a source of pride for Judaism in the respect that it shows for the conventions of the religion rather than any usurping thereof. Furthermore, since Islam is also rooted in many of the same traditions and beliefs (not to mention the very testaments), there is perhaps more that is similar than different even though Islam feels that the Quran is the only pure and unabridged word of God. Once again, this provides more that is reaffirming of the tenets rather than just presumptuous usurpment.
Perhaps the fact that Jesus and Muhammad are considered descendant prophets of Moses is troubling to Jews and then Christians, but other than the adoption of such “showy” messianic manners and affectations, including the presumption of and performing of miracles, the substance of the tenets and beliefs of the faiths are simply not so different. Abraham lived 18 centuries before Christ and Moses led the Israelites to Palestine five hundred years later and then almost six hundred years after Christ, came Muhammad. Over those two and half millennia, the conventions and leadership of the world’s major religions may have gone through changes, but did the people change so much at their core? I think not. We all want to be better than we are, and so did they and so do we all to this day. I feel that the Dead Sea Scrolls are a great indicator that the lives of Jews and Christians (and for that matter, Muslims as well) can and should be compatible and consistent. Fare well Tom and Jenna and may the force be with you.