The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity [Hardcover]

Dr. Carsten Peter Thiede (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 22, 2001

Since their discoveries in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been a source of constant controversy. Scholars still argue over the meaning of the fragmentary texts--especially what they say about the Jewish roots of the first Christian communities. Discovering that the scroll fragments date Mark's gospel much earlier than once believed, Carsten Peter Thiede claims that the scrolls establish links between the two great faiths, and that they literally revolutionize our understanding of the Bible. Unraveling the complex and fascinating history of the Dead Sea Scrolls, this book will challenge and even change how people think about religion.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Most people know that the Dead Sea Scrolls exist, and most people have a vague idea that they contain some sort of secrets about the early days of Christianity and about a crucial period of Jewish history. But most of the literature pertaining to the scrolls is written in scholarly jargon that is all but impenetrable to the general reader. For a straightforward, who-what-when-where orientation to the scrolls and their significance in early Christianity, lay people are lucky to have The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity by Carsten Peter Thiede. The book begins by providing basic information about the scrolls. They were written by an orthodox Jewish sect called the Essenes between 150 B.C. and A.D. 68. They are written in Hebrew and Aramaic (the language that Jesus spoke). And they were known by other ancient writers, including Origen, an influential theologian in the early Church, until at least the third century. Although most of Thiede's book reviews basic information, his arguments are by no means bland. Readers already familiar with the scrolls will be challenged by Thiede's argument that cutting-edge, microscopic analysis has revealed previously unnoticed texts in the scrolls; and readers coming to the scrolls for the first time will have to reckon with his invitation "to develop a new awareness of [Christianity's] roots"--in other words, to attempt to overcome "2,000 years of mainly anti-Jewish church history," in order to grapple with the fact that "Christianity is Jewish." --Michael Joseph Gross

From Publishers Weekly

This highly technical treatise will appeal primarily to specialists on the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Christianity, despite the author's efforts to reach out to a wider readership. When he is not spouting Greek (which he does extensively) or recording the number of letter fragments on a stipulated number of lines on scraps of parchment, Thiede (Eyewitness to Jesus) uses sprightly prose to advance his argument. Essentially, he claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain writings that were later included in the New Testament, thus demonstrating that the early Christians, including Jesus, were Jews. However, Thiede also notes that the community of Essenes at Qumran who produced the Dead Sea Scrolls were not the first Christians; they "did not all of a sudden mutate to Christians." Whether or not some Essenes became Jewish Christians is an open question. To answer this and other questions, Thiede has developed "confocal scanning optical microscopy" to examine the scrolls, as well as "high resolution X-ray radiography and Computer-Aided Tomography." While most readers will find these methods to be incomprehensible, they will enjoy Thiede's frank castigation of other Dead Sea Scrolls scholars, such as one he accuses of harming "public understanding of the scrolls." Patient readers will be fascinated by Thiede's carefully documented assertion that, in its earliest days, Christianity was basically a Jewish movement. As a papyrologist and expert on the history and texts of the first century, Thiede is eminently qualified to present this erudite analysis.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 1 edition (September 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312293615
• ISBN-13: 978-0312293611
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,255,667 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Helpful for Laypeople, August 9, 2003

By 

Richard Terrell (Lincoln, Ne USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (Paperback)

This book provides valuable information for laypeople who want to understand the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls in relation to Christian history. It gets pretty technical in parts, but the author's conclusions are clearly stated. The most important thesis he sets forth concerns the possiblity that there are fragments of the gospel of Mark and I Timothy among the Qumran scrolls. If this is true, then it is a clear indication that the New Testament literature was around earlier than many believe, for the community was destroyed in A.D. 68. I also like the way Thiede addresses, although through brief asides, some of the more outlandish theories about the Dead Sea Scrolls, obviously alluding to the "Holy Blood Holy Grail" genre of books. He also demolishes the popular bromide that the New Testament is "antisemitic."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Maturing Dead Sea Scholarship, June 5, 2006

By 

Orville B. Jenkins "Research Guy" (Arlington, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (Hardcover)

Thiede reviews documents and fragments that have not previously been translated or have not been discussed widely. He has some detailed and exciting analyses, critically comparing with other proposals for reconstruction of fragments in Caves 4 and 7.

This book provides a thoroughly stimulating and satisfying read, handling the scenarios of history and culture in a flowing fashion that held my interest. Even with extensive notation and comparison with some other materials on the Dead Sea Scrolls, I read this technical book in only two days!

The author presents an especially fascinating reconstruction and detailed critical argument proposing that two small fragments are actually sections of two New Testament documents. He does this by way of a general review and criticism of attitudes and assumptions by previous scholars, who have automatically ruled out the possibility that documents we now know as the New Testament could have been collected at Qumran before the destruction of the place by the Romans in AD 63.

The two passages he convincingly details as present in Cave 7 are Mark 6:52-53, represented in document fragment 7Q5, and 1 Timothy 3:16-4:1, 3, represented in two document fragments designated together as 7Q4. He provides a detailed and highly reasoned proposal, in addition to the textual analysis, to show how the Qumran archives could have easily gotten documents that later became part of the New Testament.

Thiede also provides another great critical service in this volume, by reviewing all the known similarities and differences between the Essenes and the Nazarenes, later called Christians in Antioch and European history. Since the followers of Jesus were Jews, it is not startling that other messianic Jews would be interested in their documents. Especially it makes sense that an eclectic library like Qumran appears to have been would have had a copy of some or all available before AD 63.

He points out even more similarities than have previously been proposed, by criticizes the previous nave assumption that the Essenes were either a source of John the Baptist and Jesus' teachings, or that the Essene community became a new Christian community wholesale, or that they were totally unrelated to the new Nazarene messianic sect.

The author reviews very competently the already established fact that the first Nazarenes, or Christians, were fully Jewish, and the writers on the New Testament writing fully within the Jewish tradition. [In this regard, he also agrees with a growing numbers of commentators who feel that even Luke was not a Gentile, as traditionally proposed, but also a Jew. He points out that no commentator suggested this before Jerome in the 400s.]

Thiede emphasizes, however, that the Essenes would only have been a likely group to respond to the news that Jesus was the Messiah. He detailed the novel way in which the followers of Jesus interpreted the Old Testament passages to indicate that Jesus was the Messiah. He further uncovers more practical ties between the Essene movement and the disciples of Jesus during Jesus' lifetime.

I learned here for the first time that the Essenes had members all over Palestine and even in Syria, not just the well-known Qumran monastic community. He reviews much previous information and correlates that with recently discovered information to provide a revised, more complete picture of the Essenes and the overall messianic milieu of Judaism in the first century.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Case For The Septuagint, February 26, 2005

By 

Kevin T. Okane (Monterey, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (Paperback)

One reviewer claims the book breaks no ground, in that it is already established that Christianity has Jewish roots. While this is true, liberal theology has often claimed that the orthodox doctrines of the deity of Christ and his physical resurrection were not believed by his earliest followers. Thiede's claim, if true, that a fragment of 1 Timothy has been found among the scrolls would shatter this liberal perception. I also found the book compelling in its treatment of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. Thiede demonstrates evidence the Septuagint is based on a different and, perhaps, older Hebrew text than the Masorite copy we currently use for our translations. The ramifications may be profound, indicating the Septuagint is a more reliable version of the OT than the Masorite. This also has implications for orthodox Christianity, as the Septuagint has been used by Christians to effectively demonstrate Jesus as Messiah and God.