Customer Reviews

Dead Sea Scrolls & The First Christians

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Eisenman takes a great interest in his work and the importance of getting the scrolls out to the public. Not sensational like the "Dead Sea Scrolls Deception" for it was the work on which the sensational book was written. As much as the Christian church would like to downplay these discoveries, there clearly existed a dichotomy in the New Testament between Paul and James. And only a mass interpolation by scholars could have covered the great difference between the Jewish-Christian and Gentile-Christian doctrinal issues. Good job Robert!

Included in this volume are Professor Eisenman's two ground-breaking works, "Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran" and "James the Just in the Habakkuk Pesher," which were first published in the mid-1980's, but were not previously widely available. These classics are a foundation piece of his research on the Dead Sea Scrolls and fascinating for the beginner and scholar alike. Most importantly, these works triggered the debate over the relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls to Christian Origins, which ultimately led to the freeing of the Scrolls in the early 1990's a struggle in which Eisenman played a pivotal role. Also included are previously unpublished papers and essays written by Eisenman and presented at international conferences over the last decade. In addition, this volume provides new translations of three key Qumran documents, "The Habbakkuk Pesher," "The Damascus Document," and "The Community Rule," available previously in the sometimes inaccurate and often inconsistent renderings by consensus scholars, missing the electric brilliance of the writers of the Scrolls.

An underground classic -- and, at least indirectly, the only "Historical Jesus" book you may ever really need. A series of essays that are definitely academic, and perhaps rather abstruse for the layman; and any reader, lay or not, will have to go through Eisenman's muscle-bound prose line by line, with pencil in hand. In "James the Just in the Habakkuk Pesher" he shows, using multiple sources, by the process of elimination, that James, "the brother of Jesus," was ALMOST certainly the "Teacher of Righteousness" in the DSS -- which of course means that they're the first "Christian" scriptures, and contain nothing about miracles, parables, etc. As might have been expected, the "consensus scholars" have tried to pick holes in his argument, and without much success, in this layman's opinion, among other reasons because they apparently can't recognize that they're implicitly taking the side of Paul in the James-Paul dispute -- and Eisenman demonstrates, in the essay "Paul as Herodian," was ABSOLUTELY certainly a Pharisee in the nastiest sense, probably a Roman spy, and the PERFECT candidate for "The Spouter of Lies."
After reading this essay, by the way, I was moved to re-read the Pauline material, and was stunned to note such details as the bizarre end to Romans, the near-paranoid tantrum in the second half of Galatians, and the apparently-intentional Monty Python-esque multilayered humor hidden in plain sight in the "Trial of Paul" scene in Acts -- one can envision John Cleese, as Herod, strutting around and pontificating, while Eric Idle, at his oily best ("Nudge, nudge! Say no more!") exlaims that he does not lie as he preaches the risen Christ, and Terry Jones and Michael Palin, as "The Jews," sharpen their sicarii while making grotesque faces.
They don't tell you about this in church.

Book in excellent condition.
Eisenman and Allegro, while not in full agreement, are obviously on the right track. Christianity is known to have begun in Israel by Jews. It is well known by those scholars who are not biased that early Christianity was boxed in by Jews and Rome. They chose Rome. And so anything resembling what Jesus (or what ever the title represents) preached died completely around 325 CE when Rome adopted it. I know Eisenman personally. His analysis is without doubt largely correct.

From this book you learn things that you would never hear sitting in a
church pew. It verifies the fact that Christianity is not the true
worship and that the earlist believers after Messiah's resurrection
were zealous for keeping the Commandments. It also seems apparent that
the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees should never been excluded
from the Scriptures.

all great thanks!prompt sending and excellent condition.highly recommended! thanks very much.very happy and good price cheers.nice to be ur customer

Christianity is a messiah-mediated religion that has deep roots in Essenian thought (even the Church recognizes the spiritual affiliation). Being exported from its original cocoon corrupted the teachings of Jesus. In short this is what Eisenman is telling us.
The dispute between Pauline Messianism and James' Messianism was an important event in pre-Church history and Eisenman rightfully pin points the separation, although the quarrel between them not only relied on the Law issue but also on a Messiah controversy.
That Greco-Romans did not remain within the original confines of Judaism is of no surprise because the background was alien to them. Furthermore, religious thought initially evolves within any nascent community. The Dead Sea Scroll community was of no exception and they also had internal struggles. Essenism also split into several branches. Judaism also evolved. The Books of Moses were re-written during the Babylonian exile by Aaronid priests taking over lost Temple command. Much later main stream Judaism (as opposed to Essenian splinter groups) was also divided by strong and opposing currents until the first century CE Pharisees, boosted by the Temple destruction, had the upper hand that developped into modern Judaism.
Western Messianism in Rome strengthened it's holding through mixing ideals belonging to the Antiochus Gospel groups with the later Gnostic creed that brought the nascent Church closer to the Hellenistic supernatural.
If evolution of rules and laws during the initial centuries of maturation were to supress any freshly inspired religion, then all would fail. Permanence of thought belongs only to propaganda vehicled by religious authorities emanating from whatever the established strain may be.
So why be surprised or indignated that Christianity should have developped its own ways from a Judean matrix?