Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

Through a careful study of the scrolls, historical analysis, and interviews with scholars, the authors establish a view of Christianity that challenges the Church's adamantly defended "facts".

The oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near Jerusalem in 1947, only to be kept a tightly held secret for nearly fifty more years, until the Huntington Library unleashed a storm of controversy in 1991 by releasing copies of the Scrolls.

In this gripping investigation authors Baigent and Leigh set out to discover how a small coterie of orthodox biblical scholars gained control over the Scrolls, allowing access to no outsiders and issuing a strict "consensus" interpretation. The authors' questions begin in Israel, then lead them to the corridors of the Vatican and into the offices of the Inquisition.

With the help of independent scholars, historical research, and careful analysis of available texts, the authors reveal what was at stake for these orthodox guardians: The Scrolls present startling insights into early Christianity - insights that challenge the Church's version of the "facts." More than just a dramatic expose of the intrigues surrounding these priceless documents, "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception" presents nothing less than a new, highly significant perspective on Christianity.

Excerpt:
Chapter 14: Zeal for the Law

According to Robert Eisenman, the Qumran community emerges from the Dead Sea Scrolls as a movement of a very different nature to that of the Essenes of popular tradition. This movement has centers not just in Qumran, but in a number of other places as well, including Jerusalem. It can exercise considerable influence, can wield considerable power, can command considerable support. It can dispatch Paul, as well as many others, on embassies of recruitment and fund-raising abroad. It can organize riots and public disturbances. It can plot assassinations (such as that attempted on Paul at the end of Acts and, subsequently, that of Ananas). It can put forward its own legitimate alternative candidate for the position of the Temple's high priest. It can capture and hold strategically important fortresses such as Masada. Most significantly of all, it can galvanize the entire population of Judaea around it and instigate a full-fledged revolt against Rome - a revolt which leads to a major conflict of seven years' duration and necessitates the intervention not of a few detachments, but of an entire Roman army. Given the range and magnitude of these activities, it is clear that traditional images of the Essences and of the 'early Church' are woefully inadequate. It is equally clear that the movement which manifested itself through the Qumran community and the 'early Church' also manifested itself through other groups generally deemed to be separate - the 'Zadokites', for example, the Zealots and the Sicarii.

Eisenman's research has revealed the underlying simplicity of what had previously seemed a dauntingly complicated situation---.

End Excerpt.