Christians
all over the world are entering the Holy Week, a week dedicated to the
commemoration of the last days of Jesus which led to his crucifixion and the
putative resurrection. Though I lost my
religious faith three decades ago my interest in Jesus has refused to make a
clean exit from my consciousness.
Probably my debilitatingly conservative Catholic upbringing has nailed
Jesus too fast to my consciousness.
Who
was Jesus in reality? This is a question
that has fascinated me much. I don’t
believe he was the son of God. I don’t
believe there is any God up there or anywhere else begetting sons or daughters
or any other miserable creatures. I find
it quite interesting that we, the human beings, who have explored the minute
world of the subatomic particles and the stars billions of kilometres away,
have not been able to discover much about a person who lived merely 2000 years
ago.
Did
he exist at all? I remember a book which
was quite a craze among a few of my classmates in school, a Malayalam book with
a provocative title Christ and Krishna
did not Exist (by Joseph Edamaruku if I’m not mistaken). In those days my faith in Jesus the son of
God was as absolute as it was blind and could not be shaken by any book.
It
took me many years to search history for evidence of Jesus’ existence. There’s very little that history can give
us. There are a handful of sources in
history that mention Jesus and that too very briefly and even obliquely: Josephus,
Roman-Jewish historian; Tacitus, Roman historian; and the Babylonian Talmud are
the noteworthy ones.
The
Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) discovered in 1947 created more controversy than
foolproof evidences about Jesus.
Nevertheless, I think a short journey through the DSS will be infinitely
more worthwhile than all the Ways of the Cross that the devout Christians will
be pursuing in the Holy Week.
A
lot of research has gone into the DSS.
Some researchers like Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh have even
alleged (in their book, The Dead Sea
Scrolls Deception) that the Catholic Church manipulated the research in order
to hide certain unpleasant truths about Jesus.
Before we speak about the DSS it is necessary to know that there were many groups or communities among the Jews in the days of Jesus such as the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Essenes. While Pharisees and Sadducees are mentioned in many places in the Bible, the Essenes find ample mention in more historical sources such as Pliny, Philo and Josephus. Pliny in his Natural History depicts the Essenes as “celibate hermits, residing, with ‘only palm-trees for company’, in an area that might be construed as Qumran” (Baigent & Leigh). Josephus, who is echoed by Philo, mentions that there are two kinds of Essenes: celibates and non-celibates. The Essenes despise pleasure and wealth. They hold all possessions in common. They might have been living in the Qumran caves near the Dead Sea.
The DSS must have been written by the Essenes or at least preserved by them.
Most
researchers of the Scrolls agree on a few points. They are:
1.
The scrolls are all written by Jews.
2.
The scrolls date prior to 68 or 69
CE, when the Qumran settlement where the scrolls were discovered, was probably
destroyed by Romans during the Jewish revolt.
3.
The oldest scroll dates back to 3rd
century BCE, about a century before the Qumran community was established.
4.
The Qumran community was established
in the middle of the 2nd century BCE by a group of priests expelled
from Jerusalem Temple, led by the one who is referred to in the DSS as The
Teacher of Righteousness.
5.
The ruling high priest of the Temple
was the archenemy of the community.
Probably the names “Wicked Priest” and “Liar” used in the DSS refers to
the high priest.
6.
The Qumran community believed that
the Holy Spirit had left the Temple and now dwelt with the community.
Baigent
& Leigh are of the view that The Teacher of Righteousness is not Jesus but
his brother James. The Wicked Priest is
Ananias, the high priest of the Sadducees, and the Liar is Paul. Reading Baigent & Leigh is like reading a
suspense thriller. After the crucifixion
of Jesus, his brother James became the leader of the Christian community which
was not at all pleased with the teachings of Paul who infused Jesus’ messages
with Greek philosophy. Baigent &
Leigh bring a lot of evidences from both the Scrolls and the Bible (especially
the Acts and Paul’s letters) to show that Paul was an outsider to the early
Christian community led by James. No
wonder why Paul became “the Apostle of the Gentiles”.
Barbara
Thiering, historian and Biblical exegete of University of Sydney, studied the
DSS in detail before producing in 1990 a TV documentary titled ‘The Riddle of
the Dead Sea Scrolls’. According to her,
Jesus was born and raised in Qumran. He
was the son of an Essene. He became one
of the leaders of the Qumran community along with John the Baptist. In 29 CE Jesus turned against the community,
rejected their legalism as well as the ritual of baptism. He did not advocate the asceticism of the
community either.
Thiering
argues that Jesus came to be viewed as the Wicked Priest and Liar by the Qumran
community. John the Baptist is The
Teacher of Righteousness, according to this interpretation. Thiering also argues that Jesus did not
perform miracles. Lazarus whom Jesus is
portrayed as resurrecting from death in the Bible was only a spiritually dead
person whom Jesus ‘resurrects’ psychologically or spiritually. Thiering’s view on Jesus’ crucifixion may
scandalise the devout. She says that
Jesus did not die on the cross but only fainted and was brought back to health
by his followers and he lived in a monastery.
In
short, even the Dead Sea Scrolls have not thrown enough light on the life of
Jesus. My interest in him continues. No ritual of any Holy Week will be able to
quench the thirst of the Jesus that my parents along with the priests and nuns
of the Catholic church have nailed to my consciousness.
The sources of my information:
1.
The
Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh,
Arrow Books, 2006
Easter greetings to you and all your loved ones.
ReplyDeleteWhat a coincidence, I spotted your post when I was telling my husband about 'Shroud of Turin' controversy.
ReplyDeleteWe will perhaps never be able to know the truth behind religious controversies, because facts have been inseparably entwined with myth. The deeper we dig in, the deeper they recede.
It is also possible that certain vested interests in organised religions don't want the truth to be revealed. The God of the myth is more valuable for any religion than the truths of history.
DeleteTruth can't be nailed permanently. Also the suspicions about the truth. It is perfectly justifiable. Research with human wisdom is worthless and can be equated with the boy on the seashore counting the waves. Yes, there will be a satisfaction of challenging the mystery. The Word is powerful! Everything else is meaningless!
ReplyDeleteWhat other wisdom than human wisdom is available to man? If you mean, divine revelation ('The Word' implies that), I'm sorry I won't accept it. What is divine wisdom or revelation? Hasn't that done enough harm already?
ReplyDeleteWhat I understand from the post (obviously wrong) is that you are looking neither for the historical nor for the mythological Jesus. What you may be in search of is the history of the times that man lived, merely to understand that period. As far as I am concerned this is the only context that will make your search meaningful.
ReplyDeleteSorry for being arrogant enough to tell you what you are searching for.
RE
Jesus is likely to remain a distant dream for people like me simply because his contemporary history didn't take him seriously. But he comes alive to people like me again in various other ways. This post is an example. My search for Jesus is more a psychological exercise than anything else.
DeleteBeautiful discussion on a man , so much has been said, done and manipulated by all.
ReplyDeleteAt my age I wonder, whether I need to question whether he was there 2000 years ago, or simply accept the goodness of a man , who is giving solace to many .
A great post as usual.