The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament
What do the Dead Sea Scrolls say about Jesus?
What do the Dead Sea Scrolls say about Jesus? Nothing.
What do they say about the world in which Jesus lived? Lots.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are comprised primarily of two types of texts: parts of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and sectarian works written by the small group (or groups) of Jews who lived at Qumran. The scrolls date from the mid-third century B.C.E. until the mid-first century C.E.
While the Dead Sea Scrolls do not shed light on the person or ministry of Jesus, they do illuminate practices and beliefs of ancient Judaism. Since Christianity began as a sect of Judaism, the scrolls are very important for understanding the earliest Christians and their writings—the New Testament.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the caves by Qumran, a site in the Judean Wilderness on the west side of the Dead Sea. James C. VanderKam explores similarities between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament in the March/April 2015 issue of BAR. Photo: “Caves@Dead Sea Scrolls (8246948498)” by Lux Moundi is licensed under CC-BY-SA-2.0.
In the March/April 2015 issue of BAR, James C. VanderKam, the John A. O’Brien Professor of Hebrew Scriptures in the theology department at the University of Notre Dame, examines the overlap between these two bodies of texts in his article “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament.” Dr. VanderKam was a member of the committee that prepared the scrolls for publication.
FREE ebook: The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery and Meaning. What the Dead Sea Scrolls teach about Judaism and Christianity.
In his BAR article, James C. VanderKam explains, “The earliest followers of Jesus and the literature they produced were thoroughly Jewish in nature. As a result, the more one knows about Judaism during the time of Christian origins, the stronger basis we have for understanding the New Testament. And the scrolls are the most significant body of Hebrew/Aramaic literature related to a Jewish group or groups from roughly this time and thus are potentially invaluable for shedding light on the meaning of New Testament texts.”
What do the Dead Sea Scrolls say about Jesus? Nothing. However, they shed some light on the world in which Jesus lived. This scroll, the Messianic Apocalypse (4Q521), has a list of miracles very similar to Luke 7:21–22, even though it was written approximately 150 years before Luke’s Gospel.Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem.
There is no reason to suggest that the New Testament authors knew any of the sectarian works discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Further, it is quite possible that the two groups never interacted with each other. VanderKam points out that there is no overlap between the cast of characters in the scrolls and the New Testament (except for figures from the Hebrew Bible). He notes that “not even John the Baptist, who for a time lived in the wilderness and around the Jordan, not too far from the Dead Sea Scroll caves (see Luke 1:80; 3:3)” appears in the scrolls—let alone Jesus, much of whose ministry happened in Galilee.
The worldviews of early Christians and the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls were also starkly different. VanderKam explains, “A group that set a goal of spreading its religious message to all peoples to the ends of the earth had a very different understanding of God’s plan than ones who seem to have done no proselytizing and had no interest in bringing the nations into the fold.”
Nevertheless, there are some similarities between the two groups and their writings, which make for interesting comparisons. For example, a list of miracles appears in both Luke 7:21–22 of the New Testament and the Dead Sea Scroll known as the Messianic Apocalypse (4Q521). In Luke 7, Jesus gives these miracles to the disciples of John the Baptist as proof that he is the messiah. In the Messianic Apocalypse, which was written approximately 150 years before Luke’s Gospel, the Lord is the one who will perform these miracles. The source for both of these lists is Isaiah chapters 35 and 61. While not all of the same miracles appear in Luke 7 and the Messianic Apocalypse, the miracles that do appear in both are listed in the same order (see chart).
Parallels between Luke 7:21–22 and 4Q521 and the parts of Isaiah from which they come.
The curious thing is that not all of these miracles, such as “raising the dead,” appear in the passages from Isaiah, which were the source material for the lists—the prophecies being fulfilled. Yet the miracle of “raising the dead” appears in both Luke 7 and the Messianic Apocalypse right before bringing “good news to the poor.” Rather than suggesting that the writer of Luke 7 copied from—or was even aware of—the Messianic Apocalypse, this similarity suggests that both groups shared certain “interpretive and theological traditions on which writers in both communities drew.”
Visit the Dead Sea Scrolls study page in Bible History Daily for more on this priceless collection of ancient manuscripts.
For VanderKam’s full analysis of this text and to learn more about the similarities and differences between the scrolls uncovered at Qumran and the New Testament, read his full article “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament” in the March/April 2015 issue of BAR.
BAS Library Members: Read the full article “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament,” by James C. VanderKam in the March/April 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.
This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on February 16, 2015.
Read more articles by James C. VanderKam in the BAS Library
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DEAD SEA SCROLLS ARE informative, but im going with the Apostle paul’s GOSPEL OF GRACE. “For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Galatians 1:12 DEAD SEA SCROLLS TRY THE BOOKS OF ENOCH naww
It is quite possible that the scrolls tell us about the first Christians, but as they were originally just a Jewish sect, you will – of course – find no reference to any part of the new testament. None of the (Jewish) actors in what later became the new testament knew that their activities would be turned into a new religious fundament, and one might seriously doubt if they would ever have accepted this interpretation if asked.
I have been reading about Josephus’s description of the essenes, and I find a lot of similarities between them and the gospels. I also read “The opponents of Paul in Second Coorinthians” by Diet;er Georgi, and there is a fair fit of the opponents theology and those of the essenes. Josephus says that there were only three branches of Judaism: Pharasees; Sadduces; and essenes. And the essenes were t just at Qumron. They may have had an extensive missionary recruitment force. A knowledge of the various Jewish beliefs common in the early first century can be found in Georgi’s book, from extra-biblical sources.
“Since Christianity began as a sect of Judaism”
Are you kidding me?! Talk about the blind leading the blind. Yahshua, the Prophet that Moses said would come (Deuteronomy 18:15) came to restore the Torah and everything He did was against the man made religion known as Judaism.
Well, Ken, if Judaism is a “man-made religion”, why do you reference it as foretelling your messiah? And even your holy book refers to the Hebrew Scriptures as validating what your book says. Judaism is Torah-based. If there’s a man-made religion, it’s the one Paul started.
@David
Seems you have been fully hoodwinked by Hebrew Roots Cult member. Sorry to burst your bubble but you are a student of the Judaizers which is quite grave, whom Jesus (not “YAH”-shua, the moon / thunder / war god depending on which pagans or heathens we are referencing) and the Apostles had severe rebuke for;
Tit 1:10 For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, *specially they of the circumcision:*
Tit 1:11 *Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.*
Tit 1:12 One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies.
Tit 1:13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;
..and others would have stoned them in around 100 A.D.
Judasim is not Old Testament Mosaic Torah Faith, since the people who teach it is are the synagogue of satan talmudists;
*”We have already seen substantial evidence that any notion of Pharisaism (or later rabbinic Judaism) as the true and direct descendants of the Old Testament is contradicted by the most fundamental assumptions of one Mishnah-tractate after another. These stand wholly separate from the Priestly Code… and generally contradict it!”* –Jacob Neusner _A History of the Mishnaic Law of Purities_ (Brill Academic, 1974), p. 7. – ISBN-10: 9004038973
The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia confirms that Judaism is based on the teachings of the Pharisees and not upon the Law of Moses: *“The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees. Their leading ideas and methods found expression in a literature of enormous extent, of which a very great deal is still in existence. The Talmud is the largest and most important single member of that literature.”* – Vol. VIII, p. 474 (1942).
Where doe it say that Jesus established a movement called The Way Movement and not the Church.
Thanks
I think there’s no point in fighting. All the three scriptures Torah, Bible and Qoran talk of the same God Eloi and common prophets. I simply cannot understand the fight for supremacy.
I want to see all the renderings from the Dead Sea Scrolls on Matthew 28:19. I want to see if what I have been told that it says to baptize in the whose name? I want to see all of the different versions of this scripture and which bibles it was from and whom and etc. All of them and why this one is used verses this one and etc. It is a must to know the truth for me. Please do not hold any versions or translation back on that scripture alone. Thank you!!!
“Who do I say sent me” asked Moses. God replied “I AM! in Genesis he’s called “The Breath of Life”. In Exodus “The Passover Lamb”….etc. King of Kings…etc.