Word: qumran
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Though he does not see the Qumran sect as the originator of Christianity, Allegro feels that it profoundly influenced the first Christians. Withdrawn into the desert from the persecution of a corrupt priesthood in Jerusalem, holding in contempt the scribes and Pharisees (whom they called "Seekers After Smooth Things"), the Qumran community practiced baptism, chastity, community of goods. They wrote the ritual of a Messianic banquet with breaking of bread and blessing of wine, which Allegro boldly suggests may prefigure the Last Supper and Christian Communion. They expected the imminent end of the world and the coming of two Messiahs...
...Differences. Like most other scholars, Allegro identifies the Qumran sect with the Essenes, who almost surely had a monastery near the Dead Sea at the same point as the Qumran ruins. The Essenes, says Allegro, had a kind of "Third Order" of laymen living according to a modified rule in the towns and villages of Palestine, and "it seems reasonable to assume that Jesus was acquainted with such people." He adds: "It is possible that the 'great company of priests' who were 'obedient to the faith,' mentioned in Acts 6:7, included at least part...
...from Pauline Christianity, which Allegro seems to consider a Greco-Roman corruption of this early faith-and possibly a corruption of Jesus' own faith. Asks Allegro: "Did Jesus himself go all the way of the New Testament? Did [He] really believe He was God in the flesh?" The Qumran community, writes Allegro, would have abhorred the concept of a God-man (as do the Jews and Moslems today), and they would not have thought of admitting Gentiles to salvation. But the Pauline emphasis on the resurrection was "an even greater difference. The Covenanters of Qumran were presumably still waiting...
...professor of comparative religion at Dropsie College, Gaster prints the virtually complete text of the scrolls, together with a concordance of passages in the scrolls that also appear in the Old and New Testaments. Most informative is the "Manual of Discipline," which sets down the moral code of the Qumran sect, with detailed stipulations: "Everyone is to be judged by the standard of his spirituality. Intercourse with him is to be determined by the purity of his deeds, and consort with him by the degree of his intelligence. This alone is to determine the degree to which...
...hymns of the Qumran sect, now completely translated and accessible to the layman for the first time, give readers an authentic feeling of what the scrolls are like. They also offer a moving insight into an ancient mode and mood of worship as well as haunting echoes of Biblical psalms. Excerpts...