Word: sects
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Scrolls, the first of which were located in 1947 about nine miles south of Jericho, include the oldest Biblical manuscripts ever found. Among them are Old Testament books in Hebrew and Aramaic, Biblical commentary, and ritual documents of the Essenes, the religious sect which apparently owned the Scrolls. The commentary and rituals described in the parchments comprise about two thirds of the writings. The Old Testament works, one third by volume, are significant because they largely verify current Biblical text. The rest, which shed light on the curious Essene sect, are the subject of the recent controversy...
...hypothetical interpretation, dressed it up in exciting diction, and presented it to those who can read but not evaluate. That is mischief. Dupont-Sommer's (a professor at the Sorbonne) sensational and unproved thesis, adopted by Wilson, was that the Qumran documents revealed an anticipation of Christianity in the sect of the Essenes...
Allegro believes that the sect was conscious of a sense of nervous excitement when "outrage succeeded outrage, blasphemy and idolatry sat insolently in high places, and even the high priest of Israel defiled the sanctity of God with his presence." The Essenes, he asserted, looked forward to a blessed release and the return of its priestly "Teacher of Righteousness...
...currently is presenting a weekly series of BBC talks on his conclusions. He said two weeks ago that the historical basis of the Last Supper and part, at least, of both the Lord's Prayer and the New Testament teaching of Jesus can be attributed to the Qumran sect. "The Teacher of Righteousness", he said, "was persecuted and probably crucified by Gentiles at the instigation of a wicked priest of the Jews." Allegro, himself a philologist, claimed that the similarity had caused "a minor revolution in New Testament scholarship...
...manuscripts known as the "Dead Sea Scrolls," found almost nine years ago by a shepherd in a Jordan cave (TIME, Sept. 5, 1955), have raised some haunting questions. Is there any relation between the first Christians and a sect of Jews who founded a religious community at Qumrân in Jordan a hundred years before Christ? Is there any relation between Jesus Christ and the Qumrân community's "Teacher of Righteousness"? These questions constitute the great cliff hanger of contemporary Christian studies. Last week fresh hints came from John Allegro, a lecturer in Semitic Philology...