Franciscan University Presents: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls

in 1947 not far from the Dead Sea in the Holy Land a discovery was made that would have a far-reaching impact on the world's understanding of the Bible Jesus Christ and the early church today we're gonna talk about that discovery and what we can learn from it with our special guest dr. John Bergsma who's a professor of theology here at Franciscan University and author of the new book Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls revealing the Jewish roots of Christianity I'm father David Baca and I'm president of Franciscan University in soon Brill Ohio and you're watching Franciscan University presents stay with us [Music] [Music] welcome to Franciscan University presents I'm your host father Dave Ibaka president of Franciscan University in Seussville Ohio and we're talking today about Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I'm joined with our panelists dr. regis martins good to have you back dr. and dr. Scott Hahn pleasure brothers we also are very excited today to welcome dr. John Bergsma professor here at Franciscan University of Steubenville whom I've had the pleasure of getting to know over the last couple of years and it's been a great blessing welcome thank you why did you write this book it's fascinating I really really enjoyed it yeah I kind of motivated it you know the the seeds of the book came a number of years ago during Lent when I was reading a book by a colleague of mine dr. Brandt Petrie called Jesus and the Jewish roots the Eucharist and it was such a fascinating book of good scholarship but also inspirational and also a consoling and as much as showed the historical rootedness of our faith that the Eucharist doesn't appear in a vacuum it's not fictitious but firmly rooted in the realities of first century Judaism and I was so inspired after reading his book I thought you know I'd love to do this for the entire faith and and talk not just about the the Jewish roots of the Eucharist but really how the Dead Sea Scrolls show the Jewish roots of of the sacraments generally and and the church itself sure and so that gelled in my mind and the opportunity arose with a sabbatical to to write the book into so we have a basic understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls but maybe just give us a catch us up on that sure so the Dead Sea Scrolls are essentially all that remains of a library of a Jewish monastery that flourished on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea during the first century before the birth of Christ and up until the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 so is fascinating because these are documents that were being read and studied during the lifetime of our Lord and the Apostles and in certain cases composed during that time period and they are the only physical documents that we have from Judaism well if with a few exceptions but for the most part the only documents physically you know pen to paper during the lifetime of our Lord and even before up to a hundred years before and and so they give us a a privileged window into that thought world into that culture of st. Paul for Lord's Ministry of John the Baptist and just absolutely fascinated John can I ask you why did it take so long why wouldn't something like this have surfaced centuries ago why did we have to wait until what 1947 absolutely well you know the theory is Regis that you know the monks realize that they were going to be attacked by the Roman forces the same forces that destroyed Jerusalem in 70 and and seeing the forces approaching they quickly took their most precious possessions and hid them in these caves around they're essentially monastery and and there they remained and of course they hope that they would survive and be able to go back and recover them well they were wiped out now the intriguing thing though Regis is that looking back over our historical records there are there's possibly two other incidences you know back in in the Middle Ages for example when reports surfaced that somebody had stumbled across strange ancient manuscripts down in this area but nobody could read them the Hebrew script was antique by that time didn't know what to do with them make heads or tails of them so in fact in hindsight we do realize that a couple of times in these centuries people had stumbled on them but it didn't get to the light of scholarship and wasn't know what to do this discovery you know from 1947 until really today has spawned a whole wide range of scholarship you know so you're looking at the issue of the texts the manuscripts of the Old Testament as we and even more than that you're also trying to identify what form of Jewish community was this was it as seen was it sad you see was it Pharisee eroding or whatever you know I mean how many well over a thousand doctoral dissertations that were written about these things but east you know what you identify is something that is so central you made your on the majors because when you look at the Old Testament you look at the new you know okay where is the continuity and if you're kind of reading the New Testament the way you were in the first half of the twentieth century you you see that Paul and John are dualistic light and dark and that sort of thing flesh and spirit and so it's natural to suppose that Hellenism Greek thought is sort of the foil against which New Testament Christianity is emerging because after all that dualism isn't in Judaism unless it is you know and then suddenly you have this emphasis on the New Covenant Melchizedek you have bread and wine you have the emphasis that you show you know on unbaptized on water evolutions and this sort of thing and I mean dozens of parallels that are unique and significant that are just sort of like out there in the 50s I mean you know this they revolutionized the way we were reading Paul I mean from Paul and on yeah and John and you know Paul and rabbinic Judaism from WT Davies on and so it's like this fresh you know return to the New Testament to see wow there is so much more continuity than scholars supposed yeah because of this and then of course there's also the back story why did it take 40 to 55 years to translate all of these Scrolls but that's for another day yeah but I mean it's pretty obvious that much of biblical scholarship is driven by a kind of ideology oh the Falla G right and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls puts that to rest sure you know and one of these one of these ideologies is this notion that Jesus himself could not have claimed to be divine jesus himself cannot be the person that he has presented to us as in the Gospels and so particularly you know the Gospel of John has been a particular target of modern ideology and it as dr. Hahn alluded to prior to the discovery of the scrolls there was this strong movement to say John with it's clearly divine Jesus this has to be a late fictitious document from the second maybe even the 3rd century AD long after any real contact with Jesus and in other words the guy who wrote the fourth gospel could not possibly have been the disciple of Jesus have really have known Jesus then we we dig up the scrolls and we find dozens of rare parallels of phraseology that only occur in the writings of John the gospel and the epistles and the Dead Sea Scrolls yep and we suddenly realized oh my goodness you could whoever wrote this was using the forms of speech and you if you willed the religious slang of Jews in the first century it can't be late it breathes the spirit of of that era and and that it completely it was a sea change in in scholarship on John but that is a domino effect on the rest of the New Testament as well one of the things that I loved about the book it's like just dots were connected them in you know this story and that how it fits and if I was just beautifully beautifully done one of the main things obviously you spent a lot of time on the community comb is so maybe speak a little bit about that particularly the scene community that was living at the time and what we learned from them specifically sure one of the things we learned for them is that monasticism is not a Christian invention yeah that was my test it's rooted in Judaism and Jews are a little bit ambivalent about this some reason you know don't want to call this community a monastery even though you have celibate men devoting themselves to work and deliberate so but there's another strain of Jewish scholars you see who are proud of this it's like why should we be a barrister this is yet another thing that we invented more in that camp I think this is another thing that can be credited to the contribution you know to world culture that Judaism as me but but so it was essentially a monastic community where you had celibate men living together living a life of Prayer worship but then even what we would recognize as Catholics as a sacramental life because they had sacramental practices you know practices involving physical matter water bread wine that they participated in on a regular basis every day around 11 a.m. they would wash in the waters of the community which they believed communicated to them the Holy Spirit and the forgiveness of sins and after having been purified in that manner they would meet together and they would celebrate a meal of bread and wine and some other things as well but primarily bread and wine and a priest had to be present at that meal and he had to reach out his hand first to bless the elements of the meal and then each could partake they called that the pure food of the many it's a very interesting thing they referred to their community as the many which I can't resist crops up in the Gospels when our Lord says you know this cup is poured out for the forgiveness of sins for many yeah still part of our Canon right and but that term many was was used for this covenant community because they thought that they were participating in the New Covenant that was promised for example in Jeremiah chapter 31 the New Covenant that would replace the Covenant of Moses so when we look at the at their community life as Catholic Christians we see so many resonances so many similarities with with Catholic ritual life Catholic sacramental life as a whole as well as specifically religious life and that's fascinating as a religious occasion that's right one of the things that also does is it exposes just how multitudinous the the sectarian pluralism of first century Judaism was because when we think of Judaism we usually look at it through the lens of rabbinic Judaism a normative Judaism which is the inheritance of Pharisees and they clearly won after 70 AD and have dominated ever since but we knew the Sadducees you know we know the Herodians we know the zealots and the S scenes and there are others too but you know I'm reminded of a show that we had when we were young to tell the truth where I was never young where three or four people pretended to be one famous person you know then at the end you know he would say I'm doing all the truth you know well where do you find authentic Judaism you know the primary candidate that would get the most votes would be Pharisaic Judaism you know not Sadducees they don't believe in angels of the Resurrection and that sort of thing but we know the s scenes are sort of like the underdog so when you delve into it and you look at the therapeutic and other offshoots or parts of the sceen movement you're like this is like a 10-point match you know if this were DNA it would be like 90 percent or 99 you know and that to me is sort of the breakthrough because first century Judaism was as United as 21st century Protestant as welcome and there were just dozens and dozens of denomination with a few but I have a question of why would the Romans be interested particularly in wiping out the Essenes I can understand going after establishment Judaism let's annihilate them but the Essenes they pose no threat they don't even export this stuff I I agree but it was it was so easy for the Romans to dispatch them and it's just like a fly by patting around you know I just heard my tree exactly why you're there might as well yeah let's just send it let's send a hundred guys down there and get rid of that group lest they do something you know and and they they may not have been well-armed or physically strong but they had great rhetoric as we see in things like the war scroll you know they had these apocalyptic writings that predicted a battle with the katene which is their name for the for the Romans and so the Romans like let's just you know make sure that that does not become an issue so I think it was kind of like that it's a wonder that if they had taken refuge in these caves they wouldn't they wouldn't have is that why they were wiped out because you know they were they were caught sequestered there but if that's where they were hiding out why didn't they also find all those documents you know that's I don't think that the I don't think that the monks took refuge in the cave I think probably put up a fight I see because in the arc in the destruction level we see evidence of combat we see arrowheads and things like this so there was an attack and for the poor monks I thought that they probably thought this was Armageddon that's right and you know the Lord was gonna come through for them it didn't happen that way but but thanks be to God you know in his providence their library was preserved for us right and that's been a great gift right so you and we'll talk more about it but you speak a lot about the relationship between the scrolls and the new testament make connections I look forward to talk about maybe a little bit about the Old Testament what is your what it revealed to us yeah the the relevancy Old Testament is is great in as much as among the scrolls about a quarter of the scrolls about two hundred fifty manuscripts were copies of books of the what we would think of as the Old Testament including some deuterocanonical books so there were at least five copies of dobut in their library which is fascinating for us as Catholics because the usual claim that's made is all you know ancient Judaism never considered this Scripture but they had five copies at least which is many more copies than they had of books like Ruth they had no copies of Esther you know so many biblical books were less well attested then then Tobit and you know I argue in the book too that I think they got their theology of marriage largely from Tobin and elements like that wonderful prayer before the after the nuptials of Tobias and Sarah so it's you know that's beautiful and also we have our oldest copies of you know proto canonical books like Isaiah so the the greatest recovery probably the great Isaiah scroll a copy of Isaiah complete perfectly legible from perhaps 250 BC that's so great there's much more to come so stay with us at the University presents [Music] one thought that came to mind as I was reading dr. Burgess Moe's book is that the Dead Sea Scrolls reaffirm our confidence in the four Gospels there are lots of books in ancient Christianity that purport to tell us about Jesus they're the four canonical Gospels owned by the church and then there are the apocryphal Gospels and the apocryphal Gospels often get Judaism wrong but the Gospels of Matthew Mark Luke and John they get Judaism right there is a place where education begins and faith and reason connect Franciscan University of Steubenville online programs will advance your career through an e-learning experience that's both academically excellent and passionately Catholic with online degrees taught by full-time professors in theology catechetical business education and other disciplines you can earn your master's degree online without changing your lifestyle find out more today at Franciscan ddu where your faith and career can connect online [Music] welcome back to Franciscan University presents we're talking about Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls with our guest dr. John Bergsma thank you again so much for being with us we left the last section about speaking about Isaiah and in one of the great discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls was the text of Isaiah so what did that teach us about the Prophet and then also about the Old Testament related to the New Testament sure well you know just to put this in perspective father Dave before the discovery of the scrolls our oldest complete copies of the books of the Old Testament in Hebrew the language in which they were written only went back approximately to say 1000 AD maybe a few scraps earlier than that but that wasn't you know the oldest date of a complete copy of a biblical book and then you know obviously 1947 a flurry of activity they found some Scrolls one of the first Scrolls that was discovered is a complete scroll of Isaiah from chapter 1 266 now the chapters put in later but the whole thing yeah okay from from again dated by radiocarbon would say 250 BC the handwriting would say a little bit younger than that but it looks not quibble fantastic so in one discovery we're jumping back a millennia in terms of our our copies are handwritten copies of the biblical text so immediately the question is well let's look at it and see how it was anything changed and you know some scholars would have liked to have found that a lot had changed that would have been exciting in a certain sense but on the other hand for those of us that are believers it's very consoling to discover oh no there wasn't we got it yeah yeah there was no tampering in the text for for a millennia so that was a fabulous you know we scholars call it a witness to the wording of the ancient text oh it wasn't accidental that Isaiah was the best preserved book that we found there that many copies of Isaiah cuz it really treasured Isaiah and quoted from it frequently and you see the same a turn in the New Testament in fact if you tabulate in the New Testament the four most quoted books okay you find that that's the same also in the Dead Sea Scrolls so Psalms Isaiah Deuteronomy in Genesis and that's the same pattern that we find also so what we're seeing is these were the go-to books of the Old Testament for first century Jews and and and why those books a large part has to do with the messianic focus you know as Catholic Christians we talk about Isaiah as the fifth gospel because it speaks so much about the servant of the Lord who we know to be Jesus of Nazareth but they saw that it too and they treasured that because they had this this active messianic expectation in this monastic you know I thought that was one of the really interesting points of your book is speaking about their understanding of what the Messiah was or different ideas of different types of messiahs that was just really interesting what I find really striking is this irony a crowning irony that while these Essenes are cultivating this intense eschatological awareness of the of the approach the impending approach of the Messiah there he is a day's walk half a day's walk away the news is living breathing and he's a Jew yes yeah and if my theory is right his Herald spoken of in Isaiah what was growing up in their monastery was the young men that they were trade educating him we have to get back to that you can't just let that go so let's deal with the Messiah and then go back to the Herald sure sure just say the different types of Messire different understand now inside that they had well the the meditating a great deal on the Messiah and the way I read the scrolls they basically had a majority report in a Minority Report about how they thought he was going to appear and do his ministry majority report was there's gonna be two of them one from the line of Aaron a priestly Messiah and one from the line of David a royal Messiah where would they get an idea of two messiahs well if you look at some of the late prophets like Zechariah there's these passages where he has visions and he sees for example two olive trees and you know olive oil comes I love trees in those were symbols of two anointed ones a priestly and a royal so based on those prophecies of the Messiah they developed this what's called technically die ARCIC messianism just fancy word for two messiahs so you see that frequently Scrolls that seems to be their majority report they're the Minority Report in a document from the 11th cave that the Melchizedek document there seems to have hinged all the hopes on a figure that they that they were called Melchizedek and he would be both priest and king as we see in Genesis 14 and he would come and proclaim an eschatological and end times Jubilee year freeing people not for a money debt but from the dead of sin freeing people not from physical slavery but slavery to Satan and usher in this great era of freedom so that's that though those are there to my dad that to perspective Messiah was the way just down the road oh yeah yeah so closely yeah that's a rudeness of this in the Old Testament though is so paramount because you know if you were in the line of Aaron you couldn't assume the high priesthood unless you were anointed you know and likewise in the line of David you were anointed as Solomon was you know by Zadok and so you have a dual anointing yeah and that's what Messiah means an anointed one so the priestly line as well as the kingly line there is a clear sense though I would so I would say that that the son of David that the Davidic Messiah is going to take on primacy in a certain sense mm-hmm and yet these are not like mutually exclusive options because when you read Hebrews what other document from around that period identifies someone who is both priest and king yes and goes back before Aaron in Exodus to Genesis where the two were United and then of course the Messiah will reunite them but John is clearly shown in the Gospel of Luke to be from the line of Aaron and II by the tribe and so it's like wow this is either a series of coincidences that have gone largely unexplored or this is a divine fulfillment it really is it's such a new light on John the Baptist and we begin to realize why do all the Gospels spend so much time with with this poor guy who ends up getting beheaded you know and his movement falls apart you know but but John adds such a powerful role in Salvation history and I think the the the essence were onto something in a real sense John is that priestly Messiah perhaps if when Zechariah spoke the Promised One from the line of Aaron who had go before the royal Messiah and prepared the way and Luke presents the two figures John and Jesus in this way so that if you had been formed by the sceen movement as a first century Jew and you pick up the Gospel of Luke and begin to read you say perfect is there they bow far and Luke even points out an axe that John the Baptist had followers years after he was headed who knew only the baptism of John but not this baptism of the Holy Spirit so they were already pre evangelized as it were absolutely we what this is sort of paradoxical if you're gonna spend your life longing for a messiah pining for the arrival of this guy who will set everything straight then it seems to me there's no point in doing this if he doesn't come but when he shows up you need to acknowledge his appearance there he is I mean I think of Psalm what is it 1:32 David is longing for a place a dwelling fit for the Lord he doesn't want to go home and sleep in his own bed until he's constructed a place that is somehow suitable for God well here is the place it's not concrete it's not a bunker it's a person indeed I am the Kingdom that's right and these monks were anticipating that because they had already reached the point when they where they realized that a dwelling of stone was not a fit habitation for the divine presence and they began to see their own community as the new temple and they even call themselves a sanctuary of Adam you could translate that different ways a sanctuary of man a sanctuary of human being something like that but you can see that there they're anticipating what we see in the Gospel of John where Jesus speaks of the temple of his body right in John 2 21 Jesus is the sank of a man right in a personal sense but they'd already moved to that and they were anticipating that so and Regis I think many of them got it there's a there's an almost a throwaway line in ax6 that talks about many of the priests becoming obedient to the faith most scholars think that the priesthood in the first century was only composed of Sadducees and Essenes okay the only two groups of Pharisees were not a priestly movement yeah and I think that's referring to the the those priests from the line of Zadok who were associate with the sceen movement they had been prepared providentially by the Holy Spirit I think to be ready to see Jesus as a fulfillment of their expectations and I think there was widespread conversions like one of the things you alluded to earlier the possibility and I found this part very very fascinating that John the Baptist might have spent some of his childhood and his early years with them speak to that sure it was just it was great it was great you know the famous father Raymond Brown the great John commentator he made a remark in one of his early essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls that everything said about John the Baptist and the Gospels resonates in some way with the Dead Sea Scrolls and I agree with that so you know we we find out from Josephus the historian of this time period voluminous books about the first century he remarks at the s scenes in order to keep up their numbers as celibate men would take in orphans and young men from the Israelite community and raise them in their community and form them he actually uses the word form just like we talked about formation they would form these young men now we look at what the Gospels tell us about John the Baptist we notice first of all his parents were elderly and may have died while he was young or may have felt unable to raise him but then there's a throwaway line in Luke 1 that speaks about him being out in the desert until the day of his appearing when he begins his career well what does that mean you know do we imagine Zechariah and Elizabeth just shooing him out the door door at age 5 to go live under us that doesn't really make sense but we do know that they had this monastery in the wilderness in the desert okay and then they took in young men informed them so I think it's a very plausible scenario that Zachary and Elizabeth sent the young John out to be raised in that desert community when we see him preaching one of the notable characteristics of his ministry is that he identifies himself with Isaiah 40 verse 3 a voice cries in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord that's how he conceived of his life's mission his life verse if you will and that's also the life verse for this monastic community on the shores of Dead Sea they used Isaiah 40 verse 3 as well to justify and explain why they had built their community out in the wilderness and what they were doing out there they were preparing spiritually the way of the Messiah on the shores of the Dead Sea something that specific is so unlikely to just be coincidental and then there's many other connections as well Josephus tells us that when members of the community were were kicked out or expelled they often almost starved because they had to live off the land in order to keep their oath when they had joined the community they swore an oath from that point forward never to eat any food prepared except the food prepared within the community well the only out then is to eat unprepared food and so Josephus describes people living on grass or things like this if they had the misfortune to be expelled for having committed some offense against the community something like this and what do we see John the Baptist doing living off the land eating locusts and wild honey whatever he can find and so on so he looks like an expelled as seen in that sense so there's many other you know little details but you know there's about a dozen details like that that all makes sense in terms of John having been part of that significant but he was expelled from that community that's that's my become your reticle view his his reading of Isaiah right insisted it was universal I argue that because because you see John at a major crossroads at the O'Hare Airport this day if you will you know if you want to preach the whole world set up a pulpit and row here and everybody will come through right well he was at a crossroads on the Jordan where major traffic was going from east to west and the roman empire and he just had to stand there and he could see everybody passing by and he goes and he preaches salvation to whoever will listen even roman soldiers as we see who he's exhorting to must have been a real pest yeah yeah there's more we'll be right back with princess University presents invite you to stay with us [Music] one thing that I found most significant about dr. Berg's news research on the Dead Sea Scrolls was how deep and far-reaching the implications of his findings are for ecumenical dialog between Catholics and Protestants whether it's priestly celibacy works of the law or the Eucharist dr. Bergsma shows that not only does the Catholic faith have roots in Scripture roots in the early church but even more than we already knew in the Judaism of Jesus's day as well what if you discovered the University with unmatched science faculty and programs a place where you didn't have to choose science over faith at Franciscan University of Student Village you'll find faith inspired student focused research driven programs leading to satisfying careers of Medicine scientific research engineering computer science and many more science in health fields at Franciscan University of Steubenville education is more than just a word it's a discovery [Music] welcome back and thanks for joining us you're watching Franciscan University presents and we are coming to you from the comm arts studio here on the campus of Franciscan University in Steubenville Ohio our students are doing a great job operating the cameras and the equipment members of our theology faculty dr. Regis Martin and dr. Scott Hahn are guiding us in our discussion on Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls with our guest dr. John Bergsma dr. Bergsma one of the things that you spend quite a bit of time is taking a look at almost a sacramental structure within the community you speak of Eucharist and baptism marriage celibacy so that must have been fascinating for you to see the connections with that absolutely I mean most of scholars that work on the scrolls are not sacramental Christians they're non Catholic Christians off it was the Jewish faith and so these parallels are not as interesting for many of the scholars that work on the scrolls but for me coming at it as a practicing Catholic this is one of the most striking aspects that they're you know the Holy Spirit was leading devout Jewish communities in a direction towards a sacramental life and this is you know it's it's like what Pope Benedict emeritus spoke of a he always was famous for the hermeneutic of continuity this idea that there's there's a a sensible continuous development from the Old Testament into the New Testament and the scrolls are like like a little you know a missing link there that we can place that allows us to see how God providentially leads his people in an organic way into the New Covenant era so what do we see in the scrolls we see kind of what looked to us like a form of baptism in a form of Eucharist daily water washing and waters that they believed communicated to them the Holy Spirit daily a meal of bread and wine presided over by a priest and this meal was the mark of their participation in the New Covenant they went through a three-year probationary period we might think of it as like a postulant seeing an officiant and they were gradually admitted to the pure food of the many and when they could fully protect this bread and wine that was the mark that they had been fully initiated into the new covenant community well I mean the idea of Eucharist just for the community that we hold today is not something new in a sense you know even even you know our word Eucharist means Thanksgiving and and Josephus tells us that they began in the end of the meal with songs of Thanksgiving and we even have their hymn book okay and a collection of their hams in all the hams begin I thank you O Lord because you know this is their their stylistic way of their you know praise and worship right the whole ground of their communal life is gratitude in Thanksgiving so Eucharistic what why shouldn't they be happy there they're the remnant they've been singled out by God to be the recipients of this final revelation the irony is it's already happened and they miss a boat and and and some of course conspired to kill the Messiah but nevertheless they had been chosen sure as they were this privileged vehicle mm-hmm you know it took 70 years to get to where we are you know in terms of this clarity this continuity between old and new and seeing in this community so many of the practices that the holy spirit prepared them for - welcome to Messiah but when you go back to the first five 10 15 years of Scrolls scholarship remember you know how chaotic it was you know you had a figure like allegro who was alleging a mushroom cult probably because he was indulging himself but you also had other people milik and guests of ver mesh who was losing his faith you know and the highlight in the in the secular media was always you see how highly unoriginal Christianity is you know you know and people were losing their faith because of all of the irresponsible and reckless scholarship that was going on and then after that initial phase you have a pluralistic phase it lasted decades I would say and and the pluralism as you know is so wide that you have a professor like Schiffman who's arguing unconvincingly that they're Sadducees and it's like well he hasn't convinced true many people but it just shows what a pluralistic spectrum but what you have done in this book is to pull together not only the Messiah you know in terms of the priestly but especially the Davidic not only the key with Melchizedek and Eucharist and baptism but the whole way in which a community could be structured by worship in general but sacraments in particular I mean not sacraments of the New Covenant but the precursors show in fact that Jesus wasn't inventing a new religion he was fulfilling a very ancient one where and I I'll be honest when I go and guide pilgrimage you know lead pilgrimages to the Holy Land Qumran is usually last on everybody's list it's first on my list like I suspect it's first on yours because once I get started it's kind of hard to repress the fact that you can show again dozens and it's not just like dots on a page when you connect the dots you know it is John the Baptist it is Jesus but you can really get a sense to that this is sort of closer to Christianity than anything we imagined a century ago sure you know and the argument against the idea that our Lord or Saint Paul ever intended a church was always the idea that oh since they expected the immediate return of the Messiah right why would they form an institution and why would they begin sacramental practices but here you have a group that expected the Messiah to show up any day and yet they were formed in an ecclesial structure they used the Hebrew word that is is translated ecclesia in Greek to refer to their community the qahal that's one of those synonyms for their community and they're they're practicing sacraments and they're hierarchically structured and they're expecting the Messiah today so if they could do that you know why could not the Apostles and our Lord also set up a cuny that was structured in that way isn't it sort of amusing that the very evidence that you cite that emerges from the Dead Sea Scrolls which Shores up the claims of the Catholic thing should for a whole generation of scholars be a reason to reject it I mean Orwell says there is no absurdity to which a learned professor will not some I'll find recourse it's a kind of a parasite ism I I think you mentioned this chap in your book I forget his name maybe we shouldn't mention it who's an apostate he's part of this movement called atheist biblical scholarship I mean what a ridiculous oxymoron why would somebody be interested in that debunking this precisely because they've lost their faith his name is legion for there are many you've dealt with these people you run into them at the same time there was always a minority represented by guys like the Dominican Roland DeVoe yes it was so sane and so sober and responsible you know and he was the one who early identifies this as a kind of monastic community shows all the evidence for celibacy and there is it was even more than what he saw but because he was a Catholic and a priest and a Dominican oh you know this stuff right dismissed right there staring you in the face yes if it he was er II was a responsible scholar and another Lisa Jean Cardinal down Daniel ooh famous for his other contributions in the Nobel tea ology and and so on but he one of the inspirations for my book was a short maybe seventy page book you're familiar with Scott that was published shortly after discovery the scrolls called something like the Dead Sea Scrolls in primitive Christianity he was on it yeah he was he made the points and then it went nowhere because other controversies took over the the realm of scrolls scholarship I see I picked it up 50 years later probably more than that now I looked at like he's very he's right he's right this just needs to be defended now with the the fuller publication of the scrolls has become available in recent decades he became a lone voice crying in the water you spend a couple of chapters about marriage and how they saw the marriage but then also the relationship with the community being celibate maybe speak to this you know you know fascinating again you know on the point of marriage they were very firm on that they did not believe in two wives in a lifetime they believe in lifelong monogamy and the implication that would rule out you know divorce which is leads to a kind of serial polygamy essentially one wife after another and so we find that when our Lord is questioned on marriage in Matthew 19 the Pharisees come to him and is it right to divorce your wife for any and every reason that's reflecting a debate within Pharisee ISM about how loosely or stringently to interpret the divorce laws in in Moses but our Lord's response sounds strikingly like the position on marriage that we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls so they were they're very firm on this and they criticized the Pharisees and the Sadducees for allowing you know multiple marriages and and and and so on so you know again in the book I argue I that hardly reviews a marriage are probably coming from Tobit and from other sources as well and interestingly they appeal to the same thing that our Lord appeals to for grounding lifelong monogamy and that is the the principle of creation we see how our lawyer goes back and he says from the beginning it was not so right and he goes and he appeals to the pre-fall state to to speak of the the perseverance of the Indus solubility of marriage you likewise in the scrolls they talk about the the soul hibari and Hebrew the principle of creation they speak of when they ground their view of marriage to bring this around though I mean you identify John the Baptist once again as the one who gave voice to this faithful view of of marriage in the Old Testament from creation all the way through Tobit you know and and and also how the uncle nice relation was a forbidden Mosaic law which was in King I mean he gave voice but then he lost his head and it's so significant to that in Matthew 19 verse 1 it's precisely when Jesus goes to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan precisely where John had been preaching that message against Herod Philip and the idea that you know it cost his head there you know I think the Pharisees are raising the question in a very provocative way to get Jesus to suffer the same fate as John the Baptist why do they wait until he's there to ask him that when the last person who was there preached that and we've got bad you know Indians could you know be a neat way to get rid of him a conjecture that maybe you could address John the Baptist is sent there perhaps by his parents he and this is part of God's plan to insert this Jew into this community why not his cousin Jesus why wouldn't Mary and Joseph have shipped Jesus out to be instructed by these learned and and holy men yeah that's a great question I think it has to do with John specifically priestly pedigree because the a common theory is that the this monastic community was either founded or refounded by the high priest who was muscled out by Jonathan MacCabe is also called Jonathan office one of the Makah being Kings around 150 BC he irrigated himself to take over the high priesthood that would be like the Italian prime minister you know making himself Pope by force right and it was a great scandal at a time but nobody knows what happened to that high priest he's not his name is not recorded in other histories who was muscled out there's good reason to believe from the Dead Sea Scrolls that he actually went down and went into a kind of internal exile and became the figure known as the teacher of righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls so I think there was there was strong sympathy with the sceen movement within the Jerusalem priesthood I think some took the role that Zechariah did of continuing to serve and doing the best that they could and putting up with this imperfect situation while maintaining theological sympathies with these kind of purists who went into a kind of internal exile so he's a Cariah sends his son to be raised by this very conservative group that he respects even though he himself sakurai continues to serve in the temple that's how I see it playing out whereas our Lord didn't have that priestly pedigree well he had the Blessed Mother the true my god indeed and whose yes he's being raised in yeah and and and you see in now just ajust weeks ago new archaeological evidence turned up showing that the practice of Judaism in Naza during the years of our Lord was very conservative and in many ways favored the sceen application of the purity laws so I think there were probably a great deal of sceen sympathy in Nazareth and we see that our Lord has a critical sympathy with them as well most of our Lord's teaching resonates with with the with essing views although the cultic purity point is is the real sticking point and I it's significant that after 70 AD there are no Sadducees naturally because they were priests and they were destroyed in the you know the judgment and the destruction of Jerusalem there are no zealots because they would have been warriors who lost their lives there are Pharisees and they basically get to kind of you know restock and redefine Judaism but the S scenes vaporators entirely I mean and so if any one group of Judaism was perched and prepped for conversion it was them and the continuity from a scenic practices to Christian practices you show it's remarkable and you know again you have to connect the dots but once you do it jumps off the page it does yeah great up next our panel and guest will share their final thoughts on Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls stay with us [Music] one of the things that I really like about dr. Burton's book Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls is that it helps us to put Jesus into his proper historical context it's a reminder to us that when God became man he entered into our history at a particular time and place and among our particular people all right and so when we studied the historical background of Judaism in Jesus's day you know we have extra light that is shed on to the stage of salvation history where our redemption was accomplished and I think it's a good reminder that Christianity is not a philosophy and it's not a mythology it's something with its pillars resting firmly on the bedrock of human history [Music] welcome back to Franciscan University presents we've come to our final segment Regis could you start us off with your final thoughts yeah a couple of thoughts but certainly a praise for this book and and the job that you've done you bring a lot of passion to your study and your teaching and the book itself it distills I think wonderfully so much scholarship but it doesn't read like a scholarly tome it's very readable very engaging very winsome and really very compelling so congratulations I hope it becomes like a best-seller and maybe a film but the point I wanted to make two points really that the axioms around which any assessment of Christianity has got to be made are one that this thing Christianity is an event and it's absolutely universally without exception it's unique it never happened before unprecedented and it's all rooted in the person of Jesus Christ but but the other of axiom is that this newness is mediated now by the church and the church is a woman a mother a Virgin Mary's and Jesus the founder was nestled in the womb of Mary and her heart and the home in Nazareth presided over by Joseph none of that can be found in Qumran the Essenes do not generate that Judaism you know at its finest is always looking for something more and that something more is embodied in the flesh and blood and bone of Jesus and it strikes me that for gosh 1946 years we know nothing about the Dead Sea Scrolls the fathers and doctors and saints the Pope's and theologians of the church knew nothing about it Ignatius of Antioch for example who lived at the end of the first century he rejects Judaism in such a way as to leave very little room for acumen ISM to maneuver I mean you don't want it you want to be salted with Jesus or you're gonna smell bad Judaism was waiting for Christ Christ was not waiting for Judaism a clean break a total of discontinuity and yet with the work you've done and other scholars it looks like there's something there that really uh is promising there's a continuity that that we depend upon and we should praise God for and thank you for putting it all down on paper dr. Ahn as you know I've got shells the focus on the Dead Sea Scrolls most of which I haven't read most of which you have and then some and so again I want to affirm how you've distilled the scholarship you know in particular I want to emphasize the continuity in the discontent like you were Regis because Christianity is the full flowering but it exceeds the highest Oaks of even the holiest Hebrews back then you know and so you have shown that the blueprint of Scripture the law and the prophets then the scale model of the sceen community you know and when you look closely at baptism and the Eucharist you find ample precedent when you look at Holy Orders priesthood and marriage ample precedent you know even the celibacy but their view of marriage was so high higher than any other Jewish group at the time and then you kind of add that up and you come up with ecclesiology the church is there so it's a scale model you can't move into what the architect provides is a scale model but you suddenly understand just how much of a fulfillment we find in what Christ has given us in the church in his own mystical body the bride the kingdom and all of that you know and so I want to conclude by saying get this book and read it you know because in a certain sense this retires all of the shelves of books that I have that I haven't gotten to as well as the material that I have but when I speak at Qumran the next time I don't have to just identify five or six titles from which you might find nuggets no you did it I'm so grateful one last thing you know some people want spiritual reading that will kind of get them through the week you know it's like people who plant for the fall harvest what you planted here is more like a forest you know and it will take years but I would say in order to get beyond the spiritual reading of living hand-to-mouth in order to really invest deeply in spear ritual growth in the long haul people would read this and suddenly prepare themselves to celebrate the sacraments in a deeper way and give this to their kids or to their friends and family members and I think the long-term effect will be so much greater than we'll see you know in a year or two but I still want it to be a best-seller thanks guys yeah you know the whole point of the book really stems out is something that we confess every Lord's Day in the creed that that he has spoken through the prophets it's fundamental to the gospel that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hopes and the prophecies of the people of Israel now it would be slightly strange if nobody had seen it if we claimed that don't do we not that the New Testament is in the old concealed right the famous dictum the new is in the old concealed the old is in the new revealed well if that is the case that the new was really concealed in the old we would expect that those who are devout those who were really to practice asceticism those who devoted themselves to prayer might see the shape of what was concealed in the older and for me the s in community saw that and and in this book I try to demonstrate that the the fact that there are so many similarities doesn't detract from our faith or from the gospel it really affirms a central tenant of our faith in the gospel that it's the fulfillment of the Old Testament aspirations and if people pick that up from reading the book I will be satisfied no that's nothing thank you so much dr. Burgess you know it's a pleasure if you want to learn more about today's topic we have a free handout for you an article from dr. Bergman about the Dead Sea Scrolls this is free D for you but simply by going on buying to faith and reason calm or by calling the number you'll see at the screen in just a moment dr. Bergsma I thoroughly enjoyed your book I was trying to as I was beginning to read it thinking it was as used to regions can be a little bit more of an academic I don't know it was an encounter of faith it really was it was it was an encounter with the Lord it was encounter with the early relationships and communities and people's and and customs I I'm trying to imagine what what was going through me as I was reading it and you I don't have kids but you all do right there those big puzzles that you have that you put in a piece of puzzle on them on a board that's what I was feeling when I was reading this it's like this just fits and I could just slide into it all the things that I've come to understand and believe and and espouse to over my whole life being able to see this as a part of that it was so natural and exciting it was it was a mystery it was putting pieces together was answering questions it was making connections it was just thoroughly enjoyable and and ultimately and I would encourage the readers has been is that it was an encounter with Jesus an encounter with the Christ and there isn't one and the Holy One in The Anointed One and and I found that it was it was divine it was anointed but it was also very human in the most beautiful sense that you would think that Jesus would have encounters and understandings and rituals that were a part of his community and we continue to carry those on so I found it a deeply enjoyable exciting and spiritual book as you mentioned Scott that there's just a lot of a lot of depth and richness so thank you so much for all to us the time and the effort that it went in okay great and again we want to thank you for being with us and invites you to join Franciscan University of student Ville in our mission to educate to evangelize in to send forth joyful disciples empowered by the Holy Spirit we offer academically excellent and passionately Catholic undergraduate degrees both on campus and online for you and for your family we also provide life-giving conferences that our young people and adults are be able to are able to go to to encounter the Lord and the grace of the Holy Spirit we also offer Franciscan University pilgrimages that you can go to these holy shrines how about we do a trip sometime the whole show there we go we just figure this out we just again want to thank you for joining us know of our prayers and our continued prayers for you may Almighty God bless you the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit [Music] [Applause] [Music] to download the free handout on today's topic go to faith and reason com email your request for the handout - presents at Franciscan edu at faith and reason comm you can also purchase past episodes of Franciscan University presents or request today's free hand out and purchase past programs by calling 888 three three three zero three eight one that's eight eight eight three three three zero three eight one or call seven four zero two eight three six three five seven [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

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Keywords: Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, Catholic, college, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Franciscan University of Steubenville (College / University), Franciscan University Presents, Presents, EWTN, Fr. Dave Pivonka TOR, Dr. Regis Martin, Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. John Bergsma, theology, Dead Sea Scrolls, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Revealing the Jewish Roots of Christianity

Id: EVPKFJNhlGQ

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 05 2020