canadarocks
Thinker
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2003
- Messages
- 155
I was interested in finding out if anyone here has read Barbara Thiering's book "Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls"? I did a few years ago and I found some things in the book very interesting and I would like to get other's opinions of the book.
Basically, the ideas presented in the book revolved around considering that Jesus was a minor Jewish priest that was a bit of a non-conformist operating in a small community (Qumran??). This non-conformity include (and I'm summarizing from memory here) that he utilized water instead of wine during a religious ceremony (turning water into wine), allowed layman to perform part of the ceremony (this has something to do with a play on the words fishes and loaves meaning gentiles and levites [again, as I recall]), and the phrasing of being seated at the right hand of the father (right hand side of the head Jewish priest during ceremonies).
The story goes then that the more orthodox Jewish priests were unhappy with his style and got the Romans to seek him out for punishment. As he was not widely known to the Romans, it took the betrayal of one of his disciples to identify him to the authorities. She then presented the idea that Jesus didn't die on the cross and was rescued from the cave where the Romans placed his near-lifeless body. From there she speculated that he made his way to Rome (??) and started anew.
Anyway, there are several things that she talks about from her interpretations of the dead sea scrolls that seemed to demystify the NT and provide a more logical explanation of the miracles and the possible real life of Jesus. There were a lot more stuff in the book, but I thought I would start the thread here and see what peoples opinions were of her and her ideas.
Thanks
(I wonder if Krkey would consider her an authoritative scholar??)
Basically, the ideas presented in the book revolved around considering that Jesus was a minor Jewish priest that was a bit of a non-conformist operating in a small community (Qumran??). This non-conformity include (and I'm summarizing from memory here) that he utilized water instead of wine during a religious ceremony (turning water into wine), allowed layman to perform part of the ceremony (this has something to do with a play on the words fishes and loaves meaning gentiles and levites [again, as I recall]), and the phrasing of being seated at the right hand of the father (right hand side of the head Jewish priest during ceremonies).
The story goes then that the more orthodox Jewish priests were unhappy with his style and got the Romans to seek him out for punishment. As he was not widely known to the Romans, it took the betrayal of one of his disciples to identify him to the authorities. She then presented the idea that Jesus didn't die on the cross and was rescued from the cave where the Romans placed his near-lifeless body. From there she speculated that he made his way to Rome (??) and started anew.
Anyway, there are several things that she talks about from her interpretations of the dead sea scrolls that seemed to demystify the NT and provide a more logical explanation of the miracles and the possible real life of Jesus. There were a lot more stuff in the book, but I thought I would start the thread here and see what peoples opinions were of her and her ideas.
Thanks
(I wonder if Krkey would consider her an authoritative scholar??)