The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, M. Baigent & R. Leigh
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
Title: The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
Authors: Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh
Published by: 1991, Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 0-671-79797-2
This book tells the history of the greatest archaeological find of the 20th century, from their discovery in 1947 until their public release in 1991. It tells how the scrolls came to be studied by an international team of religious scholars, headed by one Father Roland de Vaux. It's an ugly story, in which the Catholic Church pulls the strings to maintain a shroud of mystery and silence over the scrolls. Scholars outside the assigned team were forbidden access of any kind. The team itself was comprised entirely of ecclesiastics, with the exception of one John Allegro. Allegro was quite productive in his work, or at least what was allowed him, since de Vaux did his best to assign Allegro the least controversial of any of the texts. Allegro often criticised the rest of the team, and de Vaux personally, and was eventually removed from the team.
The team was painfully slow about producing translations and analysis of any kind on the scrolls, and their sluggishness stood out in sharp contrast to the find in Nag Hammadi, which, after political hurdles had been cleared, took only three years to complete in draft versions. The Dead Sea Scrolls, by contrast, did not appear to the general public, nor even to established scholarship, until 1991, when the Huntington Library in California, amidst a firestorm of controversy, published a full set of long-forgotten photographs of the scrolls that had found their way to the library through improbable circumstances.
The book also details the poor archaeological techniques employed by the team, and the flawed reasoning that caused them to misdate the scrolls and the Qumran community. Other gross errors include them trying to trivialise the settlement, when it could be shown that the Qumran community was but a part of a larger movement taking place in Palestine. As it became clear to the rest of the world that the team was trying to cover something up, the clamour was raised for the veil of silence to be lifted. Accusations were even made that the team may have been destroying precious documents.
The book goes on to examine some of the material that had been disseminated by 1991, much of which was Allegro's work. Through it, the authors proffer their theory on the role of the Qumran community, as well as the original Jerusalem Church, and explore the very roots of the Christian movement itself. They identify the "Spouter of Lies" from the Habbakuk Commentary as Paul, and the "Teacher of Righteousness" as James the Just, just as many other scholars do. They further posit that Paul may have been an agent of the Roman Empire who helped in the destruction of the Qumran community, and further on to the infamous massacre at Masada.
