================================================================== @@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@ Golomb @ @ @ @ & Skarskey @ @ @@@@@ @@@@@ Spring on @ @ @ @ 1995 Allegro's Myth @ @ @ @ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@@ ================================================================== R E V I E W S ================================================================== Dead Sea Scroll Book Reviews, for Religious Studies 225 University of Pennsylvania, Robert Kraft, Spring Term 1995 Copyright by the respective authors; reproduction with appropriate credits is permitted. [[NOTE: The assignment was to summarize the reviewed book and to compare it especially with the textbooks used in the course, by James VanderKam The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Eerdmans/SPCK 1994) and Joseph Fitzmyer Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Paulist Press 1992). As with this note, any comments by the course instructor are enclosed in double brackets below.]] ----- Allegro, John M. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origin of the Christian Myth. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1992. Second revised edition. Reviewed by Tal Golomb and David Slarskey tgolomb@sas.upenn.edu, slarskey@sas.upenn.edu [[For information on Allegro and his role on the original DSS team, see the review by Stewart.]] <0.1> Perhaps this book by John Allegro can be best categorized by the process which Allegro suggests in interpreting the Dead Sea Scrolls and their implications: "We shall only understand these strange people [the Essenes] and their ways if we try to enter into their time and place, suspend our more 'scientific' approach to documentary traditions, and above all free ourselves from our insistence upon a logical progression of events and an exact chronology" (47). <0.2> From this perspective, Allegro presents his arguments for Christianity -- from its roots in Essenism, through gnosticism, and later into the "Great Church" -- as a myth stemming from thousands of years of religious and cultural interactions between the varied peoples of the Middle East. Throughout most of his novel, his concern is not cautious analysis of the people of Qumran but rather the broader conclusions that can be drawn concerning their relationship to past and subsequent religious sects. <1.1> Allegro presents the Qumran community as vital in tracing Christianity's roots through the "crucial centuries" between ancient Judaism and the times reflected in the earliest Christian writings (190). The connection is made in the location of the Qumran community, its ideology and spirituality, and even specific individuals present in the Essene sect. Allegro describes Qumran as "Secacah in Galilee," and spends a chapter defending Qumran as a late development of the earlier city of Secacah, connected both to early Jewish messianic prophecies and the young nation of Israel under Joshua. There are also clear similarities in ideology; the Dead Sea Scrolls authors' adherence to an eschatological interpretation of the traditional Jewish scriptures is similar to that of Christianity. <1.2> These two observations, while controversial, seem at least reasonable based on common understanding of the scrolls and the community. Far more controversial is Allegro's interpretation of the role the Teacher of Righteousness plays in the connection between ancient Judaism and early Christianity. He speaks of a "Jesus/Joshua" cycle of leaders, from Joshua son of Nun, the successor of Moses, through Jesus called the Messiah/Christ. Allegro uses scrolls such as the Damascus Document and the Thanksgiving Hymns to allege that the Teacher of Righteousness was crucified by the vengeful Alexander Jannaeus (referred to as "the Wicked Priest") in 88 BCE. This contention allows him to disprove the historical plausibility of Jesus. Instead, he submits the theory that Jesus is merely a mythical character -- a minor rabbinic player whose fame and importance is only realized later with the codification of a "Jesus" legend (191). <1.3> Allegro's argument, however, is not meant to deflect attention from the foundation of Christianity. Similar to other scholars, such as Krister Stendahl of Harvard Divinity School who suggested that the scrolls "lead us back to a new grasp of [Christianity's] true foundation" (VanderKam 162), Allegro submits that the scrolls shed new light on the origins, if not the validity, of the foundation of Christianity. He takes it one step further, though, than those -- like Stendahl -- who have suggested we need to reevaluate the "person and events of [Christianity's] Messiah" (VanderKam 162). Allegro argues that "[Christianity] could not produce, and never did, [a] historical Joshua/Jesus Messiah living in Palestine during the first Century AD and bearing any real resemblance to [that] created out of the Gospels" (190). <2.1> Although his argument appears coherent, his methodology is questionable because it is based on the primary assumption that the entire tradition is purely "mythical" and not historically credible. Many of his premises he uses to derive his argument against the modern understanding of Jesus come from his personal interpretation of scriptural symbols and texts. There is no consideration nor refutation of opposing viewpoints. This is a weakness in an analysis of a subject as controversial as the "Christian Myth". James VanderKam, observes: "From the first wave of Qumran studies to the present, some scholars have either spotted extraordinarily close parallels between the scrolls and the books of the New Testament or identified the Qumranites as Christians. Most would agree that such claims go too far -- there are blatant differences between the two groups and the literature they penned" (VanderKam 159). <00.1> If we dismiss "our more 'scientific' approach to documentary traditions," as Allegro encourages us to do, it is enticing to accept the Dead Sea Scrolls as a key to understanding the development of the "Christian Myth." Nonetheless, considering the amount of information uncovered at Qumran, it is impossible to believe such a definitive interpretation of the relevance of the Scrolls to the originality of Christianity. Tal J. Golomb & David Slarskey