The Mystery of The Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed

by John Marco Allegro

Examines the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls in New Testament studies, gives accounts of the excavations at Qumran and other sites, and discusses the doctrine, daily life, and discipline of the Qumran sect

Genres: Religion, Christianity, Church, Nonfiction, History

210 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1988

About the author

John Marco Allegro was a scholar who challenged orthodox views of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bible and the history of religion, with books that attracted popular attention and scholarly derision.

After service in the Royal Navy during World War II, Allegro started to train for the Methodist ministry but transferred to a degree in Oriental Studies at the University of Manchester. In 1953 he was invited to become the first British representative on the international team working on the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan. The following year he was appointed assistant lecturer in Comparative Semitic Philology at Manchester, and held a succession of lectureships there until he resigned in 1970 to become a full-time writer. In 1961 he was made Honorary Adviser on the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Jordanian government.

Allegro's thirteen books include The Dead Sea Scrolls (1956), The Treasure of the Copper Scroll (1960), The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979) as well as Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan vol. V (1968) and articles in academic journals such as the Journal of Biblical Literature, Palestine Exploration Quarterly and Journal of Semitic Studies, and in the popular press.

Reviews

[James Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book worth reading, I had no idea the problems with the scrolls and the the dangers in acquiring them from the Bedouins. I always envisioned when they found the Scrolls they were pretty much intact and the archaeologists had recovered them. I was shocked when reading this book that the first cave was discovered by a Bedouin shepherd, boy looking for a lost sheep, and then to find out that the Museum Director had to go out in the desert, among the Bedouin tribes and buy them, sometimes in pieces no bigger than a thumb nail. They would put the pieces in between two pieces of glass and piece them together like a puzzle. They not only found scriptures, they also found religious letters from a sect called the Qumran, who it is believed that John the Baptist once lived among them.
Its amazing how little you actually know about a subject. They also found marriage contracts and divorce papers. If you are curious about what really was discovered and who discovered them, and how they found their way into the hands of Hebrew Scholars and the Museums, you have to read this book.

[Curtiss Matlock]

finding it fascinating.