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The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
The oldest Biblical manuscripts in existence, the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near Jerusalem in 1947, only to be kept a tightly held secret for nearly fifty more years, until the Huntington Library unleashed a storm of controversy in 1991 by releasing copies of the Scrolls. In this gripping investigation authors Baigent and Leigh set out to discover how a small coterie of orthodox biblical scholars gained control over the Scrolls, allowing access to no outsiders and issuing a strict "consensus" interpretation. The authors' questions begin in Israel, then lead them to the corridors of the Vatican and into the offices of the Inquisition. With the help of independent scholars, historical research, and careful analysis of available texts, the authors reveal what was at stake for these orthodox guardians: The Scrolls present startling insights into early Christianity -- insights that challenge the Church's version of the "facts." More than just a dramatic exposé of the intrigues surrounding these priceless documents, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception presents nothing less than a new, highly significant perspective on Christianity.
268 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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1112 people want to read
About the author
Michael Baigent
42 books164 followersMichael Baigent was born in New Zealand in 1948. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in psychology from Canterbury University, Christchurch, and holds a master's degree in mysticism and religious experience from the University of Kent in England. Since 1976 he has lived in England with his wife and children.
Baigent is a Freemason and a Grand Officer of the United Grand Lodge of England. He has also been an editor of Freemasonry Today since 1991. As an author and speculative historian, he has been published in 35 languages; he is the author of From the Omens of Babylon, Ancient Traces, and the New York Times bestseller The Jesus Papers; he is the coauthor of the international bestsellers Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy (with Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh); and the coauthor of The Temples and the Lodge, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Secret Germany, The Elixir and the Stone, and The Inquisition (with Richard Leigh).
Baigent is a Freemason and a Grand Officer of the United Grand Lodge of England. He has also been an editor of Freemasonry Today since 1991. As an author and speculative historian, he has been published in 35 languages; he is the author of From the Omens of Babylon, Ancient Traces, and the New York Times bestseller The Jesus Papers; he is the coauthor of the international bestsellers Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy (with Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh); and the coauthor of The Temples and the Lodge, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Secret Germany, The Elixir and the Stone, and The Inquisition (with Richard Leigh).
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August 23, 2010
In 1947, many old scrolls were found in several caves near Qumran along the shores of the Dead Sea. They were very old, but their significance was not immediately recognized. Eventually, most of them found their way into the hands of the Ecole Biblique, a Dominican-owned-and-operated research institution in what was then part of Jordan. The scrolls appeared to date from around 200 B.C. to 70 A.D. and were originally thought to be the work of the Essenes, a monastic group of pacifistic Jews who retreated to the desert to live a communal and impoverished existence.
The Ecole Biblique was headed by an anti-Semitic monk named Father de Vaux. He and a small group of scholars (whose credentials have been disputed) jealously guarded the scrolls from any outside (particularly Jewish) examination. Meanwhile, the world waited to discover what these scrolls might contain. Only small portions leaked out. John Allegro, one of the early members of the team, suggested that the contents of the scrolls indicated that much of the Christian "myth," to use his phrase, was already recorded in the scrolls, which had been written many years before the birth of Jesus. Allegro, (The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth) insisted that the Christian orthodox creed survived by ruthlessly suppressing any deviant beliefs, and by institutionalizing the beliefs of the early Essenes. Allegro was drummed out of the Ecole for such speculations and refused further access to the documents. Admittedly some of his later writings were quite fantastic and peculiar.
By the late 1980s the failure of the international team, as it was now called, to release the scrolls for examination by scholars other than those approved by the team, had become an academic scandal. The Biblical Archaeology Review and major biblical scholars around the world finally created great pressure on the Ecole to make the documents available. They consistently refused to do so, arguing that they wanted to prevent "shoddy" scholarship.
Only recently have the documents become available through other means. The Huntington Library in California, which had come into possession of a microfilm copy of the scroll photographs, decided to make the material public on interlibrary loan to any interested scholar, and a text was published of the scrolls which had been created from a published concordance.
But let's return to my original premise. Because of the Ecole's reluctance to permit outsiders to view any of the scrolls, and the Ecole's very close ties to the Catholic church (de Vaux and his successors have all sat on the Pontifical Biblical Commission, whose job it is to monitor and supervise all biblical studies of the church), naturally it was only a matter of time before someone decided that a conspiracy existed to suppress the scrolls because they contained information that threatened the very existence of the Christian Church.
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh have done just that in a recent book entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. Baigent is previously known for his collaboration on another book, Holy Blood Holy Grail, which, according to reviews, purported to discover a plot by the Prieure de Sion, a secret French society. This group derived its raison d'etre from a legend that claims Jesus did not die on the cross, but married Mary Magdalene, and together they sired a line of Merovingian kings (which doesn't say much for their blood line). Anyway, the authors predicted that believers in this Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ and emphasized his humanity, would place one of the Merovingian descendants on the throne of Europe. Baigent and Leigh admit to having no evidence for this little theory, only a hypothesis. They make it sound plausible, but that doesn't cut it. Ockham's Razor, or the third rule of history, states that in the absence of evidence, what most likely happened is probably the simplest solution; that which requires the fewest assumptions.
As in the Merovingian plot book, their "Deception" book is very short on evidence. Suggesting that the Catholic Church would want to suppress evidence that Jesus' beliefs predated his birth might be plausible, but it's irresponsible to present a thesis based simply on conjecture. An eminent theologian and scholar I consulted confirmed my suspicions that the mystery surrounding the scrolls, while indeed a scandal from the standpoint of scholars in the field, represents nothing more than a case of little men guarding a tremendous find for themselves and their friends. Still, the book is fun to read and does disclose a fascinating account of an academic embarrassment.
Another, more scholarly work, albeit early (1955), is by Millar Burrows and entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls . Fortunately, now that the Ecole and the international team have been suitably humiliated, one can hope that we will see more accurate and less speculative studies on the archaeological find of the century.
The Ecole Biblique was headed by an anti-Semitic monk named Father de Vaux. He and a small group of scholars (whose credentials have been disputed) jealously guarded the scrolls from any outside (particularly Jewish) examination. Meanwhile, the world waited to discover what these scrolls might contain. Only small portions leaked out. John Allegro, one of the early members of the team, suggested that the contents of the scrolls indicated that much of the Christian "myth," to use his phrase, was already recorded in the scrolls, which had been written many years before the birth of Jesus. Allegro, (The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth) insisted that the Christian orthodox creed survived by ruthlessly suppressing any deviant beliefs, and by institutionalizing the beliefs of the early Essenes. Allegro was drummed out of the Ecole for such speculations and refused further access to the documents. Admittedly some of his later writings were quite fantastic and peculiar.
By the late 1980s the failure of the international team, as it was now called, to release the scrolls for examination by scholars other than those approved by the team, had become an academic scandal. The Biblical Archaeology Review and major biblical scholars around the world finally created great pressure on the Ecole to make the documents available. They consistently refused to do so, arguing that they wanted to prevent "shoddy" scholarship.
Only recently have the documents become available through other means. The Huntington Library in California, which had come into possession of a microfilm copy of the scroll photographs, decided to make the material public on interlibrary loan to any interested scholar, and a text was published of the scrolls which had been created from a published concordance.
But let's return to my original premise. Because of the Ecole's reluctance to permit outsiders to view any of the scrolls, and the Ecole's very close ties to the Catholic church (de Vaux and his successors have all sat on the Pontifical Biblical Commission, whose job it is to monitor and supervise all biblical studies of the church), naturally it was only a matter of time before someone decided that a conspiracy existed to suppress the scrolls because they contained information that threatened the very existence of the Christian Church.
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh have done just that in a recent book entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. Baigent is previously known for his collaboration on another book, Holy Blood Holy Grail, which, according to reviews, purported to discover a plot by the Prieure de Sion, a secret French society. This group derived its raison d'etre from a legend that claims Jesus did not die on the cross, but married Mary Magdalene, and together they sired a line of Merovingian kings (which doesn't say much for their blood line). Anyway, the authors predicted that believers in this Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ and emphasized his humanity, would place one of the Merovingian descendants on the throne of Europe. Baigent and Leigh admit to having no evidence for this little theory, only a hypothesis. They make it sound plausible, but that doesn't cut it. Ockham's Razor, or the third rule of history, states that in the absence of evidence, what most likely happened is probably the simplest solution; that which requires the fewest assumptions.
As in the Merovingian plot book, their "Deception" book is very short on evidence. Suggesting that the Catholic Church would want to suppress evidence that Jesus' beliefs predated his birth might be plausible, but it's irresponsible to present a thesis based simply on conjecture. An eminent theologian and scholar I consulted confirmed my suspicions that the mystery surrounding the scrolls, while indeed a scandal from the standpoint of scholars in the field, represents nothing more than a case of little men guarding a tremendous find for themselves and their friends. Still, the book is fun to read and does disclose a fascinating account of an academic embarrassment.
Another, more scholarly work, albeit early (1955), is by Millar Burrows and entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls . Fortunately, now that the Ecole and the international team have been suitably humiliated, one can hope that we will see more accurate and less speculative studies on the archaeological find of the century.
January 4, 2021
This is what you get when people who are not trained scholars but have an ax to grind, write a book. I knew I was in for a rough ride when the authors, who basically relied solely upon another writer's book, which was itself tendentious, talked about a scroll that was photographed and thought to be the book of Daniel. This book said that it couldn't be Daniel because it has both Hebrew and Aramaic in it when Daniel only has Hebrew. Where do you get this stuff? I've read much of Daniel in the original languages. It does switch from Hebrew to Aramaic. This is not a secret. The authors launch into a tirade against the international committee that held the scrolls hostage for four decades. That's fine. The committee members deserve it.
Other stuff, however, is just not factual. They say that paleography, how letters were formed, is not a basis for dating texts. Most scholars would disagree. Paleographic evidence plus other evidence show pretty clearly that at least some of the Dead Sea Scrolls date from the 3rd century BCE. They make claims about the four canonical gospels being unhistorical and full of myths. They don't define "myth" and don't justify this. Their detailed claims show that they do not know how to do history and if I used their standards, we would know nothing from antiquity. They talk about differences between gospel accounts. They ought to read Mike Licona's book that looks at the ancient writer Plutarch, who descibes the same events in multiple places and the accounts are different. Or, Craig Keener's Christobiography, which, in chapter 10, compares three ancient writers whose accounts of the same thing disagree, and the accounts by one of them which disagree with themselves. In other words, the authors of this book know pretty much zilch about ancient biography and historiography. They have also clearly not read much from scholars on the gospels.
The consensus these days is that the DSS inhabitants were Sadducees, not Essenes, as they claim. This book could be called the Deception of the Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. Jabba the Hutt put it best: bantha fodder. If they had done actual research and read multiple (recent) authors on the Dead Sea Scrolls, they might have come up with useful information. Besides the scrolls being hidden from most scholars until the 1990s, there is no deceit going on here except for their own presentation. Since they finished their book after the DSS were finally released to the rest of academia, they should have done research then and modified their views to fit what trained scholars have learned. If I owned a copy, I'd recycle it. Don't bother reading it. Uninformed junk. It's ab out as reliable as the Da Vinci Code, which is not remotely close to history.
Other stuff, however, is just not factual. They say that paleography, how letters were formed, is not a basis for dating texts. Most scholars would disagree. Paleographic evidence plus other evidence show pretty clearly that at least some of the Dead Sea Scrolls date from the 3rd century BCE. They make claims about the four canonical gospels being unhistorical and full of myths. They don't define "myth" and don't justify this. Their detailed claims show that they do not know how to do history and if I used their standards, we would know nothing from antiquity. They talk about differences between gospel accounts. They ought to read Mike Licona's book that looks at the ancient writer Plutarch, who descibes the same events in multiple places and the accounts are different. Or, Craig Keener's Christobiography, which, in chapter 10, compares three ancient writers whose accounts of the same thing disagree, and the accounts by one of them which disagree with themselves. In other words, the authors of this book know pretty much zilch about ancient biography and historiography. They have also clearly not read much from scholars on the gospels.
The consensus these days is that the DSS inhabitants were Sadducees, not Essenes, as they claim. This book could be called the Deception of the Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. Jabba the Hutt put it best: bantha fodder. If they had done actual research and read multiple (recent) authors on the Dead Sea Scrolls, they might have come up with useful information. Besides the scrolls being hidden from most scholars until the 1990s, there is no deceit going on here except for their own presentation. Since they finished their book after the DSS were finally released to the rest of academia, they should have done research then and modified their views to fit what trained scholars have learned. If I owned a copy, I'd recycle it. Don't bother reading it. Uninformed junk. It's ab out as reliable as the Da Vinci Code, which is not remotely close to history.
June 20, 2009
When you read a book that questions other research it's important to check how conclusions are reached and why. If a translator goes through the work and gives a faithful translation with a careful study of history and archeology to match, then you get an article that's useful. When other "scholars" try to cast doubt on the earlier work they have a clear bias. When they say there was a deception, they are accusing the others of intentionally falsifying things. True scholars may question material and come to different conclusions based on different views. Do people lie? Sure. But most researchers know primary sources and secondary sources and link to the archeology and the history of the region.
The only people who set out to deceive are those who are trying to sell books and set up conspiracy theories. It's doesn't do a whole lot to assure accuracy to call the original translators liars and then use their research to come to alternative views. Revisionist history strikes again.
I've also read some other works on the Dead Sea Scrolls from the main translators and other historians. I find those views more scholarly and accurate.
The only people who set out to deceive are those who are trying to sell books and set up conspiracy theories. It's doesn't do a whole lot to assure accuracy to call the original translators liars and then use their research to come to alternative views. Revisionist history strikes again.
I've also read some other works on the Dead Sea Scrolls from the main translators and other historians. I find those views more scholarly and accurate.
December 24, 2009
I love a good mystery and the real - life events surrounding the discovery, ownership and scholarship concerning these documents has been nothing short of amazing.
More than 50 years after the discovery, the general public ie: Christian public still has no idea what's contained in them since much of the scholarship was controlled by the Catholic church itself; and the protestant churches really don't want to know.
This book presents evidence that 'the faith' was hijacked by Paul and that the 'others, preaching another Jesus' were actually the ones preaching the 'real Jesus'. (I have never really understood why there was a difference of Jesus' message versus the one Paul preached, but I have always trusted the Gospels more than the Pauline writings. The Pauline epistles tell us only that: The Jesus Paul preaches is real, and that Paul himself is NOT lying and that everyone else is against him).
So for a good detective, he said, he said that he said this book is a winner.
More than 50 years after the discovery, the general public ie: Christian public still has no idea what's contained in them since much of the scholarship was controlled by the Catholic church itself; and the protestant churches really don't want to know.
This book presents evidence that 'the faith' was hijacked by Paul and that the 'others, preaching another Jesus' were actually the ones preaching the 'real Jesus'. (I have never really understood why there was a difference of Jesus' message versus the one Paul preached, but I have always trusted the Gospels more than the Pauline writings. The Pauline epistles tell us only that: The Jesus Paul preaches is real, and that Paul himself is NOT lying and that everyone else is against him).
So for a good detective, he said, he said that he said this book is a winner.
April 7, 2011
Whether you agree or disagree with the authors' conclusions, this is a riveting story about the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and information contained therein that challenges long-held beliefs about the origins of Christianity. The first half of the book describes how an international team of scholars with ties to the Catholic Church monopolized the scrolls for up to thirty years, deliberately withholding information from the public that contradicted the Church's version of historical events surrounding the life and times of Jesus Christ. The second half discusses the content of the scrolls themselves, which seem to indicate that some of the teachings attributed to Jesus Christ were extant for many years before the birth of Christ, challenging the messianic view of the origins of Christianity. There's a lot to take in here, and some of it might be a bit too scholarly for the casual reader. But for those with an open mind and a sincere thirst for knowledge, it is well worth the effort.
January 25, 2010
I loved reading this book, it is so informative and blows what we think we know about Christianity out of the water. It is a great book to read if you are already sceptical about religion as it serves to dispel myths about Jesus and his origins. Definitely worth the read. Am most assuredly going to read it again!
January 11, 2021
Excellent explanation of the scrolls, their history, and why & how the Catholic Church kept them hidden for fifty years. The authors make a strong case that Jesus was part of, or influenced by, the community at Qumran. This book was published in 1993. I wish there was a reliable, more up-to-date book on this subject.
October 28, 2020
This book is by two of the folks who brought the world 'Holy Blood and Holy Grail' and, so, indirectly, 'The DaVinci Code' and the movie 'The Matrix'. Like 'Holy Blood', this book is highly speculative and the authors are not experts in the field. What they do know is Freemasonry and some of the more exotic traditions associated with it, traditions that they try to tie up into a neat ball along with the origins of Christianity.
The exposition of the scholarly turf fight over the Qumran scrolls and their eventual wholesale publication is, so far as I know, basically correct. They do sensationalize and they are rather too free with assigning motives to the principals. Their own notion that the scrolls and the presumed Qumran community were associated with the Jesus movement is highly dubious.
The exposition of the scholarly turf fight over the Qumran scrolls and their eventual wholesale publication is, so far as I know, basically correct. They do sensationalize and they are rather too free with assigning motives to the principals. Their own notion that the scrolls and the presumed Qumran community were associated with the Jesus movement is highly dubious.
August 6, 2011
If you actually want to know about the theories concerning Qumran, I suggest you read books written by the scholars themselves. Not books by these guys.
This book is very biased towards Allegro and other like-minded scholars, and filled with just plain ad hominems and "poisoning the well" when it comes to De Vaux and his team.
The authors very quickly jump into conclusions and announce that they have proven something, and by the end of the book, everything is just a big mess. I laughed out loud a couple of times. Not enough times to give this 2 stars for making me laugh.
This book is very biased towards Allegro and other like-minded scholars, and filled with just plain ad hominems and "poisoning the well" when it comes to De Vaux and his team.
The authors very quickly jump into conclusions and announce that they have proven something, and by the end of the book, everything is just a big mess. I laughed out loud a couple of times. Not enough times to give this 2 stars for making me laugh.
July 13, 2014
A conspiracy! Yeah, that's it! A conspiracy! Bull. Anyone who has an interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls should read summaries of them or Millar Burrows book first. Then you may appreciate it for its bluster. It is clearly biased against the Roman Catholic Church.
January 28, 2009
The archeological scandal of the 20th century. Anyone intersted in the origins of christianity would find this informative.
June 26, 2018
Very intriguing book. A highly controversial but well researched investigation into this very interesting period of history.
October 12, 2019
A hodge podge of conspiracies in the authors own minds. This is a blatant attempt to make a scandal out of what was just academic one upmanship.
September 24, 2021
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judaean desert in the late Forties threw out a challenge to Biblical scholarship matched only by the discovery in the Egyptian desert two years earlier of the Nag Hammadi Gospels. The obstacles that were placed in the way of the translation of the Gnostic Gospels pale into insignificance beside those that threatened to prevent a reasoned assessment of the significance for Judaism and early Christianity of the scrolls; and these obstacles are entertainingly explored by Baigent and Leigh.
If their names sound familiar, it may be because you have read Dan Brown: ‘Leigh Teabing’ (get it, anagram fans?) is a character in the ‘Da Vinci Code.’ It is Teabing who tries to [censored] Tom Hanks from [censored] that Mary Magdalene is...I can’t remember exactly what, but the Holy Grail and the Knights Templar are mixed up in it; and this is because Brown was partly inspired (I choose my words carefully because his publishers were sued by Teabing) by an earlier book that Baigent and Leigh co-wrote with Henry Lincoln. This is the infamous Holy Blood, Holy Grail, in which the three authors argue that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children whose descendants were the Merovingian Kings of France. The secret of the ‘holy bloodline’ had been transmitted by groups such as the Cathars and the Templars (thus explaining their persecution by the Church) and was now in the possession of an organisation called the Priory of Sion, which was founded at the same time as the Templars but had gone underground to avoid a similar fate.
HBHG was a sensational bestseller in the 80s. Friends of mine, urging me to read it, repeated the publisher’s blurb that, if the evidence in the possession of the Priory were to be made public, it could shake the foundations of the Catholic Church – ignoring the simple fact that, since the faith of Catholics has never been based on anything remotely resembling evidence, no amount of evidence could ever shake it!
Evidence of a different sort did eventually emerge, however – evidence that Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh had themselves been the victims of a hoax. The Priory of Sion, far from being a secret medieval organisation dedicated to transmitting the truth about Christ, was in fact an organisation created in 1956 to promote the fantasy of its founder that he was the heir to the Merovingians!
When they wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Baigent and Leigh were older and (hopefully) wiser (both now deceased); and should cetainly have recognised a deception when they saw one; and, indeed, as the blurb of this book proclaims, it reveals “the explosive contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the Church conspired to suppress them.” To some extent the book has been overtaken by events, since all the scrolls have been scanned and are now freely available to scholars of all persuasions; but chronicles of ecclesiastical skulduggery and scholarly battles for freedom of information will always entertain and inform.
My favourite part of the book is the story of John M Allegro, one of the first scholars working on the scrolls to claim that their release was being held up because the Church found their contents embarrassing. Unfortunately, Allegro went on to offer evidence (based on the hypothetical reconstruction of ancient Sumerian words) that Jesus was, in origin, a hallucinogenic mushroom (see his extraordinary The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross). Whether Allegro gained this insight after ingesting such, I do not know; but it did, inevitably, dent his credentials.
If we should learn anything from the work of Teabing, it’s that no one has an exclusive claim to the truth. Sometimes it’s hard to know who is the deceiver and who the deceived. Or, as W.B. Yeats put it: How can we know the dancer from the dance?
There is more on the Holy Grail, literature and religious symbolism in my Goodreads blog: Myth Dancing (Incorporating the Twenty Third Letter).
If their names sound familiar, it may be because you have read Dan Brown: ‘Leigh Teabing’ (get it, anagram fans?) is a character in the ‘Da Vinci Code.’ It is Teabing who tries to [censored] Tom Hanks from [censored] that Mary Magdalene is...I can’t remember exactly what, but the Holy Grail and the Knights Templar are mixed up in it; and this is because Brown was partly inspired (I choose my words carefully because his publishers were sued by Teabing) by an earlier book that Baigent and Leigh co-wrote with Henry Lincoln. This is the infamous Holy Blood, Holy Grail, in which the three authors argue that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children whose descendants were the Merovingian Kings of France. The secret of the ‘holy bloodline’ had been transmitted by groups such as the Cathars and the Templars (thus explaining their persecution by the Church) and was now in the possession of an organisation called the Priory of Sion, which was founded at the same time as the Templars but had gone underground to avoid a similar fate.
HBHG was a sensational bestseller in the 80s. Friends of mine, urging me to read it, repeated the publisher’s blurb that, if the evidence in the possession of the Priory were to be made public, it could shake the foundations of the Catholic Church – ignoring the simple fact that, since the faith of Catholics has never been based on anything remotely resembling evidence, no amount of evidence could ever shake it!
Evidence of a different sort did eventually emerge, however – evidence that Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh had themselves been the victims of a hoax. The Priory of Sion, far from being a secret medieval organisation dedicated to transmitting the truth about Christ, was in fact an organisation created in 1956 to promote the fantasy of its founder that he was the heir to the Merovingians!
When they wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, Baigent and Leigh were older and (hopefully) wiser (both now deceased); and should cetainly have recognised a deception when they saw one; and, indeed, as the blurb of this book proclaims, it reveals “the explosive contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the Church conspired to suppress them.” To some extent the book has been overtaken by events, since all the scrolls have been scanned and are now freely available to scholars of all persuasions; but chronicles of ecclesiastical skulduggery and scholarly battles for freedom of information will always entertain and inform.
My favourite part of the book is the story of John M Allegro, one of the first scholars working on the scrolls to claim that their release was being held up because the Church found their contents embarrassing. Unfortunately, Allegro went on to offer evidence (based on the hypothetical reconstruction of ancient Sumerian words) that Jesus was, in origin, a hallucinogenic mushroom (see his extraordinary The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross). Whether Allegro gained this insight after ingesting such, I do not know; but it did, inevitably, dent his credentials.
If we should learn anything from the work of Teabing, it’s that no one has an exclusive claim to the truth. Sometimes it’s hard to know who is the deceiver and who the deceived. Or, as W.B. Yeats put it: How can we know the dancer from the dance?
There is more on the Holy Grail, literature and religious symbolism in my Goodreads blog: Myth Dancing (Incorporating the Twenty Third Letter).
February 19, 2023
An interesting account of how christian "researchers" tried to keep the Dead Sea Scrolls away from the public or other researchers, afraid that it may impact their religious institution.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are the only writings contemporary to the beginning of christianity and are showing a very different image of Palestine in those times. Far from the peaceful feelgood country portrayed in the new testament, it was a country torn by conflict between four different religious/political Jewish movements and the Roman occupiers.
The scrolls were written by "The Fourth Philosophy" (Josephus Flavius' words), a fundamentalist Jewish sect, also known as Zealots or Sicarii. Their religious practices are very similar to the ones share by the Jesus character in the bible, so if he existed, he was probably part of this bellicose sect. More details on that in Robert Eisenman's books and also in Caesar's Messiah (Joseph Atwill) and Creating Christ (James S. Valliant)
The Dead Sea Scrolls are the only writings contemporary to the beginning of christianity and are showing a very different image of Palestine in those times. Far from the peaceful feelgood country portrayed in the new testament, it was a country torn by conflict between four different religious/political Jewish movements and the Roman occupiers.
The scrolls were written by "The Fourth Philosophy" (Josephus Flavius' words), a fundamentalist Jewish sect, also known as Zealots or Sicarii. Their religious practices are very similar to the ones share by the Jesus character in the bible, so if he existed, he was probably part of this bellicose sect. More details on that in Robert Eisenman's books and also in Caesar's Messiah (Joseph Atwill) and Creating Christ (James S. Valliant)
January 11, 2020
Since this book was written in 1991, it is obviously dated. It is, however, a good, though biased, account of the Dead Sea scrolls war from discovery to the late 1980's, reviewing the jealousies and machinations of various scholars who wanted to use the scrolls or suppress the scrolls to give themselves more prestige or to support their own views of Christian and Judaic history. The author uses scroll material to support his own view of this history.
December 29, 2024
Una denuncia de como la Iglesia católica, el estado de Israel y demás instituciones entorpece el estudio de los manuscritos del Mar Muerto.
Se podría saber mucho más y mejor, pero el conocimiento se obstaculiza de forma diberada.
Se podría saber mucho más y mejor, pero el conocimiento se obstaculiza de forma diberada.
February 18, 2025
Interesting but spoiled by conclusions unsupported by his evidence. Also the main thrust of his hypothesis seems to be that Christianity is merely a development of Judaism: which I thought was kinda obvious already and didn’t require a whole book to explore.
November 7, 2025
While the text is incredibly detailed, it could use a little more brevity and clarity. Additionally, a concluding section to summarize the crux of the information and coherence in the prose would have made it an even better read.
March 7, 2020
More interesting theories on the origin of Christianity.
June 6, 2020
Excellent account on the hiding of the scrolls meaning by the Catholic Church. A bit long winded at times, but a fascinating look at early Christianity
February 26, 2021
this great book was a considerable leader for my novel ( the cave of salt )
April 5, 2021
Zastarjelo.
July 13, 2021
¿Qué tan cerca estaremos de descubrir nuestras verdades históricas como humanidad? Mejor aún... ¿Qué tan preparados estamos para abrir nuestros ojos a ellas? Me dejó más que pensativa al respecto.
November 5, 2021
Thought-provoking and disturbing. What has the Roman Catholic church got to hide?
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October 25, 2025Fascinating book! I very much enjoyed it!
August 22, 2018
As I read the reviews of this book, I realized that it's a sort of "inside" book for scholars who know the huge array of names of scholars and researchers that the author included in the first section of the book and would either agree or disagree with the author's premise. In other words it's just one side of a scholarly debate. Also, when the full book of the Dead Sea scrolls was published, this authors dates were wrong and so was his theory.
In the final section, the author chose to give his own interpretation of the findings at Qumran as they reflect on the New Testament and didn't just quote the Scrolls. Just spoon-feeding more of the author's side of the debate. This was really disappointing, as I can decide for myself what the writings mean.
And what were the three sections of photos about? Just a bunch of men staring at stuff.
The writing was energetic and descriptive. But the content was lacking.
In the final section, the author chose to give his own interpretation of the findings at Qumran as they reflect on the New Testament and didn't just quote the Scrolls. Just spoon-feeding more of the author's side of the debate. This was really disappointing, as I can decide for myself what the writings mean.
And what were the three sections of photos about? Just a bunch of men staring at stuff.
The writing was energetic and descriptive. But the content was lacking.
March 23, 2025
The book to read about the Dead Sea Scrolls BEFORE any others.
A readable chronology of the discovery of the scrolls and the push to both re-bury them and publish them.
A readable chronology of the discovery of the scrolls and the push to both re-bury them and publish them.
September 19, 2023
WERE THE SCROLLS DELIBERATELY ‘KEPT HIDDEN’ BY CHURCH AUTHORITIES?
Authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “In tracing the progress of the Dead Sea Scrolls from their discovery in the Judean desert to the various institutions that hold them today, we found ourselves confronting a contradiction we had faced before---the contradiction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Our investigation began in Israel. It was to extend to the corridors of the Vatican, and, even more ominously, into the offices of the Inquisition. We also encountered a rigidly maintained ‘consensus’ of interpretation towards the content and dating of the scrolls, and came to understand how explosive a non-partisan examination of them might be for the whole of Christian theological tradition. And we discovered how fiercely the world of orthodox biblical scholarship was prepared to fight to retain its monopoly of available information.” (Pg. xii)
They report, “Edmund Wilson, John Allegro, and Geza Vermes all condemned the international team for secrecy for procrastination and delay in releasing the Qumran material and for establishing a scholarly monarchy over the Dead Sea Scrolls. Wilson and Allego both challenged the team’s labored attempts to distance the Qumran community from so-called ‘early Christianity.’ In other respects, however, all three scholars concurred with the consensus of interpretation established by the international team…. By the 1960s, however, scholarly opposition to the international team’s consensus had begun to arise from another quarter. Its questioning of that consensus was to be much more radical than anything submitted by Wilson, Allegro or Vermes. It was to challenge not only the dating of the Qumran scrolls as established by the international team, but also the allegedly Essence character of the Qumran community.” (Pg. 67-68)
They note, “Independent scholars from Britain, the States and elsewhere have found it impossible to get access to unpublished scroll material. For Israeli scholars, such access has been inconceivable… Father de Vaux, a former member of the notorious Action Francaise, was a fairly outspoken anti-Semite. To this day, members of the Ecole Biblique seem to remain hostile to Israel… But one is prompted to ask whether their prejudice simply coincided with official Church policy, or whether it was formally dictated by the ecclesiastical hierarchy.” (Pg. 116-117)
They observe, “There is virtually unanimous agreement … apart, of course, from the international team themselves and the Ecole Biblique---that the history of Dead Sea Scroll scholarship does constitute a ‘scandal.’ And there would seem to be little doubt that something irregular… lurks behind the delays, the procrastinations, the equivocation, the restrictions on material… would one find, looming as a supreme arbiter in the background, the shadowy presence of an ecclesiastical institution such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?” (Pg. 129)
They conclude, “The story of the scrolls is… unfinished. The plot continues to unfold… since this book appeared in … May 1991… the scrolls were the subject of front page coverage, as well as editorials, in such newspapers as the New York Times… media attention is intensifying, various protagonists are issuing new statements.” (Pg. 223) They continue, very major revelations are bound to be forthcoming. As this occurs, we can expect over more light to be shed on biblical history… One should not, of course, expect a disclosure as such magnitude as to ‘topple the Church,’ or anything as apocalyptic as that… But some people… may be prompted to wonder whether the Church… should necessarily be deemed reliable and authoritative in its approach to such urgent contemporary matters as overpopulation, birth control, the status of women and the celibacy of the clergy. Ultimately, however, the import of the Qumran texts resides in something more than there potential to embarrass the Church… The Dead Sea Scrolls offer a new perspective on the three great religions born in the Middle East… One would like to believe… that greater understanding of their common roots might help curb the prejudice, the bigotry, the intolerance and fanaticism to which fundamentalism is chronically prone.” (Pg. 234-235)
As with these authors’ earlier books, the ‘scholarly consensus’ about this book is extremely negative.
Authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh wrote in the Introduction to this 1991 book, “In tracing the progress of the Dead Sea Scrolls from their discovery in the Judean desert to the various institutions that hold them today, we found ourselves confronting a contradiction we had faced before---the contradiction between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Our investigation began in Israel. It was to extend to the corridors of the Vatican, and, even more ominously, into the offices of the Inquisition. We also encountered a rigidly maintained ‘consensus’ of interpretation towards the content and dating of the scrolls, and came to understand how explosive a non-partisan examination of them might be for the whole of Christian theological tradition. And we discovered how fiercely the world of orthodox biblical scholarship was prepared to fight to retain its monopoly of available information.” (Pg. xii)
They report, “Edmund Wilson, John Allegro, and Geza Vermes all condemned the international team for secrecy for procrastination and delay in releasing the Qumran material and for establishing a scholarly monarchy over the Dead Sea Scrolls. Wilson and Allego both challenged the team’s labored attempts to distance the Qumran community from so-called ‘early Christianity.’ In other respects, however, all three scholars concurred with the consensus of interpretation established by the international team…. By the 1960s, however, scholarly opposition to the international team’s consensus had begun to arise from another quarter. Its questioning of that consensus was to be much more radical than anything submitted by Wilson, Allegro or Vermes. It was to challenge not only the dating of the Qumran scrolls as established by the international team, but also the allegedly Essence character of the Qumran community.” (Pg. 67-68)
They note, “Independent scholars from Britain, the States and elsewhere have found it impossible to get access to unpublished scroll material. For Israeli scholars, such access has been inconceivable… Father de Vaux, a former member of the notorious Action Francaise, was a fairly outspoken anti-Semite. To this day, members of the Ecole Biblique seem to remain hostile to Israel… But one is prompted to ask whether their prejudice simply coincided with official Church policy, or whether it was formally dictated by the ecclesiastical hierarchy.” (Pg. 116-117)
They observe, “There is virtually unanimous agreement … apart, of course, from the international team themselves and the Ecole Biblique---that the history of Dead Sea Scroll scholarship does constitute a ‘scandal.’ And there would seem to be little doubt that something irregular… lurks behind the delays, the procrastinations, the equivocation, the restrictions on material… would one find, looming as a supreme arbiter in the background, the shadowy presence of an ecclesiastical institution such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith?” (Pg. 129)
They conclude, “The story of the scrolls is… unfinished. The plot continues to unfold… since this book appeared in … May 1991… the scrolls were the subject of front page coverage, as well as editorials, in such newspapers as the New York Times… media attention is intensifying, various protagonists are issuing new statements.” (Pg. 223) They continue, very major revelations are bound to be forthcoming. As this occurs, we can expect over more light to be shed on biblical history… One should not, of course, expect a disclosure as such magnitude as to ‘topple the Church,’ or anything as apocalyptic as that… But some people… may be prompted to wonder whether the Church… should necessarily be deemed reliable and authoritative in its approach to such urgent contemporary matters as overpopulation, birth control, the status of women and the celibacy of the clergy. Ultimately, however, the import of the Qumran texts resides in something more than there potential to embarrass the Church… The Dead Sea Scrolls offer a new perspective on the three great religions born in the Middle East… One would like to believe… that greater understanding of their common roots might help curb the prejudice, the bigotry, the intolerance and fanaticism to which fundamentalism is chronically prone.” (Pg. 234-235)
As with these authors’ earlier books, the ‘scholarly consensus’ about this book is extremely negative.
February 6, 2017
The first half of the book was uninteresting to me just because it was full of people's names and I couldn't keep track of who was who and who did what. It is the part about the content of the scrolls (last half of the book) and what they reveal that was of interest to me. I wish I read this earlier in my life. I have wasted so much time with religion and religiouis education. Here are some of the key quotes I got from the book:
"... it would appear that Acts, like the Gospels, was compiled selectively, and was extensively tampered with by later editors." p. 259
"Paul in effect, shunts God aside and establishes, for the first time, worship of Jesus -- Jesus a a kind of quivalent of Adonis, of Tammus, of Attis, or of any of the other dying and reviving gods who populated the Middle East at the time. In order to compete with these divine rivals, Jesus had to match them point for point, miracle for miracle. It is at this stage that many of the miraculous elements become associated with Jesus' biography, including in all probability his supposed birth of a virgin and his resurrection from the dead. They are essentially Pauline inventions, often wildly at odds with the 'pure' doctrine promulgated by James and the rest of the community in Jerusalem. ... Yet Paul knows full well what he is doing. He understands, with surprisingly modern sophistication, the techniques of religious propaganda; he understands what is necessary to turn a man into a god, and he goes about it more astutely than the Romans did with their emperors." p.267-268
'Christianity,' as it will subsequently evolve from Paul, has by now severed virturally all connection with its roots, and can no longer be said to have anything to do with Jesus, only with Paul's image of Jesus." p. 269
"... the 'sub-text' of Acts reduces itself to a clash between two powerful personality, James and Paul.... James emerges as the custodian of the original body of teachings, the exponent of doctrinal purity and rigorous adherence to the Law. The last thing he would have had in mind was founding a 'new religion." Paul is doing precisely that. Paul's Jesus is a full-fledged god, whose biography, miracle for miracle, comes to match those of the rival deities with whom he is competing for devotees... In the conflict between James and Paul, the emergence and evolution of what we call Christianity stood at the crossroads. Had the mainstream of its development conformed to James' teachings, there would have been no Christianity at all, only a particular species of Judaism which might or might not have emerged as dominant.... Thus, to the undoubted posthumous horror of James and his associates, an entirely new religion was indeed born -- a religion which came to have less and less to do with its supposed founder." p. 274-275
Matthew 5:17-19
"Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete [or fulfill] them... not one dot, not one little stroke shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved. Therefore the man who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the Kingdom of Heaven."
"In this passage, it is almost as if Jesus had anticipated Paul's advent. Certainly, he could not have warned against it any more specifically. By the standard he lays down, Paul's status in the Kingdom of Heaven cannot be much higher than that of official pariah-in-residence."p. 308
"Perhaps the documents yet to be divulged may confront us a little more inescapably with the scale and pointlessness of our own madness -- and shame us, thereby, at least by a degree or so, in the general direction of sanity." p. 340
"... it would appear that Acts, like the Gospels, was compiled selectively, and was extensively tampered with by later editors." p. 259
"Paul in effect, shunts God aside and establishes, for the first time, worship of Jesus -- Jesus a a kind of quivalent of Adonis, of Tammus, of Attis, or of any of the other dying and reviving gods who populated the Middle East at the time. In order to compete with these divine rivals, Jesus had to match them point for point, miracle for miracle. It is at this stage that many of the miraculous elements become associated with Jesus' biography, including in all probability his supposed birth of a virgin and his resurrection from the dead. They are essentially Pauline inventions, often wildly at odds with the 'pure' doctrine promulgated by James and the rest of the community in Jerusalem. ... Yet Paul knows full well what he is doing. He understands, with surprisingly modern sophistication, the techniques of religious propaganda; he understands what is necessary to turn a man into a god, and he goes about it more astutely than the Romans did with their emperors." p.267-268
'Christianity,' as it will subsequently evolve from Paul, has by now severed virturally all connection with its roots, and can no longer be said to have anything to do with Jesus, only with Paul's image of Jesus." p. 269
"... the 'sub-text' of Acts reduces itself to a clash between two powerful personality, James and Paul.... James emerges as the custodian of the original body of teachings, the exponent of doctrinal purity and rigorous adherence to the Law. The last thing he would have had in mind was founding a 'new religion." Paul is doing precisely that. Paul's Jesus is a full-fledged god, whose biography, miracle for miracle, comes to match those of the rival deities with whom he is competing for devotees... In the conflict between James and Paul, the emergence and evolution of what we call Christianity stood at the crossroads. Had the mainstream of its development conformed to James' teachings, there would have been no Christianity at all, only a particular species of Judaism which might or might not have emerged as dominant.... Thus, to the undoubted posthumous horror of James and his associates, an entirely new religion was indeed born -- a religion which came to have less and less to do with its supposed founder." p. 274-275
Matthew 5:17-19
"Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish but to complete [or fulfill] them... not one dot, not one little stroke shall disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved. Therefore the man who infringes even one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the Kingdom of Heaven."
"In this passage, it is almost as if Jesus had anticipated Paul's advent. Certainly, he could not have warned against it any more specifically. By the standard he lays down, Paul's status in the Kingdom of Heaven cannot be much higher than that of official pariah-in-residence."p. 308
"Perhaps the documents yet to be divulged may confront us a little more inescapably with the scale and pointlessness of our own madness -- and shame us, thereby, at least by a degree or so, in the general direction of sanity." p. 340
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