Breaking the Dead Sea Scrolls Monopoly: A New Interpretation of the Messianic Movement in Palestine - Paperback

by Robert Eisenman (Author)

In this book, Professor Robert Eisenman details his struggles to break the monopoly on the Dead Sea Scrolls enjoyed by "The Official Team" and open them up to all: scholars and lay people alike. This monopoly had been going on for almost 40 years where only a select few with identical views could see the entire corpus, while the vast majority of outsiders could only see what this Establishment chose to publish with their always like-minded interpretations. To break through this monopoly, Prof. Eisenman followed a series of fortuitous steps. First, in the mid-1980's he was fortunate enough to obtain a complete copy of The Official Israel Antiquities Authority List of all the existing Scroll fragments and documents. In about the same year, while an N.E.H. Fellow at The Albright Institute ("The American School" where the Scrolls first came in, in 1948), on the very first day of his arrival he was also fortunate enough to meet the actual photographer who photographed them. With the help of Michael Baigent (z"l), he was able to convince this individual to make over a second copy of all the plates to him. Then after many adventures - some positive, some negative - he was able to arrange for their complete publication in two volumes. In this book, for the first time Prof. Eisenman will reveal the name of this individual. In the second part, he will go through the meaning of the Scrolls - why based on the contents of the Documents themselves and not inaccurate preconceptions this is actually "The Literature of the Messianic Movement in Palestine" or what the author sometimes alludes to as "Palestinian Christianity". As such, it is the very opposite of thatoverseas development of "Normative Christianity" we all know - i.e., "Pauline Christianity" - which developed in Romeand Alexandria and was abominated by these "Messianists" at Qumran. Its progenitor, Paul, will be identified in the book as a descendant of Herod and the personal and absolute "Enemy" of"James the Brother of Jesus," called "The Just One" and "The Leader of the Movement in Palestine" equivalent to "The Righteous Teacher" in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Author Biography

Robert Eisenman is the author of James the Brother of Jesus: The Key to Unlocking the Secrets of Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Penguin, 1998), The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (Penguin, 1992), The New Testament Code: The Cup of the Lord, the Damascus Document, and the Blood of Christ (Barnes & Noble, 2006), Islamic Law in Palestine and Israel: A History of the Survival of Tanzimat and Shari'ah (E. J. Brill, 1978), The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians (Element, 1996), James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls Volumes I and II (Grave Distractions, 2012), and co-Editor of The Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls (B.A.S., 1989). He is Emeritus Professor of Middle East Religions, Archaeology, and Islamic Law and the former Director of the Institute for the Study of Judeo-Christian Origins at California State University Long Beach and a Visiting Senior Member of Linacre College, Oxford. He holds a B.A. from Cornell University in Philosophy and Engineering Physics (1958), an M.A. from N.Y.U. in Hebrew and Near Eastern Studies (1966), and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in Middle East Languages and Cultures and Islamic Law (1971). He was a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies and an N.E.H. Fellow-in-Residence at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem - the so-called "The American School" where the Dead Sea Scrolls first came in and were examined - in 1985-86. In 1991-92, he was the Consultant to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California on its decision to open its archives and allow free access for all scholars to all the Scrolls, previously-published or unpublished - the same year he published his own Facsimile Edition with Prof. James Robinson of Claremont University). In 2002, he was the first to publicly announce the so-called "James Ossuary" - which was so suddenly and 'miraculously' made public - was fraudulent and he did so on the very same day it appeared on the basis of the actual inscription itself and what it said - without any 'scientific' or 'pseudo-scientific' aids.