Book
Review

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish origins of Christianity

Author: Carsten Peter Thiede
Publisher: Lion Publishing plc
ISBN 0 7459 4262 8
256 pages

Review By Arlene Johnson

This book was sitting on a table in the library where I was reading another book. The title looked intriguing, so I picked this book up and began to read it instead, simply because of its title.

Within a short while, I discovered a name that I have never seen before--Essenes-- but what really caused me to make the decision to review this book was two-thirds (2/3) into it when, on page 186 the author states,

"Throughout the Jewish writings which became the New Testament, this wholeness of the creator God and the Son of god, the Messiah, is maintined...Beginning and end are in one hand: the Lord has come, and he will come again."

Putting together the name Essenes and this previous quote, it occurred to me that possibly there was a faction of Jewish people who believed that Jesus was the Messiah because the author meticulously demonstrates that these scrolls were written in the first century BC if I understand what the author wrote.

I'm not an authority on the Bible, but all through this book, the author provides Biblical references so anyone can go to a Holy Bible to compare what was written on the scrolls with what is written in the Holy Bible, and the author also documents the writing of the scrolls as well with the most sophisticated equipment in use today, equipment that he explains in detail in the last chapter of this book that seemingly God placed in my view on the table on the library.

Is it possible that certain factions, the Essenes, have been blocked away from our vision by those who wish to misrepresent what those of the Jewish faith represent? We are all too aware of the Pharisees and Sadducees which were the bane of Jesus Christ's existence.

Therefore, from those more knowledgeable than I, I have learned about the Vatican, so could it be that instead of the Jews being evil, it is really the Vatican that is?

The author doesn't address this issue, but I want to, and I would like people to read this book so they would be able to make up their own minds about this issue.

Too, this review of this highly enlightening book, is not to discount all the atrocities of Zionism which has nothing to do with the Jews of Jesus Christ's time since we all know that there was no such term as "Jews" in that day from another source which I have read, so what I have published in editions prior to this one, still stand.

Moreover, on page 207, the author addresses the Talmud, which we have all been led to believe is the law of Judaism in which "goyim" means cattle, but the author doesn't castigate the Talmud, so what we should do is read the Talmud to judge for ourselves. It is possible that the Talmud does demean those who aren't Judaics, but maybe it doesn't.

While reading this book, I thought that the author was Jewish who is trying to clear up the record of the people who lived in Jesus Christ's time, but when I finished reading the book, I glanced at the inside back cover to learn that the author is a Christian who is an ordained minister in the Church of England, so he has no axe to grind, only a craving to set the record straight on the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Carsten Peter Thiede is also the author of the major bestseller entitled "The Jesus Papyrus," "Jesus: Life or Legend?" and with Mattthew d'Ancona, "The Quest for the True Cross."