Did Jesus Really Die on the Cross?

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Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Unlocking the Secrets of His Life Story

Barbara Thiering

(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992) 451 pp., $24.00

This is not really a book about the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is a fantastical reinterpretation of the Gospels and the life of Jesus, supposedly using a technique unlocked by the scrolls.

Thiering divines her thoroughly novel reading of New Testament texts on the basis of what she calls “the pesher.” Pesher is a Hebrew word that means explanation. It normally refers to the interpretation of an ancient text as if it were saying something about a much later time—usually the end of days. This kind of interpretation is common in the New Testament, where, for example, the prophecies of Isaiah are read as applying to the time of Jesus. It is also common among the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, several Qumran texts known as pesharim (the plural of pesher) are commentaries on particular Biblical books—among them Habakkuk and Nahum: these pesharim first quote a passage from the Biblical text and then give the pesher, or commentary, applying the text to the time of the commentary. Thiering uses pesher somewhat differently, however. She uses the term with reference not simply to then-ancient texts such as the books of the Israelite prophets, but with respect to then-new texts, that is, the New Testament. When used in this way, the term can refer only to a secret meaning. In short, says Thiering, the Gospel writers put a secret meaning into their texts at the time they were written. There is really no need for Thiering to use the word pesher, except that it lends a certain mystery to the process by which she reads the New Testament. All she is saying is that there is a secret subtext to the Gospels, put there by their authors.

Ancient authors also used code words frequently. A particular word often stood for another word. In rabbinic writings, “Edom” usually means Rome. In Revelation, “Babylon” stands for Rome. Thiering includes the use of code words in her definition of pesher.

Thus is she prepared to read the subtext of the Gospels.

Even the fawning introduction—by a Dr. Leonie Star, not otherwise identified—recognizes that “there is no doubt that some find difficulty in accepting [Thiering’s] reasoning.” It is, Dr. Star concedes, “a matter of faith as much as a scholarly hypothesis.”

According to Thiering, who teaches at Sydney University in Australia, the Gospel writers wrote on two levels. On one level, they wrote for the “babes in Christ,” who “need[ed] the supernatural as an element of their faith.” On another, concealed level—never noticed in the nearly 2,000 years since they were written—is an intentionally accurate, factual, nonsupernatural, historical account of events. That—nothing less—is what Thiering has uncovered.

She is helped by the Dead Sea Scrolls. The similarities that all scholars see between early Christianity and the Qumran sectarians suggest to Thiering that “the Qumran sect represented the form of Judaism out of which Christianity came.” From there she jumps to the conclusion that the famous Teacher of Righteousness of the Qumran texts is John the Baptist and that his opponent, the Wicked Priest (whom she conflates with the Man of a Lie), is none other than Jesus himself!

One of the problems with this theory is that many of the Qumran references to the Teacher of Righteousness, etc., are dated 100 years or more before the time of John the Baptist or Jesus. The scrolls are dated paleographically, however—that is, by the shape and stance of the letters. There is enough ambiguity in the Qumran references, Thiering tells us, “to encourage a fresh look at the dating of the figures in the scrolls.” Q.E.D. If written in the mid-first century A.D., they could be contemporaneous with the Gospels, which Thiering dates much earlier than most scholars. John (which she says was the earliest) she dates to 37 A.D.; the others were all composed by the 60s; even Acts was completed by the early 60s. Almost all scholars will be startled by these early dates.

For Thiering, Christianity like its founder was born near, if not at, Qumran. “Jesus was born, not in Bethlehem, but in the building about a kilometer south of the Qumran plateau. He was born there because at the time of his birth he was officially classed as an illegitimate child.” Thus the roller coaster begins. Why was he born at a place known today as Khirbet Mird? Because some (much later) Christian writings were found there.

The Galilean references in the Gospels are, when read properly (that is, by Thiering, allegedly using the pesher technique), references to the Dead Sea area. This is demonstrated by the fact that the locations in Galilee seem vague and imprecise and the times needed to cover the distances do not seem to work. But when the code names are understood, the locations all fit. Thus the Sea of Galilee is really the Dead Sea: “The boat trips taken by Jesus and the disciples were on the Dead Sea, not on Lake Galilee.” Gerasa is Ain Feshka; Capernaum is Mazin (another site on the shore of the Dead Sea).

From a passage in Josephus, Thiering concludes that the Essenes (whom she identifies with the Qumran sect, to which Jesus’ family belonged) had a two-stage marriage procedure. The first wedding was a kind of betrothal that initiated a maximum three-year probation period during which the couple was permitted to engage in sexual relations—in effect, a trial marriage. If during this period, the woman became pregnant, the couple had “a second marriage ceremony … Thus the woman was always three months pregnant at her final wedding.” Joseph and Mary had intercourse, however, even before the initial wedding ceremony. “Joseph was then in a difficult position: he had committed a minor breach of the rules, and one option was to ‘put Mary away.’ The child would then be classed as illegitimate.” Joseph consulted some priests whose advice was that “he should recognise the child, and go ahead with 070the first wedding as if it were the second, when the woman was normally pregnant anyway. He did so, and in accordance with the rules, there was no intercourse after this wedding, treated as a second one [because she was already pregnant]. This was a straightforward fact, but it was put in such a way in Matthew’s gospel as to give the impression that there never had been sex.” Thus according to Thiering.

The virgin birth story is “written at the level of a miracle for those for whom the idea of a virginal conception had symbolic power, but at the same time it is written in such a way that those who had special knowledge of the Essene marriage rules and did not expect the supernatural would understand the real facts.”

This is pretty much the level of Thiering’s text. Just as the Galilee is transformed to the Dead Sea area, so Jerusalem is transposed to the settlement at Qumran—the new Jerusalem. By the time of the Passion, Jesus had married Mary Magdalene. “Jesus had to marry in order to continue his family line [he was heir to the Davidic throne], and in his case it was all the more necessary in order to affirm his legitimacy.” At the time of his marriage, Jesus was 36 ½ (Thiering is nothing if not precise); Mary was 27. There had previously been a trial marriage, and Mary was already pregnant (she had conceived in December, 32). Thiering refrains from describing the couple’s “personal emotions” (although they did hope it would be a boy) because that would “ventur[e] too far into speculation” and Thiering likes to stick to demonstrable facts.

Jesus returned to Qumran to see his pregnant wife and to celebrate his second wedding to her when he became enmeshed in the Passion and Crucifixion. At the Qumran temple, the sectarians kept their treasury. Jesus objected to this: “Here were to be found ‘the tables of the moneychangers.’ Qumran had been turned into a bank … He overthrew the tables of the moneychangers.”

The Last Supper “was a regular evening meal such as was held every night by the [Qumran] sectarians.” When the Gospels tell us he then went to the Mount of Olives, they really mean “the monastery building east of the aqueduct” at Qumran. In a complicated internecine dispute, Jesus is seized and arrested.

Pilate then arrives at Qumran for the trial. He is bribed to condemn Jesus, but “in order to receive the bribe, … Pilate had to become a nominal member [of the sect]. To receive membership, he went through a token baptism by washing his hands.” Pilate then ordered Jesus’ crucifixion, along with two others.

“The crosses … were set up on a spot that can be determined exactly. The location lay outside the southern entrance gate to the Qumran complex, on a line nine yards south of the south-west corner of the lower vestry.” Thiering even provides us with a photograph of the supposed exact site.

Jesus did not die on the cross, however. He drank some “snake poison … [that] render[ed] him unconscious.” He was taken down and placed in a burial cave: “Jesus did not die on the cross. He recovered from the effects of the poison, was helped to escape from the tomb by friends, and stayed with them until he reached Rome, where he was present in AD 64. This is not conjecture.”

The story that he died on the cross is “fiction for the ‘babes’”; his post-Easter appearances were nothing less than “the real flesh and blood Jesus, holding an audience with his ministers.” We were meant to understand the text in this way when it is properly interpreted, according to Thiering.

Thiering’s book is deceptive in that it looks very thick, if you look at the last page, it is numbered 451. In fact, however, her story is quite briefly told. Only 160 pages, including the introduction, are taken up by the text itself. The remaining nearly 300 pages are consumed by lengthy appendixes that give the book the feel of weighty scholarship.

The real mystery is how HarperSanFrancisco, a division of HarperCollins that is generally known for books of solid scholarship, decided to publish this volume. The answer doubtless has something to do with what was on the tables that Jesus overturned. The publisher has told the bookstores that it is going to spend $30,000 promoting this book, so they had better stock it. It will be interesting to see whether this investment pays off.

Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Unlocking the Secrets of His Life Story

Barbara Thiering

(San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992) 451 pp., $24.00