The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has led many scholars, Bible students and church-goers to wonder whether, because of their prior dating, the “uniqueness” of Christianity was threatened.
Once again it must be postulated that the “Teacher of Righteousness” of the Qumran (Dead Sea) Sect is not anticipatory of Jesus Christ. Millar Burrows, regarded as one of the leading authorities on the Scrolls, writes in his book “More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls”: “Nothing in the Dead Sea Scrolls concerning the person and work of the teacher of righteousness or any of the messianic figures presents any ‘threat to the uniqueness of Christ’.”
The same writer strongly illuminates the marked differences between Jesus Christ and the Qumran teacher of righteousness. He says: “The saving efficacy of the death of Christ has no parallel in the beliefs of the Qumran Sect concerning either the Teacher of Righteousness or the coming Messiah.” He also writes: “What gave unique significance to the crucifixion of Jesus was not that he was put to death in that particular way, but that it was he, the altogether righteous Son of God, who suffered death for the sins of others.” Millar Burrows brings forward the supreme evidence of the Virgin-birth: “Nowhere is there anything miraculous in the birth of the Teacher of Righteousness.”
Millar Burrows interestingly attracts attention to the manifest differences between Jesus Christ and the Teacher of Righteousness: “If one starts with the New Testament, and looks for echoes in the Qumran texts, one can hardly help being most impressed by the enormous differences. I have found this particularly true in going through the Gospels with this question in mind. The carpenter of Nazareth who ‘went about doing good’ through the villages of Galilee and Judea, ‘the friend of tax collectors and sinners’, ‘eating and drinking’, shocking the religious authorities by his indifference to traditions, but heard gladly by the great crowds of common folk who pressed upon him and brought their sick to him to be healed—this is a very different kind of person from the teacher of the exclusive community in the desert. Their lives have very little in common.”
Millar Burrows makes further points in his comparison: “In the Qumran Rule of the Congregation all who were physically imperfect or afflicted were to be excluded from sessions of the congregation, vastly different from the outlook of Jesus, who healed the blind and the lame who came to him in the temple, and in the parable of the banquet ‘the poor and maimed and blind and lame’ are brought in to take the places of those who have declined the first invitation.” Then again, he says, “Especially notable is the contrast between their meticulous concern for ritual purity and his indifference to it. When his disciples shocked the Pharisees and scribes by eating ‘with hands defiled, that is unwashed’, Jesus defended them, saying that what defiles a man is not what goes into his stomach but what comes out of his heart.”
He also refers to the incident of the grain plucking on the Sabbath: “The Qumran Sect were ritualists and it is certain that they would not have approved of Christ eating with tax collectors and sinners, or plucking grain and rubbing off the chaff with their hands on the Sabbath.”
There has been publication of a great volume of literature by writers with little or no direct contact with the Scrolls, with the sole object of demonstrating how Christianity had its antecedent in the Qumran Sect. A. R. C. Leaney in his book “A Guide to the Scrolls” firmly dismisses such specious absurdities: “There is no ground whatever for the sensational announcements in book, newspaper, or broadcast, which suggest that the discoveries of these ancient manuscripts have rendered Christianity untenable.”
This writer gives an interesting clue concerning the death of the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness which shows that it could not possibly have been anticipatory of the death of Christ. He writes: “A point often overlooked is that if the Teacher of Righteousness is the same person throughout the documents in which he is mentioned, he died a peaceful death. The Damascus Document twice refers to the ‘gathering-in of the unique teacher’. Gathering-in is used widely in the Old Testament of peaceful death. The same Hebrew is employed, for example, in Genesis 25. 8 (Abraham was gathered to his people’).”
The comparative information in the preceding paragraphs is given to show the marked differences in •the two theologies. The publication of books on the subject of the Scrolls, with agnostic bias, will doubtless continue to conform to the growing pattern of Bible criticism in current literature. Increased knowledge in scientific and other fields has deluded men and women into thinking that they have got beyond the simplicity of the Bible, and accounts for the contempt and active antagonism directed against the Book of books.
The uniqueness of Christianity is brought forward in many Bible references. There is the clear allusion in Genesis to the “seed (singular) of the woman”, that is, Christ, who would “bruise” the head of the “seed of the serpent”. Here is the victory of Christianity over the power of sin, foreshadowed in Eden. Then there is Peter’s reference to Christ as being pre-existent in the purpose of God “before the foundation of the world”; “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you.” Herein lies the uniqueness of Christianity because it was fashioned by God in his grand purpose of creation. It is all awe-inspiring and defies a full analysis due to human limitations.
In the Gospel of John is recorded Christ’s conviction that he pre-existed in the purpose of God: “For thou loved me before the foundation of the world.” Thus it will be seen that in determining the foundation of Christianity we have to go back to the beginning of all things. It is all related to the Infinite Mind and Purpose of God, and is unique indeed.
The birth of Christ was miraculous and was, therefore, unique. The wonderful event is prophesied by Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel”, which means “God with us”. Here again we see the foundation of Christianity laid by God, for the accomplishment of His purpose. It was the prophetic word pointing to Bethlehem, looking forward to the day when the angel would bring “Good tidings of great joy”. Here indeed was the Teacher of Righteousness sent by God to turn men from their sins. He was not to be espoused to one particular sect, but he was, in the angelic message, to be the Saviour “to all people”. Christ the Lord, alone, was to be the unique Teacher. He was the Prophet-Saviour of Deutero-Isaiah, the rock of everlasting truth fashioned by God, and according to His purpose, from the foundation of the world.
All Christian hopes lead back to Bethlehem and Nazareth, where, in the words of John, the “Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father), full of grace and truth”. Here was the fulfilment of the prophetic word, the ending of an age and the beginning of another. It was God-manifestation in the likeness of His Son, the commencement of a new relationship between God and man: “For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Paul’s reference in Galatians represents perhaps the best example of the coming Messiah as the eschatological fulfilment: “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Here we have the clear definition of the expiry of one dispensation and the entry of another, and with it came Redemption: “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” The school mastering principle of the Mosaic Law had indeed offered men a new relationship, even fellowship with God, through Christ.
The uniqueness of Christianity was wonderfully demonstrated in all that Christ said and did: “Never man spake like this man.- And then we have the words of Nicodemus which convey the uniqueness and authority of Christianity: “We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”
Peter in his great Pentecostal address drives home the full significance of the uniqueness and authority of Christianity: “Ye men of Galilee, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know.”
The finality of his message was made manifest in his reference to the triumph of the. Resurrection: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God bath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” The miracle of conversion then did its work, and the inspired record sounds note after note of triumph and joy: “Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ Then they that gladly received his word were baptized. . . And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. . . . And all that believed were together, and had all things common. . . . And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” Christianity had won its own, and brought men and women out of the darkness of sin into the glorious Light of the Gospel of Christ.
John the Baptist believed that the coming of Christ was unique and that it was by the authority of God: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh way the sin of the world. . . . And John bare record, saying, I saw the spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.” And then John’s whole outlook was changed to accommodate itself to the altered circumstances in which Christ was to gain preaching ascendancy, while John became less conspicuous: “I must decrease but he must increase.” John’s mission as the Light-bearer was finished, and he had heard the words from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
The politico-religious conditions at the time tended to accentuate the uniqueness of Christianity. A resentful Jewry simmered under the Roman heel, a resentment fired by a burning monotheism that spurned emperor-worship, and fed, no doubt, by some of the spirit of the Zealots.
The Jews were allowed latitude in the matter of religious observance, but Roman tutelage represented an unrelenting discipline, and set its face ruthlessly against anything that looked like independent organization.
According to Josephus, the three main religious sects of the Jews were Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes. The former believed in the immortality of the soul, resurrection of the body, spirits, eternal hell for the wicked, while the souls of the righteous rise and transfer into other bodies. They practised the externals of religion, setting great store on a rigid compliance with the Law, and showing intense preoccupation with their own self-styled righteousness. They incorporated many traditions of the fathers into their beliefs.
The Sadducees were not as numerically strong as the Pharisees, and were, for the most part, drawn from men of education and wealth. They adhered to the written Law, disregarding the traditions of the elders, and showed unbelief in the resurrection, angels, and spirits. They represented the hereditary temple priesthood, and were numbered in the Sanhedrin which tried Paul.
There was traditional antagonism between the two, a fact noted and skillfully exploited by Paul at the time of his trial.
John the Baptist, when he saw the Pharisees and Sadducees when baptizing in the wilderness, called them a “generation of vipers”. Christ warned his disciples of the “doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees”. There could be no greater condemnation of these two leading sects than this.
The Essenes, as has been previously pointed out, were a separatist sect, hoping that a communal life in isolation, with strict observance of the Mosaic Law, would free them from the pollutions of mundane contacts. It is said that they believed in the immortality of the soul, hell as a place of torment, and in their destiny as an elect people. Josephus ascribed greater virtue to the Essenes than to either Pharisees or Sadducees. However, they represented sectarian extremism and turned their backs on their fellow-men.
It is against this background of Greek learning and superstition, Roman overlordship and emperor-worship, and Jewish fetish for ritual and religious legalism, that we must view the coming of Christ. It all represented the end of an age foreshadowed by the prophets.
Josephus, though never a Christian, has this to say about Jesus: “Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was (the) Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
Josephus took a prominent part during the seige of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and he recorded it all as a historical event. From his position in point of time he was ideally situated for the purpose of making an accurate assessment of the person and wonderful works of Christ. It is certain that he would have had contact with Christian converts from the Jewish faith. His evidence is telling indeed, and supports our claim for the uniqueness and authority of Christianity.
In about A.D. 147 Justin Martyr in his “Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew”, wrote: “You ( Jews) knew that Jesus was risen from the dead, and ascended into heaven, as the prophecies did foretell was to happen.”
Other early historians confirm the life and work of Christ, their testimony showing the Bible to be a rock of Truth, a book to be confidently accepted and believed. There is a chain of historical evidence pointing to the divinity of Christ, evidence that speaks out of the silence of the past, even as the Psalmist said it would: “Thy name, O Lord, endureth forever; and thy memorial O Lord, throughout all generations.”
Only one man could say, “Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world”. Only one man showed to the world the qualities that are born of God: love, mercy, forgiveness, faith, humility, loyalty and understanding. In all these things Christ the Lord was unique, because it was by the authority of God. He is “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”
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