By John Allegro - The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (Rev Sub) (1992-03-16) [Paperback]

by John Marco Allegro

Was Jesus of Nazareth a real historical person or a fictional character in a religious legend? What do the Dead Sea Scrolls reveal about the origins of Xianity? Has there been a conspiracy to suppress information in the Scrolls that contradicts traditional church teaching? Allegro addresses these & many other intriguing questions in this fascinating account of what may be the most significant archeological discovery of the 20th century. As one of the original scholars entrusted with the task of deciphering these ancient documents, he worked on some of the most important texts, including the Biblical commentaries. In '61, King Hussein of Jordan appointed him to be honorary advisor to the Jordanian government on the Scrolls. In his engagingly readable style, he conveys the excitement of the initial archeological find & takes readers on a journey of intellectual discovery that goes to the heart of Western culture. He suggests that Xianity evolved out of the Messianic theology of the Essenes, the Jewish sect that wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. This new edition also contains an essay in which he describes the in-fighting among the scholars assigned to study them & his 30-year battle to release all of the texts to the public. He was one of the 1st scholars to protest the long delay in publishing the Scrolls & to criticise his colleagues for their secretive & possessive attitudes. This issue has recently been the focus of national media coverage, with the result that after 40 years, open access to the Scrolls has finally been permitted. If he'd lived to see it, he'd have been very pleased by this resolution of the controversy.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Philosophy, Spirituality, Historical

Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

John Marco Allegro was a scholar who challenged orthodox views of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Bible and the history of religion, with books that attracted popular attention and scholarly derision.

After service in the Royal Navy during World War II, Allegro started to train for the Methodist ministry but transferred to a degree in Oriental Studies at the University of Manchester. In 1953 he was invited to become the first British representative on the international team working on the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls in Jordan. The following year he was appointed assistant lecturer in Comparative Semitic Philology at Manchester, and held a succession of lectureships there until he resigned in 1970 to become a full-time writer. In 1961 he was made Honorary Adviser on the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Jordanian government.

Allegro's thirteen books include The Dead Sea Scrolls (1956), The Treasure of the Copper Scroll (1960), The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross (1970) and The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (1979) as well as Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan vol. V (1968) and articles in academic journals such as the Journal of Biblical Literature, Palestine Exploration Quarterly and Journal of Semitic Studies, and in the popular press.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would be interesting to read a critical biography of John Allegro in order to understand how the fellow became so antipathetic to the historical claims of the Christian story. He clearly was expert on the matters of Near Eastern religions leading up to the formation of the Church and wrote a number of conventional books on pertinent subjects. His interests in the connections between Christian and other, earlier myths were certainly legitimate, but his coming to eschew the historical claims of the faith, even to the point of questioning the existence of the teacher Yeshua (except perhaps as related to the Teacher of Righteousness from the Scrolls), isn't understandable to me despite having read his books, 'The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross' and "The End of the Road", the latter of which offers his own explanation based on the conclusions of the former. Compared to other ancient figures who didn't make it to the coinage and fine arts of their periods, Jesus is about as substantiated as anyone with the possible exceptions of Cicero and other writers whose work has come down to us.

This book plays up the hypothesis of a strong Essenic connection with early Christianity. Since the Essenes aren't much known except through the writings of Philo and Josephus, and since there is nothing positively associating them with the scrolls found near the Dead Sea, it seems to me that this claim is guesswork resting on an even flimsier basis than the guesswork involved in imagining the historical Jesus. It is, however, a common hypothesis and Allegro does do some service by carrying to through to extremes.

[HuggablySoft · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading the Sacred Cross and the Mushroom, I thought this book would be an obvious next step. I wasn't totally wrong. However, I felt Allegro stretched things a bit far with the general idea of the priest "baptising" the following and the followers eating "the holy body". This is a family site, so that is all I will say about those thoughts. If you're curious, skim the book or find a synopsis online.

There are some good chapters that opened my mind to what it must have been like for a separatist sect to eke out a living in such a harsh envinroment. But I feel that Allegro was hell bent for leather to find another ridiculous image to embarass those who follow the Judeo-Christian belief structure.

[Lindsay Nixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF at 20%

This is too dry. I feel like I’m stuck in an awful undergrad lecture. A pity as I find the subject matter interesting.

[Drab · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even more meh

[Andrea Wenger · Rating 2 out of 5]

First, let me say that narrator Mike Cooper did a superb job with this audiobook. Kudos to him.

That’s the only positive thing I have to say about this book. The author died 35 years ago, so I don’t have to worry about hurting his feelings. I generally try to avoid using ableist language relating to mental health conditions—but y’all, this book is nuts.

It was originally written in 1979 and last updated in 1991, three years after the author’s death. For some reason, someone decided that 2023 would be a good time to make an audio version. I don’t know, I think it would have been better if the book were relegated to the trash-heap of history, but somebody might make a few bucks on this. Better than nothing, amirite?

You would think, since John Marco Allegro was given the responsibility for piecing together and translating some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, that he must have been a scholar of some renown. And maybe he was…until he started publishing about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

His ideas were…shall we say…a little fringe. The cover of this audiobook (the version I read), as well as the preface, mention the author’s book, “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.” As I understand it, in that book, the author put forth the proposition that the idea of Jesus Christ originated with the Essenes. And that Christ wasn’t a man, but a magic mushroom. And the early Christians just got confused and thought he was a man.

Now, I recognize that there isn’t much direct, scientific evidence of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. But there’s quite a bit of direct evidence of the existence of Paul, in the form of all those epistles he wrote. And there’s also evidence of James, the brother of Jesus, with whom Paul had a contentious relationship. I feel pretty confident that Paul and James really existed.

And I also feel pretty confident that James wasn’t confused over whether his brother was a mushroom. Like, if his brother had been a mushroom, James would have known that.

But I digress. As far as I know, this book didn’t go so far as to propose that Christ was a mushroom. I can’t say so for sure, because I gave up at 60%. I had so completely lost the plot that there was no point in continuing.

This book seems to be about all the bizarre religious sects that existed in the Levant in the first century CE, and all the weird ways it’s possible to interpret their writings. For instance, the word “anoint” might mean, to smear with male reproductive fluid. Well, okay, I guess that’s one possibility. Like, I can’t prove it doesn’t mean that.

All I can say for sure is, this book had words in it, but they didn’t make much sense to me in context. It got worse as the book continued. If the book had anything to do with Christianity, I suppose I must not have read far enough to find out.

Who knows, maybe this audiobook will become a cult classic, like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Because, let’s face it, that’s a terrible movie, but so bizarre you can’t look away. Maybe this audiobook will be like that.

Thanks, NetGalley, for the ARC I received. This is my honest and voluntary review.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in preparation for reading Joel Rosenberg's 'The Copper Scroll' a fictional work my sister-in-law read in one sitting—it was that captivating!

Allegro, on the other hand... not so much for me. Allegro was one member of a team of scholars—and the only atheist on that team—that worked on translating the Essene scrolls found at Qumran. His premise is that Christianity evolved from Essenism and that Jesus follows in a long line of mythological personalities created by a religious spirit common to mankind. His burden is to prove such through a comparison of Scripture with the scrolls.

It is a complicated read for anyone without a religious background. Allegro in large part plays with the etymology of words which although is known in hermeneutics as an uncertain science is, none-the-less, to him a rich source of mythological passwords and hidden meanings.

the Essene Teacher comes from the name
given to the publican, Zacchaeus. It is the Greek form of the Aramaic word
zakkai meaning ‘righteous, innocent’, a piece of bitter irony when applied to a
member of this most detested profession among Jewish collaborators, but having a
very special relevance to the Master’s title, the Righteous Teacher, or, as it
is more commonly rendered, the Teacher of Righteousness. It has to be emphasised
that in this kind of exegetical treatment of biblical texts, and its imaginative
elaboration of single words and phrases into totally unrelated stories, we are
not dealing with allegory, the portrayal of one subject under the guise of
another. Obviously, Zacchaeus the publican does not represent the crucified
Teacher; the town of Shechem was not a sycamore tree. But by word-play and
literary allusion it is possible to find a reference to the one from the other,
and, in the eyes of the ancient commentators, still obtain for their myths some
scriptural support.

What the reader always needs to realize is that Allegro like any author promoting an interpretation of history/culture/theological thought—whatever they are reviewing, the writer—needs to begin somewhere with a premise assumed reasonably correct or perhaps based on another's proof texts. Allegro calls Christianity a myth and begins there to interpret the text accordingly. Obviously, if it is not myth, Allegro's entire work collapses under its own unsupportable weight.

I find it interesting that he seems to commend St. Paul for St. Paul's view of Christian thought not realizing that St. Paul hung all his theology on—what he believed and maintained was—an historical event, the Resurrection. Allegro offers no corresponding reference to the Resurrection even to explain it away. Unlike Allegro, whose theorizing comes to a dead end, St. Paul found the pathway to Truth and life in Christ—the historical and real Christ whom he promoted in his writings.


Well, time to start reading Rosenberg who admits his work is fiction.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

A scholarly study of the essenes and gnostics through some and their writings, particularly the dead sea scrolls. Though Allegro's presentation was often engaging and full of insightful points for any biblical scholar, there were many times he broke that rhythm - either failing to develop a point he introduced or jumped too far ahead - making it harder to follow his reasoning. Nevertheless, the book is of great value in learning about the essenes, their transition to the gnostic successors, and how their myths seemed to have shaped the pre-christian philosophy and later into the attempted historical interpretation held by christians even today.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A remarkable book which proposes a plausible alternate explanation for the origins of Christianity and the numerous inconsistencies in the books of the New Testament, along with the idea that a religion like Christianity is hardly likely to have sprung from normative Judaism. Whether a reader finds the book shocking and appalling, or possible, will depend on the reader's predispositions.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Scientific Christian

This was a very scientific and academic read.

I found it very interesting and quite fascinating.

Although it went over my head a few times, I felt it was very well written.

Learned a lot!

3.8/5

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tough read, I highly recommend doing some research of the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Christianity prior to reading this book to understand what Allegro is discussing. If you want to know more about the social and political complexities of the Essenes and early Jews this is a book you MUST read. Be ready for a lot of talk about semen though in the middle chapters.