Jesus the Man (book)
Encyclopedia
Jesus the Man: New Interpretations from the Dead Sea Scrolls is a 1993 book written by the Australian biblical scholar and theologian Barbara Thiering
. Using a technique that the author calls "pesher", she purports to have uncovered evidence that effectively contradicts the biblical story, which she calls the "surface meaning" ("for 'babes'"), regarding the nature of Jesus
and his mission. The book has primarily received scepticism by the scholarly community.
priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross
. He married Mary Magdalene
, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64".
By applying her unique interpretive method to the New Testament
gospels and Dead Sea Scrolls
, Thiering reconstructs a new history of early Christianity which she contends was hidden in pesher
coding. She sees Jesus as a prominent member of this movement, because of his descent from the Davidic kingship, as well as the efforts of his great grandfather, Hillel the Great, and his grandfather, Heli, to establish schools of religious instruction for Jews of the Diaspora. Being technically born out of wedlock, his fortunes changed depending on the views of inheritance of the high priest in power. Unlike Simon Magus, the second most important figure in the New Testament, Jesus was a pacifist and opposed the zealots, calling for a reform and renewal of religion leading to a Jewish empire which would overrule the Roman Empire by its appeal to reason and morality.
Thiering finds that the biography of Jesus hidden in the New Testament shows him to have been born in Qumran, an Essene community beside the Dead Sea, in March, 7 BC. His brother James was born (within wedlock) in September, 1 AD. In March, 17 AD, he was initiated at the age of 23, and took a political stance in favor of his (spiritual) "father", the Annas high priest, "who taught peace with Rome and the promotion of Gentiles".
Rebaptized by John the Baptist in March, 29 AD, he was soon involved in a schism from him, together with a party "called the Twelve Apostles", some of whom (including Judas Iscariot and Simon Magus) were zealots and others (including Jesus), pacifists.
Thiering examines each of the miracles in the New Testament and finds in them nothing miraculous, but rather events marking turning points in the history of "the Fig Tree", as the movement was called.
debate, writing in 1993 states "It is safe to say that no serious scholar has given this elaborate and fantastic theory any credence whatsoever. It is nearly ten years since it was published; the scholarly world has been able to take a good look at it: and the results are totally negative." In a critical review of the book's conclusions and methodology, Ancient Historian and New Testament scholar C.B. Forbes concludes that "Her books cannot be described as history. They are extraordinary fantasy, and have been dismissed as such by historians around the world."
Garcia Martinez, the editorial secretary of the revue de Qumran, has called her work “science fiction” and disconnected from all historical and literary reality.
Barbara Thiering
Barbara Thiering is an Australian nonfiction writer, historian, and Biblical exegete specialising in the origins of the early Christian Church. In books and journal articles, she challenges Christian orthodoxy, drawing on claimed new evidence that gives alternative answers to its supernatural...
. Using a technique that the author calls "pesher", she purports to have uncovered evidence that effectively contradicts the biblical story, which she calls the "surface meaning" ("for 'babes'"), regarding the nature of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and his mission. The book has primarily received scepticism by the scholarly community.
Content
The central thesis of the book is that "Jesus was the leader of a radical faction of EsseneEssenes
The Essenes were a Jewish sect that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE which some scholars claim seceded from the Zadokite priests...
priests. He was not of virgin birth. He did not die on the Cross
Death and Resurrection of Jesus
The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...
. He married Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene
Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus' most celebrated disciples, and the most important woman disciple in the movement of Jesus. Jesus cleansed her of "seven demons", conventionally interpreted as referring to complex illnesses...
, fathered a family, and later divorced. He died sometime after AD 64".
By applying her unique interpretive method to the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
gospels and Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead Sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
, Thiering reconstructs a new history of early Christianity which she contends was hidden in pesher
Pesher
Pesher is a Hebrew word meaning "interpretation" in the sense of "solution". It became known from one group of texts, numbering some hundreds, among the Dead Sea Scrolls....
coding. She sees Jesus as a prominent member of this movement, because of his descent from the Davidic kingship, as well as the efforts of his great grandfather, Hillel the Great, and his grandfather, Heli, to establish schools of religious instruction for Jews of the Diaspora. Being technically born out of wedlock, his fortunes changed depending on the views of inheritance of the high priest in power. Unlike Simon Magus, the second most important figure in the New Testament, Jesus was a pacifist and opposed the zealots, calling for a reform and renewal of religion leading to a Jewish empire which would overrule the Roman Empire by its appeal to reason and morality.
Thiering finds that the biography of Jesus hidden in the New Testament shows him to have been born in Qumran, an Essene community beside the Dead Sea, in March, 7 BC. His brother James was born (within wedlock) in September, 1 AD. In March, 17 AD, he was initiated at the age of 23, and took a political stance in favor of his (spiritual) "father", the Annas high priest, "who taught peace with Rome and the promotion of Gentiles".
Rebaptized by John the Baptist in March, 29 AD, he was soon involved in a schism from him, together with a party "called the Twelve Apostles", some of whom (including Judas Iscariot and Simon Magus) were zealots and others (including Jesus), pacifists.
Thiering examines each of the miracles in the New Testament and finds in them nothing miraculous, but rather events marking turning points in the history of "the Fig Tree", as the movement was called.
Rationale
By way of explaining how special meanings came into use and make sense, Thiering writes:
Human institutions tend to develop a private language in order to give identity. The more exclusive the institution, the more it develops a language that acts as a set of passwords, giving admission to those who are "in the know", keeping out those who are not. The institutional language may be so rarefied that it looks like nonsense to the outsider. To take some examples:
If someone remarked: "I saw the bench talking to a silk", apparently making no sense, it would, in fact, convey to a member of the legal profession that a judge had been talking to a queen's counsel.
Similarly, "the White House spoke to the Kremlin" would make sense to anyone who followed politics. "The Sharks play the Dragons" would be quite natural to an Australian rugby fan. A "foundation chair" in a university means the position of a first professor. An actor "treads the boards"; and "the House rises" means that parliament adjourns.
The purpose of this book has been to show that the secondary meaning is objectively there in the gospels and Acts. It has set out the story that emerges, and the elements of the basic systems that lie behind the gospel history: chronology, locations, and hierarchy. A great many lesser systems remain to be set out, with their associated vocabulary. But enough has been done to show that a new chapter in our understanding of the New Testament and of Christian origins has been opened up by the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Scholarly Reception
Thiering's thesis has primarily received scepticism from the academic community. N.T. Wright, a prominent figure in the historical JesusHistorical Jesus
The term historical Jesus refers to scholarly reconstructions of the 1st-century figure Jesus of Nazareth. These reconstructions are based upon historical methods including critical analysis of gospel texts as the primary source for his biography, along with consideration of the historical and...
debate, writing in 1993 states "It is safe to say that no serious scholar has given this elaborate and fantastic theory any credence whatsoever. It is nearly ten years since it was published; the scholarly world has been able to take a good look at it: and the results are totally negative." In a critical review of the book's conclusions and methodology, Ancient Historian and New Testament scholar C.B. Forbes concludes that "Her books cannot be described as history. They are extraordinary fantasy, and have been dismissed as such by historians around the world."
Garcia Martinez, the editorial secretary of the revue de Qumran, has called her work “science fiction” and disconnected from all historical and literary reality.