Thu 26 Jan 2006
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Messiah
Posted by Henry under General Discussion , History , Religion , Judaism , Christianity , Church HistoryNo Comments
What is the religion of Abraham? What is the true religion of the Hebrew Scriptures? Is the modern Jewish religion truly the representative of the true Hebrew faith? Is Yeshua the Hebrew Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew Scriptures? How can one know? The answer to all these questions can be found only in the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. If you are of the seed of Abraham physically, then it is your duty to search the Hebrew Scriptures and to ask God to illuminate you and give you guidance, through His Holy Spirit, so that you might learn the truth. But, can we trust the Hebrew Scriptures to give us the same message that it contained when they were inspired so many years ago? Have they not been changed through the many years of transcribing? We have already mentioned in the Introduction that the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had been written 2,000 years ago, prove that the Hebrew Scriptures have remained preserved by God and their message remains unchanged. But, what did the Hebrew people believe about their prophesied Messiah 2,000 years ago, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were redacted?
Let us then turn to these scrolls in order to catch a glimpse of the beliefs of the Jews living in the time of the Second Temple. The Hebrew sect responsible for stashing these scrolls in the caves along the shore of the Dead Sea nearby the Qumran community was the third Jewish sect that had vied for the hearts and minds of the Jews in the era after the return from the Babylonian captivity. Most scholars believe that the Qumran community was composed of members of the sect called Essenes. These were dedicated, austere and sincere individuals, which wanted no part of the political maneuverings in which the Sadducees and the Pharisees thrived. They practiced an austere and strict moral code and rejected the many extra-biblical man-made laws invented by the Pharisees. These Pharisees, they claimed were in the business of making up these laws as a way to impress others with their false spirituality and they mockingly referred to them in these scrolls, as the ‘Flattery Seekers’.
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