However fascinating, such an identification is not required in order to see the wider point that the Scrolls community of purist messianic Jews was ideologically akin to the rebels who started the war with Rome—and to the “Apostles” Paul clashes with in the New Testament, as we shall see.
Professor Eisenman has also discovered numerous linguistic similarities between the Scrolls and the New Testament suggesting that a close and often hostile relationship existed between these two communities. This conflict appears to reflect the religious differences that erupt in the pages of the New Testament between the Apostle Paul and the early Christians led by James the Just—a conflict Paul bitterly describes in his famous letter to the Galatians.
One need not accept every conclusion that Professor Eisenman draws in order to be persuaded that the ideological dispute between the early Christian leaders James and Paul perfectly matches the differences between the militant and peaceful messianic groups of the 1st Century. In the work of Josephus, the Zealot movement is treated as a 1st Century innovation, like Christianity itself. And yet, even in the New Testament, both groups are called “Apostles” of Christ. One can hardly doubt that Romans like Tacitus also counted the hostile and messianic Zealots as “Christians,” as well.
Paul’s works are universally considered to be the oldest Christian writings even though they were penned about 20 to 30 years after Christ’s death. During his mission to establish the early Church, he recounts ongoing violent encounters and disagreement with Jews and, curiously, with fellow Apostles of Christ represented by James the Just.
The militancy of the Zealots’ ideology resembles that of both the Dead Sea Scrolls community and, in all likelihood, the earliest so-called Christian community led by James. Both groups were focused on the messianic prophecies contained in the Jewish scripture, the main inspiration for the Jewish rebels, according to ancient sources. The Dead Sea and James groups, whether they were one and the same or not, both believed in strict adherence to the Torah—the source of conflict that made it so difficult for Jews to assimilate with Romans and classical civilization, and the very target of both Christ’s scorn in the Gospels and Paul’s vigorous arguments in the Epistles.
Although such practices as male circumcision limited widespread conversions, Jews of the era welcomed proselytes to some extent. A category of Jewish convert who was not circumcised but who still worshiped the Jewish God started to emerge, known as “God fearers.” However, as with the worship of Roman state gods, if a man did not become circumcised, he was technically excluded from the House of Israel. He remained a mere onlooker, rather than a member among God’s Chosen People.
A rising pagan interest in Judaism was another factor Romans were managing. Paul attests that his mission was to convert Gentiles in the wake of previous efforts by “Cephas” (Peter) and others who aimed only at converting Jews to the rising new messianic fervor. Since messianics were the purists with the greatest devotion to the law, Paul was probably the first messianic missionary to encounter Torah observance as a cultural obstacle. The new challenges that came with proselytizing to Gentiles, who were unaccustomed to Kosher diet and, especially, to circumcision, lead Paul to reject strict observance of Jewish law altogether in his mission.
It was this rejection that supposedly precipitated the passionate dispute between Paul and James and the controversy that would separate the Torah-rejecting and more pacifist Pauline “Christians” from the Torah-adhering Jewish “Christians" of James.
Paul Writing his Epistles, by Valentin de Boulogne (17th Century)
Throughout his letters to his flocks, Paul emphasizes that Christ’s death and resurrection liberated Christians from the constraints of Mosaic Law, thus eliminating the need for such practices as Kosher diet and circumcision. In short, he proclaimed that Christians were now “free in Christ.” On the prickly issue of circumcising male converts, Paul inveighs:
Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. (Emphasis added.) (34)
Paul suggests this new “freedom” will break down the wall separating Jew from Gentile, thereby eliminating any reason for future conflict.
This idea is fairly summarized in a letter to the Ephesians ascribed to Paul (but more likely written by a follower of Paul’s ideas a decade or two later during the Flavian era):
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the Cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone… (Emphasis added.) (35)
As the Apostle Paul famously proclaims to the Christians of Corinth:
Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings. (Emphasis added.) (36)
Paul’s letter to the Galatians reveals that “Christians” said to have been Jesus’s original followers somehow believe, in contrast to Paul’s doctrine and only a couple of decades after the Crucifixion, that strict Torah observance is still mandatory, including Kosher diet and circumcision.
If the Gospels record history, this is impossible to understand since they quote Jesus announcing the end of Kosher dietary restrictions and his praising the faith of a presumably uncircumcised Roman soldier!
Christ’s message would be extraordinary, to say the least, and revolutionary for a “grassroots” Jewish leader of the 1st Century. It is all the more incredible that his oldest followers could have missed it. The Gospels famously depict the disciples ignoring strict Sabbath observance, as well as Jesus arguing in favor of violating the Torah with Jewish religious authorities. How can two groups depicted as “Christians” disagree over such a fundamental message of Christ’s ministry?