all books of the Hebrew Bible, with the possible exception of the
book of Esther; works of biblical interpretation; rules for (pre-
sumably) the nearby religious community; works of poetry, prayer,
and liturgy; and texts concerned with God’s wisdom.
From the moment of their discovery, these texts provoked
great excitement because they dated more or less from the time
of Jesus. Furthermore, as the Scrolls began to be deciphered, they
presented readers with texts that echoed the writings of the New
Testament in significant ways. For example, the text known as
the Messianic Rule, from cave 1 at Qumran, concludes with the
following instruction for a gathering of the community:
And [when] they shall gather for the common [tab]le, to eat
and [to drink] new wine, when the common table shall be
set out for eating and the new wine [poured] for drinking,
let no man extend his hand over the firstfruits of bread and
wine before the Priest, for [it is he] who shall bless the first-
fruits of bread and wine, and shall be the first [to extend]
his hand over the bread. Thereafter the Messiah of Israel
shall extend his hand over the bread, [and] all the congre-
gation of the community [shall utter a] blessing, [each man
in the order of] his dignity.
(The Messianic Rule, trans. Vermes 1997: 159–60)There are obviously similarities between the ritual described here
and the gospel accounts of the Last Supper (cf. Fredriksen 2000:
115). What are we to make of them? One reaction has been to
postulate very close links indeed between the Qumran commu-
nity and the earliest Christians. Such efforts have produced some
rather sensational theories. For example, the texts say much about
a leadership figure called the Teacher of Righteousness and his
enemy the Wicked Priest. Some readers of the Scrolls have seized
upon these figures and sought to identify them with the founders
of Christianity: thus we have been presented with James, the
brother of Jesus, as the Teacher of Righteousness and Paul as
the Wicked Priest; even more eccentric has been the identification
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