Dead Sea Scrolls
5-11-22
God is sovereign The Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden until God decided to release them. Proving the time is now! All the books of the Old Testament were found in the Scrolls except Ester.
Who lived in Qumran? The sons of Zadok. (Melchisedek). And the Essenes, they were regular Hebrews who followed the teachings of the sons of Zadok. Priests were supposed to be from Zadok. Kings were supposed to be from the line of David.
To be a priest you had to be from the tribe of Levi. Then in time Aaron became a priest, so to be a priest you had to be a descendant of Aaron. Many priests later was an Aaronic priest names Zadok. So now to be a priest you should be a descendant of Zadok. (Melchisedek) All Priests come from Levi. Not all Levites are Priests.
Pharisees, tried to force Gentiles into Judaism. Sadducees were Jews who wanted to go along with what the government said to do. Eventually, the Sadducees stopped believing in angels and life after death, this made them sad you see.
Now you have the Essenes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. There are a few others but for now these are the ones we will be talking about. Christianity has a lot of denominations, so do the Children of Israel.
The illegitimate priests followed a lunar calendar, but the sons of Zadok used the solar calendar because it was given by God at the beginning.
John shows a difference between the lunar and the solar calendar. John 7:2-8 says that His brethren asked Jesus to go to Judaea with them, but Jesus said, My time is not yet come: but your time is always ready.
You see Jesus was working on a different calendar then they were. The Pharisees used the lunar calendar, but the people of Qumran used the solar calendar. Matthew, Mark and Luke use the solar calendar, but John uses the lunar calendar.
Was Jesus Himself an Essene? No, He came to teach all people the right way, His way.
Acts says Saul went to the high priest and asked for letters to go to Damascus, to find any belonging to “the Way”, he might bind them and bring them to Jerusalem for arrest. There was two Damascus’s. Damascus Qumran and Damascus Syria. The problem is the priests of the temple in Jerusalem had no authority over any Jews as far away as Damascus Syria. Qumran was also called “the Way” and Damascus. And Damascus Qumran was close enough that the priest felt they had authority there. Damascus Qumran was very close to Jerusalem.
The book of 1 Maccabees 5:25, 39; 9:35 and 2 Maccabees 5:8 says that Paul went to Damascus and was baptized. After that Paul went to Arabia, then he returned to Damascus. After three years in Damascus, Paul went to Jerusalem for fifteen days.
I think Paul spent three years in Damascus Qumran learning to be an Essene or in other words learning to believe like the sons of Zadok. (Melchisedek)
Evidence of this is in Acts 24:14-15 (NET) But I confess this to you, that I worship the God of our ancestors according to the Way (which they call a sect), believing everything that is according to the law and that is written in the prophets. I have a hope in God (a hope that these men themselves accept too) that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.
Pay attention to this next paragraph.
“The Way”, existed a long time before Jesus. The followers of “The Way” (the Qumran Community and the Essenes throughout Israel) accepted Jesus as the Messiah. So what happened to the Essenes? Where did they go? Where are they now? When Jesus came, died, resurrected, ascended to Heaven the Essenes likely accepted Him. They went out to preach the Gospel, to the world as was commanded in Matthew 28:19-20. The Essenes became us Christians: We came from the Essenes!
I want to tell you a story. About 15 – 20 years ago, I was volunteering at Youth For Christ. Up in the 3rd floor was a small room we used for Bible Study. It had bookcases from floor to ceiling on all 4 walls. Stuffed full of books. The director George Kell told me that they were going to convert that room to a dressing room, as they needed it because God was blessing there theater productions. I said what are you going to do with all those books? Donate them to the library. Well, I went upstairs and looked at the books. There was a book there I wanted. I asked George if I could have it. What book do you want, he asked? Josephus. Why do you want that old thing? I like to read.
I took it home. I had to put a tea towel on my lap to read it, because if was disintegrating so bad. After reading I had to shake out the tea towel. Flavius Josephus, was a secular historian. It was illuminating! It added so much to the Bible stories that I knew so well. I loved it. But it was not inspired by the Holy Ghost.
Recently, I have begun to read some of the dead sea scrolls. They are the word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit. You can tell when you read them. It is just there.
Take it or leave it. But you can’t debate this with me until you have read them.
It doesn’t matter what you are reading. Look for the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit can even anoint present day teachings!
The difference between knowledge and wisdom, isn’t so much what you know, but what you do with it.
Hope you enjoyed this!
Forever in His Love
Diane Ebaugh Sutton