Dead Sea Scrolls: The Rule of the Congregation

Transcript (PDF)

Dead Sea Scrolls
Presentation 6 of 15

Rule of the Congregation
Presented by Roger Weir
Tuesday, May 9, 1989

Transcript:

Like all the other material that we're dealing with, The Dead Sea Scrolls present a labyrinth of problems. It's been over 40 years since they've been found and not all of them have been translated and published even to this day. The problem is not simple, it's very complex. It's not just a question of piecing together little fragments to make large enough fragments to translate. although that is definitely a problem. In the floor of cave four were found the remains of the major library of Qumran. It's all there but it's all in postage sized fragments. Tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of them.

But the biggest difficulty, larger even than that world-class jigsaw puzzle, is the psychological orientation needed to stay with them. Because on every front The Dead Sea Scrolls are attractive and repulsive at the same time. They're attractive because we know intuitionally that this is very important. That all three of the world's great Western religions are affected by whatever they contain. And as some of my work becomes more known in the next century, Mahayana Buddhism and religious Taoism will also be seen to have been affected enormously by these events.

But the difficult aspect is that when you have an attraction and repulsion psychologically it usually works in a pendulum fashion. or that they modulate each other into a limbo. Now in the earlier times, the 1950's through the 1960's, there was a pendulum fashion operating. Where you would have a spate of studies in The Dead Sea Scrolls and then nothing then a spate of translations and then nothing. And from the 1970's on through the 1980's there's been a limbo. So much so that a few years ago I was in the Catholic bookstore, the official Roman Catholic bookstore of Los Angeles. One of the largest dynasties in the Western Hemisphere. And asked for books on The Dead Sea Scrolls and they didn't know what The Dead Sea Scrolls were. My witness is Bishop Heller, Stefan Heller, who was with me. Who was so embarrassed that he had to turn away his red face? The manager of the **inaudible word** bookstore did not know what The Dead Sea scrolls were, in charge of ordering books.


The problem is a radical problem for us because at the deepest levels of our psyche, those levels that were used to calling unconscious, on those levels this material is still unresolved. That is to say the import of this material has never been fully digested. Now you know, all of you because you're fairly well informed and sophisticated, that if you do not deal with psychic material the material will deal with itself on the lowest possible level. Unresolved psychic energy will find its own resolution on the lowest possible denominator. And the lowest possible denominator is a regressive mythology and a compulsive ritual. So that on the deepest levels of the psyche most people, most human beings alive on the planet today, are simply psychologically incapacitated to deal consciously with this material. They cannot deal with the material. It's not that they're not interested. It's not that they will not. It's that they cannot. And so, there are always just a few who able somehow to escape from the molasses-like web of intrigue that the deep psyche poses. For those of us who are needing to live in the late 20th century. So, this material in itself is complex.

Now last week we took The Rule of the Community. Originally published in 1951 by Yale University Press it was called The Manual of Discipline. But right away people scholars familiar with the material raised objections. It's neither a manual nor is it really about discipline. It's like a rule. A regula. Why is it a rule? Because in 100 B.C. The Dead Sea scroll, which is known by the title now generally as The Community Rule, is exactly the same kind of document that you find in monastic experience. Christian monasticism, East and West. The kind of retreat structures that are there even in Sufism. The kind of structures that are there in mystical Judaism. All of these religious communities, including Mahayana monasticism and Daoist religious monasticism from the 5th century A.D. on, are all affected ,and all share the same kind of pattern which The Community Rule from the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibits.

Now before The Community Rule there were only a couple of examples extant in the world. One of them was the Pythagorean community tradition, the Siamesia. And the other, the only other one, was the Vinaya, the rules generated from the three councils after the death of the Buddha in India. And between the Pythagorean and the Buddhist Vinaya there wasn't very much contact at all.

Now The Community Rule from Qumran is definitely in the Pythagorean tradition. It is not in the Vinaya tradition. Although it has a kind of asceticism, a kind of a world hating quality of asceticism ,which would have been characteristic of the early stages of Buddhist discipline.

Now we haven't gone into this in great strength. But I should think that if there is any Buddhist influence on the Quran community it is definitely third hand. third hand and fourth rate. Because there is no attempt to integrate the asceticism into a meditative analytical discipline like you would have in the Vinaya. Instead you have a modification of the Pythagorean tradition.

Now this shows definite contact with only one place that was within striking distance of these people. And that would be Alexandria. In fact, the use in The Community Rule of 100 B.C. of direct examples of allegory makes it almost imperative that there be recognized a connection with Alexandria. There is no official explicit use of allegorical procedure before the late, very late, 3rd century B.C. in Alexandria. In fact, as we have talked about the very first, let's say the origin of conscious use of allegory as a form, was developed in Alexandria about 215 B.C. At that time Ptolemy the Fourth, Philopater built a building, the Homerian in Alexandria. And it was decorated by various sculptures. And there were allegorical meanings attached to the sculptures in the freezes in the building itself. Indeed, the very existence of the building was to teach the deeper allegorical aspects of Homer.

I have brought Marguerite Fevers great volume on The History of Hellenistic Sculpture. And I've opened it to the page which has on the bottom on the right a photograph of a freeze, which is very, very famous. One of the most famous freezes in the world. That was definitely associated with the Homerian in Alexandria. Which is, bares the title in art history The Apotheosis of Homer. The divinizing of Homer. And behind the seated Homer the two figures that are placing the laurel wreath on the poet are definitely Ptolemy Philopator and his wife, sister wife, Arisino the third, dedicating the Homerian in 215 B.C. We know this for a fact.
The question that arises is how does a movement, which is a sophisticated literary criticism movement in Alexandria, come to affect an ascetic world hating Jewish community a hundred years later. And of course, the bridge there was the Teacher of Righteousness. And we have seen that with The Book of Daniel, with The Book of Job, with the Thanksgiving Hymns from the Qumran material that it was he a single individual that made this bridge and made it viable.

Now this figure, of the Teacher of Righteousness was so powerful was understood to be a messenger from God. Not just a prophet but in fact another lawgiver. Another Moses. But that the law that was given by this second Moses was a law to prepare and not a law to consummate. In other words, the Moses given law that Torah was a consummation. These are the do's and don'ts. here are the Ten Commandments. The new law was that the real lawgiver will come, and we must just prepare ourselves to receive whatever law he brings.

Now the understanding was that the Teacher of Righteousness would return. The whole theme of a Second Coming is definitely not a Christian theme. Although it has been a major theme in Christianity. It is definitely not Christian it is rehashed Essene mythology. And it specifically was around the whole fact that the Teacher of Righteousness would return. And that at the end of time, not the end of all time but the end of this time, the day of judgment. The Yom Yahweh. The Lord's day. Would come an end to the period of corruption and preparation, incidentally. And a new era would be initiated and inaugurated.

And there would be a trigger for this new age. The trigger would be the return of the Teacher of Righteousness, who would return as a messianic figure in his own right. He would be the meant Messiah of Aaron. Whereas a second figure, a second Messiah, would be the Messiah of Israel. For instance, in The Community Rule which we talked about last week. We need to underscore and remind ourselves the authority of the sons of Aaron that is the ascetic priesthood were responsible to restore the Covenant. Is specifically to restore the covenant making capacity. So, there is a lot of writing and talk and meaning in The Dead Sea Scrolls centered around the words the new covenant. The New Covenant.

Now notice that Christianity assumes for itself that it is in fact the New Covenant. But the stress is not on the New Covenant but on The New Testament. Why Testament? It's the testament to the veracity of the Covenant.

Now the powerful idea that is here is that there are two messiahs. One of them is the return of the Teacher of Righteousness as the Messiah of Aaron. A priest. A leader of the Qumran community. Now this figure is most adequately expressed by John the Baptist. We will come to see that John the Baptist fills, as they used to say to a tea, all the specifications of that role. All of the eschatological explicate expectations of that role. And in fact, as we will see later this year the first part of The Book of Revelations of the apocalypse of Saint John is about the fulfilling function of John the Baptist.

The second Messiah after the Messiah of Aaron has come will be the Messiah of Israel. And the Messiah of Israel has a whole different function. While the Messiah of Aaron is to guarantee that the Covenant will be restored. The covenant making capacity will be restored. The Messiah of Israel will bring the people to the Covenant. So, the Messiah of Aaron, the return of the Teacher of Righteousness, as a radioactive figure sent again by God will confirm the fact that the capacity to make the covenant is restored. And the covenantal viability of man's faculty is open. And then the powerful Messiah, the Messiah of Israel, will bring the people to that openness and make that covenant live. Now this is the eschatology of The Dead Sea Scrolls.

Impairing or resisting these two messiahs is a tension between two world spirits, a spirit of light and a spirit of darkness. And we talked last week about how they are absolutely evenly matched. It's exactly 50/50. There is no weight given for one or the other. So that the Essene theology had a dominating central idea around which all of their symbolism collected. That single dominating idea is that man cannot distinguish between good and evil unless he opens himself up to God, who is the only vehicle who can. Because while you can follow precepts and do good. That is certainly possible to man. And if you follow the law then you're going to do good. But when it comes to trying to decide in a rational way, in a mature way, is this good or evil man's capacity is universally structured to produce a dead even limbo. Hence out of the Essene perception of this, centering around the symbolism, this idea that only God can weigh the balance and decide what is good and what is evil. The Essene disposition was to surrender 100% to God's will. That man can on any level exercise the acuity required to distinguish for himself. That the more sophisticated he becomes, the more sophisticated the problem becomes. The problem of telling the difference between good and evil keeps pace with man's refinement. So that there is a radical recognition somewhere along the line that this is not a losing game and it's not a winning game, but it is a equilibrium game. That the more that you refine yourself, the more the problem refines itself.

So that in the Essene experience is the root for instance of the radical universal belief in Islam that mercy is a quality of God. Allah is merciful. Because man in his own capacity can actually do nothing. The more that he is able to do the more the problem is able to challenge him. And that one **inaudible word** that this will always be the case.

Now in this setting at the end of The Community Rule is a hymn which we didn't get to. And I want you to start off tonight with this this hymn. And give you some quotations. Again, why is there hymn in The Community Rule at the very end of the document? Because the way to seal, the way to seal one's understanding, is to express it in a hymn or in a prayer. How does that seal it? Because the activity of consciousness from the coherent deep self, that activity in compensatory automatic response seals the integration at whatever level it has been. As soon as one begins to sing the praises of God the understanding of what God is in a mythic sense, or a ritual sentence, or a symbolic sense is already sealed.

Ah one says but you can change your mind. And that is true. And that is why the ideal for the Essene was to pray without end. To pray unceasingly. The whole rationale, the whole psychological strategy for praying without end is not to allow yourself a space of temptation to change your mind. If you continue praising God without end. And there is a there's a word for this and every religious tradition. A word for the unending prayer, which usually is a praise prayer. Praising God without end. That as long as that continuum operates the deep self is sealed in its understanding of God. The temptation then falls on the most sophisticated of all levels. The temptation is to pause or stop praising God.

Now you can see that this is grinding pretty fine. But you have to recognize that these people did grind this fine.

So, at the end of The Community Rule is this hymn of praise, which is written for the individual to assume for himself. Now the Thanksgiving Psalms are by the Teacher of Righteousness expressing his experience. This poem, this hymn, this prayer at the end of The Community Rule is what would have been given to every single Essene, man, woman and child. If you don't have a prayer of your own yet, here is a prayer for you. So, you can begin now of praising God without end. And as your experience goes you can add your own qualities to it. in other words, this is the starter hymn that began your lifelong practice of praising without, without end.

Here's a selection of a couple of passages from it just to give you the tone. You can of course buy your own copy and read the whole thing for yourself.
I will sing with knowledge and all my music shall be for the glory of God. My lyre and my harp shall sound for his holy order. And I will tune the pipe of my lips to his right measure. With the coming of day and night, I will enter the covenant of God. And when evening and morning depart, I will recite his decrees. I will place them, in them, my bounds without return.
In other words, all of my limitations, all of my defining characteristics are placed within this activity towards the divine. The praying without end.

Skipping over here.
I will not keep Satan within my heart. And in my mouth shall be heard no folly or sinful deceit. No cunning or lies shall be found in my lips. The fruit of holiness shall be on my tongue. And no abomination shall be found upon it. I will open my mouth in songs of Thanksgiving. And my tongue shall always proclaim the goodness of God and the sin of men until their transgression ends. I will cause vanities to cease from my lips. Uncleanness and crookedness from the knowledge of my heart .

And skipping over here. "As for me my justification is with God." Now notice the Job theme here. The final arbiter resides with God himself alone. No longer is there any intermediary. All intermediary have all been co-opted into the support structure of effectively carrying this prayer to God.

Now this is a vast change. I have to use a big word here. A word that Heraclitus used, and Carl Jung brought back into use in the 20th century, enantiodromia. A complete flip-flop of all universal values. Jung got it from Nietzsche's brilliant insight into the trans evaluation of all values in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. But Heraclitus understood it as profoundly 2,500 years ago.

The enantiodromia takes all of the structures which had organized man's life on earth. All of the angelic powers. All of the seven spheres of the planetary influences. All of the zodiacal powers. all of the worldly powers. Then had influenced man are now all reversed and polarized the other way. Because they have influenced man, they all point down and come together to man. But what is man doing? Man is praising God unceasingly. And that's the only real activity that is doing. Every other activity is subordinated to this one activity no matter what he's doing. In terms of his craft. In terms of his eating. In terms of his sleeping. in terms of having a family. That's all woven into as subsidiary things to the main motif of unceasing praise of God.

So that all of the powers, the angels and the planetary powers, and the psychic powers, and the worldly powers, by touching man are magnetized and repolarize to express back this prayer of man to God. So that eventually the integrity of man leaches through the angelic orders back to God. And in process reverses the world power. From a world power which has held man in subjection it now frees man to God. So, you can see what an incredible, simple yet effective symbolic strategy the Essenes were following.

Now here's the last couple of sections for selections from this hymn.
For my light has sprung from the source of his knowledge. My eyes have beheld his marvelous deeds. And the light of my heart the mystery to come. He that is everlasting as the support of my right hand. And the way of my steps is over stout rock which nothing shall shake. For the rock of my steps is the truth of God. And his might is the support of my right hand.
Can you see the allegory working? But can you see the theology also working?

Some more.
From the source of his righteousness is my justification. From the source of his righteousness is my justification. And from his marvelous mysteries is the light in my heart. My eyes have gazed on that which is eternal. On wisdom concealed from men. On knowledge and wise design, hidden from the sons of men. On a fountain of righteousness. And on a storehouse of power.

Now notice here that man is indeed very humble but has an incredible capacity. He can, to use a word which has been overworked in our time, man can channel God's power. And if a human being opens himself hundred percent then God's power can flow hundred percent through him. So, while he is humble in his own right as an object, man is an eternal universal value as a conduit for God's power. Man is the perfect conveyor of God's power because man can perfect himself in the sense of reducing his resistances to God's power. A human being can open himself 100% to God's power offering no resistance at all. And thus, if God's power is 100% working in someone, that person is as God is.

So, you can appreciate the incredible strategy at work here. But you can also appreciate what a difficulty it was in order to participate in this way. Because only later on, after years of practice, after getting pretty good at this kind of yoga as it were, does it even occur to one that this is indeed possible. Because in the worldly orientation this seems like a fantasy. Whereas in fact it is the only possible reality for men. And everything else, everything else is a fantasy.

Now this has an awful lot locked into it because one of the, one of the great ideas at the apex of Greco-Roman civilization, in the earliest part of the 1st century A.D., the great literary treatise by Longinus. We used to think it was Cassius Longinus we now know that it wasn't him. So, it's often referred to a classical working out with pseudo Longinus. His little of essay On The Sublime. And it appears I have it in this translation from Penguin Classics Aristotle Horace and Longinus Classic Literary Criticism, On The Sublime. and one of the great ideas in On The Sublime is to position the Greek and thus the Greco-Roman understanding of Fantasia as a combining of two elements. Idos and pathos. Image and feeling. That image and feeling together are the operative vehicle by which Fantasia works.

Now one of the difficulties in antiquity was distinguishing between reality and fantasy. And it became a problem almost as if fulfilling the Essene view that the more sophisticated man becomes the more sophisticated the problem becomes also. And by the time that the Greek mind had refined itself enough to understand the difference between fantasy and reality, the problem was so elusive that it was summed up in a kind of a mystery transformation.

Now I have a lot of material here on this and I was going to bring it through. Let me just say that Longinus was a contemporary of Jesus. And that we can learn a lot about the intellectual conscious spoken rationale for Jesus's words, his rhetoric, his grammar, from reading Longinus On The Sublime. It's a contemporaneous document. Longinus definitely is, is associated with a school called the Theodorians. Theodore was the, the teacher of the Roman emperor Tiberius, who was born in 42 B.C. and would have been educated around 30 B.C., through say 25 B.C. something like that.

So, about the time that the Essenes were leaving Qumran, Tiberius was being taught by Theodore of Ghaderi. And his school was one of the most refined of all schools for understanding the difference between fantasy and reality. And how there are different languages that operate. And the language for reality is a symbolic language, like allegory. And that the mind must speak with high differentiation, with consciousness as we would say, in order to say something right so that what is said is real. Words become real when one knows what one says. That happens then.

And this is this was a very, very great problem. But as Longinus says, pseudo Longinus says, sublimity is often contained in a single idea. This is on page 117 of the Penguin Classic version. It's in Chapter 12 of Longinus, "Sublimity, the sublime is often contained in a single idea." Now an idea, a powerful idea held in the mind is an integration of value in an amulet mode and is an expression of consciousness in a talismanic mode. Those of you who are coming to the Saturday class, I think able to understand this with a little more depth.

There is a great difficulty. Language in order to be real must have an element of thought in it. Whereas the mythic kind of language, the language of fantasia, is image plus feeling. And the thought element is not necessarily known. Mostly not known. So that the idea of speaking from this fantasia mode is expressed in Plato's dialogue Ion, that the speaker is as possessed, is enthusiastic possessed by elevation. Is in, enthusiastic in his own right like a poet or an artist who, who is inspired. Someone is inspired, oh the spirit has filled me. And thus, one is able to utter prophecy. One is able to do all of this. But this mode is not the mode of consciousness because there's no knowing operative there.

So, Longinus says, towards the end of On The Sublime, that there are. Rather at the very beginning of it.
There is a third type of fault in impassioned writing which Theodorus of Gadara called parenthesus or false sentiment. This is misplaced hallow emotionalism. Where emotion is not called for or a moderate passion where restraint is what is needed. For writers are often carried away as though by drunkenness into outburst of emotion, which are not relevant to the matter at hand. But are wholly personal and hence tedious. To hearers unaffected by this emotionalism their work therefore seems atrocious. And naturally enough for while they are themselves and ecstasy their hearers are not.

So that for a Fantasia to operate the hearers as well as the speaker must be in an ecstatic state. Which accounts for the need to go into a trance cult situation. For many people even in our lifetimes most people are affected only on this level. Only if they get into an ecstatic state. Only if they get into what we would call a shamanistic kind of a state. And they say then, oh I am touched now. But the difficulty is that the deep self does not come into play in a radiant way until thought is present. Until knowledge is present. knowing is present. Until consciousness occurs. Until the mind becomes a definite part of the theater of language. And only then is the symbolic element operating. Only then just thought come into play. So that Longinus tells us that this is true elevation.

Now the whole reason for bringing this through is that Longinus is the culmination in antiquity of the development of two centuries of understanding. How does allegory work? Why does it work? What is happening to us? And one of the essential notions here, allegory helps you to see what someone says. Now if you're on a feeling tone level you will be able to see what they say in feeling tone images that are appropriate to your background. But it takes a little bit of a sophistication. It takes a little bit of a real education and maturity to be able to see what they are saying in terms of the idea that has conveyed. The minds understanding is radically different from the feeling toned understanding. It's the difference between a child and a mature adult. It's the difference between childish imitation and mature appreciation. To use the English pronunciation of that.

So that there is a key that brings together rhetorical concerns and aesthetic concerns and religious concerns. And the key to that is that the deep self, by using a symbolic mode, keys the mind into operation and thought as consciousness participates in the language capacity. This is all important. For if that does not happen the deep fulcrum inside of oneself is not awakened. And one is dependent for the fire of enthusiasm on someone else who does that for you. And then you must follow them.

So that ending with the hymn from The Community Rule.
Who can endure thy glory? And what is the son of man in the midst of thy wonderful deeds? What shall one born of woman be accounted before thee? Needed from the dust his abode as the nourishment of worms. He has but a shape but molded clay and inclines to a dust. What shall hand molded clay reply? What counsel shall it understand?

And so, the implied criticism here is a very important deep criticism. On its own man is only a clay vessel after all. Dust assembled into a form. It is the space in the form which is the resonating chamber of what is real. And that is the sound of God introduced.
END OF SIDE ONE

Are you able to see a difference? It's a radical difference. Listen to the tapes if you're, if you're having trouble.

Let me finish up here by getting to tonight's lecture which is on the, The Messianic Rule as Vermes has it. Actually, it's known as The Rule of the Congregation. Now The Rule of the Congregation is an appendix to The Community Rule. That is to say when The Community Rule was written about 100 B.C., in the course of time, within the first generation there were two appendices which were put on to The Community Rule. The first appendix is the one that we're talking about tonight. It's called The Messianic Rule in this penguin, Pelican Collection of The Dead Sea Scrolls. It's generally known as The Rule of the Congregation. In the DuPont Summers Collection of the Essene Writings from Quran it's known as The Rule Annex. But what it is, is an appendix that was physically detached from The Community Rule Scroll. When The Community Rule scroll was found it had The Rule of the Congregation and a section on blessings, The Book of Blessings, appended to it.

Why were they appended to it? The experience of The Community Rule in that generation, that first generation, that worked with it realize that what needed to be emphasized was an overall structure. What are we doing and why? An overall, an overview, of how do we progress. The chronological steps by which we progress. And to what are we progressing? What is the purpose? Why we doing this?

So that The Rule of the Congregation is an appendix to The Community Rule which fulfills two functions. It gives you an overview of the structure of the strategy. And it gives you the purpose for which the whole structure and strategy are employed in the first place. And the purpose is to prepare for the Messiah who is surely coming. And coming very soon.

So that The Rule of the Congregation is specifically addressed to the largest population possible. The Community Rule was for the community at Qumran. The Rule for the Congregation is for the entire population of Essenes, not only those at Qumran but all of those in the various cities or in the various camps. Or even individuals out in the world on their own. The community is the Qumran fellowship. The congregation is the whole population of Essenes.

So that at the very beginning, The Rule for the Congregation, the appendix to The Community Rule says very explicitly. "And." begins with and.
And this is the rule for all the congregation of Israel at the end of days. When they shall join the community to walk in obedience to the law of the sons of Zadok, the priests and of the members of their covenant who have refused to walk in the way of the people. They are the men of his council who keep his covenant in the midst of wickedness in order to atone for the Land. On their arrival, they shall gather them all together including the children and the women. And shall read into their ears all the precepts of the Covenant. And shall instruct them in all their ordinances, lest they stray in their strain.

So right away we see that The Community Rule powerful as it was, was a vision for an elect commando group as it were, who were going to hold down the fort until the end of the ages. But the obvious realization was that there were many people who were not at Qumran who were in this movement as it were. They were not in the community. They in fact were not living according to the rigid strict asceticism and world hating qualities of the community but they were affine to the movement. They were part of the congregation. They were married Essenes for the most part, who lived in the cities.

Now we read in Josephus who was the only author in antiquity who gives us this insight. And you must see from this insight. It's like one of the proofs of the Pythagorean influence. There's no marriage in Buddhism. The Pythagorean communities however, as a hallmark of the communities admitted men and women equally. Buddhists, Vinaya, Buddhists rules are only for the men. then the Pythagorean tradition it's for the men and women and is possible for them to be married together. Either alone individually or married if they wish.

Josephus tells us that moreover there was another order of Essenes who agree with the rest as to their way of living and customs and laws but differ with from them in the point of marriage. "As thinking that by not marrying they cut off the principal part of human life, which is the prospect of succession. Nay rather that if all men should be of the same opinion the whole race of mankind would fail. However, they try their spouses for three years." In other words, they test them for three years. You become engaged and they are tested for three years. What are they tested for? They cannot be engaged until they are physiological capable of bearing children. Till they begin their period. But after that occurrence, when they are able to show physiologically that they are fertile they must keep that capacity intact for three years before the marriage is consummated.

Now right away you can see that the situation of the parents of Jesus, Joseph and Mary, was that they were following the congregation rule and not the Essene community rule. But Joseph was an urban Essene, who was allowed to marry. And that Mary was indeed an urban Essene who was allowed to marry. That she had in fact been able to conceive children for at least three years before she was pregnant with Jesus. Because Joseph was about to consummate the marriage when she, when he found that she no longer had a period. He knew she was pregnant. And as The New Testament says being a just man, he wanted to just quietly let her go. But then was ensured in the dream that all of this is in due course. And the part of an unfolding mystery.

So that a girl becomes capable of being pregnant at about 12 or 13 years of age. Mary was about 15 when that event happened. And Jesus is born in 8 B.C. Mary is born about 23 B.C.

Now The Community Rule with its emphasis on the strict two spirits, the spirit of good and the spirit of evil. The spirit of light in the spirit of darkness. And next week we're going to see the role the, the war between them. The scroll of The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness. That there will be at the end of time, a war, an Armageddon. The whole idea of an Armageddon is another part of the Essene theology become a Christian mythology. The second coming and the Armageddon are both themes which belong to Essene theology and were completely transformed at the end of that age. And to have reinstated them makes them regressive mythology on a Christian basis. Definite psychological regression. Definite impairment of the psychic energy and the deep self-powers.

I know I'm speaking strongly now. But you have to you have to understand that this material is very strong. We're sorting out and seeing what the patterns are.

In The Community Rule then the two spirits, light and dark, are 50/50. But there is coming a time when they are going to be completely resolved. That limbo will be turned into a tranquility. That holding each other off through force of tension, that tensions going to be turned inside out and turned into a tranquility. So that when one goes inside instead of finding a tremendous tension one will find calm. Instead of finding a 50/50 that as you refine yourself gets ever refined as 50/50 one will find light without darkness. It's that kind of scheme. The Congregation Rule adds an overview to that and says now, "And this is the rule for all the hosts of the congregation concerning every native in Israel." That means every person who is in the larger movement is a member of that Israel. It becomes allegorical now. Not metaphorical but allegorical. This is the Israel of the heart and the mind.

The earliest Qumran scrolls are Jeremiah and Samuel. Samuel about the theme of the Nazarite. The, the baby dedicated to God before he's born. Jesus is a Nazarite not a Nazarene. And in Jeremiah is the whole notion that God will write his New Covenant on the minds and hearts of men and not on stone. Not out there but in here. So, these, these powerful themes coming together.

"This is the rule for all, for everybody. From his youth," now they're gonna talk about boys for a minute. "From his youth he shall be instructed in the book of meditation." That is children will be trained in meditation from youth.
And shall be taught the precepts of the Covenant in accordance with his age. And shall receive as education in their ordinances for 10 years from the time of entry into the children's class. Then from the age of 20 he shall be subject to the census. He shall enter into the lot in the midst of his clan to live in the community in the holy congregation. And he shall not approach a woman to know her sexually unless he is twenty years old. And that she knows good and evil.

Now notice they specifically do not say that she knows good over evil, but she knows good and evil. That the woman be of an age where she is able to understand what's going on enough to understand that they're both there. And they're both there in attention. And that that's the condition that obtains. She then is ready for marriage after observing a three-year delay after engagement. For a boy he must be twenty years of age and have had ten years of training. Now notice here that the emphasis for the girls is that they will in a natural course have this faculty. But that men, boys need training. A boy needs ten years of training. but a girl in a natural way will, will come to this, if she is sheltered if she's not led astray. If she's not corrupted. If she is kept natural as it were, she will naturally attain this. Such a girl was called a virgin. It's not that she isn't married. That she isn't engaged. She's a virgin because she has this natural capacity to do this. But a man needs to educate himself and become perfected. He must educate himself. It's a difference in psychology recognized here by, by the Essenes.

And he shall not approach a woman to know her sexually unless he is twenty years old, when she knows good and evil. And this being so she shall be admitted to invoke the ordinances of the law against him. And to take her place at the hearing of the ordinances and among the crowd which is there.
Without education but naturally attending to this a woman is allowed to invoke the law on her behalf. Even though she may not be schooled in it, she is able to sit in on the council and invoke the law for herself and participate in the hearing of it. It is a very, very important idea.

We have somehow a sophomoric sentimental idea that somehow pious women are pushovers. It's simply not the case at all. That has never been the case. It's like the, the little story in The New Testament of the wine at the wedding festival at Cana. Jesus is mature. He's about 42 years of age. And his mother says they have no wine. Saying do something about it. I know you can do something. He says woman what have you got to do with me. She says nothing more to him but turns to the servants and says do as he tells you. Meaning I know that he'll do this. The powerful.

The whole idea of a sophomoric little namby-pamby Mary is absolutely untrue. It's a, in a derisive sense it's a myth. I'm always thinking to myself the great Max Ernst painting of the Virgin Mary spanking the bad little Jesus. Because some boys are, most boys are bad at sometimes or another.

One is to break the kind of hypnotic trance that a regressive mythology dangles in terms of images to push the buttons of your feelings. And usually pushing the buttons of those feelings in skits that if anyone authored them those people have been dead for several thousand years. The purposes for which they were once conscious are long since gone and vanished. But not inside.

"So that at the age of 25 he may take his place among the foundations of the holy congregation to ensure the service of the congregation. And at the age of 30 years he may be promoted to arbitrate at lawsuits and trials and take his place among the Chiefs of the various levels." Everyone is cared. For the aged are cared for. The simple are cared for. They have functions according to their capacities.

Then we have this statement here towards the end.
The persons who are excluded from the Essene assembly, excluded from the community, and excluded for participating in the congregation. Let no person smitten with any human impurity whatever enter the Assembly of God. And every person smitten with these impurities unfit to occupy a place in the midst of the congregation. And every person smitten in his flesh, paralyzed in his feet or hands, lame or blind or deaf or dumb. Or smitten in his flesh with a blemish visible to the eye. Or any aged person that totters is and is unable to stand firm in the midst of the congregation. Let these persons not enter to take their place in the midst of the congregation of men of renown. For the angels of holiness are in their congregation.
In other words, because of this high-power balancing of the tensions of good and evil. And the sophisticated attempt to prepare oneself only the fittest may be there.

Now notice Jesus drawing a radical red diagonal across this law and saying no. Everyone is welcome. Especially the blind, the deaf, the lame, the aged, the blemished. Exactly. And especially those that were left out of this community. That were left out of this congregation. Why? Because when God comes, he turns man's form inside out. The first shall be last. And the last shall be first. An enantiodromia.

Now notice who takes umbrage against Jesus are not particularly only the Pharisees or the Sat sees but the, the Essenes that do not appreciate having their tradition turned inside out. The whole idea that Jesus was in the Essene is a complete misunderstanding. The Essenes, the Hasidim, were the most violent of all the critics. And because of a refusal the Jewish Essenes become in time the seeds of the Gnostics. Gnosticism is a Jewish cocoon wrapped around the enigma of the person of Jesus. All the time. All the time.

Now why is all this being done? The Congregation Rule has this, "Concerning the meeting of the men of renown called to assembly for the council of the community, when Adoni will have begotten the Messiah among them." Now there's a note here. And notice here is a very peculiar the use of Adoni as a name for God. When was Adoni used as a name for God? Well it's used sometimes in The Book of Job. It's not used, I don't believe, anywhere else. And The Book of Job is a learned volume written by the Teacher of Righteousness harkening back some 2000 years before when that would have been one of the epithets for God. Back at the beginning in the close of the last great cycle. Back in the time with the patriarchs.

It's like an illusion allegorically saying what happened then with our God is going to happen now with our God. Just like then he's gonna come. "And when Adoni will have begotten the Messiah among them." Now the footnote here says to see Psalm 2 verse 7. And Psalm 2 verse 7 in the anchor Bible reads, "Let me recite the decree of Yahweh. He said to me you are my son this day I have begotten you." And then there's an explication of this in a note that you are my son that in an ancient archaic way this applies that implies adoption. It doesn't imply particularly fathering. But by adopting in the sense that a royal king is able to adopt as his heir someone else. Like Augustus Caesar adopted Tiberius Caesar as his heir. And then Tiberius became the son. Trajan adopted Hadrian as his son and Hadrian became the Emperor.

So that the implication here is that when the time is right. And the right man is there God will adopt him. And he will be his son in this way. And carry out this messianic mission of bringing the people to the readiness.

You have to understand that there's a great paradox here. The preparers of the New Covenant were preparing openness. And they mistook the techniques that they had to exercise to prepare for the openness as the new covenant. Not all. Not all. There are always some who understood that what is being prepared is the openness. And all of the scaffolding techniques that we use to get there are just scaffolding. What is prepared is the openness. And what is presented to God is the openness, not the scaffolding. But the Christian church took this, mistook the scaffolding for the, the occurrence. And said well the openness, yes there is openness but it's only within context of the scaffolding. And you can have openness, but we have the scaffolding. And that's what's going to be the church.

It reads here,
When Adoni will have begotten the Messiah among them the priest shall enter at the head of the congregation of Israel. Then all the chiefs of the sons of Aaron the priests called to the assembly men of renown. They shall sit before him each according to his rank. and afterwards when this has all been prepared.
The quotation is from Isaiah, "Make straight the way the Lord in the desert."

"And afterwards the Messiah of Israel shall enter." Enter into this openness. "And the chiefs of the tribes of Israel shall sit before him each according to his rank." How many tribes of Israel are there? Twelve.

So that the Messiah will have a reign of twelve. As the twelve not twelve disciples but the twelve. Meaning symbolically the heads of all the tribes of Israel. Are. But notice the notice the conversion here. Notice the symbolism rather than the mythic exactness, it's symbolic exactness. Yes, there are twelve but the twelve did not represent twelve different tribes. Simon and Andrew were brothers. James and John were brothers, are from the same tribe. In fact, most of them most of the disciples from the same tribe what was kept was the symbolic twelve. And the whole mythic thing of the twelve tribes was let go. The mythic structure of the twelve tribes was scaffolding. What was important was the twelve as a wholeness. As an expressive wholeness around the function of this person.

And when they gather for the community table, to drink wine and arrange the community table and mix the wine to drink, let no man stretch out his hand over the first fruits of bread and wine before the priest. For it is he who shall breath, bless the first fruits of bread and wine and she'll first stretch out his hand over the bread. And afterwards the Messiah of Israel, afterwards the Messiah of Israel shall stretch out his hands over the bread. And afterward all the congregation of the community shall bless each according to his rank. And they shall proceed according to this right at every meal where at least ten persons are assembled.

Every single meal on every single day for almost 200 years were observed in this way. The ritual of observance was that this meal is a preparatory right for a meal which is going to be served and eaten and consummated at the very end of the time. The reason for doing these meals is to practice doing it right and prepare ourselves for openness.

Now it's, it's interesting here because we've inherited a whole mythological and theological mishmash. We no longer understand the radical transition between a preparation for a single event, which is eternal. It doesn't have to be done ever again. It is never undone. Though one meal for which all these communal meals are preparing only needs to be eaten once. It never is uneaten though. And to keep on with the preparation and the scaffolding is to not believe that the event can be reenacted.

Christian Church doesn't believe in the person of Jesus. it believes in the possibility but not the person.

more next week.

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