The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 65

“This is the most preposterous theory I’ve ever heard.”

Seated in a Jerusalem cafe with her British and Irish guests, Professor Leah Yakarin, didn’t trouble to hide her opinions. In the rough and tumble world of academia, she knew that one had to fight one’s corner with vigour or go down to a tougher slugger. It was like prize-fighting, except that it was usually gloves off and to hell with the Queensbury rules.

“Any more preposterous than the theory that Essenes didn’t really exist?” asked Daniel.

The Essenes were one of three, or possibly four, Jewish factions that existed in Judea in between the second century BCE and the first century CE — the others being the Sadducees, an aristocratic priestly sect notionally descended from Tzadok the first High Priest in Solomon’s temple, and the Pharisees, a sect of learned but humble men. Some scholars, basing their beliefs on the writings of Josephus, also identify a fourth school of thought — the “Sicarii” — whom Josephus distinguished from the Essenes. Both Essenes and Sicarii — so named for the dagger or sica that they carried — are sometimes referred to as zealots. But the Sicarii were believed to be of Galilean origin, whereas the Essenes were identified with Jerusalem,

But Professor Yakarin was one of a small number of academics who argued that the Essenes were real or a figment of the imaginations and propaganda of certain Greco-Roman writers.

“There is no credible evidence that the Essenoi existed,” said Professor Yakarin, using the Greek name by which Josephus had called them. “The Dead Sea Scrolls, which the Essenes supposedly kept and guarded, make no mention of them. The so-called Essenes were former priests who had lost a power struggle. The Biblical scrolls were removed from the Temple… when they were ousted by other factions.”

Daniel was in an argumentative mood.

“But not all of the Dead Sea Scrolls were Biblical texts. Some were about daily life and other matters. One of the scrolls describes a small sect living communally in the Dead Sea area. That can hardly be a reference to Jerusalem.”

“No, but that scroll may have been by the priestly sect who fled from Jerusalem. They may even have lived in Qumran or Masada. But that doesn’t make them a separate sect — just a group of deposed priests hiding out from their enemies in a civil conflict. But it didn’t mention the name Essenes. And all that talk about ascetic lifestyles is just a load of baloney. Josephus had spent three years travelling in Judea with an ascetic called Banus who probably filled his head with those ideas. And as a scholar he read about the Spartans and their lives of deprivation. He was writing a mythology for his Greco-Roman audience.”

“Look, I’m no great fan of Josephus myself,” said Daniel. “But the Essenes weren’t only described by Josephus. Pliny the Elder and Philo also mention them. And in fact Pliny mentioned them even before Josephus. He even said they lived in Ein Gedi — right by the Dead Sea and Masada.”

“Yes but Pliny’s total summary of them is confined to no more than half a dozen lines. And what does he actually say about them? That they didn’t use money, that they existed for thousands of generations — and that they never married!”

“Okay so he exaggerated a little, but that — ”

“A little? Look I’m not saying that its impossible for a celibate sect to maintain itself like the Shakers, through conversion and recruitment. But for how long? And remember the Shakers operated in America which had a larger population from which to recruit new members. Also Pliny insisted that all the Essenes were men. They didn’t recruit women at all. That sounds like some sort of Spartan sect or some sort male-only club that characterized certain groups of Christians. And that kind of Christianity was itself an outgrowth of certain Greco-Roman traditions, not Jewish ones.

But in Greco-Roman tradition, the life of deprivation was associated with military preparedness, not devotion to God.”

“Not necessarily Daniel,” said Ted. “The Stoics were hardly militaristic.”

“And according to Josephus the Essenes were,” replied Daniel.

“Which leads right back to my theory,” said Leah Yakarin. “Josephus was writing fiction to appeal to his Greco-Roman readership.”

“Maybe not entirely fiction,” Ted suggested. “Maybe just gilding the lily.”

Leah Yakarin thought for a moment.

“If they were celibate, then they would have really been a small sect — and probably wouldn’t have lasted more than two generations at most.”

Daniel stepped in.

“Okay but Josephus says that the Essenes did marry. It may be that a small number carried there asceticism to the extreme of celibacy. And Philo wrote about them even earlier, crediting them with similar communal lifestyles.”

“But Philo didn’t speak Hebrew, despite his Jewishness. He was essentially a Greek of Jewish origin. And he may also have been pandering to Greek ideas. He didn’t even call them by the Latin form, Esseni, or even the Greek form, Essenoi. He called them Essaioi without an N and said it meant ‘holy’. It was Josephus who called them Essenoi and Pliny called them Esseni.”

“We’re getting a bit hung up on nomenclature here,” Ted stepped in. “Surely whatever they called themselves, we can all agree that they existed?”

“No we can’t!” snapped Professor Yakarin, still fighting her corner. “We can accept that there were communities living in the Dead Sea area, Qumran, Ein Gedi and even Masada. But that doesn’t mean they were a large ascetic sect. They were deposed priests who lived in exile from Jerusalem after losing a power struggle.”

Daniel decided to bring the discussion back on track.

“We’re moving a bit of the point here. We were talking about the Domus Aurea manuscript.”

Leah Yakarin shook her head.

“I remain sceptical about that too. You said yourself, you never saw the original — just an image on a computer screen.”

“Yes but we do have the original of the map.”

“Which you still haven’t shown me.”

“We don’t want to take it out too much,” said Ted. “You know what excessive handling can do to a document.”

“Of course I know. In fact a Russian colleague of mine has pointed out that there’s been a lot of careless handling of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

“Then I’ll ask you to take our word… for the time being.”

“I trust your integrity Professor Klein. Your reputation precedes you. But what is it you want from me?”

“Well we understand that your archaeological team discovered a parchment manuscript, that hasn’t yet been deciphered, in the Temple Mount tunnels.”

Leah sat still as she considered this.

“Not exactly in the tunnels. It was in the earth removed from the excavations at Solomon’s Stables between 1996 and 1999.”

Ted looked confused.

“But wasn’t King Solomon much earlier than the rebellion against Rome — I mean like a thousand years before that?”

“The name Solomon’s Stables is actually a misnomer,” said Leah. “It actually dates to the time of Herod the Great. One of his prestige projects was to extend the Temple Mount platform with twelve rows of vaulted arches, supported by eighty eight pillars on huge stone blocks. The space below became storage space.”

“And that’s been excavated?” asked Ted incredulously. Wouldn’t that threaten the structural integrity of the entire site.”

This was Ted’s area of expertise.

“Tell me about it,” said Leah, shrugging her shoulders.

“And the Muslims didn’t object?”

“It was the Waqf who did it — to build another mosque.”

Ted was about to ask what the Waqf was when Daniel stepped in to explain.

“The Muslim religious trust that controls the Temple Mount.”

But it was Leah Yakarin who was in her element now.

“We told them it was dangerous, but they did it anyway. It could have led to the Dome of the Rock or the Aqsa mosque collapsing. And then they’d have blamed us.”

“But when you said they found it in the earth, do you mean they just handed a mass of earth over to… what? The Israel Antiquities authority.”

“Not exactly Professor…”

“Hynds,” he reminded her.

“They weren’t doing a proper archaeological dig for research purposes. They were just digging it up to build another mosque. They put the earth on trucks and unceremoniously dumped it in the Kidron Valley near the Mount of Olives. They knew that it was likely to contain priceless artefacts associated with the long Jewish period before the Muslims invaded but they just didn’t care. As far as they were concerned, if the historic artefacts associated with the Jewish period were destroyed or lost forever, so much the better.”

Ted picked up on this.

“But you said something was found.”

“A lot of things were found. You see the Israel Antiquities Authority didn’t want to get involved. After effectively allowing the Waqf to get away with an act of brazen anti-Semitic vandalism, they kept a low profile. But others weren’t so willing to allow thousands of years of archaeological evidence of the Jewish connection with the temple mount to be wiped out by a bunch of Philistine savages. So in 2005 a salvage operation was mounted under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University.”

“So it’s in Tel Aviv?”

“No. Bar-Ilan are supervising. But any artefacts found are stored in Jerusalem.”

“And you were in charge of the project.”

“Not exactly. I was one of several historians asked to review and analyze the finds at the time when they made the discovery. But since then, my controversial views on the Essenes led to a big falling out and so I was asked to resign from the project. Anyway, the project is still going on and so far we’ve found flint tools dating back some ten thousand years, ostraca, jewellery, clothing, coloured stone and glass fragments that we think come from mosaics, official ritual seals, something like a thousand ancient coins, statuettes and figurines, ivory dice, game pieces made of animal bone, mother of pearl furniture inlays, weights of both stone and metal and — as you mentioned — a parchment manuscript found inside a clay jar. And as you said a parchment manuscript written in Hebrew lettering but in a language that we cannot decipher. We’re not even sure what linguistic group it belongs to.”

Daniel and Ted exchanged a knowing glance. She was about to say more, but was interrupted by a commotion at the entrance to the cafe. An Arab with a bulging waistline had barged past the security guard at the door and was reaching into his jacket.

“Get down!” Leah shouted, realizing what was happening.

They ducked under the table just as the explosive belt detonated sending splinters of wooded furniture and shards of crockery flying across the room.