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This book is the first published statement of the fruits of some years' work of a largely philological nature. It presents a new appreciation of the relationship of the languages of the ancient world and the implication of this advance for our understanding of the Bible and of the origins of Christianity.
In 1970, John M. Allegro published The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, arguing that the early Christians belonged to a drug cult, their sacrament consisting of hallucinogenic mushrooms. The book contained a large amount of linguistic data to support Allegro's speculations. In his follow-up book, The End of a Road, Allegro considered the philosophical ramifications of having undermined Christianity and hence, for many people, religion altogether. He argued that abandoning religion is not tantamount to abandoning morality; rather, it should enable a more honest and straightforward approach to morality. This new edition includes a new foreword by Judith Anne Brown, author of John Marco Allegro: The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as two new essays. These are an essay by Franco Fabbro discussing a mushroom mosaic in an early Christian church in Aquileia; and an essay by John Bolender discussing the vagueness of the concept of religion, which raises questions about the precise target of Allegro's polemic and challenges attempts to defend religion as a biological adaptation.
The Chosen People tells the history of the Jews from the conquest of Jersualem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 587 B.C.E. to the Second Jewish Revolt of C.E. 132. John Allegro bases his account on traditional texts — books of the Old Testament, Josephus, Philo Judaeus, Dio Cassius, and others — and sets out the complicated parade of plots, counter-plots, betrayals, and insurrections in a brisk and highly readable sequence. His main theme is how the conception of the Jewish nation as a divinely chosen race was planted as a political ambition among the exiled Jews. Bringing together old customs and stories, the idea was fired by the longing of the Babylonian Jews for their traditional home...
Black & White edition, second printing. Christianity and the Piltdown Hoax (one of the largest academic scandals in history) share many similarities: In both stories the information was constructed and then salted into the information stream, and, through the word of noted scholars, presented as fact, the truth. Scholars have egos and once committed to their ideas through scholarly publications, faculty meetings, and conferences, have difficulty seeing, hearing, or even appreciating an adverse view. To waver from a strongly held opinion could spell academic ruin and withdrawal of acclaim. This leads to lively debate, counter stories, and even character assassination if one side or the other ...
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This volume contains the published proceedings of the conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, held at Provo, Utah, July 15-17, 1996. Forty-three articles, all dealing with various aspects of the Scrolls, are placed under the following divisions: Technology, Editions and Analyses of Texts, The Qumran Community, Calendar, Levi and the Priesthood, Messianism and Eschatology, and Wisdom and Liturgy. The volume offers the most recent scholarship on a number of issues and topics pertaining to the Qumran community, newly translated biblical and non-biblical texts, and technological advances that assist scholars and researchers in accessing and studying the scrolls. The section that pertains to technology, for example, focuses on DNA techniques to analyze Scroll fragments and an imaging radar system that has archaeological applications to Qumran and its environs. Another section addresses the question of how and where the Qumranites lived and speaks concerning Qumran names.
The recovery of 800 documents in the eleven caves on the northwest shores of the Dead Sea is one of the most sensational archeological discoveries in the Holy Land to date. These three volumes, the very best of critical scholarship, demonstrate in detail how the scrolls have revolutionized our knowledge of the text of the Bible, the character of Second Temple Judaism, and the Jewish beginnings of Christianity.