There are often times in our lives when we don’t realize the value of an experience until we look behind with 20/20 hindsight and realize the significance of that life event. For me this experience was seeing, and even getting the opportunity to hold (through gloved hand and tempered glass) a fragment of the Dead Sea scrolls from the book of Isaiah.

At the time that I saw them (on 07/07/2007 of all dates), I had spent my first year in a university for my general studies while also attending Bible college through my church and moving to Kansas City and continuing my studies in theology through another university. I was visiting my family in San Diego and we all went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I remember pondering what the historians were saying as they said that some early desert dwellers called the Essenes thought that there were several messiahs coming back based on these writings due to the Messiah being described as a king, a priest, a servant etc. I had never thought of anyone supposing that there were several messiahs coming back to save the world. At that point in my life I had been raised with only way of thinking, one way of interpreting life, which was the Bible. “We have the Holy Spirit so we have the exact interpretation of the Bible when we bring the ‘living’ word of God to the Holy Spirit who interprets the Bible for us”. At the time I had no idea that due to this very belief we had over 45,000 denominations due to everyone essentially becoming their own pope and sole authority on the interpretation of scripture. We forget that up until recently being literate was the exception, not the rule. Indeed if you go to any ancient church such as Catholic or Orthodox, you will find stories painted all over the church walls from church history and scripture, and hear the same songs sung and chanted as they did in ancient times to teach the church members when no one was able to read. Our modern literate church now often calls these paintings idols, when I attribute them to largely being tools to teach many illiterate generations.

As I pondered the lifestyles of this desert dwelling group that may have even been disciples of John the Baptist and how ritual cleanliness and the copying of scriptures was so central to their lives and escaping Roman persecution in the desert, I could see the human reach for God just like Michelangelo’s painting in the Sistine Chapel. But the real question was, did this actually bring them closer to God in reality of this space and time? After all, I was taught that it was “obvious“ through our interpretation of scripture that God had one son, there was one Savior, and just like I could be a sister and daughter and friend at the same time, the Messiah could also be a King, a priest, a prophet, a servant. My peers felt bad for all those “lost Jewish people” and advised we should pray for Gods chosen people Israel so they would become Messianic Jews, because without Jesus they are still “going to hell”. Which is why it was “our job” as the chosen church with the “holy spirit” and “true interpretation of scripture” to “win Israel back by provoking them to jealousy” as it says in scripture. Whatever that means. At the time for me, I was told it meant fasting and praying for them every Tuesday with our church at the Israel prayer meeting. Yes I really did that for 7 years. At the time my job was in Johnson county, one the most heavily populated Jewish communities in the nation. Through my work I met several of “God’s chosen people”, then through DNA testing found out that our family was tied to the controversial Ashkenazi line, which was the tribe of Levi. I was met with every response from “I knew it…you have the nose and the temperament and eyes!” To “does the lineage come from your father or mother’s line? Because you know it only counts if it’s from your mother because a father can cheat but you can’t fake being Jewish through your mother”. Regardless I had already grown up celebrating all the Jewish holidays because “the real Jesus was Jewish we should be too”, and dove head first into their culture and theology.

Though these desert Essenes were unlike any culture of Jews I had found. Shouldn’t we be considering what they are teaching if John the Baptist-Jesus’ own cousin was one of them? After all in my Isaiah class my Professor had explained “If John the Baptist’s parents had taken the prophecy about Jon being the forerunner to Christ preparing the way in the wilderness and put John in the temple, which was the modern church at the time-, he would have turned into a Saduccee, the very ones that had Jesus crucified instead of walking into his calling”. Instead the school taught that we, like Jon, would need to go to “desert school” and we would need alternate paths and homeschooling, not modern day Bible colleges that couldn’t usher in “Jesus’ second return” because the modern church today was the second round of those who would be opposing Christ even in His return, and we were the chosen ones (and there are some who still don’t believe this was cultic teaching).

Today I can look back with a much more open mind and heart towards my experience with the Dead Sea scrolls, treasuring that I ever had the chance to see them with my own eyes and hold them with my own hands. And while there are over 2,000 differences (punctuation wise mostly) between our oldest copy of the scriptures from the Middle Ages and the Dead Sea scrolls, I can say that though not identical, the essence remains the same. As the historian I spoke with so adequately and perfectly said, “it truly gives you an appreciation for that Bible there that we hold in our hands to read everyday” -because yes of course I had my Bible at the Dead Sea scrolls exhibit, why would I travel anywhere “unarmed”. Though now knowing Satan himself used scripture and comes as an angel of light, I’m not so sure those “armed” Christians are greater forces of love and light or forces of false light like the dark ages and the crusades. I certainly look back on that late teens version of myself who was so sure and am so grateful that I’ve had my beliefs SO shaken, because I now walk without pride and without a stage in a world that isn’t so sure. And instead of being in the knowing, I must be one who searches and becomes the student, not the teacher. One who could now appreciate an experience like this so much more, not presupposing that I was more wise than a doctorate historian, but one who was hungry to learn and know more with an open heart and mind earnestly searching, not judging the Essenes for not being like me, but honoring their search as well. Because though the path looks different, the beginning of the journey is the same. It is Michelangelo’s painting and the ever reaching towards God ache from humanity to search and find. So until next time, love to all who like the Essenes and I with all humanity are searching and wrestling and reaching. May we be those who find, and until we do hopefully we will be blessed in our hunger as Christ said.