DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29499, 28 April 1961, Page 10

DEAD SEA SCROLLS

“Proof Christ Is Myth” (N .Z.P. A .-Reuter—Copprtpht) MOSCOW, April 26. Moscow Radio claimed yesterday that the Dead Sea scrolls found ip the Qumran area of the Judaean wilderness had provided further proof that Christ never existed. When the scrolls were found, it -said, “certain bourgeois scholars and Christian theologians at first saw in this document proof that Christ was a historical figure. “But it turned out that the teacher of righteousness of the Qumran scroll, who so resembles the Christ of the Gospels, had in reality lived about 100 or 150 years before the time when Christ was supposed to have been born.” The Qumran teacher of righteousness had perished but the Qumranites believed he would return in order to judge those who had rejected his teachings, the radio said.

Thus the newly discovered documents not only “failed to confirm that Christ had lived on the earth, but. on the contrary, have helped to reveal hoW legends about a non-existent saviour have been formed.” The writers of the gospel had used the pre-Christian teachings of the Esseaes about a teacher of righteousness. “amplified them with Eastern myths about dying -£. r^.sur^" t B<xiB ' a nd_then created a history of the birth prophecies, and death of a r?h2J >y na ? e ot who h «d never