The Temple
Excerpts from THE TEMPLE SCROLL.
Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls
by Yigael Yadin
The Dead Sea Scrolls are without doubt one of the most important discoveries, if not 'the' most important discovery, for biblical studies ever made in the Holy Land. Their discovery created shock waves among scholars. To change the metaphor, it was if a powerful telescope with a zoom lens suddenly brought the world of Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period into immediate focus across a barrier of two thousand years. This period was both a tragic turning point in Jewish history--the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 AD--and the cradle in which Christianity was born and began to grow. The Temple Scroll, like the previously discovered Dead Sea Scrolls, will no doubt be scrutinized by generations of scholars in order to illuminate this critical period in the history of Judaism as well as Christianity...
From the rising of the Sun, even unto the going down of the same my Name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my Name, and a pure offering; for my Name shall be great among them, saith the Lord...(Malachi 1:11).
I previously referred to the many "new" or additional festivals referred to in the Temple Scroll. These were observed by the Essenes but not by normative Jews. One of these additional festivals I did not mention was THE ANNUAL SEVEN-DAY CELEBRATION know as THE DAY OF ORDINATION (or consecration) of the Priests. This celebration is patterned on the Seven-day consecration ceremony Moses performed on Aaron and his sons when they became priests of the Lord in the wilderness, as described in Leviticus 8. For normative Judaism, this ordination of the priests was a onetime act...For the Essenes, who ruled by the Temple Scroll, however, this was a Yearly ceremony. It was to be performed annually, forever...The role of Moses was to be taken by the High Priest (see Hebrews, chapters 5, and 6). When the High Priest himself was to be consecrated, the role of Moses was to be performed by the elders (see Revelation, chapter 4)...
Baptism as we know it in early Christianity may have been adopted under Essene influence through John the Baptist. But the most often noted similarities between Christian and Essene doctrine...are to be found in the Pauline Epistles and in the Johannine literature. How do we explain these similarities--such things as the dualism found in both the New Testament and in the writings of the Dead Sea sect, the contrast between the Sons of Darkness and the Sons of Light...the spirit and the flesh, good and evil? The communal meal is also something we find in early Christianity and in the Dead Sea sect. It is my belief that these similarities came through Paul...
Paul became the Apostle to the Gentiles (Please consider Chapter 8, entitled Paul, Elisha ben Abuyah). He was attempting insofar as possible to avoid the burdens of the Mosaic law for those whom he converted and who found the law an obstacle to their new allegiance...I think he found a ready-made theology in many respects in the doctrines of the Essenes. FOR THE ESSENES, LIKE THE EARLY CHRISTIANS...REJECTED THE JERUSALEM TEMPLE AND ITS CULT: In my view, the striking similarities between early Christianity and the doctrines of the Essenes entered Christianity after Jesus' time via Paul in the period before the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD.
Yet there is a paradox here: How can it be that a sect of Essenes that adhered so tenaciously to the strictest and most legalistic interpretation of all the minutiae of the Law of Moses as prescribed in the Torah could influence--of all sects--the one (Christianity) that in due course essentially rejected this Law, especially those parts of the Law concerned with Temple observance and ritual purity?
The author is entering unknown (hidden) territory here. He knows nothing (of course) of the universal dimensions, or of the historical structure of the World Tree, or of the whereabouts of the City Above (Isaiah, chapters 27 to 29). He does not realize how that fellowship of Essenes--who were indoctrinated into the mysteries of Jehoshua (YHWH - YHShWH), an element of the esoteric doctrines of the Metatron, the Angel of Divine Presence (Exodus 23:20-23; 24:10), by John the Baptist--were already present at that place when Paul appeared on the world scene. (Acts 7:58). Or how--after a long time spent on the details of his own revelation--Paul returned to the Essenes with his theology of the Christ Mystery (rooted firmly in the Law and the Prophets) all worked out to everyone's further understanding and satisfaction. The agreement between them is reflected, quite cryptically to be sure, in the various Gospel narratives that began to appear in the years afterwards.
The Druidical/Hebrew mystery of Hesus and him crucified.
(Yigael Yadin continues)...The complete answer is no doubt more complicated than the following hesitant outline suggests...As I have said, the early Christians came into contact with the Essenes and were influenced by them at a time late in Essene history (first century AD). They met Essenes who maintained their own calendar and repudiated the Jerusalem Temple as well as its laws...Thus bereft of a legitimate temple, the Essenes developed a theology and religious practice that enabled them to live without this cultic institution, especially at their own monastic centers such as Qumran in the wilderness. The following paraphrase of Proverbs 15:8 from an Essene document could have appealed to circles of Pauline or Johannine Christianity: :The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination, but the prayer of the just is an agreeable offering." (Damascus Document 11:20-21)...
For the Essenes, however, the rejection of the Temple was "temporary." For them, the Jerusalem priests were illegitimate and the Temple polluted because their own rigid interpretations of the Law were not applied; EVEN ITS PLAN WAS A WRONG ONE. For the Essenes, the temporary, substitute way of life was applicable only until "the exiles of the Sons of Light return from the Wilderness of the Nations to encamp in the Wilderness of Jerusalem. (War Scroll 3). (see 1 Peter 2:1-9)...
Yadin, not seeing how this great synchronization took place, between the Essenes, the pharisaic Paul (Elisha ben Abuyah) and the followers of those European Druids who went on to form the primary structure of the early Christian church, goes on to say:
What was a temporary substitute for the Essenes, Christianity adopted as a permanent theology, part of their fixed and final canon. In short, what was for the Essenes an ad hoc adaptation to their rejection of the Jerusalem priesthood and Temple, APPLICABLE ONLY TO THE END OF DAYS WHEN THE TEMPLE WOULD BE REBUILT BY GOD ACCORDING TO THEIR OWN BELIEFS, became for Christianity a permanent solution. Let me conclude simply with a few puzzles in the history of Christianity for which the Temple Scroll might provide a hint of a solution.
Of course, even before the acquisition of the Temple Scroll, we knew about the SOLAR CALENDAR used by the Essenes, which contrasted with the Lunar calendar practiced by normative Judaism. (Yes, but not really...Please see the chapter entitled The Sun and Moon, Christianity and Judaism). The Essenes' Solar calendar was divided into Four sections consisting of three thirty-day months, plus one additional day. Thus the Essene year contained 364 days, divided into TWELVE THIRTY-DAY MONTHS, plus four intercalated days inserted at the end of each three-month group. (This was for keeping with the calculations of the years and seasons, and the times and half-times in the Book of Daniel. Yadin continues): (In the course of years, this calendar would need additional intercalated days--or leap years--to maintain the same seasons, but we have no information, for the time being, on how the Essenes did this). Using this calendar, however, results in holidays always falling on the same day of the week.
Malachi, chapter 4 (KJV).
Moreover the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, and the light of the Sun shall be Sevenfold as the light of Seven day, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wounds...(Isaiah 30:26).
I have already mentioned the many new--or previously unknown--holidays described in the Temple Scroll, including three new (and one well established) "first fruits" festivals. The Essenes reckoned the date on which of these festivals began by counting Fifty days after a particular Sabbath (counting the day of the preceding festival as the first day of the new counting) (in other words they were also counting in terms of Jubilees of years), with the result that these festivals always began on a Sunday. SUNDAY thus began to appear as the most important day. Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Hershel Shanks, pp.87-112.
THE PLAN OF THE ESSENE TEMPLE
I will consecrate My Temple by My Glory...on the Day of Blessing...I will create My Temple and establish it for Myself for all times. (Column XXIX).
Yadin will go on to describe in purely literal terms what he believes are the Essenes' instructions for (literally) rebuilding the Temple at the end of the age. He will not equate the structure of this visionary Temple, or the gates and the levels (the Fifteen steps) leading into the Holy Place, with the Universal Mandala situated at the center of the World Tree, or with the like-description of it in the Book of Ezekiel (chapters 40 to 48). Neither are describing a Temple that can be layed out, or literally built with human hands. Nor will he will equate the three courts, the Outer, Middle, and Inner, with the gates of initiation every human soul must pass through in its pathway to spiritual perfection--corresponding to the physical, or natural state of mind that governs every soul who is sojourning in the outer courts of spiritual reality; and then the intellectual, or philosophical realm which facilitates the soul's passage from the lower (outer realm) to a higher state of consciousness; and finally to the inner, or spiritual state of mind itself, where one (if one is called to it) is allowed entrance into the court of the priests of Israel (the stewards of the World Mystery). It is in this court, where the mysteries of the Tree of Life have been preserved, and where the Mind of God and the mind of humanity meet, and where the Higher mysteries are realized and revealed:
What, know ye not that your body is the Temple of this mystery (of the Holy Ghost which is in you), which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?...(1 Corinthians 6:19).
And what agreement hath the Temple of God with idols? FOR YE ARE THE TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD, as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be there God, and they shall be my people...(2 Corinthians 6:16; Leviticus 26:11,12).
The Hidden Eternal Dimension of the Tree of Life
THE GIGANTIC DIMENSIONS OF THE VISIONARY TEMPLE
IN THE TEMPLE SCROLL
by Magen Broshi
In the previous chapter Yigael Yadin described the contents of the Temple Scroll. I would like to make one additional point relating to the size of the temple envisioned in it. Of five major subjects dealt with in the scroll, the foremost is the temple, its design and the ordinances pertaining to it. This subject occupies almost half the length of the scroll; hence the name Yadin gave to the scroll (the original name is unknown).
The temple compound as described in the scroll consists of three concentric square courts--the inner court, the middle, and the outer. In the midst of the inner court would stand the temple and the various buildings connected with it.
CLEARLY THIS WAS NOT THE TEMPLE WHEN THE SCROLL WAS WRITTEN. Although the date of the scroll's composition is still an open question it was certainly composed at least a century before Herod the Great began rebuilding the Temple at the end of the first century B.C.. THE TEMPLE DESCRIBED IN THE SCROLL OBVIOUSLY DOES NOT REFER TO THE TEMPLE THAT EXISTED IN HEROD'S TIME. (Brosni will also take the Scroll literally, and says): Nor does it refer to the temple to be built by the Lord at the end of days. Instead it refers to a man-made edifice, to be constructed on terra-firma according to the author's own conception. As would be the case with Herod's temple, the greater effort was to be expended on the temple courts.
The author says: (The exact size of the cubit referred to in the scroll is, unfortunately, unknown to us. I have assumed, somewhat arbitrarily, that the cubit is 0.5 meter or 19.7 inches long, which is 10 to 15 percent longer or shorter than the length of the cubit according to various scholars...Chapter 8, note 4, p.297).
By comparison with the temple described in the Temple Scroll, the Herodian Temple was a miniature. Let us look at the size of the gigantic temple compound described in the Temple Scroll.
The square outer court would be sixteen hundred cubits on a side. (Compare Revelation 21, and Rev.14:20). This is about twenty-five hundred feet, or half a mile, on a side. (How many straight miles is it from Jerusalem to Vienna)?...In comparison, Herod's temple compound (which was the largest artificial esplanade in antiquity) was only about a quarter as big. In addition, the temple described in the Temple Scroll would be surrounded my a moat (necessitating a water ritual, or baptism) 100 cubits wide, (or 10 X 10). The total area of the temple compound described in the Temple Scroll was, coincidentally, precisely the size of Jerusalem in the second century B.C...
To build the complex described in the Temple Scroll would require solving serious topographical problems. Creating a level space on which to build this gigantic project would require as much work as the building project itself. Leveling the ground would require filling in the Kidron Valley (to raise it about 250 feet) on the east and quarrying rock on the west. This would have meant removal of millions of tons of soil and rock, all by human muscle. A feasible feat, I suppose, but extremely impractical. But, after all, practicality was not the Dead Sea sect's forte. Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp.113-115.
GOD'S DWELLING: THE TEMPLE CITY
The Spirit in man which sees the Logos is the most individualized form of the Godhead. It is what human beings have most in common with each other and is thus what can unite them, now that, after thousands of years of isolation, they are free. The waves of the creative (higher) World must ebb in "this" world, AND THE LOGOS ITSELF MUST DIE IN THIS WORLD AND DIE FOR IT...The history of the world and the history of consciousness are one and the same. Insofar as the Christ-spirit in man, the one who comes from above, acts in the body, the living thought must die at the end of the process of consciousness. But the kernel of human consciousness, coming from above, still lives in darkness, as if asleep...
To become aware of the Godhead in a human body presented the greatest difficulty for the members of the Chosen People. As a people, they did not understand what played out before their eyes, although their entire history was a preparation for it. (The same will be true for Jews and Christians in our own time). No people could have understood it; ONLY INDIVIDUALS COULD HAVE MORE OR LESS GRASPED IT. To understand it is a completely individual act, for which membership in a people or a community is no help. (Understand 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 in this light). One may even suspect that the Chosen People as a whole had to fail since had they understood, the death of the Logos-bearer would not have occurred and all the possibilities for human development brought about by his death would be lacking. For this death to occur, an individual as well as a community had to cooperate.
This people had earned the One, the Invisible. He is a special God, the one who addresses the man, Moses, at whose request he speaks his Name. He chooses his people and desires to dwell in them: "AND LET THEM MAKE ME A SANCTUARY; THAT I MAY DWELL AMONG THEM" (Exodus 25:8). More precisely, it is written of Solomon' Temple: "THEN THERE SHALL BE A PLACE WHICH THE LORD YOUR GOD SHALL CHOOSE TO CAUSE HIS NAME TO DWELL THERE." (Deut.12:11; compare Deut.14:23 and 1 Kings 8:48)...
This is the descent of the Godhead among men: first, the moveable tabernacle of God; then the sanctuary in Jerusalem, wherein dwells the invisible One, his Name. Therefore it is all too easy to understand that it is experienced as blasphemy when the Godhead now appears in human form, in a human body. But the Chosen People do not recognize the Name in this form...
Man is already God in that God's Word speaks to him, (and through him). But, for the Jews, God lives in Solomon's Temple. With regard to this, the Logos-bearer announces..."The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father...But the hour cometh, AND NOW IS, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:21-24)...
Clearly a new form of worship is being prepared. The destruction of the sanctuary in Jerusalem--predicted by the Logos-bearer--occurs in accordance with this. At the same time the theme of the destruction of the temple is connected with the destruction of the human body, which--according to the words of the Logos-bearer--can be raised up again in Three Days...
And Joseph said unto him, This is the interpretation of it: The Three Branches are Three Days...(Genesis 40:12; Hosea 6:1-3).
THAT BODY AND SANCTUARY, AS ALSO BODY AND CITY, can represent each other, stems from ancient traditions. Already in the Upanishads the body is called the City of Atman, of Brahman. It has 11 (or 9) gates--openings of the body--while Ezekiel (48:31-34) and the Apocalypse (Rev.21:12-13) describe the city with 12 gates (The Twelve signs of the Heavenly Zodiak). Moreover in Hebrew tradition the second letter "beth" signifies man's sheath, whether it be his bodily sheath, his house, tent, or sanctuary. It is man's sheath that separates him from his various surroundings, thereby making cognition possible on every level. "In this world" the physical body is the sheath; however, on higher planes of cognition, still finer sheaths, or "huts," must be built by man himself...
The Gospels, particularly the Fourth Gospel, lead us to the entry of the Logos-God into a human Body and promise the coming of the Spirit, which is to teach all things and to lead to every truth. The outer sanctuary is destroyed. The Godhead now "dwells" in men in its third form. Dwelling means that a person affirms the fact that he is chosen; for in the Age of the Spirit all men are chosen, otherwise the spirit would merely flare up within and turn against itself and against man, driving him unwittingly into a suicidal stance in which he would deny his humanity, (and) his spiritual being...The latter (actually former) texts of the New Testament describe the Spirit's dwelling in its new sanctuary more thoroughly. The Acts of the Apostles tells of the "miraculous" event of Pentecost, but does so in the full light of consciousness; the Epistles and the Apocalypse tell of the New Temple. "Know ye not that ye are the Temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor.3:16); "What? know ye not that your body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost (the overshadowing mystery) which is in you..." (1 Cor.6:19).
The following passages are the foundation-stones of Christian Freemasonry: "And ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy Temple in the Lord: In whom ye are also builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." (Eph.2:20-22)--"To whom coming, as unto a living Stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious; Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual; house, an holy priesthood." (1 Peter 2:4-8). Becoming Aware of the Logos, The Way of Saint John the Evangelist, by George Kuhlewind. pp.94-101.
THE TRUE TEMPLE OF GOD
"And the feast of the Passover was at hand. And it came to pass that some of the disciples being masons, were sent to repair the chambers of the Temple. Iesus (the Sun) passing by, they said unto him, Master, see'st thou these great buildings and what manner of stones are here, and how beautiful is the work of our ancestors? And Iesus said, Yeah, IT IS BEAUTIFUL, and well wrought are the stones, but the time cometh when one stone shall not be left upon another, for the enemy shall overthrow both the City and the Temple.
And some of the scribes, hearing him, sought to entangle him in his words and said, if thou wouldst put away the sacrifices of sheep and oxen and birds, to what purpose was this temple for God by Solomon, which has been now FORTY and SIX years in restoring?
And Iesus answered and said, It is written in the prophets, My House shall be called a House of Prayer for All nations, for the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. But ye have made it a house of slaughter and filled it with abomination.
But the true temple is the Body of Man in which God dwelleth by the Spirit, and when this temple is destroyed, in Three days God raiseth up a more glorious temple which the eyes of natural man perceiveth not.
Again, it is written, FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN UNTO THE SETTING OF THE SAME my Name shall be great among the Gentiles, and incense with a pure offering shall be offered unto me. But ye have made it a desolation with your offerings of blood and used sweet incense only to cover the ill savor thereof. I am not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it.
Know you not what is written? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and to hearken better than the fat of rams. I the Lord am weary of your burnt offerings (the sacrificing of your sons and daughters to the flames of war) and vain oblations. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD.
And is it not written what is the true sacrifice? Wash you and make you clean, and put away the evil from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well. Do justice for the fatherless and the widow and all that are oppressed. So doing ye fulfill the law.
The day cometh when all that are in the Outer court, which pertaineth to blood offerings, shall be taken away, and pure worshippers shall worship the Eternal in purity and truth.
And they said, Who are thou that seeketh to do away with the sacrifices, and despiseth the seed of Abraham? From the Greeks and the Egyptians has thou learned this blasphemy?
And Iesus said, Before Abraham was, I Am. And they refused to listen and some said he is inspired by a demon, and others said that he is mad; and went their way and told those things to the priests and elders." The Gospel of The Perfect Life, Lection XLIX.
CUNNING CRAFTSMEN
(Masters of Geometry, Builders of Labyrinths, and Skilled in the art of Hidden Languages)
And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
See, I have called by name Be-zal'e-el the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah:
And I have filled him with the spirit of God in Wisdom, and in Understanding, and in Knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.
To devise cunning works, to work in gold (Solar mysteries), and in silver (Lunar mysteries), and in brass (secret alloys).
And in the cutting of stones (precious ideas and fixed principles), to set them, and in carving of timber (employing the limbs and branches of the Tree of Life itself), to work in all manner of workmanship.
And I, behold, I have given with him A-hol'li-ab, the son of A-his'a-mach, of the tribe of Dan:
Gilead abode beyond Jordan: AND WHY DID DAN REMAIN IN SHIPS? Asher continued on the sea shore, and abode in his breaches...(Judges 5:17).
...And in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put Wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee;
The tabernacle of the congregation, and the Ark of the Testimony, and the Mercy Seat that is therein, and all the furniture of the tabernacle...(Exodus 31:1-7; 35:30-35).
Of course all of this leads to the Forty Sixth Psalm of the King James Version of the Bible, and the realization that the name Shakespear is encoded there, 46 words down from the top and 46 words up from the bottom. It leads to the direct historical connection that exists between the Knights Templars of the middle ages and the modern fraternity of Masonic lodges (the York lodge in particular), the founding of the American nation, and the prophetic implications of the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 28 (KJV). It leads to an understanding of the development of the English language (the unknown tongue which did not even exist when the Hebrew texts were being penned), and its absolute importance to the interpretation of the mysteries of the Temple and the universal dimensions of the Sacred Oracle--the Tree of Life. It leads us back to the Two anointed ones whom God has placed again the garden of Eden:
ADAM, God's Temple, Male and Female...Zechariah 4:11-14, Genesis 5:1-2; Ephesians 4:13 (KJV).
(A = 1, D =4, A =1 M, = 40 = 46)
46 Chromosomes, 23 from one, 23 from the other.
PEARLS OF WISDOM
Rabbi Dovid Goldwasser
In a fascinating Midrash, Reish Lakish says, "Adam was the last work created on the last day of Creation, and he (they) was also the earliest work created on the first day of Creation." What does it mean? Reish Lakish explains, "when the Torah tells us that the Divine Presence hovered over the waters on the first day of Creation, this actually refers to the soul of Moshiach. As it says, The spirit of Hashem (The Name) will hover on him" (Isaiah 11:2)...
This Midrash is baffling. If Moshiach was created at the same time that the world was created, why has there been such a long period of time between his creation and his revelation? Secondly, what purpose was there in creating Moshiach if the world was not ready for him?...
The Gemara (Sanhedrin 98b) says that the world was made for Moshiach. As we say every day in the Aleinu prayer, "Hashem will be king over the entire world--on that day hashem will be One and his Name will be One" We can understand that Hashem created Moshiach at the beginning of the world's existence, before all the dark ages (that Israel) had to traverse, to give us hope and courage to look toward the future, when B'nai Israel will be completely redeemed...
The soul of Moshiach was created at the very beginning of creation. This is because Moshiach would never give the idea of any "dual effort," but would rather bolster the idea of Hashem's Oneness. Mashiach strengthens our understanding that the entire world is conducted and led by Hashem, Who from the very first moment of time determined our purpose and gave us our direction in life. Moshiach was here first, and on the Great Day, Moshiach will be here last. The Jewish Press, August 29, 2003.
Please consider the following chapters:
Zionism and the Zionist State of Mind
Chapter 10, Ephraim Goes Backwards
