The Mystery of the Copper Scroll of Qumran

by Robert Feather

  Comparisons with a description of the ‘idealized temple’ in the Temple Scroll show that the ‘ground plan’ bears a remarkable resemblance to the ground plan of this ‘hypothetical’ temple described in the scroll. I have already suggested there is evidence that the Temple Scroll contains a description of the City of Akhetaten, and further comparison of this ‘hypothetical’ temple shows it, in turn, to have remarkable correspondences to the Great Temple of Akhenaten.

  So where does that leave this particular investigation? It seems to me that the skills and technology needed to produce the woven materials associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, found in Cave 1 at Qumran, cannot have been acquired from other local craftsmen. All the indications are that the weavers of Qumran used similar techniques to those used in ancient Egypt – techniques existing at the time of Akhenaten some 1,000 years earlier – and that there are many similarities in the Essenes’ type of woven cloth to that produced at Akhetaten.

  The material the Qumran-Essenes used to wrap their holy texts makes a strong link back to Akhenaten; the pattern they wove on to the material also makes a strong link back to the idealized temple of the Temple Scroll and the actual temple at Akhetaten.

  The intense prejudice amongst the Egyptian priesthood against mixing wool and flax, by the way, helps to explain another modern ‘chok’ (forbidden thing) that has no accepted reasoning. Orthodox Jewish law forbids the mixing or wearing of wool and linen together. There is also a Biblical injunction regarding the wearing of prayer shawls, for example, in Numbers 15:37–41:

  And the Lord spoke to Moses saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel and bid them that they make fringes on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and that they put upon the fringes of the corners a thread of blue…’

  One can thus also conjecture that the type of textiles used at Akhetaten was a forerunner for the present-day prayer shawls that are used in synagogues by congregants, and that the ‘Biblical blue’ is the same as that preserved in the linen fragments found at Qumran.

  HYDROMECHANICS AND CLEANLINESS

  When the Essene sect’s obsession with ritual washing is considered, the close proximity to water of Qumran, Elephantine Island and Lake Tana in Ethiopia should not be overlooked. The thread of ritual cleansing by water, as part of religious practice, and the need for a readily available water supply may well be traceable back from these locations to the sacred pools of the Egyptian temples, and again more specifically to the Great Temple at Akhetaten.

  As a result of Roland de Vaux’s first excavations at Qumran in the early 1950s, he came to the conclusion that the large number of ‘cisterns’ within the buildings’ grounds had been installed as a means of storing water, and that only two were possibly for ritual washing. This was despite the fact that Josephus, the Damascus Document and the ‘Manual of Discipline’ (now generally known as the ‘Rule of the Community’) spoke of the need for frequent purification by water.

  Modern scholars now consider almost all the ‘cisterns’ to be ‘Mikvah’ – baths specially designed for ritual washing. Ronny Reich, of Haifa University and the Israel Antiquities Authority, counts ten stepped ‘Mikvaot’ at Qumran.10 They are not dissimilar to others excavated at Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel, except for one – which has its stepped area divided into partitions making it a four-section bath. Quite why the Qumran-Essenes should have required so many ‘ritual bath’ constructions is uncertain.

  Knowing what I have discovered about the orientations of the buildings at Qumran, and how they are closely aligned to those of the Great Temple at Akhetaten, it is, perhaps, no surprise to find that there were also ten ‘lavers’ or ritual baths within the Great Temple area. Eight of these ‘lavers’ were in the Second Sanctuary and the other two in the court of the Great Altar.

  At the back of the temple are seen eight oblong lavers or bathing tanks, and all the material for a ceremonial offering, a rite prescribed perhaps before entering the second sanctuary…Near the altar are four erections, two of which appear to be lavers, divided into four basins each, corresponding to those at the smaller temple.11

  The similarity in numbers of the ritual baths at Qumran to those at Akhetaten, and the ‘unique’ construction of four-section baths at both sites, cannot be a coincidence.

  The ritual use of water and cleanliness is taken up, in turn, by the Essenes, John the Baptist and Jesus in spiritual baptism, by the Jews in spiritual and ritual cleansing in the ‘Mikvah’ or place of washing and by the Muslims in their triple washing ritual prior to prayer.

  Still on the subject of cleanliness, Josephus, talking about the ablutionary habits of the Qumranites, quotes:

  ‘…[they] wrap their mantle about them so that they may not offend the rays of the deity…’.

  (Again, we cannot escape the allusion to God as being represented by the hands of the sun.)

  The Qumran-Essenes were in the habit of carrying a mattock or hoe-like tool, which they used for tidying up after relieving themselves. Once again I did not have to look too far to find an explanation for this unusual practice – quite unique to the Qumran-Essenes in Judaea. It was during the Eighteenth Dynasty in Egypt that ‘shabti’ (small statues) are first seen carrying mattocks!12

  Why would the Qumran-Essenes, a relatively poor and isolated community, go to the trouble and expense of importing these materials and applying these techniques when other, local alternatives were available? Where did they get the knowledge required to utilize these relatively unknown materials and techniques? Unknown not just in their native land but also in the rest of the Middle East, apart from Egypt.

  The only logical conclusion that can be reached from the evidence is that the Qumran-Essenes deliberately chose to use Egyptian materials and techniques because they had a determined affinity to Egypt, and to a period dating back a thousand years before their time.

  They either went to the extreme expense and inconvenience of importing the materials and learning the technologies from contemporary Egyptian sources, or (and I believe this is the much more likely explanation), they had the materials and technical knowledge already in their possession – handed down to them by their Egyptian predecessors who left Egypt with Moses.

  Not only did the ancestors of the Essenes bring out material possessions and technical knowledge, they also inherited from Egypt the system of beliefs that permeated the entire Hebrew culture in a watered down format.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EGYPT, ISRAEL AND BEYOND – THE OVERLAYING COMMONALITIES

  I believe I have shown that many features of Akhenaten’s monotheism later became exclusive to the Qumran-Essenes, when compared to the practices of the surrounding Israelite community. However, many more ‘overlaying commonalities’ of general Egyptian beliefs and traditions were, and still are, practised by mainstream Judaism. Tracing back these ‘commonalities’ shows that the Essenes undoubtedly formed a musical workshop for the orchestra of Christianity and, by extension, of Islam.

  BEYOND THE ‘REED CURTAIN’

  Although mainstream Judaism has always acknowledged an ancestral relationship with pharaonic-Egypt, it has never acknowledged any fundamental religious derivations, nor any cultural, social or doctrinal factors. Any discussion of the possible derivation of these from Egypt is cut off by a ‘Reed Curtain’, which rarely takes account of pre-Exodus Egypt. Nevertheless, the heritage and religious importance of Egypt is unambiguously spelled out in Isaiah 19. We are told (in verses 18–25) how the spirit of God, having descended onto the Egyptians, is soon abused and they return to their idols. Later, when five cities*52 speak the language of Canaan and there is an outpost on the border (probably referring to the Island of Elephantine, see Chapter 19), Isaiah predicts that the Egyptians will begin the process of returning to God. Eventually, when Israel, Assyria and Egypt are at peace:

  In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, say
ing, ‘Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.’1

  Isaiah 19:24–25

  The Bible, in the words of Isaiah, is saying that Christians, Jews and Muslims are equally acceptable in the eyes of God and, by inference, peoples of all religions and nations throughout the world. (See Glossary on ‘Contemporary Movements’.)

  There is not space here to analyse all the analogies of the characteristics of Egypt that have been absorbed into Judaism, and then often forward into Christianity and Islam. Some of them have already been discussed briefly, and other writers cover them in much more detail – writers such as Sir Ernest Wallis Budge,2 Dr H. Brugsch,3 Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise,4 Theodor Gaster,5 Irving Zeitlin6 and Siegfried Morenz.7

  These, and others, have long recognized that there are extensive commonalities between the pharaonic-Egyptian religions and the roots of western religions. These commonalities have been acknowledged by historians and academics, but only in a limited way by modern religious writers.

  Sir Ernest Wallis Budge (Keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), one of the most venerated historians of his day, had no doubts about the concepts ancient Egyptians had about God.

  A study of ancient Egyptian religious texts will convince the reader that the Egyptians believed in One God, who was self-evident, immortal, invisible, eternal, omniscient, almighty, and inscrutable.8

  One of his contemporaries, Dr H. Brugsch, collected epithets from the histo-Egyptian texts, which led him to conclude that:

  …the ideas and beliefs of the Egyptians concerning God were identical with those of the Hebrews and Muhammadans at later periods.9

  The idea that the writings of the ancient Egyptians were no more than isolated collections of stories, and that their scribes did not have the inclination to collate them into an overall pattern of scriptures is incorrect.

  Apart from the Pyramid and Coffin Texts, which have been gathered together and, in themselves, form an interlocking picture of ritual life, there is the New Kingdom period ‘Amduat’ or ‘Book of That Which Is In the Otherworld’. This attempts to encompass not only ideas of the royal resurrection but also the basic structures behind the resurrection and the calendar that controls the cyclical pattern of life. Versions appear in many royal tombs of the New Kingdom, including that of Tutmoses III, and they were a stage in the progressive development towards the simplicity of Akhenaten’s religion. Unlike the post-Akhenaten tomb of Tutankhamun, which held all manner of adornments and numerous shrines and representations of the gods attending the sarcophagus*53 of the dead king, Tutmoses III’s tomb is empty of garnishings and stripped of ritual furnishings. As John Romer put it in his BBC television series:

  The religious ‘books’ of the New Kingdom theology, of which the Amduat is but one example, were a codification and unification of these age-old beliefs, made by the priests pressurized by the acute enquiries of a new era.10

  There was, therefore, ample precedent for the production of a codified work, encompassing the religious beliefs of the age.

  A specific example that links Biblical texts to a body of Egyptian texts (significantly, precisely dated to the time of Akhenaten) can be seen in the similarities between Psalm 104 of the Old Testament and the Great Hymn to Aten found at the tomb of Ay at El-Amarna.

  Psalm 10411 Great Hymn to Aten12

  Bless the Lord, O my soul An adoration of Aten…

  O Lord my God, thou art very great;... Lord of all…Lord of heaven, Lord of earth…

  Thou art clothed with honour and majesty Thou are splendid, great, radiant, uplifted above every land.

  Who coverest Thyself with light Thy rays embrace the lands to the extent

  as with a garment of all that Thou hast made.

  …Who laid the foundations of the earth… …Thou layest the foundations of the earth

  …He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: …Animals of all kinds rest on their pastures: trees and herbage grow green:

  …O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all …How manifold are the things which thou hast made!

  …There go the ships: …The ships, too, go down and up the stream;

  …That Thou givest them they gather: …The land depends on Thee, even as Thou hast made them;

  Thou openest Thine hand, they are filled with good. When Thou dawnest they live,

  Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: When Thou settest they die.

  Thou takest away their breath, they die, And return to their dust.

  Thou sendest forth Thy spirit, they are created… Thou in Thyself are length of days; life is from Thee…

  The conventional explanation, for the close fit of Psalm 104 to the Great Hymn of Akhenaten, is to pass it off as deriving from the generality of Egyptian hymns that must have somehow percolated through into the Hebrew consciousness – in many instances sequence for sequence and word for word! This vague sidestepping explanation completely fails to explain how a unique literary work, engraved in hieroglyphs on the wall of a remote tomb at Akhetaten, in a place lost even to Egyptian history, within thirty or forty years of the destruction of Akhenaten’s Holy City, could have been transmitted to the Israelites.

  Jan Assmann, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, has gone over the original work of Sigmund Freud’s Moses and Monotheism (see notes 7 and 8 in Chapter 20) and come to the conclusion that not only was Freud basically correct in relating many of Akhenaten’s teachings to those of the Hebrews, but that Psalm 104 was a special case of synchronism. He sees Akhenaten’s Great Hymn as: ‘not just a variation on a theme, but a fundamental change which affects the central Egyptian concepts of kingship, state, and political action.’ In the third stanza, which deals with ‘the night’, Professor Assmann, like Professor Erik Hornung, of the University of Basel, sees the negation of the netherworld, the realm of Osiris and of the dead, as being: ‘perhaps the most revolutionary of all. There is no Egyptian text, outside Amarna, that depicts the night as divine absence’, Professor Assmann asserts.

  In other words, the Great Hymn’s congruencies with Psalm 104 are not due to a vague assimilation of ideas from the generality of Egyptian prayers, but it incorporates concepts that were not seen in Egyptian writings before Akhenaten or after his so-called heretical period. For the Hebrews to have picked up these unique beliefs they must have had access to a source of secretive texts, for which no mechanism of transfer is known by conventional scholarship, or one is forced to the only logical conclusion - they had an historical presence at Amarna.

  Perhaps, even more remarkable, are the findings of Messod and Roger Sabbah, described in their book Les Secrets de l’Exode (see note 35, Chapter 20), where they relate specific hieroglyph letters and words in the Great Hymn to derived Hebrew letters that appear in exactly the same sequences of Psalm 104 and carry the same philological sense.

  The Psalms, as a body of works, encompass a wide period of Biblical history, and many have distinctive overtones of ancient Egyptian style, content and feeling. They have had a profound effect on western religious belief and therefore have considerable significance to the narrative.

  THE MUSICAL PSALMS

  The 150 Psalms in the Old Testament form a unique corpus of literature, comparable with the Sonnets of Shakespeare in their profoundly beautiful imagery, literary quality and intellectual depth. In his classic work on Jewish music, Professor A. Z. Idelsohn, of the Hebrew Union College in America, calls them: ‘…the fountain from which millions of souls draw their inspiration and through which they have voiced their devotion for more than two thousand years’.13 The reason for their power is expressed by many Church Fathers, such as Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, who lived from 295 to 373 CE. He said of the Psalms: ‘They embrace the entire human life, express every emotion of the soul, every impulse of the heart.’14

 
The Psalms were written down somewhere between 800 and 200 BCE, but some are associated with even earlier periods.15 Their content and phraseology find their way into many other sections of the Bible. They were employed in Israel as songs or chants to be performed in the Temple at Jerusalem as processions wound their way within the Temple during sacrificial, coronation or offering ceremonies.

  Whilst the lyrics of these ‘processionals’ were well documented, from other descriptions and depictions, and because many are introduced as ‘songs’ or as dedicated ‘to the Chief Musician’, it is certain that music accompanied the words. What this music was like is not known, although the nearest tunes in existance today are thought to be those preserved in the traditional chants of Yemeni Jewish ceremonies. However, circumstantial evidence and rhythm analysis indicates that the ‘singing’ was derived from ancient Egyptian temple music, dating back beyond the Eighteenth Dynasty.

  Professor Idelsohn refers to Egyptian temple music as having ‘a certain dignity and holiness’, with the priests resisting any attempts to change the sacred melodies. He concluded, as did Alfred Sendrey in his Music in Ancient Israel,16 that ancient Egyptian music and instrumentation were the primary influences on the music of ancient Israel, with some borrowings from Assyria, and virtually none from Phoenicia – Israel’s nearest neighbour. With regard to the music of the Psalms, Idelsohn states: ‘…from the composition of the orchestra of the First Temple, we learn that Israel accepted some of the arrangements of the religious orchestra used in Egypt at the time of its cultural height’.17

  Many of the ‘orchestral’ instruments used in the Jewish Temple, such as the silver trumpet (chatzotzera),*54 the ten- and twelve-stringed lyres (kinnor and nevel ), the flute (uggav) and the cymbals (metziltayim) were replicas of Egyptian instruments. In addition, little bells (paamonim) were attached to the skirts of the High Priest, as described in Exodus 28:35: