Appendix C: The Dead Sea Scrolls - Grace Gems and the Teacher of Righteousness

The Discovery

In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd discovered clay jars in caves near Qumran, along the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Inside the jars were scrolls that had been hidden for over two thousand years. The scrolls contained biblical manuscripts, sectarian rules, hymns, and theological writings from a Jewish community that existed from roughly the second century BC to the first century AD.

The community was led by a figure known only as the Teacher of Righteousness. We don’t know his real name. We know that he taught the sovereign grace of God, that his followers fled into the desert to escape the Pharisees, and that his writings were sealed in caves and forgotten for two millennia.

The Theology

The theological content of the Qumran scrolls is explicitly predestinarian. The following excerpts are from the Hodayot (Thanksgiving Hymns) and the Community Rule:

“I know by Your understanding that it is not by human strength . . . a man’s way is not in himself, nor is a person able to determine his step. But I know that in Your hand is the inclination of every spirit . . . and all his works You have determined before ever You created him.”

“You alone have created the righteous one, and from the womb You established him to give heed to Your covenant at the appointed time of grace . . . But the wicked You created for the time of Your wrath, and from the womb You set them apart for the day of slaughter.”

These texts teach:

• Absolute sovereignty over every person’s way and works.
• Two seeds created differently from the womb – the righteous established for grace, the wicked created for wrath.
• Predestination before creation – “before ever You created him.”
• No human contribution – “not by human strength.”

This is the same theology presented in this book. Not because we borrowed from the scrolls. Because both derive from the same Scriptures.

The Suppression

Modern scholars have largely dismissed the predestinarian theology of the scrolls. The emphasis in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship has been on the archaeology, the textual variants, the community’s practices, and the historical context. The theology – the explicit, unambiguous predestinarianism – is routinely downplayed, recontextualized, or ignored.

The Pharisees of the first century suppressed this theology with political power. The scholars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries suppress it with academic indifference. The method changed. The result is the same.

The Significance

The Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrate that sovereign grace theology is not a later invention of Augustine, Calvin, or the Reformers. It is the original Hebrew theology. The predestinarianism that the church attributes to Calvin in the sixteenth century was already present in Jewish nonconformist communities two centuries before Christ. The Pharisees corrupted it with Greek philosophy. The scrolls preserve what the Pharisees tried to destroy.

This matters because it places the framework of this book in a historical lineage that stretches far beyond the Reformation. The Teacher of Righteousness, Luther, Toplady, Gill, Higby, and this book are all standing in the same stream. Different centuries. Same truth. Same suppression. Same Author behind it all.

Further Reading

• Bob Higby, “Grace Gems from the Dead Sea Scrolls” (pristinegrace.org)
• Bob Higby, “Dead Sea Scroll Evidence” (pristinegrace.org)
• Brandan Kraft, “Grace Gems from the Dead Sea Scrolls” (pristinegrace.org)