Dr. Robert H. Eisenman is a Professor of Middle East Religions and Archaeology and Director of the Institute for the Study of Judeo-Christian Origins at California State University, Long Beach; and Visiting Senior Member of Linacre College, Oxford University. The consultant to the Huntington Library in its decision to free the Dead Sea scrolls, he was the leading figure in the worldwide campaign to gain access to the scrolls. A National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, he was a Senior Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Judaism and Christianity. ... The California State University (CSU) is one of three public higher education systems in the state of California. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The Huntington Library is an educational and research institution established by Henry Huntington in San Marino, California. ... Fragments of the scrolls on display at the Archeological Museum, Amman The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise roughly 850 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on... The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency created in 1965. ... Jerusalem (31°46′N 35°14′E; Hebrew: (help· info) Yerushalayim; Arabic: (help· info) al-Quds; (alternative Arabic found in Bible translations: Ø£ÙورْشَلÙيم Urshalim)) is an ancient Middle Eastern city on the watershed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea at an elevation of 650-840 meter. ...
Eisenman, like many scholars from non-orthodox perspectives, begins with the idea that all sources are on an equal footing as far as their ability to convey useful information.
Eisenman concludes that Paul’s mission is to redirect Jewish messianism, its violent, anti-Roman, nationalistic, xenophobic ideology represented, and led, by James, into a peaceful, spiritual messianic religion presided over by a Christ-figure who is as apolitical as Santa Claus.
Finally, Eisenman often descends into unjustified hyperbole — although sometimes this is a welcome relief from the soporific effects of the two hundred and eighty-fifth example of the „Power“ - imagery, or the one hundred and tenth reference to „linen“.
Eisenman notes (as of course all commentators do) that there is no room for the famine relief visit in Galatians' itinerary of Paul's visits to Jerusalem, but he ventures to place the event during Paul's sojourn in "Arabia," which in the parlance of the time could include Edessa/Adiabene.
Eisenman cites the Talmud's notice that the Rechabites (=Nazirites) used to marry the daughters of the High Priests.
Eisenman does threaten to obscure his own case here by overkill, citing lots of terminology shared by Paul and Qumran, sometimes used in different senses, and insisting that they reflect mutual ridicule and refutation, but the major instances are striking.
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