The Baptism of Jesus and a New Dead Sea Scroll

Photographs of several previously unpublished Dead Sea Scroll fragments appeared in “A Messianic Vision,” BAR 17:06, including one entitled “A Messianic Vision” (translated by Robert Eisenman). A clearer picture of this fragment may be seen in plate 1551 in A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, published last November by the Biblical Archaeology Society.

This fragment unlocks the symbolic meaning of the dove in an episode that is recounted in all three Synoptic Gospels,^a Matthew (3:16), Mark (1:10) and Luke (3:21–22)—Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. (The reference to the dove in the Gospel of John is not in the context of baptism.)