The ''Book of Mysteries'' (also known as the ''Book of Secrets'') is an ancient

Essene The Essenes (; Hebrew: , ''Isiyim''; Greek: Ἐσσηνοί, Ἐσσαῖοι, or Ὀσσαῖοι, ''Essenoi, Essaioi, Ossaioi'') were a mystic Jewish sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st c ...

text found in fragmentary form among the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the nor ...

. The scroll fragments are given the

alphanumeric Alphanumericals or alphanumeric characters are a combination of alphabetical and numerical characters. More specifically, they are the collection of Latin letters and Arabic digits. An alphanumeric code is an identifier made of alphanumeric ch ...

designations of 1Q27 and 4Q299–301.

Wisdom literature

''The Book of Mysteries'' is closely related to another unnamed wisdom book found among the

, variously called ''

The Secret of the Way Things Are 4QInstruction, ( he, מוסר למבין, Musar leMevin, Instruction to a student), also known as Sapiential Work A or Secret of the Way Things Are, is a Hebrew text among the Dead Sea Scrolls classified as wisdom literature. It is authored by a spi ...

'' or the ''Sapiential Work''. In both texts, the term ''raz'' occurs frequently. ''Raz'' means "mystery" or "secret", and is defined as a type of wisdom or knowledge that is known by God and can only be known by humans by divine revelation. This word often occurs in the phrase ''raz nihyeh'', which can be translated as "the secret of the way things are". The assumption behind ''The Book of Mysteries'' is that

revelation In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing of some form of truth or knowledge through communication with a deity or other supernatural entity or entities. Background Inspiration – such as that bestowed by God on the ...

, not reason, is the key to wisdom. The book is authored by an unnamed teacher who claims to be the recipient of such a revelation and is passing it along to his students.

Origins

As with many of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the question of who wrote the scrolls and when has no definite answer. Dates as to when the manuscripts were copied can only be estimated. The copy of mystery text 1Q27 has been dated on paleographic grounds to the end of the first century BCE, so the book is at least that old.

Lawrence Schiffman Lawrence Harvey Schiffman (born 1948) is a professor at New York University (as of 2014); he was formerly Vice-Provost of Undergraduate Education at Yeshiva University and Professor of Jewish Studies (from early 2011 to 2014). He had previously ...

believes that the ideology, orthography and language of the texts show that it originates from the same circle as other sectarian works found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The tone of the writing reflects an elite group which believes that it alone holds the correct understanding of

YHWH The Tetragrammaton (; ), or Tetragram, is the four-letter Hebrew theonym (transliterated as YHWH), the name of God in the Hebrew Bible. The four letters, written and read from right to left (in Hebrew), are ''yodh'', '' he'', ''waw'', and '' ...

's plan for the universe and how to please him so as to be saved from the fate of the ignorant and hypocritical. Much of ''The Book of Mysteries'' appears to be a teaching of correction against those who do not live righteously in the author's eyes. They warn of the hypocrisy of nations, the false knowledge of magicians, and the wrath of God upon sinners. They especially warn against the fate of those who do not recognize the divine mysteries.

Last days

The

eschatology Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that negati ...

of the book is rather unusual. The end time described by the author does not manifest itself in the normal culmination of a battle, judgment or catastrophe, but rather as "a steady increase of light, hrough whichdarkness is made to disappear or in which iniquity dissolves and just as the smoke rising into the air eventually dissipates". In this sense, wisdom is an inevitable force that needs to be yielded to by those who choose to accept it and are capable of understanding it. There is no mention of angels, or YHWH's coming, or resurrection of the wise, or any of the typical messianic language that is usually associated with Jewish or Christian eschatological texts. It simply argues for a change in focus from folly to wisdom, and therefore righteousness.

Citations

General and cited sources

* Davies, Phillip R., George J. Brooke, Phillip R. Callaway. Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. * Harrington, Daniel J. Wisdom Texts of Qumran. London: Routledge, 1996. * * * *

External links

"Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts" The Book of Secrets

{{DEFAULTSORT:Book Of Mysteries, The 1st-century BCE texts 2nd-century BCE texts Ancient Hebrew texts Dead Sea Scrolls Essene texts Wisdom literature