Jesus and The Dead Sea Scrolls | Dr. James Tabor

A voice cries: “In the desert prepare the Way of Yahweh; Make straight in the Arava a highway for our God (Isa 40:3).
As it is written in Isaiah the prophet . . .”the voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Mark 1:3).
The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus
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They shall separate from the session of perverse men to go to the wilderness, there to prepare the way of truth, 14 as it is written, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Community Rule: 1QS 8:13) Both the group that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls and the John the Baptist/Jesus movement looked upon this verse as their basic “Call” to prepare the Way for the end of the age-which they believed was shortly to unfold.
John the Baptizer and Qumran
James H. Charlesworth
John the Baptizer, who was possibly a cousin of Jesus (Luke 1:36), may have had some relation to the community that lived at Qumran. Not long after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in 1947, scholars noted the similarities between certain Qumran texts such as the Rule of the Community and the descriptions of John the Baptizer in the New Testament. Some have argued that John the Baptizer belonged to the Qumran community, based on the observations that he followed an ascetic program similar to theirs in the same time period and geographical area near the Dead Sea. We are told in Mark 1:6 that John ate only wild honey and locusts and wore a garment of camel’s hair. We know that these were foods allowed by the Jewish laws enforced at Qumran; moreover, they make the most sense if we assume that John had made the Qumran vow not to receive food or clothing from those outside the group (Rule of the Community 5.16). John the Baptizer and the Qumran community also both used apocalyptic language-images and ideas about the end of the present age in the context of divine judgment. Early in the life of the Qumran community, many of its members had been priests associated with the Jerusalem temple, and John the Baptizer’s father was a temple priest (Luke 1:5-23). Both John and the Qumran community emphasized and used prophetic imagery, especially from the book of Isaiah. Indeed, both interpreted Isa 40:3 in the same way: “A voice cries out, ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.’” For both, “wilderness” was the place of spiritual preparation. John and the Qumranites both emphasized the need for purification by ritual cleansing in “living water,” and they associated this act with eschatological salvation. Lastly, both John and the Qumranites call unfaithful Jewish groups (for example, the Pharisees) a “brood (or offspring) of vipers.” They also share a strict dualist worldview.
"By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of stars." - T.E. Lawrence (Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph) Creed of the Desert - Lawrence of Arabia
"This creed of the desert seemed inexpressible in words, and indeed in thought." T. E. Lawrence
“We were fond together because of the sweep of open places, the taste of wide winds, the sunlight, and the hopes in which we worked. The morning freshness of the world-to-be intoxicated us. We were wrought up with ideas inexpressible and vaporous, but to be fought for. We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to remake in the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep, and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.” ― T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph
There is something about the desert when it comes to prophetic and revolutionary voices.
"What Eisenman has done well is to sketch out the major parameters of the apocalyptic, messianic “ways of thinking” common to the scrolls and earliest “Christianity,” as well as other similar sectarian movements in the period from the Maccabees to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, with any arguments for or against a parallel chronology notwithstanding. Given the linguistic and conceptual parallels a text like the Habakkuk Pesher, found in Cave 1 in 1947, is one of the most important documents for an understanding of early Christianity one could study."
Dr. Tabor