So we see that by the above quote, the mythology regarding Jesus had already started within his lifetime.

In her book, "Jesus the Man," Dr. Barbara Thiering discusses a method of translating and interpreting the Bible and other related texts, which is known as the Pesher Technique. While I do not agree with all of Dr. Thiering's own peshers, or interpretations, because of my own studies, I do agree with her in this regard. These ancient documents were conceived and written on several different levels intentionally, for different reasons. By learning about the times in which these documents were written, we can then apply the Pesher method correctly to understand what the authors were trying to say.

Dr. Thiering writes, "In a certain group of scrolls the Hebrew word 'pesher' (plural 'pesharim') is to be found, introducing a procedure that gives us a vital clue; the possibility of a new approach to works that were regarded in the first century as sacred scripture.

"The system works like this. The scroll writer takes an Old Testament book such as the minor prophet Habakkuk, which deals with events in 600 BC, when the armies of the Babylonians were marching toward Judea, inspiring fear and terror. He goes through it verse by verse, and after quoting each passage adds 'Its pesher is...', then explains that it is really about events in his own time. The Babylonians stand for the 'Kittim,' by which he means the Romans. Some Romans were currently marching across the land, inspiring fear and terror. Other verses, he says, refer to the Teacher of Righteousness and his troubles with the Wicked Priest/Man of a Lie (Dr. Thiering is referencing one of the Dead Sea Scrolls here):

"They are fearsome and terrible, their justice and grandeur proceed from themselves." (Habakkuk 1:17).

The pesher concerns the Kittim (Romans) who inspire all nations with fear (and dread). All their evil plotting is done with intention and they deal with all the nations in cunning and guile.

"Woe to him who causes his neighbors to drink; who pours out his venom to make them drunk that he may gaze on their feasts!" (Hab. 2:15)

Its pesher concerns the Wicked Priest who pursued the Teacher of Righteousness to the house of his exile that he might confuse them with his venomous fury.

And at the time appointed for rest, for the Day of Atonement, he appeared before them to confuse them, and to cause them to stumble on the Day of Fasting, their sabbath of repose.

Dr. Thiering goes on to say: "The word 'pesher' is used in the Old Testament to mean 'interpretation of dreams.' A specially gifted person, a Joseph or a Daniel, could discover the hidden meaning of a dream, that was not apparent to others. The meaning had been put into the dream by God; the interpreter only had to see it, drawing on his special knowledge.

"In simpler terms, the pesher is like a solution to a puzzle. A rough analogy might be the solution to a cryptic crossword. The clues do not look as if they make sense, but anyone who knows the technique and has the necessary knowledge can solve the puzzle.

"Some aspects of the technique rely on giving words special meanings. For example, where the scripture says "the righteous" or "the wicked" appearing to mean all the righteous and all the wicked men, and making ethical statements, the pesharist turns the universals into particulars, and finds statements about historical events involving the Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest. This he implies two levels of Scripture: the surface containing general religious matter suitable for ordinary readers, and beneath it specific historical matter, available only to those with special knowledge, knowledge of the events which "fitted" the text handled in this way. The surface remains valid. It is not negated by the other meaning, and it meets people's general religious needs. But it does set up a "mystery" capable of solution by skilled experts.

"The meanings "found" in the Old Testament were quite obviously forced onto it. It was not set up for that kind of treatment, but grew naturally over hundreds and possibly thousands of years of tradition. But the Qumran pesharists nevertheless offer us something of the greatest importance: their definition of Scripture. Scripture as a mystery, a puzzle, something that meets the needs of the whole range of readers, from the simple believer to the intellectually sophisticated.

"It is well known that this kind of view was widely held in the Greek world. In the Diaspora, where Jews away from their homeland were in contact with Greek thought and culture, they were finding allegorical meanings in the Old Testament. But the scrolls give us, for the first time, hidden historical meaning.

"The gospels quote Jesus as saying, "To you(his inner circle) is given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables." The insiders, those who "have ears to hear" will understand the mystery.

"Parables are clearly on two levels: a simple story with something more complex underneath. The parable of the Vineyard plainly contains a historical meaning under the story of disloyal workers in a vineyard.

"All if this gives rise to a hypothesis. If a group holding such a view of scripture had set out to write a new scripture, they would have set it up as being capable of a pesher. It would be a "mystery," a kind of puzzle capable of a solution by those with special knowledge. This time, there would be no need to force arbitray meanings on it; it would yield the same result to all experts. It would have been designed for that purpose.

"There would have been an extra incentive for writing in this way if an actual history needed to be concealed, for political or other reasons.

"A hypothesis like this is capable of being tested. It is subject to a number of tests: for example, if special meanings are assigned to terms, there must be a reason for them, and then the same meanings must be found in every occurrence of the term. Each episode which is made up of a whole cluster of special meanings must make sense in itself, and be consistent with all other episodes. And the whole history found there must be generally consistent with the known character of the institution whose history is given.

"In thinking about this possibility, another one arises. Dreams, which gave the model for the theory, are usually incredible. Things happen in them which do not happen in real life. In the gospels, there are a great many miracles, which the modern mind finds incredible, and which a great many people in the hellenistic world , to whom the gospels came, would also have found incredible. Were they intended for the kind of treatment that has been described?

"From many points of view, the miracles are the most difficult parts of the gosels and Acts of the Apostles. There are numerous raisings from the dead, some of them quite casually presented: Lazarus was brought out of the tomb; Jairus' daughter was raised; the son of the widow of Nain was raised as he was being carried out to be buried; the widow Dorcas was revived by Peter; Eutychus, who fell down from a third-story window, was revived by Paul.

"There are nature miracles which are not only difficult to believe but introduce new problems. Jesus was said to have come to a figtree in spring, when it was not the season for figs, which would not appear until September. He demanded fruit from it to satisfy his hunger, then when it did not have any he cursed it, and it withered up and died.

"The thaumaturge (miracle worker) of those stories is not the Jesus of the rest of the New Testament, who "emptied himself" of his glory and went to the cross as a suffering human being without using miraculous powers.

"Theologians and biblical scholars have long held that these stories are the result of growth of tradition, the kinds of legend that grow up about a charistmatic figure. But that does not really explain why so much trouble was taken to preserve and record them, thus setting up an apparent conflict with the rest of the New Testament. They also cannot account for their appearance over such a short time, in circles that were literate. There is nothing similar to this in the scrolls, where the Teacher is given a status like that of Jesus.

"The pesher technique, however, offers an entirely new approach to the miracles. They can be seen as part of the surface story, but also conceal something else, actual historical events. When the hypothesis is fully tested, it is found that they are indeed one of the most valuable sources of the history of Jesus.

"Using both the pesher hypothesis and some information provided by the scrolls, the meaning of this and the rest of the seven signs becomes apparent. They are indeed carefully constructed, as a record, to those who have ears to hear, of a series of challenges made by Jesus in the rules of the community that had preceded him."

Now of course the pesher technique can be applied to more than the New Testament and Jesus. Once I learned this technique for the Gospels, I began applying it to the Old Testament as well. It is amazing what a person can learn when he or she decides to find out what was really happening behind all these events in the Bible. Then once we have learned what was going on, to the best of our abilities, of course, we are then able to go back and put the stories together in a more cohesive manner.

Does this mean that once we have done the pesher, God's mysteries no longer exist? Of course not. What we endeavor to do with the pesher technique is not to keep people in the dark with things that are really not mysteries. God leaves an audit trail on purpose, so that the pesherist can unravel the mysteries like a good detective, so that the Bible can be taught in its genuine fullness. It makes the people, the lives, and the times come to life, and hopefully to make more sense to us so we can apply the Scriptures to our lives correctly and in the fullness of the Bible, knowledge, and God's real plans for mankind.