Nearly four decades ago, a group of scholars gathered in Jerusalem to piece together, translate and publish the contents of a newly discovered cache of four hundred different documents, probably written by the Essenes 2000 years ago. The late John Allegro was the sole humanist scholar given access to the scrolls. In this book, Allegro presents translations and analyses of the manuscripts in his charge and expounds his controversial ideas regarding the historicity of Jesus and the role that myths of the Essene community played in the development of Christianity. Allegro argues that ancient mayths were misrepresented by the church as historical fact and suggests that information damaging to official chruch dogma has been intentionally suppressed.