Qumran has shed fresh light on primitive Christianity, too. Fringe opinion has advanced the theory that Cave 7 housed Greek papyrus fragments of the New Testament, but the weightiest mainstream scholars reject this. The parallelism between Qumran and Christianity is subtler. Both the Dead Sea community and the early church considered themselves the true Israel, heirs of the biblical promises. Messianism flourished in both groups, but at Qumran two if not three messianic figures were expected, royal, priestly and prophetic, while in the New Testament, as in mainstream Judaism, these various figures coalesced into one person.

In my view, the most significant contribution of Qumran to the understanding of the New Testament is in the expectation of the instant coming of the Kingdom of God in the two communities. Both the Essenes and the early church believed that their respective Masters, the Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus, received from God all the mysteries concerning the final age and passed them on to their followers. They both considered the biblical prophecies fulfilled in the persons and events of their communities. Qumran Bible interpretation, especially the fulfilment exegesis, has thrown invaluable light on the Gospels. Both Essenes and Christians eagerly expected in their own days the appearance of the two Messiahs of Aaron and Israel and the reappearance of the Christ respectively. When they had to admit that their eschatological hopes had failed, both attempted to justify the delay, the Essenes through invoking the impenetrable mysteries of God, and the Christians through the comforting idea that the deferred Second Coming provided more time for repentance and was in fact a blessing in disguise.