John Marco Allegro was born on February 17, 1923. Allegro was a brilliant student of Semitic Languages at Manchester University and went on to study Hebrew dialects at Oxford University (Skepticfiles.org - John Allegro). He was a post-graduate student of one of the leading scholars in the field of Semitic studies, Godfrey Driver. It was Driver who recommended him in 1953 as an able scholar to work with the international team set up to reconstruct the Dead Sea Scrolls recently found in caves near the ruins known as Khirbet Qumran (Tribute to John Marco Allegro). In 1956, Allegro traveled to England to transcribe the copper scroll as it was carefully opened. That same year he published a best-selling book entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls. It was through this book as well as other writings that the public gained most of its knowledge of the scrolls. He not only wrote popular books but he also worked closely translating the documents, eventually editing the first of the official volumes publishing texts from Qumran's cave 4 (Tribute to John Marco Allegro).
During the time that he was working with his fellow scholars to reconstruct the scrolls, John Allegro lost his faith. He did not like the fact that the scrolls were so restricted from the public and he made his opinion known. Four years after he had transcribed the scroll it still had not been published, so he published his own version entitled The Treasure of the Copper Scroll. Allegro continued to publish his own versions of the status and content of the scrolls. This angered his fellow scholars and eventually caused them to deny him access to the scrolls.
After this, in 1970, Allegro wrote his most controversial book, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, voicing his opinion that Christian religion was based on a cult practicing frequent drug-use (psychedelic mushrooms) and sex. He theorized that Jesus' last words on the cross were not a lament to God but “a paean of praise to the god of the mushroom” (Skepticfiles.org - John Allegro). This book in itself started a cult.
John Allegro died on his birthday, February 17, 1988. He did not live to see the publication of the scrolls. After many years and the efforts of a vast number of scholars, the scrolls reached the world at large and with their release came the vindication of Allegro's open approach to scholarship (Tribute to John Marco Allegro).
Christian View of the Mushroom Myth, http://www.gnosticgarden.com/articles/mushroommyth/chapter-2.htm (2006)
John Allegro Biography, http://www.skepticfiles.org/cultinfo/allegro.htm, (2006)
Former Link: John Marco Allegro, http://www.geocities.com/paris/leftbank/5210/allegro.htm, (2006) Checked(June, 2006)
Written By: Brian John, 2003