Audio Downloads

These recently discovered audio files are, at present, all that is known in existence of John Allegro's many lectures and talks. Now the listener may hear some of John's ideas and positions in his own words, un-convoluted by other's biased opinions of him and his work. On January 13, 2007, these talks were released for the first time, courtesy of the Allegro estate and GnosticMedia.com.

John M Allegro - The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Cover-up? April 18, 1984.

Produced and broadcast by Ian Walker of Piccadilly Radio, Manchester, England.

Why, after 30 years, was John Allegro the only scholar to have published all the scroll texts allotted to him? Why were the others so reluctant to discuss differences of interpretation, or welcome the light that the scrolls shed on the origins of Christianity?

None of the four scholars interviewed (Allegro, Yadin, Benoit and Broshi) accepts the popular conspiracy theory about a deliberate cover-up. But Allegro holds that, though not amounting to suppression, he definitely experienced a go-slow, a reluctance to challenge or even debate accepted views on the uniqueness of the gospel story.

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John M Allegro - Jesus and Qumran - The Dead Sea Scrolls, April 19, 1985

A lecture given to the American Atheist Society in Ann Arbor, April 19, 1985.

John Allegro argues that the Christianity of the New Testament is a weave of many threads. It has little to do with historical circumstance, unless to recall the possible fate of the Essene Teacher of Righteousness. It has much to do with key elements of Essenism, hidden in names, titles and story motifs; and with Old Testament prophecy; and with Jewish cultic beliefs and practices which go back to ancient fertility religions. All these are woven with Hellenistic mystery cults and myths into the Pauline theology of Christos.

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John M Allegro - Healers of the Dead Sea - post 1985

Produced by CBS Television, post 1985, with Douglas Edwards.

This is the soundtrack (recorded by John Allegro from his TV to cassette) of a film made by CBS and still in existence, though not screened since the 1980s. John Allegro discusses the importance of spiritual healing to the Essenes of Qumran: how their scrolls suggest they saw themselves as heirs to the secrets of healing brought to earth by the Fallen Angels. He argues that this Essene tradition of healing lay behind the early Christian preoccupation with faith healing, exorcism and miracles, and that both sects saw healing as a way to restore the soul to God.

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