The Dead Sea ScrollsTHE DEAD SEA SCROLLSHum.
211Karen RankSunday, October 17, 1999While pursuing one of his goats into a cave near the Dead Sea in the Jordan Desert, in1947, a fifteen year old boy by the name of Muhammad adh-Dhib, stumbled on to a greatdiscovery. Inside the cave, he found broken jars that contained scrolls written in a strangelanguage, wrapped in linen cloth and leather. 1 This first discovery produced seven scrolls andstarted an archaeological search that produced thousands of scroll fragments in eleven caves. The Dead Sea is located in Israel and Jordan, east of Jerusalem.
The dead sea is verydeep, salty, and it’s the lowest body of water in the world. Because the dead sea is at such a lowelevation, the climate has a high evaporation rate but a very low humidity which helped topreserve the scrolls. 2Archaeologists searched for the dwelling of the people that may have left the scrolls inthe caves. The archaeologist excavated a ruin located between the cliffs where the scrolls werefound and the dead sea. This ruin is called Qumran. The ruins and the scrolls were dated by thecarbon 14 method and found to be from the third century which made them the oldest survivingbiblical manuscript by at least 1000 years.
Since the first discoveries archaeologists have found over 800 scrolls and scrollfragments in 11 different caves in the surrounding area. In fact, there are about 100,000 fragmentsfound in all. Most of which were written on goat skin and sheep skin. A few were on papyrus, aplant used to make paper, but one scroll was engraved on copper sheeting telling of sixty buriedtreasure sites. 3Because the scrolls containing the directions to the treasures is unable to be fullyunrolled, the treasures have not been found yet. In all, the texts of the scrolls were remarkable.
They contained unknown psalms, Bible commentary, calendar text, mystical texts, apocalyptictexts, liturgical texts, purity laws , bible stories, and fragments of every book in the OldTestament except that of Esther, including a imaginative paraphrase of the Book of Genesis. Alsofound were texts, in the original languages, of several books of the Apocrypha andPseudepigrapha. These texts?none of which was included in the Hebrew canon of the Bible?areTobit, Sirach, Jubilees, portions of Enoch, and the Testament of Levi, up to this time known onlyin early Greek, Syriac, Latin, and Ethiopic versions. 4John Trever of the W.
F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, was allowed toinvestigate the scrolls and was stunned to find that the scrolls closely resemble the Nash Papyrus,the once known oldest fragment of the Hebrew Bible dated at or around 150 BC. One of thescrolls was a complete copy of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Trever also examined three otherscrolls; the Manual of Discipline, a commentary on the book of Habbakuk, and one called theGenesis Apocryphon. Trever took photographs of the texts to William Foxwell Albright ; of JohnHopkins University in Baltimore, who declared the scrolls dated back to around 100 BC.
5The scroll and fragments found in the Qumran is a library of information that containsbooks or works written in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Manyscholars separated the scrolls into three different categories: Biblical – Books found in the Hebrew Bible. Apocryphal or psuedepigraphical – Works not in some Bibles but included in others. Sectarian – ordinances, biblical commentaries, apocalyptic visions, and sacred works. 6 One of the longer text, found in Qumran is the Tehillim or Psalms Scroll.
It was found in1956 in cave 11 and unrolled in 1961. It is a assortment of Psalms, hymns and an indifferent passage about the psalms authored by King David. It is written on sheep skin parchment and it hasthe thickest surface of any of the scrolls. 7 The Manual Of Discipline or Community Rule contains rules, warnings and punishmentsto violators of the rules of the desert sect called Yahad. It also contains the methods of joining thecommunity, the relations among the members, their way of life , and their beliefs.
The sectbelieved that human nature and all that happens in the world is predestined. The scroll ends withsongs of praise of God. The scroll was found in cave 4 and cave 5 and It was written onparchment. The longest version was found in cave 4. 8The War Rule is commonly referred to as the ?Pierced Messiah? text.
It refers to aMessiah who came from the line of David, to be brought to a judgment and then to a killing. Itanticipates the New Testament view of the preordained death of the messiah. It is written in aHebrew script and is only a six line fragment. 9 Most of the scrolls were found in caves near Qumran. The Qumran site was excavated tofind the habitation of those who deposited the scrolls in the nearby caves.
The excavationsuncovered plates bowls and cemeteries with over twelve hundred graves that have the samecharacteristics which suggest religious uniformity, along with a complex of structures which suggested that they were communal in presentation. 10 Many believe this is where a community ofa distant Jewish sect called the Essenes may have once lived. The Essenes were members of aJewish religious brotherhood, organized on a communal basis who practiced strict disciplines. Theorder had around 4000 members and they existed in Palestine and Syria from the 2nd century BCto the 2nd century AD. The sects main settlements were on the shores of the Dead Sea. 11 In somescholars views the site was the wilderness retreat of the Essenes.
According to these scholars, theEssenes or another religious sect resided in neighboring locations, most likely caves, tents, andsolid structures, but depended on the center for community facilities such as stores of food andwater. 12Many scholars believe the Essene community wrote, copied, or accumulated the scrollsat Qumran and deposited them in the caves of the neighboring hills. Others question thisexplanation, claiming that the site was no monastery but rather a Roman fortress or a winterresidence. Some also believe that the Qumran site has little if anything to do with the scrolls andthe evidence available does not support a definitive answer. 13A lapse in the use of the site is linked to evidence of a huge earthquake.
Qumran wasabandoned about the time of the Roman invasion of 68 A. D. ,14 two years before the collapse ofJewish self-government in Judea and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A. D.
Thescrolls are believed to have been brought from Jerusalem the Judean wilderness for safekeepingwhen Jerusalem was threatened by Roman armies. This was the time that Qumran was a judeanmilitary fortress which was destroyed in a battle with the RomansSince their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the subject of great scholarly andpublic interest. For scholars they represent an invaluable source for exploring the nature of post-biblical times and probing the sources of two of the world’s great religions. For the public, theyare artifacts of great significance, mystery, and drama. 15The Dead Sea Scrolls give us a better view of a crucial period in the history of Judaism.
Judaism was divided into numerous religious sects and political parties. With the destruction ofthe Temple in 70 AD. , all that came to an end. Only the Judaism of the Pharisees; the mostpowerful Jewish sect–Rabbinic Judaism–survived. Qumran literature shows a Judaism in themidst of change from the religion of Israel as described in the Bible to the Judaism of the rabbis asexplained in the Talmud, which tells the rules that Jews live by. 16 Scholars have emphasized similarities between the beliefs and practices shown in the Qumranmaterial and those of early Christians.
17 These similarities include rituals of baptism, communalmeals, and property. 18 One of the most fascinating similarities is how the people dividedthemselves into twelve tribes led by twelve chiefs. This is very similar to how Jesus had twelveapostles who would sit on thrones and judge the twelve tribes of Israel. 19The Dead Sea Scrolls were written during the birth of Christianity and an important time inJewish history. The scrolls have giving an insight into the lives and customs of the people wholived in a time of Roman invasion and Jewish history. Although the text do not hold all theanswers, they do give people a tool to use when studying biblical history.
Only a very fewscholars had access to the scrolls before copies of the scrolls were published in the 1990’s; nowwe all have a chance to read an come to our own conclusions about the text. Whether the scrollsuphold Jewish or Christian beliefs is not the only interesting part of the scrolls. The text also givea more personal look at the people who lived in a major part of Jewish history. BibliographyWORKS CITEDBurrows, Millar.
(1955). The Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Grammercy Publishing Company Roth, Cecil. (1965).
The Dea Sea Scrolls. A New Historical Approach. New York: W. W. Norton ; Company.
Schubert, Kurt . (1959). The Dead Sea Community. Great Britain: Bowering Press Plymouth.
Shanks, Hershel. (1998). The Mystery And Meaning Of The Dead Sea Scrolls. New York:Random House. Project Judaica Foundation, Inc.
(1996-1999) . Welcome to SCROLLS FROM THE DEAD SEA. The Ancient Library of Qumran and ModernScholarship, an Exhibit at the Library of Congress, Washington,DChttp://metalab.unc.edu/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/intro.html, Site design by New Connections.Religion
