1.The Dead Sea Scrolls were
discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea
between the years 1947 and 1956. The area is 13 miles east of Jerusalem
and is 1300 feet below sea level. The mostly fragmented texts, are
numbered according to the cave that they came out of. They have been
called the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.
2. Only Caves 1 and 11 have produced relatively intact manuscripts. Discovered in 1952, Cave 4 produced the largest find. About 15,000 fragments from more than 500 manuscripts were found.
3. In all, scholars have identified the remains of about 825 to 870 separate scrolls.
4. The Scrolls can be divided
into two categories—biblical and non-biblical. Fragments of every book
of the Hebrew canon (Old Testament) have been discovered except for the
book of Esther.
5. There are now identified among
the scrolls, 19 copies of the Book of Isaiah, 25 copies of Deuteronomy
and 30 copies of the Psalms .
6. Prophecies by Ezekiel, Jeremiah and Daniel not found in the Bible are written in the Scrolls.
7. The Isaiah Scroll, found
relatively intact, is 1000 years older than any previously known copy
of Isaiah. In fact, the scrolls are the oldest group of Old Testament
manuscripts ever found.
8. In the Scrolls are found never before seen psalms attributed to King David and Joshua.
9.There are nonbiblical writings along the order of commentaries on the OT, paraphrases that expand on the Law, rule books of the community, war conduct, thanksgiving psalms, hymnic compositions, benedictions, liturgical texts, and sapiential (wisdom) writings.
10. The Scrolls are for the most
part, written in Hebrew, but there are many written in Aramaic. Aramaic
was the common language of the Jews of Palestine for the last two
centuries B.C. and of the first two centuries A.D. The discovery of
the Scrolls has greatly enhanced our knowledge of these two languages.
In addition, there are a few texts written in Greek.
11. The Scrolls appear to be the
library of a Jewish sect. The library was hidden away in caves around
the outbreak of the First Jewish Revolt (A.D. 66-70) as the Roman army
advanced against the rebel Jews.
12. Near the caves are the
ancient ruins of Qumran. They were excavated in the early 1950's and
appear to be connected with the scrolls.
13. The Dead Sea Scrolls were
most likely written by the Essenes during the period from about 200 B.C.
to 68 C.E./A.D. The Essenes are mentioned by Josephus and in a few
other sources, but not in the New testament. The Essenes were a strict
Torah observant, Messianic, apocalyptic, baptist, wilderness, new
covenant Jewish sect. They were led by a priest they called the
"Teacher of Righteousness," who was opposed and possibly killed by the
establishment priesthood in Jerusalem.
14. The enemies of the Qumran
community were called the "Sons of Darkness"; they called themselves the
"Sons of Light," "the poor," and members of "the Way." They thought of
themselves as "the holy ones," who lived in "the house of holiness,"
because "the Holy Spirit" dwelt with them.
15. The last words of Joseph, Judah, Levi, Naphtali, and Amram (the father of Moses) are written down in the Scrolls.
16. One of the most curious
scrolls is the Copper Scroll. Discovered in Cave 3, this scroll records
a list of 64 underground hiding places throughout the land of Israel.
The deposits are to contain certain amounts of gold, silver, aromatics,
and manuscripts. These are believed to be treasures from the Temple at
Jerusalem, that were hidden away for safekeeping.
17. The Temple Scroll, found in
Cave 11, is the longest scroll. Its present total length is 26.7 feet
(8.148 meters). The overall length of the scroll must have been over 28
feet (8.75m).
18. The scrolls contain previously
unknown stories about biblical figures such as Enoch, Abraham, and
Noah. The story of Abraham includes an explanation why God asked
Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac.
19. The scrolls are most commonly
made of animal skins, but also papyrus and one of copper. They are
written with a carbon-based ink, from right to left, using no
punctuation except for an occasional paragraph indentation. In fact, in
some cases, there are not even spaces between the words.
20. The Scrolls have
revolutionized textual criticism of the Old Testament. Interestingly,
now with manuscripts predating the medieval period, we find these texts
in substantial agreement with the Masoretic text as well as widely
variant forms.
21. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls actually appeared for sale on June 1, 1954 in the Wall Street Journal.
The advertisement read — "The Four Dead Sea Scrolls: Biblical
manuscripts dating back to at least 200 BC are for sale. This would be
an ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an
individual or group. Box F206."
22. Although the Qumran community
existed during the time of the ministry of Jesus, none of the Scrolls
refer to Him, nor do they mention any of His follower's described in the
New Testament.
23. The major intact texts, from Caves 1 & 11, were published by the late fifties and are now housed in the Shrine of the Book museum in Jerusalem.
24. Since the late fifties, about
40% of the Scrolls, mostly fragments from Cave 4, remained unpublished
and were unaccessible. It wasn't until 1991, 44 years after the
discovery of the first Scroll, after the pressure for publication
mounted, that general access was made available to photographs of the
Scrolls. In November of 1991 the photos were published by the Biblical Archaeological Society in a nonofficial edition; a computer reconstruction, based on a concordance, was announced; the Huntington Library pledged to open their microfilm files of all the scroll photographs.
25. The Dead Sea Scrolls enhance
our knowledge of both Judaism and Christianity. They represent a
non-rabbinic form of Judaism and provide a wealth of comparative
material for New Testament scholars, including many important parallels
to the Jesus movement. They show Christianity to be rooted in Judaism
and have been called the evolutionary link between the two.
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