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Dead Sea Scrolls

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The Psalms Scroll with transcription.

The Dead Sea scrolls consist of roughly 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they include some of the only known surviving copies of Biblical documents made before 100 C.E., and preserve evidence of considerable diversity of belief and practice within late Second Temple Judaism. They are written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, mostly on parchment, but with some written on papyrus. [1] These manuscripts generally date between 150 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.[2].

Publication of the scrolls has taken many decades, and the delay has been a source of academic controversy. As of 2007 two volumes remain to be completed, with the whole series, Discoveries in the Judean Desert, running to thirty nine volumes in total. Many of the scrolls are now housed in the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. According to The Oxford Companion to Archeology, "The biblical manuscripts from Qumran, which include at least fragments from every book of the Old Testament, except perhaps for the Book of Esther, provide a far older cross section of scriptural tradition than that available to scholars before. While some of the Qumran biblical manuscripts are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament, some manuscripts of the books of Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four exhibit dramatic differences in both language and content. In their astonishing range of textual variants, the Qumran biblical discoveries have prompted scholars to reconsider the once-accepted theories of the development of the modern biblical text from only three manuscript families: of the Masoretic text, of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint, and of the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Old Testament scripture was extremely fluid until its canonization around 100 A.D." [3]

Fragments of the scrolls on display at the Archaeological Museum, Amman

Discovery

The caves in which the scrolls were found
Remains of living quarters at Qumran.

The settlement of Qumran is 1 km inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The scrolls were found in eleven caves nearby, between 125m (Cave 4) and 1 km (Cave 1) away. None were found within the settlement, unless it originally encompassed the caves. It is generally agreed that early in 1947, a Bedouin goatherd (or perhaps shepherd) by the name of Mazra made the first known discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

According to legend, Mazra threw a rock into one of the caves, seeking a lost goat. The sound of pottery shattering drew him in, whereupon he discovered ancient jars containing scrolls wrapped in linen.

Dr. John C. Trever carried out interviews with several men, each by the name of Muhammed edh-Dhib, and each relating a variation on the theme. Several scrolls were reportedly used by a woman for kindling before the rest were brought to an antiquities dealer in Bethlehem, who considered them worth saving.

The dealer, Ibrahim 'Ijha, returned them after being warned that they may have been stolen from a synagogue. The scrolls then fell into the hands of Khalil Eskander Shahin, "Kando", a cobbler and part-time antiques dealer. By most accounts, the Bedouin removed only three scrolls soon after the initial find, but revisited the site later to gather more, perhaps with Kando's encouragement. Alternatively, it is surmised that Kando may have engaged in a surreptitious excavation of his own; he possessed at least four scrolls.

Arrangements with the Bedouin left the scrolls in the hands of a third party until a profitable sale of them could be negotiated. That third party, George Isha'ya, was a member of the Syrian Orthodox Church, who soon contacted St. Mark's Monastery in the hope of getting an appraisal of the nature of the texts. News of the find then reached Metropolitan Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, better known as Mar Samuel.

After examining the scrolls and suspecting their antiquity, Mar Samuel expressed an interest in purchasing them. Four scrolls found their way into his hands: the now famous Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa), the Community Rule, the Habakkuk Pesher (a commentary on the book of Habakkuk), and the Genesis Apocryphon. More scrolls soon surfaced in the antiquities market, and Professor Eleazer Sukenik, an Israeli archaeologist and scholar at Hebrew University, soon found himself in possession of three, The War Scroll, Thanksgiving Hymns, and another, more fragmented, Isaiah scroll.

By the end of 1947, Sukenik received word of the scrolls in Mar Samuel's possession and attempted to purchase them. No deal was reached, and instead the scrolls caught the attention of Dr. John C. Trever, of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), who compared the script in the scrolls to that of The Nash Papyrus, the oldest biblical manuscript then known, and found similarities between them.

Dr. Trever, a keen amateur photographer, met with Mar Samuel on February 21, 1948, when he photographed the scrolls. The quality of his photographs often exceeded the visibility of the scrolls themselves over the years, as the ink of the texts quickly deteriorated after they were removed from their linen wrappings.

The scrolls were analyzed using a synchrotron at the University of California, Davis where it was found that the black ink used was iron-gall ink.[4] The red ink on the scrolls was cinnabar (HgS, mercury sulfide).[4]

In March, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War prompted the removal of the scrolls for safekeeping, from Israel to Beirut, Lebanon.

Early in September, 1948, Mar Samuel brought Professor Ovid R. Sellers, the new Director of ASOR, some additional scroll fragments that he had acquired. By the end of 1948, nearly two years after their discovery, scholars had yet to locate the cave where the fragments had been found. With unrest in the country, no large-scale search could be undertaken. Sellers attempted to get the Syrians to help him locate the cave, but they demanded more money than he could offer. Finally, Cave 1 was discovered, on January 28, 1949, by a United Nations observer.

The Dead Sea Scrolls went up for sale eventually, in an advertisement in the June 1, 1954 Wall Street Journal.

MISCELLANEOUS FOR SALE

THE FOUR DEAD SEA SCROLLS

Biblical manuscripts dating back to at least 200 B.C.
are for sale. This would be an ideal gift to an educational
or religious institution by an individual or group.

Box F 206 WALL STREET JOURNAL

On July 1, the scrolls, after delicate negotiations and accompanied by three people including the Metropolitan, arrived at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. They were purchased for US$250,000. Less than half of the proceeds actually went to Mar Samuel. Due to a mix-up in paperwork, the US government got most of it, in taxes. [citation needed]

Cave 2

Bedouins discovered 300 fragments of other scrolls in Cave 2, including Jubilees and Ben Sirach in the original Hebrew.

Cave 3

One of the most curious scrolls is the Copper Scroll. Discovered in Cave 3 in 1952[5], this scroll records a list of 67 hiding places, mostly underground, throughout the ancient Roman province of Judea (now Israel). According to the scroll, the secret caches held astonishing amounts of gold, silver, copper, aromatics, and manuscripts. These are believed to be treasures belonging to the Temple of Jerusalem, hidden away for safekeeping. The Copper Scroll is currently being translated. The first two sections describe the locations of gold and silver ingots. Their weights are given in units of the Shekel, estimated to be 0.364 Troy ounces, according to Biblical scholars. In silver, a Shekel today would be worth $7.28. In gold, $364.

According to Barbara Thiering[6], the ancient name for Qumran, "Sekhakha", is revealed in the Copper Scroll. Sekhakha is also the name of a wadi (a dry stream bed that channels water only during rainy seasons) which runs into the Wadi Qumran.

Cave 4

Ninety percent of the scrolls were found in Cave 4; seventy percent of the scrolls have been published. Cave 4 held 15,000 fragments, from 500 different texts.

Caves 5 and 6

Caves 5 and 6 were discovered shortly after Cave 4. They yielded a modest find.

Caves 7–10

Archaeologists excavated caves 7 through 9 in 1957, but did not find many fragments. Cave 7 contained seventeen Greek documents (including 7Q5, which became the subject of controversy in later decades). Cave 8 had only five fragments, and Cave 9 held 7. Cave 10 contained nothing but a single ostracon.

Cave 11

The Temple Scroll, so called because more than half of it pertains to the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem, was found in Cave 11, and is by far the longest scroll. It is now 26.7 feet (8.15m) long. Its original length may have been over 28 feet (8.75m). The Temple Scroll was regarded by Yigael Yadin as "The Torah According to the Essenes." On the other hand, Hartmann Steggemann, a contemporary and friend of Yadin, believed the scroll was not to be regarded as such, but was a document without exceptional significance. Steggemann notes that it is not mentioned or cited in any known Essene writing.

Also in Cave 11, an escatological fragment about Melchisedek (11Q13) was found.

Publication

Some of the documents were published early. All the writings in Cave 1 appeared in print between 1950 and 1956, those from eight other caves were released in 1963, and 1965 saw the publication of the Psalms Scroll from Cave 11. Their translations into English soon followed.

An exception was the contents of Cave 4, representing 40% of the total. Their publication had been entrusted to "The International Team" led by Father Roland de Vaux, a member of the Dominican Order in Jerusalem. This group published the first volume of the material entrusted to them in 1968, but spent much of their energies defending their theories regarding the materials, instead of publishing them. Geza Vermes, who had been involved from the start in the project, blamed the delay—and eventual failure—on de Vaux's selection of a team poorly suited to the work, as well as de Vaux's vain reliance on "his personal, quasi-patriarchal authority" to ensure its prompt completion.

Thus a large portion of the finds in Cave 4 were not released for years. Access to the scrolls was governed by a "secrecy rule" which allowed only the original International Team or their designates to view the original materials. After de Vaux's death in 1971, his successors repeatedly refused to allow the publication even of photographs of these materials, preventing other scholars from making their own judgments. This rule was eventually broken, first by Ben Zion Wacholder's publication in the fall of 1991 of 17 documents reconstructed from a concordance that had been made in 1988 and had come into the hands of scholars outside of the International Team; next, in the same month, by the discovery and publication of a complete set of facsimiles of the Cave 4 materials at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, which were not covered by the "secrecy rule". After further delays, these photographs were published by Robert Eisenman and James Robinson as A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls.[7] As a result, the "secrecy rule" was lifted.

Publication accelerated with the appointment of the respected Dutch-Israeli textual scholar Emanuel Tov as editor-in-chief in 1990. Publication of the Cave 4 documents soon commenced, with five volumes in print by 1995. As of 2007 two volumes remain to be completed, with the whole series, Discoveries in the Judean Desert, running to thirty nine volumes in total.

In December 2007, the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation commissioned London publisher Facsimile Editions to publish exact facsimiles of three scrolls,[8] The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa), The Order of the Community (1QS), and The Pesher to Habakkuk (1QpHab). Of the first three facsimile sets, one was exhibited at the Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, and a second set was purchased by the British Library in London.

Significance to the canon of the Bible

The significance of the scrolls relates in a large part to the field of textual criticism. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were Masoretic texts dating to 9th century. The biblical manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls push that date back to the 2nd century B.C. Before this discovery, the earliest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. Although a few of the biblical manuscripts found at Qumran differ significantly from the Masoretic text, most do not. The scrolls thus provide new variants and the ability to be more confident of those readings where the Dead Sea manuscripts agree with the Masoretic Text or with the early Greek manuscripts.

Further, the sectarian texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, most of which were previously unknown, offer new light on one form of Judaism practiced during the Second Temple period.

Frequency of books found

Books Ranked According to Number of Manuscripts found (top 16)[9]

Books No. found
Psalms 39
Deuteronomy 33
1 Enoch 25
Genesis 24
Isaiah 22
Jubilees 21
Exodus 18
Leviticus 17
Numbers 11
Minor Prophets 10
Daniel 8
Jeremiah 6
Ezekiel 6
Job 6
1 & 2 Samuel 4

Controversy involving recent and upcoming exhibitions

In recent years, exhibitions of the Dead Sea Scrolls have become the subject of controversy. For example, a National Post article entitled "Controversy surrounds exhibit of Dead Sea Scrolls" states: "The Royal Ontario Museum could find itself unearthing old controversies when it opens its $3-million, would-be blockbuster Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition next June."[10]

The article explains that a "history professor in the U.S. has accused an earlier, related project in San Diego of deliberate bias, scholarly incompetence and [has] suggest[ed] that its curator, who is also assembling the ROM exhibition, was unqualified for the job."

According to the article, "Critics accuse [the] project in San Diego of presenting the traditional "Qumran-Essenes" theory of the Scrolls' origins -- a hypothesis some believe to be favoured by conservative Christians -- to the exclusion of other ideas."

The article indicates that University of Chicago historian Norman Golb "attacked the San Diego show by circulating a 24-page critique of the exhibition catalogue highlighting what he called 'a great many factual errors and unprovable assertions presented as truths.'" [11]

In a letter published in the National Post, Michael Hager, director of the San Diego Natural History Museum, defends the quality of that museum's exhibit, stating that the "ideas presented in the San Diego Dead Sea scrolls exhibition were thoroughly researched by a team of accredited biblical scholars, with several alternative theories for their origin presented."[12]

In another letter also published in the same newspaper, Golb states that the "controversy now unfolding about the scrolls arises out of the fact that the debate between the two salient theories of Scroll origins -- the Qumran-Essene theory and the theory of Jerusalem origin -- is featured in a current exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York. By contrast, most museums in past exhibits have largely concealed this debate from the public. The Royal Ontario Museum, which has a reputation for scientific integrity, now is faced with the problem of presenting a balanced and accurate exhibition."[13]

The Wall Street Journal and other newspapers reported that the scholarly debate over the Scrolls' origins was highlighted in the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit held at the Jewish Museum in New York in the Autumn of 2008.[14]

Digital copies

High-resolution images of all the Dead Sea Scrolls are not yet known to be available online. However, they can be purchased in inexpensive multi-volumes - on disc media or in book form - or viewed in certain university libraries.

According to Computer Weekly (16th Nov 2007), a team from King's College London is to advise the Israeli Antiquities Authority, who are planning to digitize the scrolls. On 27th Aug 2008 an Israeli internet news agency YNET announced that the project is under way[15]. The scrolls are planned to be made available to the public via Internet. The project is to include infra-red scanning of the scrolls which is said to expose additional details, not visible in the regular light.

The text of nearly all of the non-biblical scrolls has been recorded and tagged for morphology by Dr. Martin Abegg, Jr., the Ben Zion Wacholder Professor of Dead Sea Scroll Studies at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC, Canada. It is available on handheld devices through Olive Tree Bible Software - BibleReader, on Macs through Accordance, and on Windows through Logos Bible Software and BibleWorks.

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ From papyrus to cyberspace The Guardian August 27 2008.
  2. ^ F. F. Bruce. "The Last Thirty Years". Story of the Bible. ed. Frederic G. Kenyon Retrieved June 19, 2007
  3. ^ Brian M. Fagan, Charlotte Beck, The Oxford Companion to Archeology, entry on the "Dead sea scrolls", Oxford University Press, 1996
  4. ^ a b "Iron-gall ink was the most important ink in Western history". realscience.breckschool.org. Retrieved 2008-12-29.
  5. ^ Eisenman and Wise, 1992
  6. ^ Jesus the Man, page 39
  7. ^ A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls in two volumes (Biblical Archaeology Society of Washington, DC, Washington, D.C., 1991)
  8. ^ Rocker, Simon (2007-11-16). "The Dead Sea Scrolls...made in St John's Wood". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  9. ^ Theodor H. Gaster (1976). The Dead Sea Scriptures. Peter Smith Pub Inc. ISBN 0-8446-6702-1.
  10. ^ Adam McDowell, "Controversy surrounds exhibit of Dead Sea Scrolls" (November 13, 2008), http://www.nationalpost.com/arts/story.html?id=954321
  11. ^ Golb's critique of the San Diego exhibition catalogue is available on the University of Chicago website at http://www.oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/dss_review_sandiego_catalogue_2007.pdf
  12. ^ "Controversy Dogs Dead Sea Scrolls," November 13, http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=983256
  13. ^ "More Dead Sea Scrolls Controversy," http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=983256
  14. ^ http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/DeadSeaScrolls; http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122238636935776931.html?mod=googlenews_wsj; http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c347_a13745/The_Arts/Museums.html
  15. ^ "(Hebrew) The Dead Sea Scrolls Being Exposed". YNET. 2008-08-27. Retrieved 2008-08-27.

Bibliography

  • John Marco Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (ISBN 0-7153-7680-2), Westbridge Books, U.K., 1979.*Edward M. Cook, Solving the Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Light on the Bible, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994
  • Frank Moore Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran, 3rd ed., Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. ISBN 0-8006-2807-1
  • Philip R. Davies, George J. Brooke, and Phillip R. Callaway, "The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls", London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. ISBN 0-500-05111-9
  • Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The Search for the Secret of Qumran, New York: Scribner, 1995
  • Yizhar Hirschfeld, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence, Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004.
  • Yizhak Magen and Yuwal Peleg, "Back to Qumran: Ten years of Excavations and Research, 1993-2004," in The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 57), Brill, 2006 (pp. 55-116).
  • C. Khabbaz, "Les manuscrits de la mer Morte et le secret de leurs auteurs",Beirut, 2006. (Ce livre identifie les auteurs des fameux manuscrits de la mer Morte et dévoile leur secret).
  • Elisha Qimron, The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Harvard Semitic Studies, 1986. (This is a serious discussion of the Hebrew language of the scrolls.)
  • Barbara Thiering, Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ISBN 0-06-067782-1), New York: Harper Collins, 1992
  • Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, London: Penguin, 1998. ISBN 0-14-024501-4 (good translation, but complete only in the sense that he includes translations of complete texts, but neglects fragmentary scrolls and more especially does not include biblical texts.)

Other sources

  • Martin Abegg, Jr, Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English, (1999) HarperSanFrancisco paperback 2002, ISBN 0-06-060064-0, (contains the biblical portion of the scrolls)
  • Dead Sea Scrolls Study Vol 1: 1Q1-4Q273, Vol. 2: 4Q274-11Q31, (compact disc), Logos Research Systems, Inc., (contains the non-biblical portion of the scrolls with Hebrew and Aramaic transcriptions in parallel with English translations)
  • A. Powell Davies, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. (Signet, 1956.)
  • D. Dimant and U. Rappaport (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, Leiden and Jerusalem: E. J. Brill, Magnes Press, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1992.
  • Rachel Elior, The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism in Late Antiquity, Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004 (paperback edition 2005).
  • Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders, ed. "Paul and the scriptures of Israel, (1993) Sheffield: JSOT Press
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Paulist Press 1992, ISBN 0-8091-3348-2
  • Theodore Heline, Dead Sea Scrolls, New Age Bible & Philosophy Center, 1957, Reprint edition March 1987, ISBN 0-933963-16-5
  • Raphael Israeli, Piracy in Qumran: The Battle over the Scrolls of the Pre-Christ Era, Transaction Publishers: 2008 ISBN 978-1-4128-0703-6
  • Yitzhak Magen & Yuval Peleg, "The Qumran Excavations 1993-2004: Preliminary Report," JSP 6 (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2007)Download
  • Johann Maier, The Temple Scroll, [German edition was 1978], (Sheffield:JSOT Press [Supplement 34], 1985).
  • Florentino Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, (Translated from Spanish into English by Wilfred G. E. Watson) (Leiden: E.J.Brill, 1994).
  • Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, (1967, 1973, 1988) Deseret Book Co., ISBN 0875791395 (Nibley discusses the impact that discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has had on various Christian church doctrines, including the Book of Mormon.)
  • James A. Sanders, ed. "Dead Sea scrolls: The Psalms scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa)", (1965) Oxford, Clarendon Press.
  • Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity, Anchor Bible Reference Library (Doubleday) 1995, ISBN 0-385-48121-7, (Schiffman has suggested two plausible theories of origin and identity - a Sadducean splinter group, or perhaps an Essene group with Sadducean roots.) Excerpts of this book can be read at COJS: Dead Sea Scrolls.
  • Hershel Shanks, The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vintage Press 1999, ISBN 0-679-78089-0 (recommended introduction to their discovery and history of their scholarship)
  • Carsten Peter Thiede, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity, PALGRAVE 2000, ISBN 0-312-29361-5
  • Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr, and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, (1996), HarperSanFrancisco paperback 1999, ISBN 0-06-069201-4, (contains the non-biblical portion of the scrolls)
  • Samuel Ifor Enoch 'The Jesus of Faith and the Dead Sea Scrolls' 1968 Presbyterian Church of Wales
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