The Dead Sea Scrolls refer to the remains of some 800 ancient manuscripts that were discovered in caves near the Dead Sea at Qumran in 1947.
The Bedouin finder of what became known as Lot 1 took the scrolls to a Syrian Christian named Khalkl Iskander Shahin who announced the discovery to a fascinated world. Could it be that the mysteries of Christ’s life and death were to be solved by documents relating to the very time he was alive? But the scrolls needed to be decoded, and there were to be no instant dramatic revelations.
Some of the scrolls were sold to scholars and collectors of ancient artefacts anxious to get their hands on such treasures, and from then on it became a race to find more of the precious documents.
The first cache of scrolls had been found shortly before the creation of the modern Israel and the first Arab-Israeli war, a situation not conducive to exploratory expeditions. Nonetheless, by 1956 ten more caves had been found to contain urns of ancient documents.
The next war was an academic one, as many scholars who had managed to get hold of any of the precious scrolls did their utmost to keep all information secret until they were ready to publish their findings to the world. It became a race for personal glory rather than a desire to share the amazing revelations with a waiting world.
The documents were mainly written on parchment and were in various stages of decay, but one was inscribed on thin copper plate. It was one of the most complex of the scrolls, and it became the task of a member of an authorised team of scholars, one John Allegro, to transcribe it. He worked on it assiduously and published his findings in 1959. This was the transcription that was eagerly awaited as it contained details of the sites where valuable treasure had been hidden before the community had been forced to flee after the unsuccessful Jewish uprising against the Romans in 70 AD.
John Allegro obtained funding from a private source and set out on a treasure hunt. No treasure was ever found. The copper scroll is presently housed in Amman, Jordan.
The scrolls covered an enormous range of documents from the minutiae of everyday community life to precious scriptures, hymns, religious rituals, legal documents and priestly commentaries. Many of the records predated the community who had hidden them before fleeing the Holy Land. With the exception of the Book of Esther, all the books of the Hebrew Bible were listed.
The scrolls also provided the oldest record to date of the first five books of the Bible – the Pentateuch traditionally attributed to Moses – as well as many Jewish apocryphal books of which copies had already been found.
Importantly, though, the Dead Sea Scrolls gave detailed information about a strict but unorthodox Jewish sect known as the Essenes who were living in the Qumran area during the lifetime of Christ and throughout the years when the earliest Christian groups were forming. It is widely thought – although not certain – that the Dead Sea Scrolls were of Essenic origin.
Commentators differ over what the scrolls reveal about Jesus, if anything. Some say that, although there is mention of a coming Messiah, there is no mention of Jesus - or of any Christian activities in the years after his death. Others claim that, along with Nag Hammadi texts, there is priceless information about Judaism at that time and about the early sects who were following the teachings of Christ, although not always in agreement with one another.
There would have been fewer contradictory reports had there been less bickering and possessiveness among scholars involved – or wishing to become involved – in working on the texts. In the meantime, biblical scholars everywhere were waiting anxiously for what the scrolls would reveal. Some translations were available by 1956, but no copies were made available for scholars to study and discuss.
Sharan Newman records in The Real History behind the Da Vinci Code that Professor Michael Wise of the University of Chicago - working from a copy that had somehow been obtained by the Huntingdon Library in Pasadena, California - was able to put together a content list of what was in the scrolls. This was intended as merely a “stopgap” until the Qumran team could be persuaded to release the long overdue information. Predictably, it caused an uproar among scholars.
A common rumour about delays in making known the full contents of the Dead Seas Scrolls lays the blame on the Vatican, but it is not known to what extent this is true. What has played a significant role in delaying publication has been infighting among academics and, it is said, to policies concerning scrolls housed in Jordan and Israel.
There are no doubt many more caches of scrolls of inestimable value to be found in the same area as the Dead Sea Scrolls and possibly further a field, but it is extremely difficult, and even hazardous, for archaeologists to work consistently in areas that are consistently plagued by unrest, if not open warfare. And so the world waits.
In the meantime, most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are lodged in a museum in Jerusalem dedicated to that purpose.
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