Dead Sea Scrolls

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Dead Sea Scrolls

Scripture has fascinated humans since ancient times and there have always been disputes on the interpretation of material found. Deciphering old forms of language is a challenge for modern scholars. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is probably the most intriguing find in religious history, second only to the search for the Holy Grail. It was an important find for both Judaism and Christianity.

The discovery was made across eleven caves around the Dead Sea, between 1947-1956. Bedouin shepherds searching for a stray sheep found the first scrolls in jars. This alerted archeologists and they found the rest. Most experts agree that the texts are the work of a Jewish sect, probably connected to the Essenes and had been hidden during the Jewish-Roman war. More than 900 documents have been found so far.

The texts are a mixture of scripture that has been copied and the original writing of the sect. There are religious rules and reviews of scripture passages. One of the Dead Sea Scrolls is fashioned in copper and directs the reader to where treasure and more scrolls are concealed. They are mostly written in Hebrew with several in Aramaic. This has helped the understanding of these languages.

A portion of the texts was put into the care of Israeli authorities that housed them in a Jerusalem museum in the late 1950s. The remainder was looked after in Jordan by a team of Christian scholars who studied and eventually published them. The absence of Jewish involvement in this caused controversy and Jewish scholars were invited to join the group in the 1980s. Many more texts were published during this decade.

Today, scholars all over the world are still debating on the origin and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The majority of experts agree that they are authentic; very few think that they are a hoax. There is some disagreement on who wrote the scrolls and why they were hidden in the caves. Different interpretations are put on the texts and the debate will go on indefinitely.

The scrolls have given an insight into the history of the area, how early Christianity developed and what Judaism stood for in early Palestine. It has been a daunting task to put the material in order and present it. The scrolls are not all intact, 15,000 fragments were found in one cave alone. The total number of Dead Sea Scrolls represented by whole ones and fragments is between 800-900. If only the inscriptions could talk to us.