Dead Sea Scrolls

In 1947, a young Bedouin named Mohammed edh-Dib discovered a ceramic jar containing scrolls in a cave near the Wadi Qumran on the western shore of the Dead Sea. Over the next 9 years, excavators discovered a collection of more than 800 ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic manuscripts, many of them biblical, from a total of 11 caves. Prior to this amazing discovery, the oldest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible were the Masoretic Texts, dating to about 1000 CE. The Dead Sea Scrolls, however, were written between 250 BCE and 68 CE, when the community was abandoned and the texts stored in caves. Thus, these were textual witnesses about 1000 years closer to the original writings of the Hebrew Bible. Scholars were shocked to discover the many differences between the Masoretic texts and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Additionally, many of the variant readings in the Dead Sea Scrolls aligned with the Septuagint. The authors of the scrolls were an Essene community upset with the way Judaism was being run in Jerusalem. From the non-biblical texts, we learn a great deal about what life was like for adherents to this religious sect. One of their most important documents is called the Community Rule, or the Manual of Discipline. It states how the community should be governed, and provides rules and penalties if they are violated. For example, if one fell asleep during assembly, they were kicked out of the community for 30 days. If they spoke foolishly, they were banished for three months. But if they went naked, they were kicked out for six months. Theologically they followed the "Teacher of Righteousness" over the "Wicked Priest," and they believed a cosmic battle was taking place between the "sons of light" and the "sons of darkness." Today the scrolls reside in a variety of places. Many are at the Israel Museum's Shrine of the Book, while others are at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, the Archaeological Museum in Amman Jordan, and a variety of other places, including private collections.

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