Jerry Gill's Enduring Questions

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS UNPACKED

The only thing that compares to my thrill of climbing to the top of the Great Giza Pyramid is crawling into Cave #1 of the Dead Sea Scrolls caves at the Qumran archaeological site. In both cases, a little voice inside me asked: “Why not just stay here?” Both visits were in 1966 and remain high points in my memory of exhilarating and meaningful trips! Now I’ve just bought the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (Harper Collins), a collection of the scrolls discovered in the Qumran caves translated into English. Besides including the books we recognize as the Old Testament, these scrolls also contain translations of other ancient manuscripts from the “Inter-Testament” period. It’s a treasure trove of Biblical material. I’ve been waiting for it every day! It arrived yesterday. : O)

As I understand it, the scholarly community waited years for these manuscripts to be translated by a Duke University professor named Strugnell, who unfortunately seemed never to finish the job. Three Catholic priests who also understood how computers work reasoned that these manuscripts could be input into a translation computer and thus be produced overnight. So they did just that, and these Dead Sea Scrolls became accessible to scholars worldwide. Now, after several decades, the scrolls have been fully translated, and in this book, they are available to all of us. I am waiting daily for my copy to arrive! I’ll keep you updated in a later post! Yikes! My copy of the book actually arrived today! I’ll follow up after I’ve had a chance to look at it.

OK. There are three primary ancient Biblical texts: 1. The Hebrew Masoretic, 2. The Greek Septuagint, and 3. The Samaritan Pentateuch. Between 1947 and 1956, eleven caves along the western coast of the Dead Sea, known as Khirbet Qumran, were discovered. Inside, about 900 manuscripts were found, made up of roughly 25,000 pieces, some the size of a postage stamp, and dozens of others rolled up in scroll form made of leather or papyrus. A few of the scrolls were well preserved, but most were scraps and fragments contained in about a dozen small caves. The ones in near-perfect condition were The Great Isaiah Scroll and The Great Psalms Scroll, both found in what was labeled Cave #1, the cave I got to crawl into—the manuscripts date from approximately 250 BC to 68 CE. There were also several non-Biblical scrolls containing rules and regulations for the members of the Qumran Community, who wrote and hid the scrolls when they feared the coming destruction by the Romans in 68 CE. Thus, the scrolls are nearly exactly 2,000 years old. 

The men of the Qumran community had abandoned their religious ties in Jerusalem. They established this place of worship and life because they believed the Jewish Nation was soon to be punished or liberated by God. In total, there were about 240 biblical scrolls along with others concerning the rules and practices of the Qumran community. The community consisted of several hundred members of what was known as the Essenes sect, and it is unclear if any women were part of it. They gathered to escape and await God’s destruction of the Roman Empire. Around 64 AD, they were ultimately destroyed by the Romans. Most copies of the Old Testament found are of The Book of Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah. Interestingly, these same three Old Testament books are the most cited in the New Testament. Complete texts from various manuscripts are fragmentary at best. Collecting and comparing these numerous texts from one biblical book to another was a challenging task. Numerous biblical books have been discovered, revealing varied uses within the community. Many copies of Deuteronomy were also found at Qumran, indicating they were used frequently. Multiple copies of the book of Isaiah were found in different locations within the site.

This is why I find this book and its far-reaching implications so fascinating and essential. The discovery of the Qumran library and the site of the Community are crucial for understanding the history and cultural background of the New Testament era. I hope you find some of this material and these issues interesting. The Qumran discovery remains highly significant and intriguing, both historically and culturally. It sheds more light on some of the controversies and events depicted in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ encounters with various religious groups of his time. The Essenes were a sect during Jesus’ day, similar to the Pharisees and Sadducees. However, they tended to be more reclusive and anticipated the end of Roman rule in Jerusalem—though not through violence. Instead, they withdrew and waited for God’s final intervention, which occurred about 30 years after Jesus died in the form of Roman destruction.