Dead Sea scrolls

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The first Dead Sea Scrolls to be found, were discovered by Bedouin shepards in 1947 who uncovered seven scrolls in a cave. In the following decade, further searches yielded many thousands of scroll fragments and there are currently over 900 such documents known to exist found in eleven different caves.[1] A nearby habitation, known as Qumran, was also excavated in this time in an effort to identify the people who left the scrolls in the caves.

Within a fairly short time after their discovery, historical, paleographic, and linguistic evidence, as well as carbon-14 dating, established that the scrolls and the Qumran ruin dated from the third century B.C. to 68 A.D. From the standpoint of biblical archeology, this was unparalleled. Coming from the late Second Temple Period, a time when Jesus of Nazareth lived, they are older than any other surviving manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures by almost one thousand years. [2]

Scholars have pointed to similarities between beliefs and practices outlined in the Qumran literature and those of early Christians. [3] The Biblical Scrolls' contents focus the books from the Old Testament. The Scrolls are written in Hebrew and in Aramaica with a few texts in Greek. The use of Hebrew was a surprise to many scholars who felt that Hebrew had become a dead language by that time, and this discovery gave new evidence to a claim that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke were originally written in Hebrew and then quickly translated into Greek.[4]

Many of the scrolls are now conserved in Jerusalem.

Most part of the biblical books that have survived two millennia in the caves are extremely fragmented; many are no larger than the size of a postcard, and some fragments are as small as a postage stamp. Even the smallest fragment, however, can add to our knowledge of the Bible.... With the exception of the book of Esther, every book of the Old Testament has been found in the Qumran caves. [5] All told, 230 Biblical manuscripts have been found (of course many are copies of the same books).[6]


See also


External links


References

  1. http://www.sdnhm.org/scrolls/history.html
  2. THE WORLD OF THE SCROLLS Library of Congress Exhibitions.
  3. JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS Library of Congress Exhibitions.
  4. http://www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2001/may2001p20_453.html
  5. Old Testament Texts at Qumran
  6. http://www.sdnhm.org/scrolls/history.html


Sources

  • Burrows, M., The Dead Sea Scrolls (Secker & Warburg, 1956).
  • Vermes, G., The Dead Sea Scrolls (Penguin, 1968).