The Dead Sea Scrolls
A selection of the Dead Sea Scrolls was available back in 2015 as the central part of an exhibit at the California Science Center having to do with Ancient Israel. The exhibit has several pieces on display that depict various aspects of living during the time periods surrounding when the Dead Sea Scrolls were written, in use, and finally store in the many caves in which they were found almost 2,000 years later. Ironically, once discovered these scrolls endured more damage than two thousand years of time could ravage while being handled by humans once again after being removed from their dusty crypt. The scrolls were found over several years in eleven different caves near Qumran hidden within old pottery and are thought to have been hidden away in order to preserve them during an invasion so that, if the people lost, the documents would survive. What was recovered was the oldest collection of Biblical documents in existence.
Among the 972 documents, which had degraded into several pieces numbering over 50,000, were records of rules about everyday living and multiple copies of several biblical books. About a quarter are books that belong to the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Christian Old Testament. The collection of Psalms is one of the largest and compared to the version of the Bible that is in popular circulation today there are several discrepancies and differences. For example, many of the Psalms are “out of order,” however, which one would be considered the proper order is up for debate. Most of the Psalms that belong to the current Bible can be found in the scrolls, but there are about fifteen that are on the Dead Sea Scrolls that are not in the modern Bible. They are known as “apocryphal” meaning that they are not present in the current Bible. There is also a significant collection of biblical books that are not in the modern Bible. Not all of the scrolls are of religious connotation. There are scrolls that provide lists of laws that were practiced, war techniques, and a number of locations supposedly containing buried treasure. The majority of the texts are written in Hebrew, however, some of them are also written in Greek and Aramaic.
Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls are gathered and preserved in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. After the area containing the caves in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were located came under the control of Israel in 1967 following the Six-Day War, the caves have been exposed to almost continuous archaeological activity. The oldest scroll dates back to around 150 B. C. E. A number of the scrolls were recovered from jars like the one pictured on the left. The scrolls were also found wrapped in linens and hidden in other containers inside the cave. Initially the scrolls were discovered by Bedouin shepherds who were attempting to chase their goat out of a cavern without going inside. One of the two men picked up a stone and tossed it into the cave in order to make enough noise to scare out the goat. The sound that his ears welcomed was the shattering of pottery. They discovered seven scrolls. After being taken away by the shepherds and sold to a man who would be interested in the find in 1946, it was the first time the Dead Sea Scrolls would see daylight after two millennia in hiding. The first few scrolls travel great distances and were purchased by a number of different people over their travels. And they would stir up quite a bit of attention. For some time there was an auction held in New York for an ancient biblical scroll. In this time private collectors were quite interested and as a result not all of the Dead Sea Scrolls are able to call Israel their home today.
Perhaps the frustration that lies behind these scrolls is that they were found and have been interpreted out of context. If anything, the decryption of the scrolls would be akin to attempting to solve a puzzle with a couple of key pieces missing. Without appreciating the actions that were perhaps taken for granted in the time period, the view of what is written in the scrolls that describe daily behavior and community law will never be fully understood as they were intended. This is one of the shortcomings of time and the unreliability of humanity. This is what makes the Temple Scroll particularly interesting. The primary scroll is by far the longest of the scrolls recovered stretching out twenty-eight feet. Portions of the Temple Scroll were on display during the exhibit on March 27, 2015. The entire scroll was not available for viewing. It was likely a copy of the Temple Scroll that was found in the caves near Qumran and not the primary one. The Temple Scroll, dating back to 100-0 B. C. E., provides proof of a bias exhibited towards Moses as great care is taken to avoid mentioning him by name. The laws are adapted from several places in the first five books of the Bible, with a significant section taken from Deuteronomy. There are also instances that suggest Moses is speaking in the first person and the scroll appears to read as if it is a revelation directly from God. The scroll is claimed to be the final message from Sinai and portions may have actually been written by Moses himself. The Temple Scroll is one of the apocryphal books of Moses that is not included in the Bible as it is known today. There are twelve apocryphal books of Moses that are included in the complete collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls offer an interesting insight into the evolution of a religion over a period of time and highlight that a religion is very much related to the events of the time in which it exists. Much of the basic structure in religion has to do with satisfying some section of the community that the religion belongs to that cannot be satisfied by any other means. Religion can often act as a guide book to the people who practice it and this is vital to those who wander through the world and do not know what to expect in their wanderings but hope for the best. The Temple Scroll is a scroll that involves a code of conduct concerning how to behave in temple and some practices that should be done at home in order to be considered in God’s good graces.
References
Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg Jr., and Edward Cook
2005 A New Translation: The Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Harper Collins Publishers.