Dead Sea Scrolls – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Psalms Scroll (11Q5), one of the 972 texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a partial Hebrew transcription.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, in the narrow sense of Qumran Caves Scrolls,[notes 1] are a collection of some 981 different texts discovered between 1946 and 1956 in eleven caves from the immediate vicinity of the ancient settlement at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. The caves are located about 2 kilometres inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name.[3]
The texts are of great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second oldest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible canon, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism. There are only two silver scrolls which contain biblical text and are older than the Dead Sea Scrolls; they were excavated in Jerusalem at Ketef Hinnom and date from around 600 BCE.
Most of the texts are written in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic (in different regional dialects, including Nabataean), and a few in Greek.[4] If discoveries from the Judean desert are included, Latin (from Masada) and Arabic (from Khirbet al-Mird) can be added.[5] Most texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus and one on copper.[6]
The larger consensus is that the Qumran Caves Scrolls date from the last three centuries BCE and the first century CE (see "Age" paragraph in this article and the dedicated site of the Israel Museum[2]). Bronze coins found at the same sites form a series beginning with John Hyrcanus (135104BCE) and continuing until the First Jewish-Roman War (6673 CE), supporting the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls.[7] Manuscripts from additional Judean desert sites go back as far as the eighth century BCE to as late as the 11th century CE.[1]
The scrolls have traditionally been identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, although some recent interpretations have challenged this association and argue that the scrolls were penned by priests in Jerusalem, Zadokites or other unknown Jewish groups.[8][9]
Due to the poor condition of some of the Scrolls, not all of them have been identified. Those that have been identified can be divided into three general groups:
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a series of eleven caves around the site known as Wadi Qumran near the Dead Sea in the West Bank (of the Jordan River) between 1946 and 1956 by Bedouin shepherds and a team of archeologists.[11]
The initial discovery, by Bedouin shepherd Muhammed edh-Dhib, his cousin Jum'a Muhammed, and Khalil Musa, took place between November 1946 and February 1947.[12][13] The shepherds discovered seven scrolls (See Fragment and scroll lists) housed in jars in a cave near what is now known as the Qumran site. John C. Trever reconstructed the story of the scrolls from several interviews with the Bedouin. Edh-Dhib's cousin noticed the caves, but edh-Dhib himself was the first to actually fall into one. He retrieved a handful of scrolls, which Trever identifies as the Isaiah Scroll, Habakkuk Commentary, and the Community Rule, and took them back to the camp to show to his family. None of the scrolls were destroyed in this process, despite popular rumor.[14] The Bedouin kept the scrolls hanging on a tent pole while they figured out what to do with them, periodically taking them out to show people. At some point during this time, the Community Rule was split in two. The Bedouin first took the scrolls to a dealer named Ibrahim 'Ijha in Bethlehem. 'Ijha returned them, saying they were worthless, after being warned that they might have been stolen from a synagogue. Undaunted, the Bedouin went to a nearby market, where a Syrian Christian offered to buy them. A sheikh joined their conversation and suggested they take the scrolls to Khalil Eskander Shahin, "Kando", a cobbler and part-time antiques dealer. The Bedouin and the dealers returned to the site, leaving one scroll with Kando and selling three others to a dealer for 7 GBP (equivalent to US$29 in 2003, US$37 2014).[14] The original scrolls continued to change hands after the Bedouin left them in the possession of a third party until a sale could be arranged. (See Ownership.)
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Dead Sea Scrolls - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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