Many people have doubted the accuracy of Biblical transmission over the ages. Claims that it no longer represents a true reflection of the original texts were commonplace. With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in late 1946 or early 1947, those concerns were laid to rest. Preserved in clay pots in the dry desert air of Qumran, the manuscripts survived almost two millennia to confirm the incredible accuracy with which the content of the Bible has been transmitted from then until now. The story of the Dead Sea Scrolls is quite remarkable…
Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls
In November 1946, a Bedouin shepherd boy named Edh-Dhib was tending a flock when he noticed some caves that were not easy to reach in the mountainous area. Qumran, about 14 miles (22 kilometers) East of Jerusalem on the Northwestern shore of the Dead Sea is an arid place. The boy was looking for one of his goats and threw a rock into one of the caves, hoping to scare it from the cave if it was in there. He heard pottery breaking as the rock hit.
The boy entered one of the caves and saw some dusty elongated jars. Thinking they may be weapons of sorts, due to the Second World War ending shortly before, he broke open one of the jars to see what it contained. In it were ancient scrolls.
He held onto the seven scrolls he found for a short while and then attempted to sell them to a dealer in Bethlehem. The dealer he engaged, Ibrahim ‘Ijha, doubted the authenticity and value of the scrolls. The boy then took the scrolls to a market in Bethlehem where a Syrian Christian trader offered to buy them. Some were sold and others passed hands between merchants looking for buyers.
John C. Trever of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) noticed the scrolls’ significance and compared them to the oldest known manuscript of the time, the Nash Papyrus. The scrolls were authentic and ancient, and thus of high value.
Due to the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, locating the original cave and searching for more caves and scrolls was impossible. In early 1949, the Jordanian government which controlled the Qumran area, which is in the West Bank, allowed searches to commence. Cave 1, where the shepherd boy discovered the first jars, was rediscovered on January 28, 1949.
From then until 1956, ten more caves with manuscripts and artifacts were discovered. The caves were numbered according to the sequence in which archaeologists discovered them and the caves yielded thousands of ancient manuscripts, cloth, and other artifacts.
A 12th cave was found in 2017 but it must have been looted sometime during the 1950s since it contained only empty jars. As recently as 2021, new manuscripts and artifacts have been discovered, in the so-called Cave of Horrors, among others.
The Qumran Community
So, what caused these ancient manuscripts to end up in jars in the caves of Qumran?
The Essenes were a radical Jewish sect. A group of Essenes lived in the Qumran area in a closed community where they could practice their unique brand of Jewish faith known for its strict rules, unhindered by others. They fled Jerusalem and embraced an ascetic lifestyle during the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes around 175 to 164/163 BCE.
Though the group’s membership during New Testament times is unclear, the sect likely had strong ties to the Zadokite priests based on the prominence these priests have in some of the documents discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Some members of the Essenes referred to themselves as Sons of Zadok (the Righteous One).
Like the Sadducees, the Essenes opposed the idea of a resurrection from the dead. Their rejection of the Temple and priesthood in Jerusalem, however, made them a fringe group who rejected mainstream Judaism. The Qumran sect believed they would be victorious in an imminent war against the Romans that would see them freed from oppression and taking over the Holy City. The expected Messiah would not be the leader of this freedom struggle according to the Essenes. This view set them apart from other groups who had similar hopes of expelling the Romans.
The Damascus Document is arguably the most important document the Essenes compiled and it reveals much of their beliefs and practices. They followed the teachings of the “Teacher of Righteousness” who remains unidentified by scholars of late 2nd century Judaism. They observed the Law of Moses meticulously and joining the group required a year’s probation before being accepted, and even then, the new member did not fully participate in all activities. It took another two years before the new member could join communal meals.
Though there is no definitive proof, the Essenes likely hid the manuscripts and documents we now know as the Dead Sea Scrolls to preserve the works and protect them from destruction during the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 CE) which saw Jerusalem destroyed in 70 CE.
The views of the Essenes likely brought them into conflict with the forces of first Emperor Vespasian and later Titus. What exactly happened to them is not clear. They either fled the area or were destroyed. The latter is more likely since no one returned to recover the valuable manuscripts and artifacts they meticulously hid in the caves of Qumran.
Today, the Dead Sea Scrolls are preserved in the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem, a structure built to best suit the conditions required to keep the manuscripts in the best possible condition. The Shrine of the Book also houses the Aleppo texts, the most accurate manuscript of the Masoretic text which is the closest version to the Hebrew Bibles used today.
Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Because the Dead Sea Scrolls lay undisturbed for almost two thousand years, with many of the scrolls already having been ancient when the Essenes hid them, they were the ideal source to compare with later versions. Comparisons between the Dead Sea Scrolls and later manuscripts would reveal how much the content has changed over time and show how the transmission of texts resulted in variations and corruptions.
Except for the Book of Esther, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments of every book in the canon of the Old Testament. Before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, the oldest complete Hebrew text we had was the Masoretic Text from the 10th century CE. The oldest complete Bible text was the Septuagint, a Greek translation from the 4th century. But the Dead Sea Scrolls date to about a thousand years earlier, with many manuscripts dating to even before the New Testament period.
One of the most significant finds among the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Great Isaiah Scroll. It is almost 7.5 meters (24 feet) long and was one of the seven scrolls the shepherd boy discovered in what scholars later referred to as Cave 1. It is an almost complete scroll and the best preserved Dead Sea Scrolls. It dates to 125 BCE and contains all 66 chapters of the Book of Isaiah. The Qumran version is mostly the same as the much later Masoretic text, though some variant readings, alternative spellings, and several scribal errors can be identified.
The Dead Sea Scrolls attest to the reliability of the Bible we have and use today. They dispel claims that the nature of the content fundamentally changed. Most of the scrolls are books we still have as part of the Old Testament canon, though fragments of some apocryphal books have also been found among them.
The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of more than 15,000 fragments in about 850 scrolls, and they not only contain canonical books from the Old Testament but also other works that have enriched scholars’ understanding of Jewish society. Far from the secluded area it is today, Qumran was located on trade routes and many settlements lined the Dead Sea in that area at that time. The scrolls also reveal remarkable similarities between the Qumran society and early Christian practices such as baptism, communal meals, and an organizational division into twelve.
Arguably the most mysterious of the Dead Sea Scrolls are the Copper Scrolls. Unlike other scrolls of parchment or papyrus, the author of these scrolls was chiseled on copper plates. They contain information that could guide the reader to 65 caches of gold and silver. It has odd spelling and an unconventional vocabulary and the author likely used copper rather than conventional material to preserve the text longer.
The treasures likely came from various times in the history of Israel when they had many riches. None of these treasures have been found due to the guidance the scrolls provide.
