Religion and Theology

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was not the product of an intensive, nor expensive scientific endeavor launched by some university or prestigious scientific or archaeological body. Rather, the fortuitous event was something that happened by accident. Bedouin goat herds were in the process of looking for a lost goat, searching for the lost animal along the cliffs of the Dead Sea (Ayala Sussman and Ruth Pelad 1). Muhammad ed-Dib, among the many Bedouin herdsmen who bring their flocks to the many Wadis, was looking after the flock, his cousin, Juma Muhammad Khalil, threw a rock into the mouth of one of the caves and heard something shatter. Ed-Dib investigated the matter and found eight clay jars within the cave (Casey Deryl Elledge 2).
    In the jars were remarkably preserved scrolls, one of them shattered, hence the shattering sound. The three scrolls found inside the jars included the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Commentary on Habakkuk, and the Rule of the Community. On another trip to the same cave, the site yielded four more scrolls the Thanksgiving Hymns, the War Scroll, the Genesis Apocrypha and a fragmented form of the Isaiah scroll. Some of the artifacts were dated in the spring time of 1947, but the Bedouins assert that the discoveries may have been made months or even years earlier (Elledge 2).
    The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls have revolutionized the knowledge of the academic world about the Early Judaism Period during the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the early periods of Christianity. Before the discovery of the Scrolls, scholars constructed the period of Judaism before 70 B.C.E on the opening parts of the Aboth, to the traditions which God gave the Decalogue to Moses, given to Joshua, to the elders, passed to the prophets and the members of the Great Synagogue (James Charlesworth).
    Since the time of the finding of the Scrolls, and as a result of the research done on the manuscripts, academicians have affirmed that the earlier reconstruction of the pre- 70 B.C period of the period of Early Judaism did not reflect the many facets of Judaism before the temple was destroyed in 70 C.E (Charlesworth). In the period of the Scrolls, the period discussed was the period that the Second Temple was built by King Solomon (Joseph Telushkin 1). In the description of the Scriptures in the Tanach, or the 2nd Book of the Chronicles, the temple was a massive structure, the inside of the structure was approximately 180 feet long, 90 feet wide and 50 feet high. At its highest point, the Temple stood 207 feet tall (Telushkin 1).
    The terrain of the Judean lands proved to be a difficult challenge for any scientific and archaeological activity. The lands were almost completely devoid of any life forms, save for a few shrubs, some sheep foraging for some grass and the Bedouins who looked after the small herds. The lowest area on the face of the planet, the lands are located 1,300 below sea level. The area lies as a section of a large rift valley, running from Mount Hermon in the north to Africa, ending at Lake Victoria. The Dead Sea, which lies east of the area, is so called since the body of water has extremely high salt concentrations that will not support any form of life (Kenneth Hanson 16).
    The release of the findings of the Scrolls were hampered by the fact that the time coincided with the eve of Israels war for independence (Sussman and Pelad 1). Before the declaration of the state of Israel, Professor Eleazar. L. Sukenik, a professor at the Hebrew University, secretly acquired three of the Scrolls from a Arab antique dealer, Khalil Iskandar Shahin, or Kando (Elledge 2), in Bethlehem, while the remaining four Scrolls were in the possession of the Metropolitan of the Syrian Jacobite Monastery of Saint Mark, located in Jerusalem, Mar Athanasius Yeshua Samuel (Sussman and Pelad 1).
    Yigael Yadin, who had just retired as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, bought the remaining Scrolls from Mar Samuel for  250,000 after Samuel placed an ad in the Wall Street Journal selling the Scrolls. It is interesting to note that Yadin, who went back to his first vocation, archeology, is the son of Professor Sukenik. Thus, the four Scrolls who  slipped  the hands of the father, were bought by the son making all of the Scrolls in the possession of one party. The seven scrolls were housed in the Shrine of the Book, located in Jerusalems Israel Museum. The scrolls from the Cave 1 are Isaiah A, Isaiah B, the Habakkuk Commentary, the Thanksgiving Scroll, the Community Rule (or the Manual of Discipline), the War Rule (or the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness), and the Genesis Apocrypha, all of the Scrolls released for publishing (Sussman and Pelad 1).
    Sukenik was also the first to acknowledge the historical value of the new manuscripts, especially the great Isaiah Scroll in the possession of Samuel. Sukenik also established the Scrolls were linked with the Essene party mentioned in earlier texts. Sukenik believed this since the writings of Pliny, the Roman geographer, mentioned in his writings, in his work Natural History (Richard Niswonger 67), that a group of Essene living in the En-Gedi, not far from where the Scrolls were initially discovered. Sukenik tried to purchase the remaining Scrolls from Samuel directly, but did not push through with the transaction (James VanderKam 4). 
    After the transactions with Sukenik did not materialize, Samuel contacted two American academicians at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, William Brownlee and John Trever. Together with the schools director Millar Burrows and noted archaeologist W.F. Albright, Brownlee and Trever affirmed the historical value by examining the age of the script that the Scrolls were written in. Using a method called  paleography , the group affirmed the statement of Professor Sukenik, that the Scrolls were not only hundreds of years old, but they were actually thousands of years old (Elledge 3).
    Also, they discovered that the Scrolls were probably dated in the period of the Age of Palestinian Judaism before the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. (Elledge 3). The Dead Sea Scrolls also triggered an intense debate on the identity of the community and the actual date of the manuscripts. Some scholars have stated that the communities most identified with the texts are members of the Hasidim communities, the zealous anti-Hellenistic formed in the early period of the Maccabees. The Hasidim is regarded as the ancestors of the Essenes, the group concerned regarding the widespread Hellenization of the country and endeavored to follow the teachings found in the Torah (Sussman and Pelad 1).
    Noted scholars across the globe affirm the importance of the practices of archeology and paleography. The sciences can affirm that the Qumran Community, who were the inhabitants of the lands when the Dead Sea Scrolls were antedated, give a glimpse into the past of the community. They were though to be priests who left the synagogue in 150 B.C.E due to partisan politics within the ranks of the priesthood in Jerusalem. Going into the wilderness, they found the Qumran community, perhaps the ruins of an old fortification on the border of Israel (Charlesworth).
    As the years passed, the travelers went on to build and expand the existing community, and the Qumran community slowly increased in size. There are various reasons that can be given in why the priests left Jerusalem. Among them were the perceived compromises of the Jerusalem priests who professed to obey the teachings of the Torah while accommodating the Greek ideologies emanating from Syria, the profession of a different belief other than what is stated on their duties, and more importantly the words of Isaiah the prophet calling them to answer to the Voice and prepare the way of the Lord. Josephus gave some detail into the way of life of the particular group, saying that he had spent some amount of time with a group of Israelites in the desert, but did not mention that the group was the Essene (Niswonger 67).
    The Dead Sea Scrolls may be a source of information on the Essene. It is true that with the present body of available information, the fact that the community in the northeastern shore where the Scrolls were discovered cannot be proven without a hint of doubt. In the New Testament, the Essenes, or Essaloi, were not mentioned in any part, but some scholars have tried to tie the group and the practices of Christianity in the Scriptures (Niswonger 67). Over the years and in the course of exploration of the caves in the area, chance discoveries have yielded a significant amount of manuscripts from many time frames and of various types. Clarendon Press in Oxford is undertaking the publishing of the collective manuscripts in their series named Discoveries in the Judean Desert (Florentino Garcia Martinez, Wilfred G.E. Watson).
    All the manuscripts have been carefully collated into sets or collections, the actual area where they were discovered used as the basis for their inclusion into the different sets. Using the paleography dating of the scrolls, the collections are Papyri from Waddi Dalioyah or the Samaria Papyri, dating from the 4th century BCE, found in a cave 15 kilometers north of Jericho. The writings were part of the belongings of a group retreating from the forces of Alexander the Great who destroyed Samaria in 331 BC. The Manuscripts of Qumran, a collection of manuscripts recovered from 11 caves around the area of Khirbet Qumran, the scrolls discovered as part of a archaeological activity or bought from the antique market.
    The Masada Manuscripts are scrolls recovered during the archaeological activities in the Fort of Masada. The collection includes a number of texts from the Bible, a manuscript of Ben Sira, and a copy of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, a piece found in the manuscripts of the Qumran. The Manuscripts from Nahal Mishmar is the most insignificant of the collections, as they only provide a few manuscripts found in 1961. Finally, the Manuscripts from Khirbet Mird, a set of Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic and Arabic scrolls from the ancient ruins of Castellion, purchased from Bedouin and as part of the findings of the Belgian expedition in 1953. These are the sections of the collections that collectively make up the Dead Sea Scrolls (Garcia Martinez, Watson).