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The Fabulous Legacy of the Dead Sea Scrolls
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Posted by editor Tue Nov 30, 1999 00:00:00 PST
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0 responses 0 comments Editor’s note: Like "El Dorado," the phrase "Dead Sea Scrolls" has the power to evoke images and emotions even in those who have only a vague idea of what they are, what they say and what they really mean. The phrase is redolent of enigma, intrigue, perhaps even of sacred mysteries. Hovering in the background are images of forbidding deserts, inhospitable caves, and mystics hunched over recopying arcane biblical passages. A closer acquaintance with the scrolls dispels none of these mysteries. First discovered in 1947, these historic and unique documents continue to be studied, translated and interpreted by international researchers. But even so, huge areas of ambiguity and uncertainty remain.

In his continuing series, contributing writer and amateur historian W. E. Gutman, who traveled to Israel recently, sets out to answer a number of questions: Who wrote the scrolls and when? What purpose did they serve, and what influence are they having on modern religious thought? Based in interviews with biblical scholars, archeologists and theologians, his article, which takes an ecumenical, non-sectarian approach, makes obvious that the Dead Sea Scrolls are not just for scholars anymore. Hidden in their caves, they survived the ravages of time and decay, to speak to us serendipitously across two millennia. They have survived their authors. They will survive us, their readers.

The most significant Biblical archaeological find of the century took place early in the spring of 1947 when a young Bedouin stumbled upon a hoard of ancient manuscripts high up in a cave at Qumran on the western shore of the Dead Sea. The cave was littered with bits of pottery and, lined up against the wall, a row of earthenware jars stared back at the boy in mute contemplation. Some of the jars were empty. Others contained dusty, cylindrical bundles wrapped in partially decayed linen cloth. Upon closer inspection, the cylinders turned out to be tightly rolled manuscripts, ancient in appearance and written in a language first assumed to be Syriac and later confirmed to be Second Temple period Hebrew. 

Of about 40 jars in the cave, only two were recovered intact. Made of leather, probably sheepskin, the manuscripts comprised five scrolls, two of them portions of codices that had broken apart. One of the scrolls was badly decomposed, impossible to unfurl without causing serious damage. The others could be readily examined and one of them, the largest, was identified as the Old Testament Book of Isaiah.

The Jerusalem Hebrew University acquired three complete scrolls — the Book of Isaiah, the Thanksgiving Scroll and the Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness. Four more scrolls, the Habakkuk Commentary, the Manual of Discipline, the Genesis Apocryphon and a second Book of Isaiah were sent to the U.S. where they remained until 1954. 

Thousands of other scroll fragments have since been discovered at several sites in the Judaean desert, mostly in the caves surrounding Qumran where a monastery and cemetery, now known to have been part of a thriving Essene community from the second century B.C.E. to circa 68 C.E., were excavated.

While nine volumes, representing 80 percent of scroll material, were published by Oxford University Press, thousands of fragments — some minuscule, some bearing a single character — are yet to be sorted, restored and decoded. 

In an exclusive interview with Amir Drori, Director of Antiquities, Jerusalem Rockefeller Museum, this writer learned that that 57 scholars, Christians and Jews, are currently working on the remaining 20 percent. Drori, a former Israel Defense Forces general and trained archaeologist says that “research continues to be open to anyone with credentials and demonstrated expertise in Biblical studies.”

I was allowed the rare privilege of observing the painstaking reconstruction work that takes place in the crypt of the Rockefeller Museum. Preserved under glass in vaults and chambers environmentally controlled by temperature and humidity sensors, and guarded by an elaborate security system — including seismographs — fragments are dated, photographed, catalogued, translated, analyzed and joined into cohesive entities. 

Varying in size, the fragments are inscribed in ink on the hairy side of strips of leather. The calligraphy is neat and legible. Scroll sheets, or “pages,”were sewn together with flax thread. Each sheet contains distinct columns divided by vertical lines. Chapters are separated by blank spaces and ruled horizontally with a sharp-edged metal stylus. There are about 30 lines in each column. Dampness and vermin have damaged virtually all of the scrolls. Some can only be read under infrared light. Others are beyond repair.

A special building has since been erected at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to house artifacts retrieved in Qumran, including religious and household objects and tools such as phylacteries [small wooden boxes containing slips inscribed with scriptural passages and worn on the left arm and forehead by Jewish men during morning weekday prayers]. Also on display are bronze and clay ink pots, finely pointed reed pens, silver coins, and earthen jars in which the scrolls were hidden. 
When were the scrolls composed? Magen Broshi, curator of the Shrine of the Book, the permanent home of the seven complete scrolls found in Qumran says that the dates vary from scroll to scroll.

“Two manuscripts of the Book of Isaiah were composed hundreds of years before they were copied and secreted in earthen jars. The other five clearly reflect the prevailing mood and problems in Israel at the turn of the last century BCE and the beginning of the CE, a crucial period for the human race.

“Previous dating,” Broshi adds, “was based mainly on paleography, the study of ancient handwriting, or on dates and events cited in the texts. We now know that the earliest documents found in Judaean desert caves at Qumran and Masada were written in 351 BCE The most recent date back to 744 CE.”

NEXT WEEK: Doctrine, prophecy and war.

W. E. Gutman is a widely published veteran journalist on assignment in Central America since 1991. He lives in Tehachapi.

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