Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of texts discovered in a series of caves around the site known as Qumran near the Dead Sea between 1946 and 1956. As the story goes, a shepherd by the name of Muhammed Edh-Dhib of the Ta'amireh tribe left his flock of sheep and goats to search for a stray. Amid the crumbling limestone cliffs that line the north-western rim of the Dead Sea, around the site of Qumran, he found a cave in the crevice of a steep rocky hillside. Intrigued, he cast a stone into the dark interior, only to be startled by the sound of breaking pots. This sound echoed around the world. For he had stumbled on the greatest find of the century, the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Over the next decade, local Bedouin and scientific researchers would discover the remains of more than 900 manuscripts in 11 caves (12 if you consider that cave four had two separate sections in antiquity). Each cave is located near Qumran, the furthest one being just over one mile (1.6 kstyle="margin-top: 25px;"m) to the north of the site.

Qumran
Aerial View of Qumran Caves
Section of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Some of the Scrolls in Jars

The Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest-known copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther, as well as extra-biblical texts ranging from prayers to commentaries to hymns.The Dead Sea Scrolls are divided into three groups:

a. Copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible which comprise roughly 40% of the identified scrolls,

b. Texts from the Second Temple Period that ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls and

c. Sectarian manuscripts previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls

The texts are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Nabataean, mostly on parchment but with some written on papyrus and bronze. The Dead Sea Scrolls are usually thought to have been produced by a group known as the Essenes. The Essenes are a group that literally abandoned Jerusalem in protest against the way the Temple was being run.

On display today in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the scrolls have kindled popular enthusiasm as well as serious scholarly interest over the past half century as they reveal exciting history from the Second Temple period. The Shrine of the Book is modelled after the clay jars in which the scrolls were found.

Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum in Jerusalem
Pool of Bethesda

Taylor Prism

Gezer Calendar