Holy Land Reflections 4 Dead Sea Scrolls

Man made ‘Cave’ in which 15,000 fragments from 530

scrolls were found

Reconstruction of the rooms where scrolls were produced and studied at Qumran and, on the left, how they would be stored

The Scrolls, of which the first were discovered in 1947, are the

greatest biblical find ever made. The manuscripts include some of the oldest copies of books of the Hebrew scrip-tures, for the simple reason that old, unusable biblical books were carefully copied, and the earlier copies were not kept. In the early Christian church no-one thought to keep an original copy of a gospel, or a letter from Paul with his own signature on the bottom.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were delib-erately hidden by the community at Qumran, no doubt with the intention of taking them out and using them again. In the dry soft rock along the cliffs which border the Dead Sea, tun-nelling a cellar was an obvious way to provide a dry storage space away from extremes of temperature and humid-ity. Scrolls were carefully sealed in clay jars. Some of the hiding places were discovered in the past, and jars were opened by people who probably hoped to find food or olive oil. Certainly it seems that someone, possibly a Roman soldier, was rather cross to discover Hebrew scriptures and damaged what he found.

Initially the sharing of this great discovery was rather limited. Explora-tion of the area revealed more hiding places and more scrolls, but study was restricted to a few ‘approved’ scholars who appeared somewhat fearful of what they might find, and wanted to give only their own interpretation on what was found. As scrolls were discovered the finders were more interested in getting a good price for their labours than making the material available, so the people who bought scrolls wanted to keep the copyright. Eventually, in the age of computers, someone started to work out what the documents actually contained from the published fragments, and study is now more open. Google is involved in piec-ing together the information.

The scrolls were discovered near the remains of an ancient settlement. Exploration of Qumran had begun in the 19th century where a tower with a water cistern were obvious remnants of

some kind of habitation. A large grave-yard was discovered, indicating stable, long term occupation of the oasis.

The finding was that the scrolls be-longed to a settled community at a fer-tile oasis close to the Dead Sea. Here, 400 metres below sea level, the air is dense, producing enormous fruits con-taining a great deal of sugar. I brought back a pomegranate weighing 1.5 kilos (3¼ pounds) because I knew that if I just told Gill about it, she would find it almost impossible to believe that such a large fruit could exist.

At Qumran they specialised in growing dates which were boiled to make date honey; a highly prized sweetener. Their oasis lay on a major route down the edge of the rift val-ley, all the way from Galilee in the north down to the Red Sea. They were comfortably off and, it seems had time for study and prayer. The community had water for the large number of baths which archaeologists have found. These are labelled as ‘ritual baths’, but living down there in the hot dusty cli-mate by the Dead Sea, I’m sure every family appreciated having the running water in private en-suite facilities.

The oldest Scrolls include copies of scriptures from as early as 300 to 400 B.C. Equally fascinating are docu-ments about the rules and way of life

of the community at Qumran. Because of the number of documents found, archaeologists have suggested that a large room at Qumran was used for study and copying the scriptures. It seems that the people here wanted to get away from what they would see as the corruption and Romanising influ-ences of Jerusalem, and they had little time for the cult of the Temple there.

Their peaceful existence came to an abrupt end when Jewish rebellion against the Romans was crushed in 68 A.D. Qumran lay on the route from Jerusalem to the final stronghold of the rebelling Jews, the fortress at Masada by the Dead Sea.

## Tom#Ambrose