Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient leather and papyrus scrolls first discovered in 1947 in caves on the NW shore of the Dead Sea. Most of the documents were written or copied between the 1st cent. B.C. and the first half of the 1st cent. A.D.

Scrolls of the Qumran Caves

Three types of documents have been found in the caves near Qumran: copies of books of the Hebrew Bible, e.g., Isaiah, of which two almost complete scrolls have been found; copies of books now collected in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, e.g., Tobit, 1 Enoch, and Jubilees; and documents composed by an ascetic community, e.g., a book of community rules called The Manual of Discipline, an allegorical account of the community called The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness, a group of devotional poems called The Thanksgiving Psalms, a commentary on the Book of Habakkuk, and an extensive work, known as the Temple Scroll, containing ritual law.

Documents from the third group have been identified by some scholars with the Essenes Essenes , members of a small Jewish religious order, originating in the 2d cent. B.C. The chief sources of information about the Essenes are Pliny the Elder, Philo's Quod omnius probus liber, Josephus' Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews,
..... Click the link for more information. , a Jewish religious sect living an ascetic communal agricultural life in the region between the 2d cent. B.C. and 2d cent. A.D. It has also been hypothesized that the Qumran scrolls are the secreted library of a community, perhaps Essene, that lived at Qumran Qumran , ancient village on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, in what is now the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It is famous for its caves, in some of which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Archaeological work at Qumran has yielded a profile of its history.
..... Click the link for more information. , and thus survived the destruction of the settlement in c.A.D. 68. Startling parallels in expression and thought between the Qumran materials and the New Testament have led to speculation as to their influence on early Christianity. The Temple Scroll, for instance, revealed a list of rules of conduct resembling standard Christian ethics. Some scholars have tried to establish that Jesus and John the Baptist were influenced by, or members of, a Qumran Essene community, but such interpretations are widely disputed. More recent work by other archaeologists and biblical scholars has questioned the association of the scrolls with the Qumran ruins and the Essenes.

Other Texts

Other texts, not related to the Qumran scrolls, have been found in the area around the Dead Sea. At Masada Masada , ancient mountaintop fortress in Israel, the final outpost of the Zealot Jews in their rebellion against Roman authority (A.D. 66–73). Located in the Judaean Desert, the fortress sits atop a mesa-shaped rock that towers some 1,300 ft (400 m) above the
..... Click the link for more information. other scrolls were found, including manuscripts of Sirach and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. In the caves at Wadi Murabbaat, c.11 mi (18 km) S of Qumran, many documents were found concerning Bar Kokba Bar Kokba, Simon, or Simon Bar Cochba [Heb.,=son of the star], d. A.D. 135, Hebrew hero and leader of a major revolt against Rome under Hadrian (132–135).
..... Click the link for more information. 's army, as well as more biblical manuscripts. Other documents from the Bar Kokba era were discovered in caves S of En Gedi. These findings, written in Greek, Aramaic, and Nabataean, included biblical fragments, psalms, various legal documents, and a lost Greek translation of the minor prophets. The oldest documents, found at a site 8 mi (13 km) N of Jericho Jericho [Heb.,=fragrant, or city of the moon god], Arab. Ariha, town (2003 est. pop. 19,000), West Bank, in the Jordan valley N of the Dead Sea; nearby is the site of the ancient city of Jericho.
..... Click the link for more information. , were left by Samarians massacred by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C.

Control and Publication of the Scrolls

Most of the originals of the scrolls are at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem; the rest are at the Israel Museum's Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. The intact scrolls and other materials were published in the decades following their discovery, but many fragments remained unpublished and under the control of a small group of scholars, originally appointed by Jordanian officials, and their intellectual heirs. As a result of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, control of all the scrolls passed to the Israeli Antiquities Authority. International dissatisfaction with the limited access allowed to, and the slow rate of publication of, the scrolls that remained unpublished led the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., to allow (1991) scholars access to its set of master negatives of the scrolls despite the objections of the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Subsequently the authority removed its restrictions on the use of the unpublished scrolls, and expedited the publication of them.

Bibliography

See texts published in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (39 vol., 1955–2002); T. H. Gaster, The Dead Sea Scriptures (1976); M. A. Knibb, The Qumran Community (1987); G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (3d ed. 1987). L. H. Schiffman, The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1989); J. A. Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls (rev. ed. 1990); H. Shanks et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls after 40 Years (1991); H. Shanks, ed., Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls (1992); L. H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (1994); N. A. Silberman, The Hidden Scrolls (1994); N. Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls (1995); G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (1997); H. Shanks, The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1998).

Dead Sea Scrolls

Caches of ancient, mostly Hebrew, manuscripts found at several sites on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea (1947–56). The writings date from between the 3rd century BC and the 2nd century AD and total 800–900 manuscripts in 15,000 fragments. Many scholars believe that those deposited in 11 caves near the ruins of Qumran belonged to a sectarian community whom most scholars believe were Essenes, though other scholars suggest Sadducees or Zealots. The community rejected the rest of the Jewish people and saw the world as sharply divided between good and evil. They cultivated a communal life of ritual purity, called the “Union,” led by a messianic “Teacher of Righteousness.” The Dead Sea Scrolls as a whole represent a wider spectrum of Jewish belief and may have been the contents of libraries from Jerusalem hidden during the war of AD 66–73. They also cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and the relationship of early Christian and Jewish religious traditions. See also Damascus Document.

Dead Sea scrolls

ancient manuscripts of Biblical commentaries found in cave. [Jew. Hist.: Wigoder, 152]

See : Discovery

Dead Sea Scrolls

papyrus scrolls containing texts of Old Testament, found in 1947. [Mid-East Hist.: NCE, 729]

See : Writings, Sacred

manuscripts written in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabataean, Greek, Latin, Palestinian-Syriac, and Arabic, discovered in 1947 and later years in caves on the western shore of the Dead Sea. They are written mostly on parchment or papyrus, but also on potsherds, copper, and wood. The manuscripts discovered at the various sites vary according to content and date of writing.

Qumran manuscripts (from the Wadi Qumran area).. About 40,000 fragments of manuscripts were found in 11 caves in the vicinity of the Wadi Qumran, representing the remains of about 600 works—Biblical books, apocrypha, and the writings of the community that has become known as the Qumran community. According to paleographic and archaeological evidence, most of the Qumran manuscripts were written between the second century B.C. and A.D. 68. Most of the scrolls have not yet been published. The numerous fragments of Old Testament books and apocrypha represent different versions of the protocanonical text of the Old Testament and add a new dimension to the study of the Old Testament text and to Biblical criticism. The most important works of the Qumran community are the Manual of Discipline, containing the rules of the community, the Damascus Document, the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Psalms, commentaries on Biblical books, and anthologies of messianic and eschatological texts. They reflect the ideology, social views, and organizational principles of a sect opposed to official Judaism that lived in the Judaean Desert from the late second century B.C. until A.D. 68. Near the caves the remains of three Qumran settlements have been excavated, including the ruins of the community’s central complex, the Khirbet Qumran, destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 68. The complex includes an aqueduct and cisterns, various workshops, a kitchen, storerooms, storage bins for grain, a refectory, and a scriptorium. A cemetery adjoins the central complex. The manuscripts and archaeological evidence show that the members of the Qumran community adhered to principles of communal ownership of property, obligatory collective labor, and communal dining. The founder and spiritual leader of the Qumran commune was the anonymous Righteous Master to whom, it was believed, god had revealed secrets unknown even to the prophets. The Qumran community was very likely a part of the Essene movement. The sect’s dualistic and messianic-eschatological views and its social and organizational principles influenced the early Christian communities that were forming in the first century A.D.

Masada. The stronghold of Masada on the southwestern shore of the Dead Sea, with its sumptuous palaces and large storerooms, had been built in the reign of Herod I in the first century B.C. and was seized in A.D. 66 by the Zealots, an extremist anti-Roman group. It became the last stronghold of the insurgents in the Judaean War of 66–73 and was destroyed by the Romans in 73. Excavations at Masada between 1963 and 1965 led to the discovery of manuscripts in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic (including 759 household records on potsherds), Greek, and Latin. The manuscripts found at Masada are also important for dating the Qumran manuscripts. The Masada archive has not yet been published, with the exception of an apocryphal work by Ben Sira.

Judaean Desert caves. Excavations conducted in 1952 and in 1960–61 in caves at Wadi Murabbaat, Nahal Hever, Nahal Mishmar, and other places where the remnants of Bar Kokhba’s rebel army were in hiding unearthed, in addition to fragments of Biblical texts (essentially coinciding with the Masoretic text), archives of commercial, household, and legal documents in ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabataean, and Greek that shed light on the socioeconomic structure of Judaea and Nabataea in the period between the Judaean War of 66–73 and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in 132–135. Also found were the first authentic documents pertaining to the Bar Kokhba Revolt, including some issued by the rebel leader himself. Only the archives of the caves of Wadi Murabbaat (DJD II) have been published so far.

Khirbet Mird. Excavations at Khirbet Mird, southwest of Wadi Qumran in the Kedron Valley, conducted in 1952–53, brought to light manuscripts written chiefly in Palestinian-Syriac and Greek, but also including some in Arabic dating from the early Byzantine and Arab periods (fourth to eighth centuries). Finds here included fragments of New Testament and apocryphal writings, commercial documents, and a fragment of Euripides’ Andromache, dating from the sixth century A.D.

The manuscripts from Qumran, Masada, Wadi Murabbaat, and other parts of the Judaean Desert partially fill the more than 300-year gap in the history of Hebrew writings (second century B.C. to second century A.D.) and give some idea of the social and ideological atmosphere in the Near East at the time of the rise and early development of Christianity. The specially created International Committee of Scholars is engaged in publishing the texts. A new branch of historical philology, Qumranistics, is concerned with the study of the Dead Sea scrolls.

MAIN EDITIONS

Burrows, M., J. Trever, and W. Brownlee. The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark’s Monastery, vols. 1–2. New Haven, 1950–51.
The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University. Edited by E. L. Sukenik. Jerusalem, 1955.
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, vols. 1–5. Oxford, 1955–68.
Yadin, Y. The Finds From the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters. Jerusalem, 1963.
Yadin, Y. The Ben Sira Scroll From Masada. Jerusalem, 1965.
Yadin, Y. Masada. London, 1967.
Yadin, Y. Bar-Kokhba. Jerusalem, 1971.
Bar-Adon, P. The Cave of the Treasure: The Finds From the Caves in Nahal-Mishmar. Jerusalem, 1971.
Bar-Adon, P. “An Additional Qumran Settlement.” Eretz-Israel, vol. 10, 1971.

REFERENCES

Amusin, I. D. Rukopisi Mertvogo Moria. Moscow, 1960.
Amusin, I. D. Nakhodki u Mertvogo moria. Moscow, 1965.
Amusin, I. D. Teksty Kumrana. Moscow, 1971. (Bibliography, pp. 455–91.)
Kovalev, S. I., and M. M. Kublanov. Nakhodki v ludeiskoi pustyne. Moscow, 1964.
Livshitz, G. M. Proiskhozhdenie khristianstva v svete Rukopisei Mertvogo Moria. Minsk, 1967.
Starkova, K. B. Literaturnye pamiatniki Kumranskoi obshchiny. Leningrad, 1973. (Palestinskii sbornik, 24–87.)
Burchard, C. Bibliographie zu den Handschriften vom Toten Meer, vols. 1–2. Berlin, 1957–65.
Revue de Qumran, vols. 1–8, nos. 1–30, 1958–73.
La Sor, W.S. Bibliography of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 1948–1957. Pasadena, 1958.
Jongeling, B. A Classified Bibliography of the Finds in the Desert of Judah, 1958–1969. Leiden, 1971.

I. D. AMUSIN

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