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Introduction
The Dead Sea Region
The Late Second Temple Period (200 B.C.E. - 70 C.E.)
The Qumran Community
Qumran Library
2,000 Years Later
Judaism & Christianity & the Dead Sea Scrolls
Conclusion
In 1947, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat in the Judean Desert, entered a long-untouched cave and found jars filled with ancient scrolls. That initial discovery by the Bedouins yielded seven scrolls and began a search that lasted nearly a decade and eventually produced thousands of scroll fragments from eleven caves. During those same years, archaeologists searching for a habitation close to the caves that might help identify the people who deposited the scrolls, excavated the Qumran ruin, a complex of structures located on a barren terrace between the cliffs where the caves are found and the Dead Sea. Within a fairly short time after their discovery, historical, paleographic, and linguistic evidence, as well as carbon-14 dating, established that the scrolls and the Qumran ruin dated from the third century B.C.E. to 68 C.E. They were indeed ancient! Coming from the late Second Temple Period, a time when Jesus of Nazareth lived, they are older than any other surviving biblical manuscripts by almost one thousand years.
Since their discovery nearly half a century ago, the scrolls and the identity of the nearby settlement have been the object of great scholarly and public interest, as well as heated debate and controversy. Why were the scrolls hidden in the caves? Who placed them there? Who lived in Qumran? Were its inhabitants responsible for the scrolls and their presence in the caves? Of what significance are the scrolls to Judaism and Christianity?
This exhibition presents twelve Dead Sea Scroll fragments and archaeological artifacts courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority as well as supplementary materials from the Library of Congress. It is designed to retell the story of the scrolls' discovery; explore their archaeological and historical context; introduce the scrolls themselves; explore the various theories concerning the nature of the Qumran community; and examine some of the challenges facing modern researchers as they struggle to reconstruct the scrolls from the tens of thousands of fragments that remain.
The Dead Sea is located in Israel and Jordan, about 15 miles east of Jerusalem. It is extremely deep (averaging about 1,000 feet), salty (some parts containing the highest amount of salts possible), and the lowest body of water in the world. The Dead Sea is supplied by a number of smaller streams, springs, and the Jordan River.
Because of its low elevation and its position in a deep basin, the climate of the Dead Sea area is unusual. Its very high evaporation does produce a haze yet its atmospheric humidity is low. Adjacent areas to it are very arid and favorable for the preservation of materials like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Bible's description, in Genesis 19, of a destructive earthquake near the Dead Sea area during the time of Abraham is borne out by archaeological and historic investigation. While no evidence remains of the five cities of the plain (Zeboim, Admah, Bela or Zoar, Sodom, and Gomorrah) their sites are believed to be beneath the waters at the southern end of the sea.
Archaeological sites near the Dead Sea include Masada, Ein Gedi, and Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found).
In 168 B.C.E., the Maccabees (or Hasmoneans), led by Judah Maccabee, wrested Judea from the rule of the Seleucids--Syrian rulers who supported the spread of Greek religion and culture. The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah commemorates the recapture of Jerusalem by the Maccabees and the consecration of the Temple in 164 B.C.E. The Maccabees ruled Judea until Herod took power in 37 B.C.E.
Contemporary historian Flavius Josephus divided Judeans into three main groups:
Sadducees: The Sadducees were priestly and aristocratic families who interpreted the law more literally than the Pharisees. They dominated the Temple worship and its rites, including the sacrificial cult. The Sadducees only recognized precepts derived directly from the Torah as binding. They, therefore, denied the concept of the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, and the existence of angels. The Sadducees were unpopular with the common people.
Pharisees: The Pharisees, unlike the Sadducees, maintained the validity of the oral as well as the written law. They were flexible in their interpretations and willing to adapt the law to changing circumstances. They believed in an afterlife and in the resurrection of the dead. By the first century C.E., the Pharisees came to represent the beliefs and practices of the majority of Palestinian Jewry.
Essenes: The Essenes were a separatist group, some of whom formed an ascetic monastic community and retreated to the wilderness of Judea. They shared material possessions and occupied themselves with disciplined study, worship, and work. They practiced ritual immersion and ate their meals communally. One branch did not marry.
In 6 C.E., Rome formed Judea, Samaria, and Idumea into one province governed by procurators. A Judean revolt against Rome in 66 C.E. was quickly put down. Qumran fell to the Roman legions in ca. 68 C.E., the Temple in 70 C.E., and Masada in 73 C.E.
Like the scrolls themselves, the nature of the Qumran settlement has aroused much debate and differing opinions. Located on a barren terrace between the limestone cliffs of the Judean desert and the maritime bed along the Dead Sea, the Qumran site was excavated by PŠre Roland de Vaux, a French Dominican, as part of his effort to find the habitation of those who deposited the scrolls in the nearby caves. The excavations uncovered a complex of structures, 262 by 328 feet which de Vaux suggested were communal in nature. In de Vaux's view the site was the wilderness retreat of the Essenes, a separatist Jewish sect of the Second Temple Period, a portion of whom had formed an ascetic monastic community. According to de Vaux, the sectarians inhabited neighboring locations, most likely caves, tents, and solid structures, but depended on the center for communal facilities such as stores of food and water.
Following de Vaux's interpretation and citing ancient historians as well as the nature of some scroll texts for substantiation, many scholars believe the Essene community wrote, copied, or collected the scrolls at Qumran and deposited them in the caves of the adjacent hills. Others dispute this interpretation, claiming either that the scroll sect was Sadducean in nature; that the site was no monastery but rather a Roman fortress or a winter villa; that the Qumran site has little if anything to do with the scrolls; or that the evidence available does not support a single definitive answer.
Whatever the nature of the habitation, archaeological and historical evidence indicates that the excavated settlement was founded in the second half of the second century B.C.E., during the time of the Maccabees, a priestly Jewish family which ruled Judea in the second and first centuries B.C.E. A hiatus in the occupation of the site is linked to evidence of a huge earthquake. Qumran was abandoned about the time of the Roman incursion of 68 C.E., two years before the collapse of Jewish self-government in Judea and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
The scrolls and scroll fragments recovered in the Qumran environs represent a voluminous body of Jewish documents, a veritable "library", dating from the third century B.C.E. to 68 C.E. Unquestionably, the "library," which is the greatest manuscript find of the twentieth century, demonstrates the rich literary activity of Second Temple Period Jewry and sheds insight into centuries pivotal to both Judaism and Christianity. The library contains some books or works in a large number of copies, yet others are represented only fragmentarily by mere scraps of parchment. There are tens of thousands of scroll fragments. The number of different compositions represented is almost one thousand, and they are written in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.
There is less agreement on the specifics of what the Qumran library contains. According to many scholars, the chief categories represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls are:
Biblical: those works contained in the Hebrew Bible. All of the books of the Bible are represented in the Dead Sea Scroll collection except Esther.
Apocryphal or pseudepigraphical: those works which are omitted from various canons of the Bible and included in others.
Sectarian: those scrolls related to a pietistic commune and include ordinances, biblical commentaries, apocalyptic visions, and liturgical works.
While the group producing the sectarian scrolls is believed by many to be the Essenes, there are other scholars who state that there is too little evidence to support the view that one sect produced all of the sectarian material. Also, there are scholars who believe there is a fourth category of scroll materials which is neither biblical, apocryphal, nor "sectarian." In their view, such scrolls, which may include "Songs of the the Sabbath Sacrifice" (object no. 9), should be designated simply as contemporary Jewish writing.
About two thousand years elapsed between the time the scrolls were deposited in the caves of the barren hills surrounding the Dead Sea and their discovery in 1947. The fact that they survived for twenty centuries, that they were found accidentally by Bedouin shepherds, that they are the largest and oldest body of manuscripts relating to the Bible and to the time of Jesus of Nazareth make them a truly remarkable archaeological find.
Since their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the subject of great scholarly and public interest. For scholars they represent an invaluable source for exploring the nature of post-biblical times and probing the sources of two of the world's great religions. For the public, they are artifacts of great significance, mystery, and drama.
Interest in the scrolls has, if anything, intensified in recent years. Media coverage has given prominence to scholarly debates over the meaning of the scrolls, the Qumran ruin, as well as particular scroll fragments, raising questions destined to increase attention and heighten the Dead Sea Scrolls mystery. Did the scrolls come from the library of the Second Temple or other libraries and were they hidden to prevent their destruction by the Romans? Was the Qumran site a winter villa for a wealthy Jerusalem family or was it a Roman fortress? Was it a monastery not for Essenes but for a Sadducean sect? Does this mean we need to revise our view of Jewish religious beliefs during the last centuries of the Second Temple? Do the Dead Sea Scrolls provide clues to hidden treasures? Does the "War Rule Scroll" (object no. 12) refer to a pierced or piercing messiah?
Since the late 1980s, no controversy has been more heated than that surrounding access to the scrolls and the movement to accelerate their publication. The push by scholars to gain what the _Biblical_Archaeology_Review_ characterized as "intellectual freedom and the right to scholarly access" has had significant results. In 1988, the administration for scroll research, the Israel Antiquities Authority, began to expand the number of scroll assignments. By 1992, they included more than fifty scholars. In 1991, a computer-generated version as well as a two-volume edition of the scroll photographs were published by the Biblical Archaeology Society. Late in the same year, the Huntington Library of California made available to all scholars the photographic security copies of the scrolls on deposit in its vault. Closing the circle, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that it too would be issuing an authorized microfiche edition, complete with detailed indices.
The Dead Sea Scrolls include a range of contemporary documents that serve as a window on a turbulent and critical period in the history of Judaism. In addition to the three groups identified by Josephus (Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes), Judaism was further divided into numerous religious sects and political parties. With the destruction of the Temple and the commonwealth in 70 C.E., all that came to an end. Only the Judaism of the Pharisees--Rabbinic Judaism--survived. Reflected in Qumran literature is a Judaism in transition: moving from the religion of Israel as described in the Bible to the Judaism of the rabbis as expounded in the Mishnah (a third- century compilation of Jewish laws and customs which forms the basis of modern Jewish practice).
The Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to the events described in the New Testament, have added to our understanding of the Jewish background of Christianity. Scholars have pointed to similarities between beliefs and practices outlined in the Qumran literature and those of early Christians. These parallels include comparable rituals of baptism, communal meals, and property. Most interesting is the parallel organizational structures: the sectarians divided themselves into twelve tribes led by twelve chiefs, similar to the structure of the early Church, with twelve apostles who, according to Jesus, would to sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. Many scholars believe that both the literature of Qumran and the early Christian teachings stem from a common stream within Judaism and do not reflect a direct link between the Qumran community and the early Christians.
The Dead Sea Scrolls have been the subject of avid interest and curiosity for nearly fifty years. Today, scholars agree on their significance but disagree on who produced them. They debate specific passages of individual scrolls and are still assessing their impact on the foundations of Judaism and Christianity. For the public in this country and throughout the world, the scrolls have an aura of reverence and intrigue which is reinvigorated periodically by the media--journalists who report serious disagreements among well-known scholars, as well as tabloids which claim that the scrolls can predict the future or answer life's mysteries.
This Library of Congress exhibition presents a significant sampling of scrolls and explores both their history and their meaning. It is the Library's hope that visitors will leave both satisfied in having seen these remarkable survivors of a far-off past and in having learned something of the challenges facing scroll scholars and intrigued by questions that surround the scrolls and the community that may have produced them.
Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? How did the Qumran library come to be? Whose scrolls were they? Why were they hidden in the caves? Today, with specialists and scholars throughout the world poring over the newly released scroll texts, solutions to these mysteries undoubtedly will be proposed. But these solutions will themselves raise questions--fueling continuing public interest and scholarly debate.