Dead Sea Scrolls

Manuscript of the Dead Sea, part of the manuscript of Isaiah.

The Dead Sea Scrolls or Qumran Scrolls, so called because they were found in caves located in Qumran, Israel, on the shores of the Dead Sea, are a collection of 972 manuscripts. Most date from 250 B.C. C. to the year 66 d. C., years before the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem.

Overview

The manuscripts are written almost entirely in Hebrew and Aramaic, with only a few copies in Greek. The first seven manuscripts were accidentally discovered by Bedouin herdsmen in late 1946, in a cave near the ruins of Qumran, on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Subsequently, until 1956, manuscripts were found in a total of eleven caves in the same region.

Some of these manuscripts constitute the oldest testimony of the Biblical text found to date. Approximately two hundred copies, most of them very fragmentary, of all the books of the Hebrew Bible, with the exception of the Book of Esther, have been discovered at Qumran (although no fragments of Nehemiah, which in the Hebrew Bible is part of the Book of Ezra, have been found either).). A complete copy of the Book of Isaiah has been found.

Another part of the manuscripts are books not included in the Tanaj canon, commentaries, calendars, prayers and rules of a Jewish religious community that most experts identify with the Essenes. Most of the manuscripts are today in the Israel Museum and the Rockefeller Museum (both in Jerusalem), as well as in the Jordan Archaeological Museum (in Amman). A few others are in the National Library of France (in Paris), or in private hands, such as the Schøyen Collection (in Norway).

In 2020 the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. announces that the 16 fragments found in the museum are forgeries made in the 17th century XX. The new finds do not call into question the thousands of actual fragments, most of which lie in the Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum.

Discovery

Over the years, clay pots containing Biblical manuscripts and other writings in Hebrew and Greek have been discovered in the region in various circumstances. One of these discoveries was made by Origen in the year 217 near Jericho, when he found some manuscripts inside a vessel and used some of the psalms contained there. Later, in the IX century, another find was reported by Jews who reported it to a Christian church.

The first seven scrolls, which most certainly come from Qumran, were found by chance by two Bedouin herdsmen from the Ta'amireh tribe in 1947 in one of the caves while chasing a woman. of their goats. These scrolls were sold (cut up, to increase their price) to two antique dealers in Bethlehem. Four of them were resold for a small amount to the Archimandrite of the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of Saint Mark in Jerusalem, Athanasius Joshua Samuel (better known as Mar Samuel). The next three ended up in the hands of the Jewish Professor Eleazar Sukenik, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who, realizing their value, bought them in 1954. Copies of the scrolls were later published, arousing massive interest from archaeologists. Biblical. The publication of the copies would result in the discovery of another six hundred scrolls and hundreds of other fragments.

The most important thing about the find is the antiquity of the manuscripts, which mostly date from between 250 B.C. C. and 66 d. C. This places them among the oldest texts of the Biblical Tanaj or Old Testament available in the Hebrew language; and it also makes it possible to study important theological and organizational sources of Judaism and Christianity. It is believed that the Essenes hid them to protect them from the Roman war against the Jewish rebels in those years.

Due to the eleven caves in which they were found, the name of each fragment was made by first indicating the number of the cave in which it was found, followed by the letter Q (ie 1Q, 2Q, 3Q, etc.).

In February 2017, archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem announced the discovery of cave number twelve in some hills west of Qumran, near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Although no scrolls were found in the cave, empty storage jars were found. These were broken and the content is presumed to have been removed earlier. In addition, iron axes were found dating from around 1950, suggesting that the cave was looted.

Library

Caves near Qumrán.

Among the manuscripts found in the caves are:

• Books of the Tanach or Old Testament, including a wider version of the Book I of Samuel.
• Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, like the Book of Jubilee, the Book of Enoch or the Testaments of the Patriarchs, among others.
• Exegetic texts, such as comments (pehsarim) to several books of Scripture.
• Community-specific books that produced these documents, such as own regulations and prayers, among which stand out the Document of Damascus (4QD, 5QD, 6QD) - a document already known since 1896, when it was discovered in the deposit (Guenizá) of a synagogue, in a version handwritten by the karaites of the centuryIX- the Rule of the Community (1QS, 4Q257) and the Himnos Roll (Hodayot).
• A roll of copper with accounting issues and related to the location of certain treasures.

In 2010, a project was completed between the company Google and the Israel Antiquities Authority, at a cost of 3.5 million dollars, with the aim of digitizing the 3,000 fragments of the document, which are available at Internet. It also includes translations of the texts into several languages.

On September 26, 2011, the Israel Museum launched its Dead Sea Scrolls digital project, which allows users to explore these ancient biblical manuscripts in a level of detail previously unachievable.

Community of Qumran

Quran Ruins.

Florentino García Martínez, one of the leading scholars of the manuscripts, wrote that, with the sole exception of the copper scroll, these texts are part of a "sectarian library," articulated theological, eschatological, moral and ethical conceptions. The community standards quote and refer to all biblical and parabiblical texts found in the same place, showing that the authors considered themselves legitimate interpreters of the inspired texts that are in their library. The use of the ancient Hebrew solar calendar by the community, different from the one officially in force in the first century AD. C., distinguishes the community that lived in Qumran from other Jewish currents, such as the Pharisees and Sadducees.

Caves near Qumran, where the manuscripts of the Dead Sea were found.

The conceptions of the members of this community collide with those of the social powers. In Habakkuk's commentary (1Qp Hab VII:2-5), worshiping the "queen of heaven" It is considered synonymous with idolatry, as stated in Jeremiah 7:18 about the cult of the "queen of heaven": "The children gather firewood, the parents set fire, the women knead to make cakes for the queen from heaven and unleashed in honor of other gods to exasperate me.

The Damascus Document (IX:1-6,9) insists that revenge should not be taken and only God can avenge: "You shall not take justice into your own hands" (cf. Testament from Gad 6:10). Against the Roman law of nations and the custom of the Old Testament, the Damascus Document declares: "No one stretches out his hand to shed blood of any of the Gentiles for the sake of wealth or gain, nor take any of their goods" #3. 4; (XII:6-7).

So, unlike the nationalism of the Zealots, the Qumran sect sees no alternative to Rome in the official Jewish national establishment. Another writing from Qumran (1Q27:9-10) says:

Do not all peoples hate evil? And yet they all march out of their hand. Does not praise the truth come out of the mouth of all nations? and yet is there a lip or tongue that perseveres in it? What people want to be oppressed by another stronger than him? Who wants to be abusively stripped of his fortune? And yet what is the people who do not oppress their neighbor? Where is the people who have not plundered the wealth of another?

The idea that is derived from reading these manuscripts coincides quite well with the way in which ancient authors describe the Essenes, which is why most authors think that the inhabitants of Qumran belonged to this sect.

Relations with Christianity

The study of the content and meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls shows a Judaism different from later rabbinic Judaism (more akin to the sect of the Pharisees), but which, at the same time, has several coincidences with Christianity. Since the manuscripts are contemporary with Jesus of Nazareth and his first disciples, studying them is very useful to understand the birth of Christianity within Judaism.

According to the Document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, "The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible" (2001), nos. 12-13:

The clearest expression of the way that the contemporaries of Jesus interpreted the Scriptures appears in the manuscripts of the Dead Sea, manuscripts copied between the second century BC and the year 60 AD, in a period well close to the ministry of Jesus and the formation of the Gospels. (...) From the point of view of form and method, the New Testament, in particular the Gospels, presents great resemblances with Qumran in the way of using the Scriptures. (...) The similar use of Scripture derives from a similar base perspective in the two communities, that of Quran and that of the New Testament. (...) One and the other had the conviction that the full understanding of the prophecies had been revealed to their founder and transmitted by him: in Quran, "the Master of Justice"; for Christians, Jesus.

For a time, various authors maintained that Christianity had an Essene (and therefore probably Qumramite) origin. Jesus of Nazareth was identified with the Master of Justice who founded the Essene congregation that authored the manuscripts. According to this current, Jesus would have celebrated the last supper on the day of the Jewish Passover according to the Qumran calendar. This, in theory, would solve the dating problems that arise when comparing the versions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke with that of John. The truth is that there is no evidence of all this.

A less extreme position is the one that considers that the manuscripts and especially the spiritual current and the life testimony of the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls were a source of primitive Christianity and prepared in the desert the path of Jesus. It would not be strange to think that John the Baptist, whose ministry is located near Qumran, would have been a member, although it is only a theory.

In any case, what is out of the question is the affinity with some ideas that appeared later in the Gospel of John and other books of the New Testament. Different writings from Qumran emphasize key themes highlighted by Jesus and the Christians:

• the New PartnershipDocument of Damascus VI:19 Matthew 26:28);
• the coming of the Son of Man, the Son of God, called the Son of the Most High (4Q246), who would expiate for the sins of others (4Q540; Document of Damascus XIV:19);
• the Messiah begotten by God (1Q28a) and at the same time Suffering Servant (4Q381, 4Q540);
• the Holy Spirit (1QHa XX; Document of Damascus II:12, VII:4, 4Q267);
• the "Pozo de Agua Viva" (1QHa XVI);
• baptism, time in the desert after conversion (4Q414);
• the Sacred Dinner of bread and wine (1Q28a; 1QS VI);
• the priesthood of Melchizedek and his identification with the Messiah (11Q13; Hebrews 7);
• the rejection of all zeal for material wealth (Rule of the Community XI:2 with Luke 16:44Q267,2,II with 1Timoteo 6:10).
• condemnation of looting and exploitation (4Q267,IV; 4Q390);
• the children of the Light (Rule of the Community III:13, 4Q260);
• justification for faith and salvation by Grace (1QH V; 11Q5 XIX);
• the humility and poverty of spirit (1Q33 XIV; 4Q491) ("blessed the humble" (Matthew 5:3-4, 11Q5, 1QHa VI), "responder humbly the arrogant" (Matthew 5:40));
• charity, love and need to share (4Q259 III; 4Q267 18 III);
• the imperfection of human judgments (in contrast to divine justice) and rejection of human revenge (4Q269 Romans 12:17, 19, 21); "do not give a man the reward of evil," nor do righteousness on his own (Document of Damascus IX:9, 4Q269) but respond to evil with good (Rule of the Community X:17-18, 4Q258);
• the forgiveness for who becomes (Rule of the Community X:20);
• mutual fraternal correction (1QS V; 5Q12 Matthew 18:15-17);
• the confession (James 5:16);
• the better amendment than animal sacrifice (1QS IX);
• the fall of the kings of the earth (1QM XI);
• Time of Judgment, New Jerusalem (2Q24; 5Q15);
• the community of love (1QS II) and faith as the temple of God;
• the rejection of the repudiation of the wife (Document of Damascus IV:21; 4Q271);
• the condemnation of "fatal" interpretations (4Q169) of the Word of God and refusal to change the Word of God for human traditions (Matthew 15:3-9);
• the denunciation of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees (1QHa XII) and of the practices of the Sadducees (1Q14; 4Q162):

They sought easy interpretations, chose illusions, searched for breaches; they chose the beautiful neck, justified the culprit and condemned the righteous; they transgressed the covenant, broke the precept, joined against the life of the righteous, their soul hated all those who walk rightly, pursued them with the sword and encouraged the people's dispute. (Document of Damascus I:18-21, 4Q267);

• belief in resurrection (1QH 1:29,34; 4Q521).