Come Round

To Qumran.



Thursday was our expedition to the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. The spot is very much Dead Sea-ish: dry, desolate and abandoned. And even more abandoned until 1947, when a Bedouin boy was winging rocks up into the cliffs while herding goats, and heard a clay jar shatter inside one of the caves. Climbing up into the cavern, he made one of the greatest archeological-Biblical discoveries of the 20th century. Preserved in the dry climate for 2,000 years were parchment and papyrus scrolls with the books of the Old Testament. Up till then our oldest copies of the books of the Old Testament had dated back to about the 9th century. These texts, which amazingly almost completely matched our much later texts, were almost a thousand years older, confirming the fidelity with which the Bible had been handed down.

Four caves were ultimately located with parchments kept inside; at the base of the cliffs ruins were uncovered which appeared to be of an early Essene community, a group contemporaneous with Christ who would have treasured and protected the Biblical texts.



One of the distinctive elements of this Jewish group was the emphasis on spiritual purity, manifested through ritual baths repeated throughout the day.

Thus the many pools like the following:



The Romans annihilated Jerusalem, about 15 miles from Qumran, in the year 70. As the legionnaires continued their rampage through Palestine, it's thought that the Essene community hid their library up in the hills, where they remained untouched till the present.

Cave 4, where some of the scrolls were discovered.

A friend asked if Sea Scrolls were like Sea Cucumbers. To assist in distinguishing the two, I have included a photo of a sea cucumber encountered at the Barrier Reef last August.



Setting of the Dead Sea Scrolls:



Note the difference of environment.