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e. The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st ...
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Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient, mostly Hebrew, manuscripts (of leather, papyrus, and copper) first found in 1947 on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is among the more important finds in the history of modern archaeology. Study of the scrolls has enabled scholars to push back the date of a stabilized Hebrew Bible ...
The Dead Sea Scrolls come from various sites and date from the 3rd century bce to the 2nd century ce. The term usually refers more specifically to manuscripts found in 11 caves near the ruins of Qumrān, which most scholars think was the home of the community that owned the scrolls. The relevant period of occupation of this site runs from c. 100 to c. 68 bce, and the scrolls themselves nearly all date from the 3rd to the 1st century bce. The 15,000 fragments (most of which are tiny) represent the remains of 800 to 900 original manuscripts. They are conventionally labeled by cave number and the first letter (or letters) of the Hebrew title—e.g., 1QM = Cave 1, Qumrān, Milḥamah (the Hebrew word for “war”); or 4QTest = Cave 4, Qumrān, Testimonia (i.e., a collection of proof-texts). Each manuscript has also been given an individual number.
The documents were recovered in the Judaean wilderness from five principal sites: Khirbat Qumrān, Wadi Al-Murabbaʿāt, Naḥal Ḥever (Wadi Khabrah) and Naḥal Ẓeʾelim (Wadi Seiyal), Wadi Daliyeh, and Masada. The first manuscripts, accidentally discovered in 1947 by a shepherd boy in a cave at Khirbat Qumrān on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, were almost immediately labeled Dead Sea Scrolls. Later (especially from the 1950s to the mid-1960s) finds in neighbouring areas were similarly designated.
A great number and variety of manuscripts were discovered at Qumrān. The best-preserved documents at that site are those found in Cave 1, including an Isaiah Scroll; the Rule of the Community (also called the Manual of Discipline); The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, or War Scroll; a scroll of thanksgiving hymns; and a commentary on Habakkuk. Cave 2 contained only fragments, but Cave 3 yielded the Copper Scroll, a list of Temple treasures and their hiding places. Cave 4 sheltered the main deposit of what some believe to have been an Essene library, which contained approximately 400 manuscripts, generally in poor condition. Most of the manuscripts are sectarian writings, and about 100 of them are biblical texts, covering the entire Hebrew Bible except Esther. Several well-preserved documents were recovered from Cave 11, including a large scroll with canonical, apocryphal, and unknown psalms. There was also a copy of Leviticus (dated to the 3rd century bce) as well as the very important Temple Scroll. Its 66 preserved columns give details for the construction of the ideal Temple of Jerusalem.
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Wadi Al-Murabbaʿāt, a second site 11 miles (18 km) south of Qumrān, contained documents left by fugitives from the armies of Bar Kokhba, the leader of the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome in 132–135 ce. Archaeologists recovered two letters of Bar Kokhba, legal documents in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and fragmentary biblical works of the 1st and 2nd centuries ce. They also found a remarkably well-preserved scroll of the 12 Minor Prophets that is virtually identical with the traditional biblical text.
- Philip R. Davies
Apr 16, 2023 · The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered by many to be the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century. From 1947 to 1956, thousands of scroll fragments were uncovered from the caves near Qumran, located on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Over the following decades, teams of scholars pieced these scrolls together to reconstruct ...
The history of the Dead Sea Scrolls did not actually begin with the famous Bedouin discovery in the caves of Qumran in 1947. Rather, two medieval manuscripts now known as the Damascus Document (formerly the Zadokite Fragments) were discovered by Solomon Schechter, then of Cambridge University, in the Cairo Genizah in Egypt in the late 19th ...
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Bottom: Papyrus Deed of Slave Sale from Wadi Daliyeh after opening. Hellenistic Period. 332 – 63 bce. Most of the Scrolls and fragments found in the caves near Qumran date to the Hellenistic period. The majority of the non-biblical Scrolls in this collection – both the sectarian Scrolls and other diverse literary works – were composed ...
In recent years, however, this consensus has been challenged and modified, though many scholars still maintain a link between the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Scrolls from Additional Sites. Dead Sea Scrolls discovered outside of the Qumran caves range from as early as the First Temple period (eighth century bce) to as late as the 11 th ...
How the Dead Sea Scrolls Were Found. The most sensational archaeological discovery of the last half century was made entirely by accident. On a morning in the winter of 1946–1947 three shepherds of the Ta’amireh tribe of Bedouin watched their nimble-footed goats skip across the cliffs just north of an old ruin on the northwest shore of the ...
