It
is somewhere between late November and early December, 1946. Jum‘a Muhammed, a
young Bedouin Arab shepherd, notices one of his goats is missing and spots it
running up a hillside on the northwestern rim of the Dead Sea. Leaving his
flock to search for it, he climbs the hill and notices a cave in the crevice of
the rocky slope. Jum‘a is immediately intrigued, as he has always had a
penchant for exploring caves, confident that he would someday find a cache of
ancient gold. Curious, he picks up a stone, throws it into the cave, and is
startled by the sound of shattering pottery. Thinking he may have stumbled upon
a cache of gold, he calls his cousins over to show them the holes. It was
getting late and was too dark to attempt to enter the cave, and the next day
was already set aside for watering the flocks, but they agree to search the
cave two days later.
Shortly
after sunrise on the third day, Muhammed edh-Dhib climbed the 100 meters up the
rocky slope to inspect these holes while his cousins slept. Moving some large
rocks underneath the bigger of the two holes, he climbed up, grabbed the rock
overhang, hoisted himself into the opening, and slid down on his back into the
cave. Allowing his eyes time to adjust to the dark of the cave, he noticed the
walls of the cave were lined by about ten tall jars. Muhammed removed two
bundles wrapped in cloth, which he had described as appearing “greenish”, from
one of the jars. A third, larger bundle, was a roll of leather without any sort
of covering.
Unbeknownst
to him, he had just stumbled upon the greatest archaeological find of the
twentieth century, and what may be one of the greatest archaeological finds in
the history of mankind—a discovery which would later change the way scholars
approached scripture. According to a later interview between Muhammed edh-Dhib
and archaeologist John C. Trever—the first American scholar to see fragments of
these scrolls—his older cousins were angry when he returned to show them the
three bundles because he had gone alone, accusing him of hiding some gold from
them. This could account for his relative lack of involvement as the story
developed aside from returning to help Jum‘a and Khalil remove two large jars
from the cave.
Days
later, Jum‘a’s five sons arrived and he took the three scrolls edh-Dhib had
found to the Ta‘amireh center, located southeast of Bethlehem. The scrolls were
left hanging in a bag on a tent pole for several weeks, and the cover on the
largest, which had been uninscribed, was broken off and destroyed. Though an
unconfirmed mystery, it is possible that the Manual of Discipline was broken
into two parts at that time as well.
In
March of 1947, Jum‘a and Kahlil Musa moved the three manuscripts and the two
jars to Bethlehem and showed them Judah Ibrahim ’Ijha, a carpenter and
antiquities dealer who said he could find out whether they could be sold. ’Ijha
showed the scrolls to another dealer, Faidi Salahi, who suspected they had been
stolen from a Jewish synagogue and warned him to not deal further with the
Bedouins. When Jum‘a returned to ask about the manuscripts, ’Ijha gave him back
the scrolls, asserting they held no archaeological value and could not be sold.
Jum‘a departed, leaving the two jars in ’Ijha’s shop.
Jum‘a
continued to move the scrolls around until Sheikh ‘Ali Subh, a Ta‘amireh and
friend of Jum‘a, suggested they go to a local cobbler named Khalil Eskander
Shahin. Shahin agreed to guarantee a Syrian Orthodox Christian named George
Isha‘ya to keep the scrolls for five pounds (the then-equivalent of twenty
dollars). They reached an agreement for the Bedouins to receive two-thirds of
any price the scrolls sold for.
Word
about the scrolls spread fast, and over the next several months, the
manuscripts changed hands and numerous people had examined the scrolls and had
come (prematurely) to varied conclusions regarding their age and origin. Some
claimed the scrolls were forgeries. Others claimed they dated to medieval
times. Mar Ignatius Aphram I, Patriarch of Antioch, claimed the scrolls to only
be three hundred years old. Still others believed they were about two thousand
years old. Claims of the scrolls’ value ranged from “not worth a shilling” to
being too great to purchase. One such inquirer, a Jewish antiquities dealer named
Sassun, offered to buy the scrolls for 100 pounds (the then-equivalent of 405
dollars) a little before October 1st, 1947. Tovia Wechsler stated,
“if that table were a box and you filled it full of pound notes, you couldn’t
even then measure the value of these scrolls if they are two thousand years
old.” Ironically given the fact that he was using that statement to emphasize
his opinion that the scrolls did not date to antiquity, he was right.
These
scrolls would later become known as the “Dead Sea Scrolls”, and they would
change the way we look at scripture today. Among the first three scrolls that
Muhammed edh-Dhib recovered from the cave were the Manual of Discipline (1QS),
the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab), and the largest was the famous Isaiah Scroll
(1QISa). Little did this man know that the scroll whose uninscribed
cover they had broken off would happen to become known as the most complete
Isaiah manuscript currently in existence. Had Jum‘a known their true worth, the
shepherd probably would not have let the manuscripts go for the mere sum of 24
pounds ($97.20), with his share being 16 pounds ($64.80).
In
1948, Hebrew University Professor Eliezer Lipa Sukenik heard through an
Armenian antiquities dealer that ancient scrolls had been discovered and wanted
to investigate the finds to see if they were significant or not. Despite
tension between the Jews and Arabs, he met the dealer at the British divided
military zone on the Jerusalem border. It was a secret meeting in which it is
told that the dealer “held up a fragment of leather for the professor to
examine.” Sukenik recognized the ancient writing while looking through the
fence, and wanted to see more.
After
traveling to Bethlehem with the dealer to see the scrolls, he recorded his
experience in his journal:
“My
hands shook as I started to unwrap one of them. I read a few sentences. It was
written in beautiful biblical Hebrew. The language was like that of the Psalms,
but the text was unknown to me. I looked and looked, and I suddenly had the feeling
that I was privileged by destiny to gaze upon a Hebrew Scroll which had not
been read for more than 2,000 years.”
He
then acquired and published selections of three scrolls: The War Scroll, the
Thanksgiving Scroll (Hodayot) and a second copy of Isaiah. In 1949, due to
regional turmoil growing violence, Syrian Achbishop Samuel decided to smuggle
his four scrolls out of the country and had them relocated to a Syrian Church
in New Jersey. Then in 1954, after listing them for sale in a Wall Street Journal
advertisement, Samuel sold the four scrolls to Professor Sukenik’s son, Yigael
Yadin, through an American middleman, who purchased the on behalf of Israel for
the price of $250,000. In 1955, Yadin combined the four scrolls he purchased
with the three which were already at the Hebrew University.
Word
spread quickly that the seven scrolls contained biblical texts and other
ancient religious writings, and people started taking interest. When people
discovered where the texts were found, they scrambled looking for more, and
over the next nine years, more texts were found in ten nearby caves. A small
number of nearly-complete scrolls were discovered, along with tens of thousands
of fragments, all representing over 900 different texts written in Hebrew,
Aramaic and Greek. Most of these texts are written on parchment, but some are
written on papyrus and bronze.
Excavation
continued throughout subsequent years, extending outside the Qumran area. More
scroll fragments were found at various sites along the western shore of the
Dead sea, from Masada to Nahal Hever and Wadi Murabba’at. In fact, between 1946
and 1956, 981 texts were discovered at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank alone.
In 2014, nine of the scrolls were rediscovered at the Israel Antiquities
Authority, after they had been in storage for sixty-two years since being
excavated in 1952. Of every scroll and fragment that has been found since, it
was the Bedouin shepherds who discovered “the majority bounty”, with thousands
of fragments from about five hundred different scrolls being found just in Cave
4.
An
international team of scholars was appointed by Harding and De Vaux in 1953 to
begin publishing the scrolls. As the team began piecing together fragments from
over 900 manuscripts at the Rockefeller Museum, what began to merge proved to
be an extraordinarily complex historical puzzle—a puzzle that is still being
pieced together today.
For
40 years after the manuscripts were discovered, the study of the thousands of
fragments was primarily controlled by less than a dozen international scholars.
While each of these scholars were experts in their own fields, the small team
size limited the rate of publication. In the early 1990s, however, the Israel
Antiquities Authority began taking some relatively major steps in order to
speed up the publication of the manuscripts. Professor Emanuel Tov of Hebrew
University was nominated as chief editor, and the task of publication was
dispersed among approximately 100 international scholars. By 2001, most of the
official editions were published and available in academic libraries. Concerned
for the physical condition of the scrolls, the IAA also established a
conservation lab for the sole purpose of the conservation and preservation of
the scrolls.
As
scholars sorted and assigned the fragments to various manuscripts, early
attempts in the 1950s and 1960s to preserve the texts involved using scotch
tape and placing the fragments between more than 1200 plates of window glass.
As the adhesives aged, however, the skins darkened, their edges gelatinized,
and some of the texts became illegible. During the 1960s and 1970s, some of
these glass plates were opened and scholars attempted to remove the adhesive
tape and stains. Unfortunately, this did more harm than good and the fragments were
damaged even further. In 1967, these glass plates were inventoried and numbered
from 1 to 1261. During the 1970s, hundreds of glass plates were treated by the
Israel Museum. In 1989, there was another, more complete inventory of the
fragments which included photographs, museum inventory numbers, and publication
statuses.
In
1991, the IAA enlisted the help of international conservation and preservation
experts to document and treat thousands of scroll fragments from roughly 900
manuscripts. Facing decades’ worth of damage which had been unintentionally
inflicted on the fragments, one important element of the conservation lab was
to make sure that any preservation methods which had been used up to that point
could be reversed to prevent further damage. The lab uses a climate-control
system to mimic the conditions of the caves which had preserved the scrolls for
2,000 years. The IAA now keeps highly meticulous and annually updated records
of the condition of each and every fragment, regardless of how small, and each
fragment is regularly maintained. This is all done at the hands of specially
trained conservators. In 2007, the IAA consulted an international experts
committee to discuss the use of spectral imaging to document the scrolls, and
by 2008, a dedicated studio was built. A test was conducted to gauge the scope
of the project (time, procedures, manpower, technology needs and funding).
Currently, the IAA is working to digitize the entirety of every last fragment
of manuscript from the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Today
there is a great deal of demand by people wanting to see the Dead Sea Scrolls,
and the fragments are sent all around the world on exhibits. However,
transportation of these fragments is strictly regulated; a piece can only be
exhibited for up to three months in perfect conditions, and must then “rest”
for a year before it can be transported again. That means if there are four
museums in line to view a piece of a scroll and a fifth signs up to see it, the
museum’s owner would need to wait at least five years after it leaves its current location before they can see it. There
is a constant demand worldwide for such exhibits.
Written
between the second century BCE and the second century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls
not only offer fragments of scripture but also other historical documents which
offer insight into political and religious struggles various Judean groups
faced and explore different ways the Jews during the Second Temple period
related to the rest of the world. Painting a picture of complexity and
diversity in Jewish religious life and philosophy, these documents have greatly
changed the way we understand the world that early Christianity came from.
The
non-biblical texts contained within the Dead Sea Scrolls display profound
differences and discrepancies in how the various Jewish sects interpreted
scripture and obeyed its guidelines. This advances our knowledge of how the
ancients interpreted the bible and the way historical events influenced
religious life and ideas. The texts even offer insight into philosophical
debates and disputes about the Temple, priesthood, the religious calendar, and
the afterlife. Most of the disputes were more narrowly focused on observance of
the law in everyday life.
What
is interesting is that these profound debates which change our understanding of
the ancients so dramatically happened during the peak of the Greek and Roman
empires, during invasion and foreign rule, from the time of Alexander the Great
to the Bar Kokhba Revolt against Rome. Many of the scrolls were written during
under the rule of the Hasmonean dynasty. Various international events at the
time supported the idea that the world would soon end, as many early Christians
believed.
While
the shepherds who happened upon the scrolls may not have known the significance
of what they had found, much is owed to the ignorance of Jum‘a and his cousins.
Through the passing of hands, the greatest archaeological find of the twentieth
century find has been pieced together, examined, reproduced, and today is now
available for anybody to view on the internet for free. Today the condition and
whereabouts of every last fragment of Dead Sea Scrolls are closely monitored,
and it is likely that these texts will not pass from history so long as
computers exist. After all, who knows how many people have downloaded
electronic copies of these scrolls for their own records?
=========================================
Summary of Sources Used
DSS Collections. n.d.
http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/isaiah (accessed July 27, 2014).
Oh, That My Words Were Written - Dead
Sea Scrolls. n.d.
http://www.mywordswritten.org/DeadSeaScrolls.html (accessed July 27, 2014).
The Dead Sea Scrolls. n.d.
http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/learn-about-the-scrolls/discovery-and-publication?locale=en_US
(accessed July 27, 2014).
Trever, John C. The Dead Sea Scrolls:
A Personal Account. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman's Publishing,
1979.
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