The Dead Sea Scrolls

What difference do they make?

The collection called the Dead Sea Scrolls
comes from several locations:
Jericho
• Qumran Jerusalem
• Masada Qumran

• Wadi Murabbaʿat
Murabbaʿat
• Nahal Hever
Ein Gedi
Also, Nahal Hever
• Wadi Seiyal Masada
• Nahal Mishmar
• Khirbet Mird
What exactly was discovered near the
Dead Sea?

• The site of Qumran, a sectarian

community ca. 130 BC – AD 68
• Multiple caches of scrolls (and fragments
of scrolls) in surrounding caves, believed
to be associated with the community
 There is much consensus about the
religious sectarian nature of Qumran.
However, the precise identification of
its occupants and their relationship to
the scrolls found in the caves is still
debated.
Why is this discovery so great?

1. The Scrolls were found in the Holy Land

itself.
2. The Scrolls are written in the three
languages of Scripture.
3. The Scrolls include our earliest biblical
manuscripts.
Khalil Iskander Shahin (“Kando”)
Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan
Anthanasius Yeshue Samuel
• “Biblical”
 Approx. 240, or 25%
 Actual biblical texts
 Most popular: Psalms, Isaiah,
Deuteronomy, Genesis
• “Non-biblical”
 Apocryphal/Pseudepigraphical
(books ultimately not canonized)
 Sectarian documents
Pseudo-Ezekiel/
Manuscript 4Q386
2nd century BC
Fragment of Deuteronomy 27:4b-6 (infrared)
The Caves
 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran and Ein Feshka aerial from north

Dead Sea BiblePlaces.com

Ein Feshka

Wadi Qumran

Khirbet Qumran

Cave 2

Cave 1

Qumran and Ein Feshka aerial from north

 BiblePlaces.com

area of Cave 2

area of Cave 1

Qumran cliffs with caves aerial

 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran Cave 1 with people climbing

Qumran Cave 1 with people climbing
 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran Cave 1 entrance view to Dead Sea

 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran excavations aerial from west

 BiblePlaces.com
cemetery

dining hall Caves 7-9

Roman
watchtower

scriptorium

Cave 4

cistern

Cave 5

Qumran excavations aerial from west

 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran Cave 4
Qumran: The Site
 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran cliffs from Khirbet Qumran

 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran aqueduct
BiblePlaces.com Qumran water channel
 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran scriptorium
BiblePlaces.com

Qumran scriptorium
 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran study room

 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran window for passing scrolls

BiblePlaces.com

Qumran Iron Age water reservoir

 BiblePlaces.com

Qumran mikveh stairs cracked by earthquake

So what?
Jesus the Messiah and his message come out of
solidly Jewish soil: the scrolls help us understand the
very Jewish context from which Christianity grew.

“Affliction will come on Earth . . . He will be called

great . . . ‘Son of God’ he will be called and ‘Son of
the Most High’ they will call him . . . His kingdom
will be an everlasting kingdom . . . He will judge
the Earth in truth and all will make peace.”
(4Q246, “Aramaic Apocalypse”)
The biblical Dead Sea Scrolls show us that
1. early on, multiple variations of the
Hebrew text existed and account for
some of the different traditions that
had been hypothesized before the
discovery
2. the transmission of the biblical text
over the centuries has been amazingly
accurate.
Concerning early Judaism, the scrolls
illustrate that there were a number of
“Judaisms” and Jewish movements in the
Second Temple period, and now we have
the sectarian literature of one of these
movements. We know some of their belief
and practices from their own writings.
 www.SeetheScrolls.com

Visit Qumran yourself on FUMC’s trip to the

Holy Land in January 2013!
See www.FUMCintheHolyLand.org
FUMC in the Holy Land

Shalom!