Likely you have heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls. What are they, and why do they still cause a stir in the religious world? The Dead Sea is a lake in Palestine (bordered by present day Jordan on the East and Israel on the West). It is the lowest point on earth, about 1,300 feet below sea level. It receives water from the Jordan River, but since it has no outlet, it is over eight times saltier than the ocean. Nothing lives in its waters, hence its name.
Reports tell of a Bedouin shepherd lad who while looking for a lost animal threw a stone toward a cave in the region northwest of the Dead Sea. When the stone produced a breaking sound, his curiosity led him to investigate a cave high on the cliff. The stone had struck and had broken a pottery jar containing an ancient manuscript. Eventually this first cave yielded a number of scrolls, including a nearly complete copy of the Book of Isaiah. This initial discovery made in 1947 sparked a frenzy that eventually led to the discovery of 11 different caves. Cave #4 contained over 15,000 text fragments comprising over 500 different documents. In all, this “library” of data includes about 800 books. The dilapidation, fragmentation and sheer volume of material makes reassembly an almost insurmountable task. On top of that is the tedious work of paleography, the science of deciphering ancient writings.
Before the Dead Sea scrolls discovery, the oldest copy of the Hebrew Bible dated back to roughly 1,000 A.D. However, the Dead Sea documents are from about 250 B.C. to about A.D. 68. This means that the Dead Sea Scrolls provide us with copies of the biblical text which are over 1,000 years older than anything we had before!
[Editor’s Note: Specifically, the ancient manuscript of the Book of Isaiah among the Dead Sea Scrolls is 1,000 years older than the manuscript from which our English version of that Bible book was translated. Yet, aside from the equivalent of typos and similar clerical errors, the older copy does not differ at all from the latter copy from which our English translation of Isaiah was made. Providentially, God preserved His message for mankind, and we can rely on the Bible as the Word of God. ~ Louis Rushmore, Editor]
Works Consulted
Pfeifer, Charles F. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible. New York: Weathervane Books, 1969.
Shanks, Vanderkam, McCarter, Jr., Sanders. The Dead Sea Scrolls after Forty Years. Symposium at the Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991.
