Ancient Hebrew scrolls accidentally discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin boy have kindled popular enthusiasm as well as serious scholarly interest over the past half century. The source of this excitement is what these Dead Sea Scrolls reveal about the history of the Second Temple period (520 B.C.E.-70 C.E.), particularly from the second century B.C.E. until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.-a time of crucial developments in the crystallization of the monotheistic religions.
The Judean Desert, a region reputedly barren, defied preconceptions and yielded an unprecedented treasure. The young Ta'amireh shepherd was certainly unaware of destiny when his innocent search for a stray goat led to the fateful discovery of Hebrew scrolls in a long-untouched cave. One discovery led to another, and eleven scroll-yielding caves and a habitation site eventually were uncovered. Since 1947 the site of these discoveries-the Qumran region (the desert plain and the adjoining mountainous ridge) and the Qumran site have been subjected to countless probes; not a stone has remained unturned in the desert, not an aperture unprobed. The Qumran settlement has been exhaustively excavated.
The first trove found by the Bedouins in the Judean Desert consisted of seven large scrolls from Cave I. The unusual circumstances of the find, on the eve of Israel's war of independence, obstructed the initial negotiations for the purchase of all the scrolls. Shortly before the establishment of the state of Israel, Professor E. L. Sukenik of the Hebrew University clandestinely acquired three of the scrolls from a Christian Arab antiquities dealer in Bethlehem. The remaining four scrolls reached the hands of Mar Athanasius Yeshua Samuel, Metropolitan of the Syrian Jacobite Monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem. In 1949 he traveled to the United States with the scrolls, but five years went by before the prelate found a purchaser.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea between the years 1947 and 1956. The area is 13 miles east of Jerusalem and is 1300 feet below sea level. The mostly fragmented texts, are numbered according to the cave that they came out of. They have been called the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.
In all, scholars have identified the remains of about 825 to 870 separate scrolls.
There are now identified among the scrolls, 19 copies of the Book of Isaiah, 25 copies of Deuteronomy and 30 copies of the Psalms .
The Scrolls are mostly written in Hebrew but there are still a considerable number of them written in Aramaic.
Near the caves are the ancient ruins of Qumran. They were excavated in the early 1950's and appear to be connected with the scrolls.
The last words of Joseph, Judah, Levi, Naphtali, and Amram (the father of Moses) are written down in the Scrolls.
The Temple Scroll at 26.7 Feet long is the longest of all the scrolls.
The scrolls are most commonly made of animal skins, but also papyrus and one of copper. They are written with a carbon-based ink, from right to left, using no punctuation except for an occasional paragraph indentation. In fact, in some cases, there are not even spaces between the words.
