Since the dawn of Christianity, the Qumran Caves have kept their secret…

Fifty years have passed since the world-shaking discovery of the first Dead Sea Scroll in pre Christian caves by a shepherd. Hershel Shanks, in his book, gives us an account of what they reveal, how they challenge our understanding of the origins of Christianity, shake the authority of the Hebrew bible, and provide a new perspective on Judaism at the time of Jesus.

Many of the details surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls are shrouded in mystery and will probably remain so: the exact year they were found, how, by whom and under what conditions. What does not remain a mystery, however, is the age of the scrolls themselves. They date to the time of Jesus and shortly before. The scrolls do in fact, predate the most ancient of Hebrew manuscripts.

Probably in late 1946 or early 1947, a Bedouin shepherd boy on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea was searching for a lost sheep. He tossed a stone into a cave, hoping to scare the sheep out, but instead of the bleating of a sheep he heard the sound of cracking pottery. When he and a friend explored the cave they discovered two large jars. Inside, wrapped in linen, they found some ancient scrolls. This was the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times, hidden away for almost two thousand years.

This was during the final days of the British Mandate in Palestine. Violence was rife. The British security forces had divided Jerusalem into military zones separating Jewish and Arab sections of the city, barbed wire marked the boundaries. To move from one zone to another required a military pass.

Although almost everyone has heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls, few people can explain what they say or why they are significant. What are their religious and historical context, meaning and implications? What do the scrolls tell us about the period from which both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism emerged?

Of the eight hundred manuscripts that were eventually found in the Qumran Cave complex, fewer than a dozen were more or less intact. The rest, about twenty-five thousand, were mere fragments, many no bigger than a fingernail. The scrolls contain a vast array of bewildering new material: unknown psalms, biblical commentaries, calendrical texts, and apocalyptic manuscripts, many of which seem to foreshadow Christian doctrine. Over two hundred biblical manuscripts were hidden in the Qumran caves, some dramatically different from accounts in the Bible.

The Dead Sea Scrolls provide unique insight into the turbulent religious world at the time of Jesus, when Jewish society was diverse and characterized by disputes-so much so that some scholars now refer to Judaisms, rather than to a single Judaism.

In 1953 an international team of scholars were assembled to sort out the thousands of fragments. While this task will probably never be complete, the team had by 1960 accomplished the remarkable task of not only identifying the pieces of the eight-hundred documents but had also arranged them (as best they could), deciphered them and transcribed them so that they could be easily read.

By 1958 Israeli and American scholars had published the seven intact Dead Sea Scrolls from the initial cache. Most of the intact scrolls were easily readable by anyone who knew Hebrew or, in one case, Aramaic.

More than two hundred Dead Sea documents were books of the Hebrew Bible. These varied in size from tiny scraps to a complete book of the prophet Isaiah. But hundreds of other documents were completely unknown, including, mystical texts, liturgical texts, purity laws and Rabbinic-like expansions of biblical stories.

The decision of the Catholic publication team not to release unpublished fragments led to accusations that the scrolls were being withheld because they undermined the Christian faith.

In 1991, after considerable struggle, the secret texts finally became available to all scholars. The scrolls did not fulfill the wild expectations of many. Jesus is not in the scrolls, nor is the uniqueness of Christianity in doubt, but the scrolls do reveal much about the situation of Judaism at the dawn of Christianity.

The Dead Sea Scrolls also tell us much about Judaism at the time the Temple still stood in Jerusalem and about the roots of Rabbinic Judaism, the direct ancestor of all major Jewish denominations today, which emerged after the Romans destroyed the Temple.

Finally, the scrolls tell us about the Bible before the authoritative canon was established in the second century A.D., at a time when different versions of the biblical books circulated within the Jewish world.

The scrolls thus provide a unique insight into a religious culture at a time of unparalleled religious as well as social unrest. The earliest of the scrolls dates to about 250 B.C.; the latest to 68 A.D. The conquering Romans destroyed the main Qumran settlement on their way to Jerusalem, which they burned just two years later, effectively ending the First Jewish Revolt against Rome.

The Caves of Qumran were numbered sequentially following each archeological find. 11 caves in total were discovered to contain manuscripts, these included; a scroll of Leviticus written in the ancient Hebrew script used before the Babylonia exile, a scroll of the Book of Psalms, containing additional psalms not found in the Hebrew Psalter and the famous Temple Scroll. Cave 7 is of special interest because the nineteen pieces of parchment found there are all in Greek and are claimed to be fragments of the New Testament.

Jesus may have visited Qumran, or even lived there for a time, but there is no evidence that he did. He was, however, certainly in the vicinity. He was baptized in the Jordan River (Matthew 3:13), a bare three miles away.

After his baptism, Jesus was “led by the Spirit into the wilderness,” where he was “tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:12, Luke 4:1-2). The traditional site of the Mount of Temptation is seven miles north of Qumran, Jerusalem itself is only 13 miles to the west.

That Jesus may have had some personal association with Qumran, given the similarities between the Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity, is, however, pure speculation.

On the other hand, a reasonable case can be made that John the Baptist lived, at least for a time, at Qumran. Early in his life, John lived in the Judean desert; according to Luke 1:80, “The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness till the day he appeared publicly to Israel.”

Thus, the scrolls do not have a direct connection with Jesus or early Christianity but they do provide a vastly important context. From them we get a direct glimpse into the world out of which Christianity grew. This was the soil. Here are the roots. For those who want to understand the history of Christianity, the scrolls are exciting and enriching. For those who see Christianity and Christian doctrine as something entirely new and unrelated to its Jewish history, the scrolls are threatening.

Hershel Shanks’ book is a fascinating read. If the Dead Sea Scrolls are something you are interested in, then The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls comes highly recommend. It is detailed; bringing together different scholarly views for comparison, the author will not waste your time with outrageous conspiracy theories (for example: “Apostle Paul was a Roman agent or informant”, “cover-up” by the Roman Catholic Church etc). The actual events surrounding the discovery and interpretation of the scrolls are amazing in themselves and do not require additional hype. This book will be of particular interest to Jews, Christians and anyone with an interest in the history of this period.

The Gospel of Mark and the Qumran Caves

J.L. McKinley has written an interesting article (www.summit1.edu) on the possibility of the scroll fragments from Cave 7 being from The Gospel of Mark, here is an extract...

“In 1972 Spanish papyrologist Jose O’Callahan made an astounding discovery. This discovery was so significant that it made headlines around the world. Among Greek fragments that were discovered in 1955 among the Qumran caves were possible fragments of the Gospel of Mark. The New York Times reported that if "O’Callahan’s theory is accepted it would prove that at least one of the gospels was written only a few years after the death of Jesus." The Chicago Tribune acknowledged that the discovery would revolutionize "biblical research." UPI noted that these findings indicate that "the people closest to the events–Jesus’ original followers–found Mark’s report accurate and trustworthy, not myth but true history" (The First New Testament; D Estrada, W. White; pp. 23-24).

The first of the several New Testament texts to be identified was called 7Q5. This fragment is believed to contain Mark 6:52-53. The size of the fragment is 3.9 cm high and 2.7 cm wide. The document contains 20 letters, partly fragmentary, covering five lines. Like the other fragments found on cave 7, it was written in Greek only on one side, indicating that it was at one time a part of a scroll.” [Complete article...]

For a line-by-line translation of the Book of Isaiah, (the oldest copy in existence was found at the Qumran Cave site) read the work done by Fred P. Miller. This site includes detailed commentary and a facsimile of the scroll itself.