The next course I selected as part of my Unschooled Master of Theology program was the KI course, The Dead Sea Scrolls, which is a topical study on the documents found in the caves of Qumran.
As a reminder, you can all of my course assignments for the uThM here.
So, let’s get started….
KWL – What I Knew Before Starting This Study?
I don’t know a whole lot about the Dead Sea Scrolls. I know they were writings from the Essenes who were priestly remnants from Israel who abandoned the temple system and started a monastic-like order in the desert. They were an apocalyptic group, thinking the end of the world was coming. They had a particular leader and spent an inordinate amount of time copying and preserving texts. It’s possible that when they saw the immanent destruction of the temple in 70 AD that they knew they needed to protect their sacred writings and thus the hundreds of scrolls were hidden in the pots in the caves. It is also possible that they were moved to the desert for that particular purpose (maybe even and most likely unbeknownst to themselves) to preserve a copy of the Old Testament in the Hebrew that would end up being older than any other we currently have in existence.
The Dead Sea scrolls today are older than any known Hebrew manuscript that has survived to date. It is extremely useful in comparing with the Masoretic and Greek Septuagint, to determine or have a high confidence in the Old Testament Scriptures that we use.
They were discovered in 1948 by boys (or shepherds, it’s unclear) who haphazardly threw stones into the caves and heard shattering pots. Upon further exploration, the scrolls were discovered. There were hundreds of scrolls and fragments remaining, and there is high confidence that more will be discovered in the future. Many made their way to the black market, but a majority have been placed in the protective hands of museums or academic institutions around the world.
KWL – What I Want to Find Out in This Study?
I’m not sure what a cursory inquiry could do for me as far as new information.
1. I would like to get a clearer picture of where they came from and what the current catalog looks like.
2. I would like to look closer at my collection in Logos and see if I have a complete set.
3. I would like to know more about the scrolls in detail.
4. I would like to know more about the people who created the document copies, what they believed, and if any of their believes have been passed down to evangelicalism today.
Session 1 – Power of the Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a shepherd boy in 1946-1948. It was discovered in the lowest spot on the face of the earth, some 1300 ft below sea level. It is actually one of the few, if not the only, place on earth where scrolls can survive for any real length of time.
It was Eleazar Sukenik who saw the importance of the scrolls and began purchasing them. After his death his son was able to secure all of the remaining 7 scrolls and return them to Israel. They now reside at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. There were, though, over 700 scrolls found in Cave 4 at the site, and these include a variety of different texts, most of which were or are still housed at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem:
-The Great War Scroll
-The Community Rule Scroll
-The Great Isaiah Scroll
-The Great Psalms Scroll
-The Calendrical Scroll
-The Copper Scroll
-The Last Words of Moses Scroll
-The Pseudo-Ezekiel Scroll
-Commentary on Nahum Scroll
-Book of Mysteries
-Book of Enoch
-Gabriel Stone
-Son of God Scroll (100yrs before Luke)
-New Jerusalem Scroll
-Damascus Document
-Genesis Scroll
-Paleo Exodus Scroll (ancient script)
-Leviticus Scroll (paleo)
-Deuteronomy Scroll (all souls)
-Ecclesiastes Scroll
-Hosea Commentary
-Ezekiel Scroll
-Greek Minor Prophets (LXX)
In was an interesting note to discover that the Copper Scroll is one where each letter was beaten into the metal so it would last. This scroll also used unconventional spelling and vocabulary to mark out at least 64 secret caches where money was held for safekeeping. None of these caches have been recovered, so either the money has been looted over the centuries, or they were used by the community itself.
Session 2 – Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible
The first five book of the of the Bible (the Pentateuch) is contained in 87 of the 200 biblical scrolls at Qumran. 15 of the 25 found outside of the Qumran site are from the Torah. This represents about 45% of those total scrolls discovered to be from the Law of Moses.
The Major Prophets are represented by 46 other manuscripts, the Minor Prophets 10. This means that of the prophetic books of the Bible, they are about 1/4 of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Only about 30% of the Dead Sea Scrolls contain the rest of the Old Testament. The Psalms are highly represented with 39 manuscripts. Overall, the most popular books at the Qumran site match quite closely to those quoted in the New Testament (basically, Christian writers were reading just about the same things as the Essenes).
Because of the DSS, it can be said that the Bible, overall, has been transmitted to us quite faithfully through the centuries. This is not to say there are no textual issues. The DSS certainly do not confirm the OT in 99% of cases as some argue. The only biblical book preserved intact is Isaiah. Most scrolls have whole sections missing. There are also significant differences in places. Issues like the height of Goliath are problematic for the Masoretic which has him at 9 feet tall, but both the DSS and the LXX have him at 6 ft.
When the DSS does not align with the Masoretic, it typically will align with another text, most often the LXX. This means we have the majority of the OT accurately representative in some form of current text, whether Masoretic or LXX Greek. It is an argument for an “all of the above” approach to biblical study – it is important to have available all the major early translations (MS, LXX, MT, CT) of both the Old and New Testaments, as well as a variety of modern translations in your native language that span the spectrum between formal and dynamic equivalence.
Primarily found in the Qumran site are two groups of texts: biblical and non-biblical. The biblical books do a fair job of representing all 39 books (except for Esther which they did not seem to support as canonical) as well as several extra-biblical books such as the Book of Enoch. The non-biblical books were specific to the community itself, such as the Community Rules and other prophetic writings not found in the Bible.
Session 3 – Dead Sea Scrolls, Prophecy, and the New Testament
The Dead Sea Scrolls are important for modern Christians because the documents found in the Qumran library represent a confirmation of the Scriptures we have had for the last few hundred years. It testifies that the Scriptures have, in large part, been translated to us quite accurately. Plus, the additional documents (non-biblical) give us greater insight into the world of the New Testament writers.
Though there is no direct evidence that the NT authors came into contact with the works found at Qumran, it is important to note that both handled the OT. There is some speculation that Jesus came from this desert group, though it is not actually supported in the text. John the Baptist was quite possibly an Essene at one time, though no evidence supports this.
The Qumran people has many similarities to early Christians. They would often baptize themselves in large pools of water for the remission of sins (pointing to John the Baptist’s theology). They had an assembly hall in which they met in. They were quite monastic with their members presumably not marrying (though evidence has contradicted this). They often wore white and considered themselves to be the community of light or the community of the new covenant. They could be considered the first monastery in the western world, though, this is a stretch of the definition (monasticism started around 200-400 AD in Egypt with the desert fathers that later grew into centralized monasteries). It would be more apt to describe the Essenes as an intentional or sectarian community rather than a monastic one, though many similarities do overlap. Today we have many archaeological sites available to explore including gravesites, their scriptoriums where the scrolls were actually copied, which have produced work benches and desks as well as the ink wells they used.
Of course, the differences between the Qumran community and early Christians are stark, especially when considering theology. The DSS group, while it did utilize the same source material (the Old Testament) it did come to much different conclusions. They were firstly lost without redemption, having no knowledge of Jesus as the Christ. They did look for a messiah figure, as did the Jewish people in Jerusalem, but they saw their Messianic hope in two forms: a political one and a prophetical one. They looked to other books other than the OT such as the Book of Enoch and other prophetic writings (but I personally think this is a fault found among modern evangelicals dismissing such texts rather than on the Essenes for including them – after all the NT does quote the Book of Enoch and references the Assumption of Moses). Some of the findings of missing sections or verses or alternate translations of both in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 145 are provocative.
Sadly, the Essene community believed there would come a day in which they, the children of light, would fight an Armageddon style battle against the Temple Jews and the Romans and would be victorious. This final battle came for them in 70 AD when the Romans encircled Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. The Essene community was also challenged and annihilated. Their savior never came for them in those last moments, even though they had every book of the OT except for Esther. In the end, they suffered the same fate as the Jews of that time. The same fate as the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The same fate as the Jewish people who were scattered across the whole earth.
But, if they looked for a hope in the Messiah to come, and died doing so, I wonder if they will be part of Israel that is resurrected in Ezekiel 37 to form part of the “great army?” If so, will the Jewish people recognize them as Jewish? I can’t imagine they will really have a choice.
Session 4 – The Prophet Daniel and the Dead Sea Scrolls
The book of Daniel is so prophetically accurate that it has long been suspect of being a forgery. Critical scholars claim that Daniel must have been written after the events it describes since prophecy is actually not possible. But the book of Daniel found in the Qumran site sheds a great deal of light on the subject of its authorship and authenticity.
The most preserved scroll of Daniel at the site was found in Cave 4. It contains large portions of the text including, Daniel 1:16-20; 2:9-11, 19-49; 3:1,2; 4:29, 30; 5:5-7,12-14,16-19; 7:5- 7,25-28;8:1-5; 10:16-20; 11:13-16. Scroll 4QDanb contains Daniel 5:10-12, 14-16, 19-22; 6:8-22,27-29; 7:1-6,11(7), 26-28; 8:1-8,13-16; and 4QDanc has Daniel 10:5- 9, 11-16, 21; 11:1, 2, 13-17, 25-29. Totaled identified are 8 distinct scrolls of Daniel altogether. This number makes it quite a popular document in the community itself. It also contains a great deal of the prophetic portions of Daniel that scholars over the years have presumed were of late origin. But, having been found in the DSS library, an early authorship is unavoidable. In fact, Trever, the first westerner to see the DSS in person, has concluded that the book of Daniel found in the DSS was most likely transcribed as late at 60 AD but most likely before this date. This puts it at being the earliest manuscript we have to date, since the common translation of the book of Daniel is from the Masoretic, which the existing copies we have now are from 1008 AD, and the Masoretic itself was dated to 90 AD.
Interestingly, the text of Daniel itself found in the DSS conforms closely to the Masoretic tradition, and the additions from the LXX are not found, though some textual variants do conform to the Greek versions.
Conclusions
This course inspired me to get an updated collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls for my Logos Library so I, my wife, and our kids would have them in the future. I got the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (bible texts); the Dead Sea Scrolls: a New Translation (non-biblical texts); and then the Qumran Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls Database (really just the Hebrew text of the biblical texts with morphological tagging).
Now, when a mention of the DSS is brought up, such as, “the Dead Sea Scrolls has this or that in it” we can look it up and actually see what the text actually says.
Until my next assignment….
Please consider supporting my writing, my unschooled studies, and my hermitic lifestyle by purchasing one or more of my books. I’m not supported by academia or have a lucrative corporate job – I’m just a mystical modern-day hermit trying to live out the life I believe God has called me to. So, any support you choose to provide is GREATLY appreciated.
Excerpt from Sacred the Circle:
There was a knock at the door.
Campbell got up from the chair and crossed the small distance so he could open it.
A young man stood in the doorway, probably in his early twenties.
Campbell could tell he looked a little disheveled.
Confused.
He had deep rings around his eyes, as if he hadn’t been sleeping much, and he kept checking the hallway in both directions, as if half expecting someone to be stalking him.
“Hey,” Campbell said.
“Uhm….is…this….?”
The kid was stumbling over his own words.
Campbell leaned out into the hallway, checking to make sure there was no one else listening.
This guy wasn’t the only one who was becoming paranoid.
There were two students hanging out at the foyer, near the stairs, but the rest of the floor was clear.
“I’m sorry,” the kid said. “Must be the wrong place. I’m mistaken.”
He started to leave.
“Wait,” Campbell said, putting a hand out. “Hold on a second.”
The kid paused.
“What’s your name?”
“Uh, I’m….Lloyd…”
He fidgeted with his collar.
“I know it sounds crazy, but – ”
“You’re not crazy, Lloyd,” Campbell said, grinning.
“Did you – ? ”
The kid paused, as if unsure if he should continue.
He looked back toward the stairs, then at Campbell.
“Did you know I was coming?” he finally asked. “I mean, that’s not possible, but, were you expecting me?”
Campbell chuckled to himself.
“What’s so funny?” Lloyd asked.
“Well – “
Campbell pushed the door open all the way so Lloyd could see inside his dorm room.
The entire room was full of them, students, non-students, ranging from what looked like eighteen to even a few middle-aged men, scattered about the room, sitting wherever they could find a comfortable spot.
Lloyd’s mouth dropped open.
“I wasn’t really expecting them, either,” Campbell said. “So, I hope you don’t hold it against me when I tell you, I had no idea you’d be showing up here. Do you care to join us, anyway?”
Buy my book Sacred the Circle to find out what these men are hearing from the supernatural realm. Will they answer the questions tugging at them? What are the visions saying? Who are the Multitude? Why are all these men being brought together? By whom? And why, above all else, are they being convicted….to pray?
Get your copy of Sacred the Circle today! Get the upcoming sequel, Sacred the Sent as well so the story never ends !
But, trust me when I say, you’ll be white knuckling this one with every turn of the page!
What do you think?