REL 464 - The Inter-Testamental Era
Course Notes
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls are some the writings and library of a group of Essenes who lived at what is now known as Qumran. The name used by the Essene community for the place is not known.
The Essenes were a Jewish group who were very concerned with staying pure and uncorrupted by what they regarded as the worldly ways of the Pharisees and Sadducees in Jerusalem. They retreated to the desert by the Dead Sea, and built a community where they could study and worship in their own way. When the Jewish revolt broke out, the Qumran community does not seem to have taken part in the fighting. They hid their precious scrolls, mostly rolled up and stored in tall pottery jars with lids, in the caves near the community. They then either fled into the wilderness, or they may have joined with the Zealots who were trying to hold Masada against the Romans.
Those who knew where the scrolls were hidden were either killed or unable to return to retrieve the scrolls, so most of the scrolls remained hidden until 1947, when some of them were discovered by Bedouin and sold to a local dealer.
The scrolls are the earliest surviving manuscripts of some of the Books of the Bible, and a such are of great importance for Biblical studies. They date from the time before the Canon of the Old Testament was closed - the Jewish Councils had not yet decided which books were to be counted as inspired Scripture, and which were not. The scrolls also include writings which are not part of the Bible - such as rules for how the Community was to be organized and run, and some particular Essene teachings and accounts of conflicts between the "Sons of Light" and the "Sons of Darkness".
Many of the Scrolls are now housed in the "Shrine of the Book" - a museum built especially for them in Jerusalem.
Copyright © 1999 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved
