May 23 – A Bored Shepherd Boy
As the tale goes, a young boy out with his sheep got bored and began aiming rocks at the holes in the hillside when he heard something break. Upon investigation, he had landed upon a series of caves and the breakage was a pottery jar containing some very ancient scrolls.
Whether or not this is true, between 1947 and 1956, eleven caves were found to hold over 900 scrolls which were placed there by the Essene community between 150 BC and 70 AD.
The scrolls themselves have been the subject of much conflict among historians, archeologists, countries, religious scholars and others. They have been sold on the black market, hidden by scholars so that others couldn’t have access and discussed over and over as to their authenticity and importance in history.
In the last few decades nearly all of the fragments have finally been photographed and made available to scholars.
The scrolls are made up of three different types of documents – Biblical (40% of the fragments), Apocryphal (those that didn’t make it into the original canon of the Old Testament – about 30%) and Sectarian (those that have more to do with the community of Jews – about 30%). In the Sectarian scrolls, there have also been found commentaries on many of the Old Testament books.
One of the greatest finds was the Isaiah fragment which is one of the most complete and of which there is more than one copy. The discovery of these scrolls lent authenticity to the canon of the Old Testament and one of the other great things that happened was that in the Sectarian scrolls, since they were written in the period just before Jesus’ birth, many of the phrases that Christ used were discovered to be common patterns of speech in that region and so brought more understanding of the world at the time He lived on the earth.
The significance of this discovery can not be over stated. These are now the earliest scrolls and confirm much of the information we have about the Old Testament and the translations that were made. After 2000 years, this was a treasure for which there was never any realistic price.
The scrolls have been photographed and the photographs in many cases are better representations than the scrolls themselves since they began losing their integrity as soon as they were removed from their linen coverings. They can now be found online and will continue to be studied as scholars look into the world of the Bible in order to understand how we live today in our world.
As the tale goes, a young boy out with his sheep got bored and began aiming rocks at the holes in the hillside when he heard something break. Upon investigation, he had landed upon a series of caves and the breakage was a pottery jar containing some very ancient scrolls.
Whether or not this is true, between 1947 and 1956, eleven caves were found to hold over 900 scrolls which were placed there by the Essene community between 150 BC and 70 AD.
The scrolls themselves have been the subject of much conflict among historians, archeologists, countries, religious scholars and others. They have been sold on the black market, hidden by scholars so that others couldn’t have access and discussed over and over as to their authenticity and importance in history.
In the last few decades nearly all of the fragments have finally been photographed and made available to scholars.
The scrolls are made up of three different types of documents – Biblical (40% of the fragments), Apocryphal (those that didn’t make it into the original canon of the Old Testament – about 30%) and Sectarian (those that have more to do with the community of Jews – about 30%). In the Sectarian scrolls, there have also been found commentaries on many of the Old Testament books.
One of the greatest finds was the Isaiah fragment which is one of the most complete and of which there is more than one copy. The discovery of these scrolls lent authenticity to the canon of the Old Testament and one of the other great things that happened was that in the Sectarian scrolls, since they were written in the period just before Jesus’ birth, many of the phrases that Christ used were discovered to be common patterns of speech in that region and so brought more understanding of the world at the time He lived on the earth.
The significance of this discovery can not be over stated. These are now the earliest scrolls and confirm much of the information we have about the Old Testament and the translations that were made. After 2000 years, this was a treasure for which there was never any realistic price.
The scrolls have been photographed and the photographs in many cases are better representations than the scrolls themselves since they began losing their integrity as soon as they were removed from their linen coverings. They can now be found online and will continue to be studied as scholars look into the world of the Bible in order to understand how we live today in our world.
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