dead sea scrolls question

What is the current thinking on what they tell us? I have heard about new books, bible code, original text… I saw once on PBS where the translation table was hijacked from the scholars studying it and published. Whats the latest? I didn’t do a search, forgive me for I have sinned, but I didn’t want the old hash.

Like so many archaeological discoveries, they can often tell people what they want to hear.

The Dead Sea (Qumran) scrolls have given great insight into the mindset of what was presumably a religious sect, around 100 BC. Almost every scroll of the Hebrew bible is found amongst them (one is missing, I forgot which one and am not close to reference material), in almost identical form to what we have today. There are a few scribals errors, and much debate over whether the Qumran scrolls or the traditional text are most “authentic”, since in some cases the Qumran texts seem “better” that the accepted text.

There are also some scrolls that relate to the philosophy and ritual of the sect. Years back, there was great excitement that the sects references to a “Teacher of Light” somehow meant Jesus, or at least some sort of Messianic thought, either in reality or in some sort of prophetic concept. That would be very interesting, implying a messianic hopefulness/readiness a hundred years or so before Jesus. However, many scholars think it reflects some actual events regarding the leaders of the sect.

What have we learned from them? A great deal about the development of the Bible text (Old Testament, at least), and about the mindset of people living in that era.

On the publication/hijack of the scrolls: one side claims that the scholars studying the scrolls (for almost 50 years) were “hogging” the scrolls, not giving broad access. Someone therefore published copies of the scrolls, making them widely available. The other side rigorously denies the accusation, and talks about how the scrolls are extremely fragile, must be examined only under carefully regulated climate control, etc., lest they crumble to dust.

[Edited by C K Dexter Haven on 10-03-2001 at 05:29 PM]

you need to do a search about the Bible code Justin, because the Koalas are sick of hearing about it.

[sym]O{[sup]Ç[/sup]·[sup]Ç[/sup]}O[/sym] [sym]O{[sup]Ç[/sup]·[sup]Ç[/sup]}O[/sym]

[Sesame Street]
One of these terms is not like the others,
One of these terms just doesn’t belong.
Can you tell which term is not like the others,
By the time I finish my song? …
[/Sesame Street]

The scrolls were written by a tribe who lived by the dead sea. It is not known by what name they called themselves but the Jews knew them as “the Essenes”, the Holy Ones.

It is speculated that the Essenes may have been the forerunners of Christianity because their ceremonies were very similar to Christian ceremonies today.

John the Baptist may have been a member of the cult because many of the aspects of his life seem to correlate with cult practice.

If you committed a sin, you were consigned to the wilderness. Once consigned to the wilderness you were expected to live off the land ie eat locusts and wild honey etc.

This is what John was doing when we first meet him in the Bible.

Apparently, however, the Essenes would usually relent and, after someone has done their time in the desert, they would let them back in to the commune.

There are also other many other similarities between Essene belief and Christian belief as documented in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Essenes were dispersed by the Romans not long before the Christians started to get popular.

I think they referred to the “Teacher of Righteousness”. Some people have tried to equate this character with Jesus but there is really not enough evidence to draw this conclusion.

One of the scrolls - “The War Scroll”, depicts the “Teacher of Righteousness” as somewhat more confrontational than Jesus is generally portrayed in the Bible.

I get my information on this from a book I read on the subject by a respected writer, Edmund Wilson, but the book is quite old now so I could be out-of-date on my information.

C K Dexter Haven,

How can “the other side” maintain a credible position considering the fact that the concordance and photographs of the scrolls were kept from the public for so long? I would think that the fact the official scrolls team threatened legal action against those that released this information without permission fatally wounds the arguments of their defenders.

I’ll not get into the information posted by xanakis.
Unfortunately his/her guess that it might be out of date is correct. Also unfortunately I don’t have an online source I could just link to and my translation ( by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, and Edward Cook ) was published in 1996 and I’m afraid it might be just as outdated.

Just my 2sense

I don’t understand how information gleaned from ancient scrolls can be obsolete. It’s not like new infomation is added constantly. What you see is what you get.

Given that the translations are accurate, that’s as much as you will get. Did anybody say the KJV version of the Bible is obsolete?

Huh?

It’s a scholarly quarrel over who gets first dibs on interpreting tiny fragments of parchment and papyrus. It is not some great conspiracy to deprive the world of information. I think the holders of the original texts had a point regarding access to the original texts–they wanted to be able to prevent further damage. Once the photographs had been taken, I think they were out of line to forbid the dissemination of that material (although that was probably more of a “we paid for the photography, we get first dibs on its use”).

Now that the material is out where everyone can see it, I think the scholars should just go about their business of trying to make sense of it.

It ain’t no big deal.

Tom,

My point is that they were hogging the material. C K Dexter Haven presented the disagreement as if there were a reasonable doubt. I don’t see how the charge can be denied with a straight face. C K Dexter Haven is much more knowledgeable than I on this topic and was wondering if I was perhaps missing some important peice of info.

Urban Ranger,

The scrolls themselves aren’t outdated but many of the hypothesises about who wrote them are. The authors of the book I own present arguments casting doubt upon the Standard Model. One part of that model is that the scrolls were written by Essenes. Another is that they were written at the nearby ruin of Qumran.

Just my 2sense

Is it true that they don’t have any vowels?

What I remember is: some group had them and wouldnt let anybody else see them. but they were pressured to release something so they released the index of the words. and then someone got the index and used it to compile the original text , then published it , which got the original group all tightassed. seemed like a Simpsons episode.

Ancient Hebrew had no vowels. Later versions of Hebrew use(d) a “pointing” system (like diacritical marks above the letters) to indicate vowels.

A fairly even-handed (if very sketchy) treatment of the publication contoversy can be found at
http://www.crosscurrents.org/deadsea.htm
Scroll to the section labeled What’s “News”?.

tomndebb,
you are the man and/or woman. that article is perfect. tells me all.

my reason for not searching yahoo for articles was that I couldn’t be sure that I wouldn’t get a slanted version. but this one seems to be level.