Giving Life to the Dead Sea Scrolls
"Two years ago none of [the Dead Sea Scrolls publication team]
knew where BYU was... Provo [Utah] has suddenly become the international center of Dead
Sea Scrolls study."
Dr. Weston Fields, founder and executive
director,
The Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, Jerusalem |
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| Looking out of one of the Qumran caves |
Qumran, located some 18 kilometers east of Jerusalem
near the northwest end of the Dead Sea, was little more than an obscure dot on the
Jordanian map in 1947. Then things changed dramatically when some Bedouin shepherds found
clay jars in a cave near the shoreline. In those jars were very ancient scrolls.
These shepherds did not immediately recognize the true nature of the scrolls, but word
of the discovery quickly escalated into pivotal archeological discoveries and even more
resourceful surreptitious activity on the part of some of the local population. The world
came to realize that Qumran was a major repository for ancient Jewish scriptures and other
historical documents dating from the Second Temple (or Intertestamental) Period, which
means they were twice as old as the medieval manuscripts that had previously served as the
basis for our standard biblical texts. Archeologists eventually found thousands of scrolls
and fragments in eleven different caves.
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