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Khirbat Qumran
Discoveries by the Dead Sea
The Essene Controversy
(1) Settlements, Estates and Fortresses
Date Palms and Balsam
"In the 7th century B.C. Judah incorporated the 'desert province' (Josh 15:61-62) into its eastern frontier. This gave Jerusalem access to minerals in an around the Dead Sea (salt, sulfur, and bitumen being the most important) and control over date-palm plantations first developed along the western littoral in the 7th century BCE. These plantations extended from Khirbet Qumran in the north to En Gedi in the South.
"To secure these economic advantages, Judah had to keep the Buqeah route from becoming the 'haunt of robbers.' For these reasons, a string of three paramilitary outposts - Khirbet Abu Tabaq, Khirbet es-Samrah, and Khirbet el-Maqari- with outliners and nearby desert farms was established in the Baqeah wasteland in the 7th century B.C."
The entire area "from Jericho to Engedi ...[was] populated according to a careful plan with a dense line of settlements, agricultural estates,and fortresses, in an area that had been previously completely unihabited. All these new sites were presumably based on the cultivation of perfume-producing plants, especially balsam. Date palm plantations were probably also developed and minerals extratcted from the Dead Sea."
- Ephraim Stern, "The Eastern Border of the Kingdom of Judah in Its Last Days", Scripture and Other Artifacts, Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Honor of Philip J. King
edited by M. Coogan, J.C.
Exum, and L. Stager, Westminister John Knox Press (1994)
Pompey "pitched his camp at Jericho, (where the palm tree grows, and that balsam which is an ointment of all the most precious, which upon any incision made in the wood with a sharp stone, distills out thence like a juice)... "
- Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Bk XIV, Ch IV, Sn 1 (Also Bk XV, Ch IV, Sn 2)
"Balsam was a medicinal herb as well as used for incense and perfume. The Essenes were known as herbalists."
- Jack Kilmon (Orion)
Qumran, in Feshkha, Ain el Ghuweir, En-gedi, and Ain Boqeq.were occupied during the Roman period which "suggests there is a pattern typical for this area of successive occupations....All, including Qumran, show clear evidence of industrial use which was very probably connected with perfume manufacture."
- Mark Dunn (Orion)
Ein Gedi
"Dr. Hirschfeld, of the Hebrew University, recently invited reporters to see 25 spartan stone cubicles above Ein Gedi [35 kilometers south of Qumran], which he suggested had been the Essene settlement rather than the Qumran location hitherto regarded as such....What Hirshfeld found in the past month's dig was a cluster of 22 detached cells measuring 2 x 3 meters. Each cell, he believes, constituted a habitat for one person. The cells were built of rough assemblages of stones, including large boulders. Roofless now, they would have been covered in antiquity with palm fronds. Beaten earth served as flooring. In addition, there were three cells, twice the size of the others, which Hirschfeld suggests served communal purposes such as cooking."
- Abraham Rabinovich, "A new 'address' for the Essenes ", Jerusalem Post, February 4, 1998
Dr. Hirschfeld bases his opinion that Ein Gedi was the original site of the Essenes on a passage from Pliny.
"On the west side of the Dead Sea, but out of range of the noxious exhalations of the coast, is the solitary tribe of the Essenes , which is remarkable beyond all the other tribes in the whole word, as it has no women and has renounced all sexual desire, has no money , and has only palm-trees for company."
- Pliny the Elder (23 C.E?-79 C.E.)
"...En Gedi was famous for its palms whereas the nearest palms to Qumran were a few kilometers south; the higher sea level at the turn of the era put Qumran much closer to the sea, yet Pliny talks of the settlement being out of range of the harm from the sea."
- Ian Hutchesson (CrossTalk)
"Tiny cells only large enough to house one man each point to an abstinent and austere existence. What seems to be a mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath, lends credence to his theory as well, according to Hirschfeld...Moreover, the excavation turned up no evidence of animal bones -- suggesting vegetarianism, which would have been highly unusual at the time."
- Ilene Prusher, "Archaeologist says new site casts doubt on Essenes' role", newsday.com
"The spartan cluster evokes comparison to the lauras, or clusters of Christian hermits, that dotted other parts of the Judean Desert in the Byzantine period a few centuries later. The month-long excavation produced no finds, except for a few pottery shards and part of a tiny glass bottle..."
"Hirschfeld says that the spartan facilities contrast starkly with the settlement at Qumran. The more luxurious living there does not square with the austere existence of the Essenes. 'Qumran doesn't fit the character of the Essenes -- it seems like a fortified manor house,' says Hirschfeld, who readily concedes that his theory runs counter to most scholars' positions on the issue."
- Abraham Rabinovich, "A new 'address' for the Essenes ", Jerusalem Post, February 4, 1998
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- Associated Press, January 26, 1998
"The excavated site, at the foot of the cliffs rearing over Ein Gedi, is 200 meters higher in elevation than the village and about a kilometer distant on foot. In antiquity, the terraced slopes between the site and the village were planted with balsam, which produced a rare and expensive perfume highly valued in the Roman world. Balsam was grown only at Ein Gedi and Jericho. Alongside the excavated cells are two pools from the same period, which collected water from one of the springs issuing from the bottom of the cliffs. The water was used to irrigate the agricultural terraces."
- Abraham Rabinovich, "A new 'address' for the Essenes ", Jerusalem Post, February 4, 1998
| Click here to compare the Essenes with the communities of the Dead Sea scrolls. |
Other Residences
"There is an interesting article in the March/April 98 BAR entitled: 'Babatha's Story' by Anthony J. Saldarini. It discusses items hidden in the Cave of Letters in the walls of Nahal Hever, a wadi three miles south of En-Gedi. Among the items discovered were a 'beautiful jewelry box, bowls and knives, a frying pan, a mirror, clothing, sandals, cloth and jugs.' The article states, in part' 'Babatha's documents refer to date-palm orchards, houses, courtyards, a trust fund of 400 denarii, a loan of 500 denarii, and other loans, depositis and contracts The cave where the archive was found also contained expensive clothes and personal items, such as cosmetics and utensils. These items of luxury contradict the common belief that the Dead Sea area was barren, inhabited only by austere sectarians such as those at Qumran 60 years earlier. Babatha's and Judah's families were probably typical of the more prosperous residents of the area.'"
- Mark Dunn (Orion)
The archaeologistUzi Dahari is currently excavating a site of one-man stone huts on a cliff similar to those at Ein Gedi about 20 miles away.
"Dahari's site is located in the cliffs south of Wadi Kidron, between Ein Gedi and Qumran--that is, closer to Qumran than to Ein Gedi. The site includes more than ten cells from the first century CE. His excavation found many coins from the first revolt against the Romans. There is no central building nor any Jewish baths or water installations, so he does not think that this site served the Essenes, but perhaps refugees from the first revolt."
- Stephen Goranson (Orion)
In the winter of 1995-96 "Hanan Eshel of Bar-I lan University and Magen Broshi of the Israel Museum, under the auspices of Bar-Ilan University, the Israel Museum, and the Israel Exploration Society...investigated three previously unexplored artificial caves near Qumran . The presence of dishes, cooking pots, and storage jars indicates that these caves were inhabited during the Second Temple Period. The excavators also discovered a tent neighborhood north of Qumran, with complete vessels identical to those found in the settlement, and coins of the first century C.E.
"These discoveries indicate that the members of the community lived in tents and in at least some of the caves around the site....The excavators located the main trail along which members of the sect walked from the community center to their dwellings at the foot of the northern caves [Caves l, 2, 3, ll]. The finds, which do not postdate the Second Temple Period, include 2 Hasmonean coins and 60 nails of Roman boots. The nails demonstrate that the trail was used by many people over a long period. In many ways , Qumran was a dead-end road , with the Dead; Sea reaching the base of the cliffs to the south. Thus, one may assume that everyone using this trail was walking to or from Khirbet Qumran."
- ASOR Annual Meeting Abstracts 1996 ("New Data from the Excavations at Qumran" by Hanan Eshel, Bar-Ilan University
(2) Khirbat Qumran
The Myth of the Scriptorium
Close by the hillside caves where the Dead Scrolls were found is a group of ancient ruins called the Khirbat Qumran - "stone ruins".
John Allegro, "a Semitic philologist, would see a clear root-meaning to the word 'Qumran'. He describes its origins and states that it would have been called 'Gimron' at the time of Jesus and James."
"The verbal root of 'Qumran' is given as 'vault, arch, doorway or the like'. The Qumranians identified themselves with an 'arched doorway'; or put more precisely, they were the people of the pillars with the arch over it!"
- Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, The Hiram Key: Pharaohs, Freemasons and the Discovery of the Secret Scrolls of Jesus
Recent findings are forcing archaeologists and historians to revise earlier theories that Qumran served as a "scriptorium" (a large writing room with benches) and communal center for the sectarians such as the Essenes.
"R. de Vaux, the excavator of Qumran, originally thought that the settlement had been destroyed by a fire sometime before the massive earthquake in 31 B.C.E. (Josephus, Ant 15.121-,47; War 1.370-80).' Later he attributed the destruction to the earthquake and a subsequent fire. It is more likely, however, that the devastation had already occurred, either through the invasion of the Parthians (40/39 B.C.E.)' or as a result of the struggle of the Hasmonean Antigonus against Herod the Great (40-37 B.C.E.). Resettlement began between 4 and 1 B.C.E. during the early part of the reign (4 B.C.E.-6 C.E.) of Archelaus (Mt 2:22). It is striking that the period when no one lived at Qumran is covered by the reign of Herod the Great (37-4 B.C.E.). Even more astonishing is that according to Josephus (Ant 15.373-78) Herod favored the Essenes. Josephus attributes this preference both to the fulfillment of a prophecy made by Manaemos the Essene that Herod would ascend his throne and to Herod's own hatred of the Hasmoneans. Scholars have raised the possibility that the Essenes inhabited the Holy City during a period when the political climate was in their favor.
"Probably taken from the libraries and synagogues of Jerusalem, the [Dead Sea] scrolls represent many ages and traditions of Hebrew writing, with their contradictions, variants and repetitions. The theory of the Essene scriptorium makes a romantic tale; but, unfortunately, little sense."
"...Pauline Donceel-Voute...argues that the principal evidence for the scriptorium - the plastered 'tables' - points rather to a Roman-period dining room, or triclinium. The Romans did not sit down to eat, but instead reclined on cushioned couches. During the years of the Second-Temple period, the Jews came to do likewise. She says the tables were actually couches."
A Judean Fortress?
"...The finds from Khirbat Qumran show that it was originally built as a Judean fortress at some time between the ninth and seventh centuries BC; that it had been fortified for the last time a century or so before Christ and finally destroyed, perhaps by an earthquake, after a siege in which some of the building walls had been sapped. Roman arrowheads found in the ashes suggest that this sack of Qumran took place during the Jewish rebellion of AD 66-70 as the legions had traveled down the western shore of the Dead Sea."
In the graves at Qumran, "burnt bones were among the skeletal remains Approximately 10 percent of the skeletons, in addition, had broken bones. There were further indications of a post-battle, military cemetery, installed - because of the practical necessity of quick burial -close to the site that had been defined."
"The current issue of _Revue de Qumran_ (June 1999) has a report from some German scientists on study of de Vaux's 1956 Qumran cemetery skeletons (which were recently found after all these years). The article is Rohrer-Ertl et al, 'Uber die Graberfelder von Khirbet Qumran, Insbesondere die Funde der Campagne 1956', pp. 3-46. The authors concluded after study of six of the skeletons that the cemetery cemetery consisted of (quoting from the English abstract) 'individuals of all ages at death and both sexes'; also that they were 'part of a pre-industrial ruling class, that is they didn't earn their living by physical work'; and finally that they ate little or no bread. De Vaux had reported women in the cemetery although they were categorized as exceptional and statistically minor. In the forthcoming Dead Sea Discoveries (Dec 1999) Joan Taylor has an article citing new data saying not only that the number of women in the cemetery was greater than de Vaux's picture (this may be a reference to the work of Rohrer-Ertl above)--but also that de Vaux minimized the incidence of women already suggested from the old data, the data he had, through the influence of the Essene sect interpretation. However apparently Joe Zias gave a presentation at SBL in Boston suggesting the opposite...that there was no evidence of women in the cemetery, also citing new data!"
The two fortresses of Qumran and Macherus "on either side of the Dead Sea, within direct sight of each other, could mutually communicate by either fire signals or carrier pigeon, and this way correspondence with Jerusalem could be readily maintained. In time of need troops could be sent straight across the sea to Macherus by boat from landing situated near Khirbet Qumran. The boats employed for this purpose were perhaps of the type used in the Dead Sea as depicted in the Madaba map (sixth century A.D.), which had both oars and sails and could generate considerable speed on the highly buoyant waters of the sea. Khirbet Qumran was thus an integral part of the defense system of encircling fortifications designed to ward off attacks against the capital and the heartland of Judea; and it also served as a stronghold, in times of both peace and war, to guard the route carrying salt, balsam, asphalt, and sugar from the Dead sea region to the capital."
Broken Continuity
"Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the resettlement at Qumran turned out to be significantly smaller than the first. Could it be that the group which returned to the wilderness was even more radical and decidedly esoteric than the Essenes who remained in Jerusalem? If this was the case, then we do well to examine arguments based on a remark by Josephus (Ant 18.19) according to which at least a few Essenes (perhaps at an isolated spot) after Herod the Great's reign offered sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple according to their own halakah. Also interesting in this connection is evidence suggesting that those who lived at Qumran during the second phase no longer made use of the Aramaic parts of 1 Enoch that were found there. The oldest portions of these apocalyptic books date back to before the separation in the mid-second century B.C.E. and, consequently, do not represent Qumran literature as such."
- Rainer Riesner, "Jesus, the Primitive Community, and the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem" in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (James H. Charlesworth, Ed. - 1992), p. 207
- John Romer, Testament
- Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (1996) pp. 22, 23
"Recent investigation by Joseph Patrich and other Israeli archaeologists has uncovered no network of paths converging on the supposed communal center. Medieval monasteries always display such a network connecting the church and dining room to the dispersed cells. Moreover, Patrich has been unable to locate any traces of the hypothesized huts and tents, although in the case of desert archaeology such traces should still be evident. Ancient Bedouin temporary encampments in the desert are readily identifiable centuries later. Qumran was supposedly no mere temporary encampment, but a site occupied more or less continuously for two centuries. Yet there are no traces of any surrounding inhabitants. At most, then, about fifty people inhabited the site, only those who could fit within its walls."
In 1993 "Amir Drori and Yitzhak Magen conducted a limited dig and came to the conclusion that the Qumran complex was founded by the Hasmoneans, not by the Essenes. The pointed out (as, indeed, others had before them) that Qumran was right in the middle of a line of fortresses established by the Hasmonean dynasty. These fortresses ran from Nablus in the north to Masada in the south. They further noted that the elaborate waterworks of the site would have required heavy investment more consonant with a state project than a sectarian initiative. The two scholars' final conclusion was that the founding of Qumran should be viewed as an integral part of the Hasmonean plan to settle and fortify the Jordan Valley."
- Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (1996) pp. 22, 23
- John Romer, Testament
"The graves nearest the walls of the settlement were only thirty-five meters away from them. For reasons of ritual purity, rabbinic law later on ordained, for normative Judaism, a distance of at least fifty cubits between a Jewish settlement and cemetery (Mishnah, Bab, Bathra 2.9), and the thirty-five meters at Qumran just barely satisfied such a requirement. It is impossible to believe, however, that the purity-obsessed brethren described in the Manual of Discipline, who were governed by priests, would have allowed themselves to build a communal cemetery so close to their settlement, particularly when more abundant space was available farther away."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 34
- Greg Doudna (Orion)
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) pp. 39-40
"Pere Roland de Vaux, a mid twentieth-century excavator of Qumran, relied heavily on coin evidence for his dating and interpretations of the various strata of the site. The early coins in the hoard were minted in Tyre and included tetradrachms of Antiochus VII Sidetes and Demetrius II Nicator (136/135 - 127/126 B.C.E.), as well as six Roman Republican denarii from the mid-first century B.C.E. The bulk of the hoard represents the autonomous continuation of the Seleucid mint: the well-known series of Tyrian shekalim and half-shekalim, minted from 126/125 B.C.E. onward. These are the same coins that were prescribed in the Temple for the poll tax and other payments (Tosefta. Ketubot 13, 20)."
- Scrolls from the Dead Sea - an Exhibit at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Tetradrachm of Antiochus VII Sidetes |
"That Qumran was destroyed in 68 or 70 or so is agreed. But before that, back to c.100 BCE, there appear to have been only two physical upheavals. The 31 BCE earthquake, which most agree caused some damage, and an intentional destruction dating approximately within 7 to 3 BCE. The latter possibly resulted from the agitation and perhaps paranoia of Herod the Great's last years or from the unrest following his death. (For example, perhaps some temporary gang sought the wealth that the Tyrian silver coins attests to.) But in both cases Qumran was apparently rebuilt without much delay. Evidently it was not considered a fortress nor the inhabitants soldiers. In the war of c. 40 BCE, Ein Gedi (which was fortified) was destroyed, as archaeology shows. This is confirmed, IMO, by the source in Pliny from c. 15 BCE describing Qumran/Ein Feshkha then as peaceful and Ein Gedi as still in ashes or like a graveyard."
- Stephen Goranson (Orion)
"What we find is a drastic reduction of coins from soon after the reign of Alexander Jannaeus [c. 65 BCE] only picking up again under the procurators [c. 6 CE] ....Such a gap of occupation would make it likely that there was no relationship between those who occupied the site during Hasmonean times and those during the middle part of the following century. There may for example have been a state installation during the Hasmonean period, justifying the costly water system and the defensive tower, then under the procurators a Roman style farm/villa.
- Ian Hutchesson, "Qumran coins and site occupation"
A Rural Manor House?
Archeologist Yizhar Hirschfeld also disputed the " notion that Qumran was a fortress in the Judean wilderness, maintaining it was primarily a civilian society that used the tower to store grain."
- Rebecca Paley, "Scrolls theory disputed ", Associated Press, July 25, 1997
Hirschfeld, "basing himself on his excavation of a similar complex [to that at Ein Gedi] near Zichron Ya'acov, contends that Qumran was a [fortified] rural manor house which oversaw agricultural cultivation at the nearby springs of Ein Fash'ha."
- Abraham Rabinovich, "A new 'address' for the Essenes ", Jerusalem Post, February 4, 1998
Owners of the villa were "members of the ruling class of the Herodian kingdom....who enjoyed the fruits of the Roman occupation."
- Yizhar Hirschfeld (quoted in "Scrolls theory disputed ", Associated Press, July 25, 1997)
"Hirschfeld bases his argument that Qumran is a wealthy Roman-style manor on a comparison of its architecture with other nearby Roman villas from the same period. All the sites share a tower and a residential area surrounding a courtyard.
"Jodi Magness from Tufts University in Boston challenged Hirschfeld's interpretation, saying 'the comparison is only skin deep.' She argued that none of the mosaics, bath houses or Roman pottery typical of the other villas were found at Qumran."
- Rebecca Paley, "Scrolls theory disputed ", Associated Press, July 25, 1997
Purfume bottle(s?) excavated at Qumram also support the thesis that Qumran was an Agrarian center "and the inhabitants may have been cultivists and processors of Balsam. This would tie in the En-Gedi site where the Balsam plants were cultivated to Qumran, perhaps where it was processed and bottled."
"It would also explain why Qumran was 'fortress-like.' Balsam was extremely precious and valuable. It was a targeted spoil for Pompey."
- Jack Kilmon (Orion)
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Dating the Scrolls
"In 1947 Jum'a, a shepherd of the Ta'amireh tribe of the nomadic Bedouins, discovered ancient scrolls rolled up in leather and cloth in a cave to the northwest of the Dead Sea in the Qumran Valley. A remarkable archaeological find, the scrolls formed the first part of a collection of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts that were discovered in quick succession after Jum'a's original find. These ancient texts, which include the Book of Isaiah in its entirety and fragments from all other books of the Old Testament except for the Book of Esther, turned out to be more than 1000 years older than any other known Hebrew texts."
- Douglas Burrows/Liaison International, Encarta Concise Encyclopedia
"The Carbon 14 dating has pretty much settled the matter of the dating of the scrolls [to the 1st and 2nd century B.C.E.]. Also texts such as the Nuchem Pesher has names of historical figures which date it in the 2nd century B.C.E."
The Dead Sea Scrolls "reflect quite well the social situation and the tension between the Qumran community [more properly the Yahad which did not reside at Qumran] and the corrupt priesthood."
- Moshe Shulman
"Scholars with a special interest in obtaining carbon 14 dates for particular texts because of the documents' contents suggested which scrolls from the Judean Desert might be dated. Three scrolls came from Qumran Cave 1, twelve scrolls from Cave 4 and three from other sites in the Judean desert. Scholars and researchers agreed to take no samples which might cause any significant damage to the scrolls themselves. Only milligrams of a sample are needed for radiocarbon age dating by accelerator mass spectrometer technique. All samples were taken from ragged edges of top or bottom margins, and photographs record the exact locations of the pieces taken for analysis. Some samples from date-bearing documents were added as control texts, and the identity and ages of these materials were not revealed to the UA science team in advance. One of the control samples -- a sample of the Book of Isaiah scroll from Qumran Cave 1 -- previously had been radiocarbon age dated at ETH-Zurich in 1990-91, and its identity, too, was unknown to the UA scientists during their tests. The new test results agree with actual written dates on the dated documents and with the Zurich radiocarbon results obtained earlier. The new test results also confirm the reliability of paleography, a comparative study of script.
"'The major importance of the new carbon 14 examinations is that they suggest dates which are very close to the dates suggested by paleographers,' said Emanuel Tov [Editor-in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project, Hebrew University]."
"'Some of the newly analyzed texts are of central importance for our understanding of the Qumran community', he added, citing four such texts that concern various aspects of the Qumran legal system. Another text, the well-known pesher or commentary on Habakkuk, which is on display at the Shrine of the Book, is of fundamental importance for the historical reconstruction of the origins of the Qumran sect. The new radiocarbon dates show the manuscript was written before 43 BCE -- contrary to theory that says there was an early Christian connection to the Qumran sect.
"The UA team radiocarbon dated the famous Book of Isaiah scroll at between 335 BCE and 122 BCE. Paleographers had dated this scroll at between 150 - 125 BCE. The team also analyzed the commentary on the Psalms (UA radiocarbon dated at between 22 CE and 78 CE); the Messianic Apocalypse that paleographers date at 100 BCE to 80 BCE (UA radiocarbon dated at between 35 BCE and 59 CE); the Exodus scroll of the Bible written in ancient Hebrew script that paleographers date at between 100 BCE and 25 BCE (UA radiocarbon tests date it between 159 BCE and 16 CE); and an inscribed round leather patch with holes that was attached to the Exodus scroll. Paleographers date the patch between 50 BCE and 50 CE (UA radiocarbon dated the patch at from 98 BCE to 13 CE). 'Inscribed patches of this sort have been described in ancient Jewish writings', Tov said."
- "New Radiocarbon Age Dates for Dead Sea Scrolls Agree With Paleographic Dates", Lori Stiles University of Arizona, News Services (April 11, 1995)
There still remains some dispute over the results of the Carbon 14 dating of the scrolls.
"The historical references, especially in the Habakkuk Pesher, the Temple Scroll and the Damascus Document clearly contradict any C-14 reports, which cannot be calibrated that precisely, anyway. For one thing, C-14 only measures approximately when the material was produced, NOT when somebody wrote on it. As Eisenman points out, C-14 gave a 4th century BC/CE dating of the Kohath, which is most likely a 1st century BC/CE document. One papyrus with an actual known date of 135 AD/CE was dated to 231-332 AD/CE and another with an actual known date of 128 AD/CE was dated to 86-314 AD/CE (quite a range!)."
- Libertarius
Traces of castor oil (used to brighten the texts on the leather) was found on 4QpPs, one of five "outliers", scrolls dated by radiocarbon analysis which show later dates than the bulk of the others.
"John Allegro, John Strugnell, and Frank Cross have all explained that they regularly cleaned the Scrolls with castor oil in order both to get the dust off and to bring up some readings. They could not at the time have known that this would interfere with future C-14 studies, as, in their day, radiocarbon analysis required such enormous quantities of material that direct testing of the manuscripts themselves was out of the question; hence they had no reason to be cautious in this respect."
- Fred Cryer (Orion)
This finding makes the date anomalous: it may or may not reflect a true date. In addition to castor oil, nicotine contamination by smokers handling the scroll material has to be taken into account.
"Little reliance should be placed on an individual 14C date to provide an estimate of age for a given object, structure, feature, or stratigraphic unit. A critical judgment of the ability of 14C data to infer actual age can best be made with a suite of determinations . Concordance of values on different sample types from well-defined stratigraphic contexts provides one of the strongest arguments for the accuracy of age assessments based on 14C values."
- R. E. Taylor, Radiocarbon Dating, 1987, p. 105).
Scroll Jar |
Unique wide-mouthed jars which held many of the scrolls are found only the region around Jericho and the Dead Sea. They have been used to attempt to determine when the scrolls were deposited in the caves. De Vaux, the archaeologist who excavated Khirbat Qumran, found a similar wide-mouthed jar in the ruins there.
"A piece especially important is the jar of Fig. 2, 4, found intact and buried in the ground at the northwest corner of room 2. It was empty and covered by a slab (or square) of chalky bituminous substance which covered the paved floor. It is identical to those which were recovered from the first cave of the manuscripts and which were found in great number in other caves explored in 1952 in the region of Qumran."
- De Vaux, RB 1953.
A number of scholars argue that the jar (and others installed in the corners) date to Period 1b (before the 31 B.C.E. destruction of Qumran) when the paved floor was built. However, there are a number of good reasons to date the jar to Period II (after Qumran's second destruction in 9/8 B.C.E.).
(a) Some first century C.E. coins were found on top, around, and within the jar.
(b) A jar of the same type "in North Jordan [Abila] was found in a tomb context ranging later than Qumran....It was found in a salvage dig, with inkwells (one of which, which was photographed, resembles Qumran ceramic inkwells). Records of that dig, apparently, are
lost."
- Stephen Goranson (Orion)
(c) Similar scroll jars were discovered at Masada, Herod's mountain retreat seized by the fanatic Sicarii in 66 C.E.
A Wide Diversity
"The major corpus of the Dead Sea scrolls, about 600 manuscripts, dates from c. 250 B.C. to 68 B.C. Others works from the Southern Jordan Rift, Nahal Hever and Nahal Seelim chiefly, date from 131 to 135 B.C. Masada produced materials from the first century B.C. to A.D. 73.
"The manuscripts include segments of all the Hebrew scriptures (except Esther; see Old Testament), and more than one variant of many. For example, the three Samuel manuscripts from Qumran are much fuller texts than those of the Masoretic Bible (the traditional text). Also found were fragments of apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books, as well as manuscripts of previously unknown religious works, including a Temple Scroll, a Manual of Discipline, and a Thanksgiving Scroll."
- Frank Moore Cross, Jr., "Dead Sea Scrolls: Overview"
"The Biblical manuscripts found in the Qumran, are distributed as follows: 60% Proto-Masoretic texts, 20% Qumran style manuscripts, 10% Nonaligned texts, 5% Proto-Samaritan texts, and 5% Septuagintal type texts. Further more, the Qumran style manuscripts have their bases in the proto-Masoretic texts. The Masoretic type texts were dominant in the time of the Hasmonean period (about 160 B.C.E.). [p. 172 of Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls by Shiffman]
"...Most of the texts that vary from the Masoretic (4 LXX manuscript fragments, for example, dating to the 1st and second century B.C.E.), come from cave 4. This is the cave where the texts were not preserved carefully in jars. It is conjectured, that cave 4 was a geniza for the depositing of texts that were damaged or had textual errors."
- Gretchen Haas
"...According to Frank Moore Cross (another DSS scholar) there are at least 3 'families' of texts at Qumran : the MT 'family', the 'Egyptian' family, and a 'Palestinian' family . The 'Egyptian' version which, among other things, has a different version of Jeremiah, became the basis for the LXX. The 'Palestinian ' became the basis for the Samaritan version. The MT variety was the ancestor of what we use today--although even within these 'families' there was sometimes variation. We do not know which version was being used by, say, the Sadducees of the Temple sect, or even which the Essenes themselves used. The Jewish community at Alexandria evidently used the Egyptian 'family' or the LXX."
- Randolph Parrish
"The 'biblical' library of Qumran represents a fluid stage of the biblical text. Those documents show no influence of the rabbinic recension of the canon, the direct ancestor of the traditional Hebrew Bible. The scrolls help to place both the Pharisaic text and the canon in the era of Hillel, roughly the time of Jesus. In their selection of canonical books, the rabbis excluded those attributed to prophets or Patriarchs before Moses (e.g., the Enoch literature, works written in the name of Abraham and other Patriarchs). They traced the succession of prophets from Moses to figures of the Persian period. Late works were excluded, with the exception of Daniel, which, the rabbis presumably, attributed to the Persian period."
- Frank Moore Cross, Jr., "Dead Sea Scrolls: Overview"
"...While the scrolls consisted of works of literature, none of them [other than the Copper Scroll] seemed to show signs of an original author in the act of writing down his thoughts; none, that is, could be considered which is properly called a literaryautograph....The scrolls...were apparently all smoothly written copies of literary works, made by scribes, and -judging by the nature of the scribal errors - sometimes two or more steps removed from the original authors' texts, now vanished, upon which they were based."
Text reconstructed from the fragments of a number of documents "appear to consist of accounts of grain sales, lists of witnesses, and deeds of purchase; there may also be an acknowledgment of debt from the reign of Herod (ruled 37-4 B.C.) and an act of ownership dating to the reign of Tiberius Caesar (ruled 17-37 A.D.). They reflect the private ownership of goods and property, a fact basically inconsistent with the principles of communal ownership laid down in the Manual of Discipline."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) pp. 54, 60-61
"One of the most remarkable finds to result from these explorations [into the caves] was that of phylacteries (Hebrew, tefillin) discovered in several caves. until the present day, strictly observant Jews attach leather thongs to small capsules, containing the text of Exodus 13.1-16, Deuteronomy 6.4-9 and 11.13-21, and bind these capsules to forehead and arm in literal fulfillment of the Deuteronomic injunction..."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 101
"Bind [these words that I command you this day] as a sign upon your hand and as frontlets between you eyes."
- Deuteronomy 6:8
"...The texts of most of the [approximately 30] phylacteries found in the caves - published by several scholars in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1979s - showed no consistency with one another.", varying in both the length and selection of texts.
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 102
"There is no basis in the evidence that I can see to assume continuity of a single group from early 1st B.C.E. to the 1st C.E., to assume two long major periods of habitation, or to put more specific dates on habitation periods other than an AJ-55 B.C.E. phase on one end and the 60's CE on the other end (and a moment in time attested at 8 B.C.E.). Continuity of a single group through all of this seems to me so seriously improbable that it does not seem to me to merit even the status of reasonable conjecture."
- Greg Doudna (Orion)
"Over fifty different handwritings were represented in this first Qumran cave alone -where, according to the notion of a sect living at Qumran and the corresponding identification of one building there as a scriptorium, one would have rather expected to find several groups of texts, each written by a much smaller number of scribes, and with a relatively large number of texts done by a single scribe. Such was the situation on the island of Elephantine, in upper Egypt, where...Aramaic manuscripts of the fifth century B.C. were discovered many years ago. Michael Wise of the University of Chicago, an incisive interpreter of the Qumran texts and their cultural milieu, has pointed out that, by any reasonable estimate, the number of inhabitants at Elephantine was perhaps fifty times the estimated number of 'sectarians' who have been claimed to live at Khirbet Qumran, and that nevertheless the Elephantine inhabitants 'relied upon only a dozen or so scribes. And this total served over a period of three or four scribes at the most could have been active there in a given generation."
In contrast, the Dead Sea Scrolls are "a cache of Hebrew manuscripts copied by at least five hundred scribes..."
"The great number of scroll remnants, exhibiting a variety of disparate doctrines, many without tangible sectarian bias, indicates their place of origin was a large cultural center in Hellenistic and Roman Judea, such as only Jerusalem was before A.D. 70."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) pp. 97-98, 332, 148
Additional Caches
After the fall of Galilee (November 67 C.E.) and , the Romans swept through northern and eastern Judea before bringing their forces to bear against Jerusalem.
"Those charged with hiding artifacts of importance would clearly have sought to do so in areas the Romans did not yet control; but already by the summer of A.D. 68, the only such territory was that portion of Judea lying to the east and south of the city..."
Josephus "described how during the seize Judah son of Ari, commander of a company at the siege, had 'secretly escaped through some of the underground passages' (War 7.215), fleeing then to the Jardes forest. The Jerusalemites were particularly able to utilize points of egress in the southern part of the city, where Roman troops would not concentrate until the capture of the second wall of the capital had been completed (end of May, A.D. 70)."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 145
Titus "showed them how impracticable it was to cast up any more banks, for want of materials, and to guard against the Jews coming out still more impracticable; as also, that to encompass the whole city round with his army was not very easy, by reason of its magnitude, and the difficulty of the situation, and on other accounts dangerous, upon the sallies the Jews might make out of the city. For although they might guard the known passages out of the place, yet would they, when they found themselves under the greatest distress, contrive secret passages out, as being well acquainted with all such places; and if any provisions were carried in by stealth, the siege would thereby be longer delayed."
- Flavius Josephus, War of the Jews, Bk V, Ch XII, Sn 1
"It was only after the fall of the capital [70 C.E.] that the Romans captured several known fortresses of the region, i.e., Herodium, Macherus, and Masada." Qumran was likely captured during this time "when the Roman troops under Lucilius Bassus began their entrance into the Judean Wilderness, the last remaining area of Jewish resistance."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 13
Two significant finds of hidden scrolls in the neighborhood of Jericho (northwest of the Dead Sea) were recorded long before the famous discovery at Qumran in 1947.
"...Toward the middle of the third century A.D., the learned and prolific church father Origen had made use of a Greek translation of the Bible that, so he stated, had been found 'together with other Hebrew and Greek books in a jar near Jericho'. [Origen added three columns to his Psalter - making it an Enniapla. He is quoted as stating that the last (the third of the three additions and the ninth of the total) came from the jar.] Origen wrote that this find had been made during the reign of Antoninus Severus (i.e., Caracalla) who ruled from A.D. 211 to 217."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 101
"The dog of a hunting Arab...entered a cave and did not come out. His master followed him and found a dwelling within the rocks, in which were many books. The hunter went to Jerusalem and informed the Jews. They came in throngs and found books of the Old Testament and others in Hebrew script."
- Nestorian Patriarch Timotheus I of Seleucia in a letter mentioning an incident 'near Jericho' (aprox. 800 C.E.)
"...Neither Origen nor Timotheus actually state that the finds were made near the shore of the Dead Sea, which is much closer to Qumran than Jericho...Origen in particular, who lived for some years in Palestine and was intimately acquainted with its geography, would never have spoken so vaguely."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 101
The Copper Scroll, discovered near Qumran in 1955, alludes to the possibility of still more undiscovered caches of scrolls (and treasure!) in the wilderness near Jericho.
"The listing of riverbeds, water systems, and gorges described in this scroll as hiding places forms a word map of the complex system of wadis leading out from Jerusalem though the Judean Wilderness and toward the Dead Sea. The great treasure described as hidden there, and the scrolls and 'writings' associated with them in several columns of the text, are thus geographically traceable directly back to Jerusalem."
"...It may have been the priests who hid the Temple treasures described in the Copper Scroll, along with the scrolls mentioned in that document, but is was other Jews, both individuals and those associated with houses of study in the city, who had hidden most of the Dead Sea Scrolls."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 147, 161-162
Texts similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the mountaintop fortress of Masada, most likely brought in by refugees fleeing Jerusalem during the Jewish War (66 C.E. to 70 C.E.).
"In the ruins were found, beside many artifacts of the period, inscribed coins, jars with names of their owners, ostraca, and most importantly, fragments of at least fifteen Hebrew texts."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 132
A room projecting from the double wall surrounding the fortress may have served as a synagogue for the Sicarii. It had "four tiers of plastered benches around its sides, and places for pillars in the middle of the room. It was nearly the same size as the hall at Herodium, about 15 meters/50 X 12 meters/40 feet."
- Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus, p 31
Fragments from the Book of Ezekiel, chapter 37, the vision of the valley of dry bones and the last part of the Book of Deuteronomy were found at the site of the alleged synagogue.
In addition to the room at Masada and a few other locations, texts were also found "in the areas of Masada that had been mostly occupied by the Zealots and the refugees from Jerusalem. They included a fragment of Leviticus, fragments of two copies of Psalms, portions (twenty-six fragments) of the original Hebrew text of the Wisdom of Ben Sira (= Ecclesiasticus), fragments of two copies of Jubilees, fragments of several otherwise unknown literary texts, some documentary papyri fragments in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, and, most remarkably, a part of the so-called Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (known also as the 'Angelic Liturgy'). Manuscript fragments of this latter work, but in other handwritings, had also been found, mirabile dictu, in Qumran Caves 4 and 11 more than a decade earlier."
"The literary texts were, generally speaking, of the same character as those found at Qumran - i.e., canonical writings, aprocryphal and pseudepigraphic compositions, and texts otherwise unknown. In addition, the handwritings in the fragments were all different from one another just as they almost constantly were in the Qumran scrolls."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 132
| Click here for the complete text of Ezekiel's description of the throne-chariot of God. |
"The Qumran manuscripts were, by the evidence, part of yet larger collections of scrolls, hidden away at some time during the first century A.D. in various places throughout the Judean Wilderness, including Masada, the caves near Khirbet Qumran, and areas near Jericho. Artifacts of great material value quite obviously from Jerusalem had been buried in the same general area and at the same time..."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) pp. 136, 143
Resemblances to Rabbinic Judaism
The Dead Sea Scrolls"show that at the time the scrolls were hidden, there was not yet a single authoritative text of scriptural writings but rather different versions of the same texts that circulated widely among the Palestinian Jews. Some of these version were closer to that of the (Greek) Septuagint version of the Bible, others to the Samaritan tradition, and still others to the traditional Massoretic text of the Hebrew scriptures that has survived among the rabbinic Jews until today."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 362
Unlike the lunar calendar used by the priesthood of the Temple, the Book of Jubilees insists on a solar calendar.
"The Jewish lunar calendar was believed to be erroneous by comparison with solar calendar of Jubilees putting the heavenly sabbath and other rituals out of alignment because the 'great eternal light which for ever and ever is named the sun' appointed the heavenly course of time. Many of these factors are consistent with Persian influence, including the sun worship and the conflict between order and disorder."
- Chris King, "The Apocalyptic Tradition"
"The calendars also show a wide variety of practices among the intertestamental Jews....What we have in most of them is a system of computation of the yearly cycles that was slightly more primitive than the particular lunisolar system eventually adopted by rabbinic Judaism."
- Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?, (1995) p. 363
Interpreting the Scrolls
"The people who wrote them [the Dead Sea Scrolls] read the Bible as if it was written about them. That is a very common attitude. Daniel had already told how a promise made by the prophet Jeremiah would come true in his time."
- Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus
"In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scripture, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years."
- Daniel 9:2
"So the authors of these commentaries identified themselves, their leaders, their enemies and foreign powers with figures in the biblical prophesies."
- Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus
"I will build...your foundations with sapphires."
- Isaiah 54:11
"A commentary on Isaiah interprets the sentence as follows: 'this concerns the priests and the people who laid the foundations of the council of the Community...the congregation of his elect will be like a sapphire among stones.'"
- Alan Millard, Discoveries From the Time of Jesus
"The Dead Sea Scrolls consist of fragments from many manuscripts, however, some of the most interesting among them are the Pesher texts. The Pesher texts are strings of interpretations of Biblical verses compiled by the most knowledgeable among the Jews. The word itself is derived from the Hebrew root word p-sh-r, which means, 'to explain'. The texts consist of Biblical passages followed by the words pesher ha-davar 'the interpretation of the matter is', and then the interpretation itself.
"The basis of all of these texts is the notion that all of history is preordained by God. In other words, God is not restricted to looking at matters as 'past' , 'present' , or ' future', rather, all of time is an open book to God. Indeed, this is the essence of how prophets receive 'prophesies' , because God 'sees' the future."
- Misheal Al-Kadhi
The pesher is a system in which "the scroll writer takes an Old Testament book such as the minor prophet Habakkuk, which deals with events in 600 BC, when the armies of the Babylonians were marching towards Judea, inspiring fear and terror. He goes through it verse by verse, and after quoting each passage adds 'Its pesher is...', then explains that it is really about events in his own time."
- Barbara Thiering, Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls