JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY AND HISTORY OF EDUCATION, VOL. 49
THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS: A CHALLENGE TO THE FAITH?
Donna Younker
University of Central Oklahoma, emerit a
From the discoveries of archeology we have learned that
civilization and cultures never die.... The more we unearth, the
more we see how ancient civilizations have had a subtle but
unmistakable impress and bearing upon our own lives today.
--Dr. Paul Ilton
This paper is limited to the discovery and verification of the Old Testament writings found at
Qumran.
The Shepherd Boy Who Discovered the Scrolls
The desert has always played a prominent part in biblical history. The Dead or Salt Sea lies twenty miles to the southwest of the ruins of Qumran (Khirbet Qumran) at a record 1300 feet below sea level. In the barren wilderness landscape of Khirbet Qumran there is no breathable air in the landscape of stark craggy hills of the Judean desert. The story of the scrolls carefully preserved in earthern vessels in eleven nearby caves are the most significant archeological find of the twentieth century. Some scholars believe many scrolls were brought to Qumran for preservation from Roman legions. The destruction of the settlement by Vespasian occurred in 68 A.D. His son, Titus, ravaged Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Until the discovery of several scrolls by a Bedouin shepherd boy, Muhammad edlh-dhib (Muhammad the Wolf) in 1947, no one knew of the immense library hidden away for nearly 2000 years.
On a usual day, this Arab Bedouin boy was tending his herd. Pursuing a stray goat, Muhammad threw a rock exposing the cave, now known to archeologists as Cave 1. The caves from which over eight hundred different manuscripts were discovered are now numbered in the sequence they were unearthed. Of the eight hundred manuscripts, fewer than a dozen were in any sense intact.1
Unfortunately Arab Bedouin boys, living in the Judean desert as their ancestors have from biblical times, see seasons blend into years and do not possess a Western sense of chronology. Therefore 1947 is the accepted date for the discovery of the scrolls. Although one copy of what is now known as the Damascus Document (CD), or series of laws from the Qumran community, had been discovered in a Cairo synagogue in December 1896. The Damascus Document (CD) was taken to Cambridge, England where translation was made by the end of the last century by Solomon Schechter.2 It is known today that the term "Damascus" was a secret reference to Qumran.
In the year 1947, Israel was in the final days of the British mandate in Palestine. The Jewish quarter of Jerusalem was separated from the Arab or eastern quarter by barbed wire. The priceless manuscripts were in the Palestinian part of the Holy Land, occupied by Arabs. The nomadic Bedouins thought the scrolls, which were originally found wrapped in leather bindings housed in jars, might be of value.
In April 1947, a Bedouin tribal leader took seven or eight scrolls to Bethlehem, which is still under Palestinian control. These scrolls consisted of a complete Isaiah manuscript, a rule book entitled The Manual of Discipline, a commentary on the Book of Habakkuk and a manuscript now known as the Genesis Apcryphon.
In Bethlehem, a merchant known as Kando operated a general store, cobblers shop and dealt in antiquities. Kando was a member of the Syrian Orthodox congregation and a personal friend of Mar Samuel, the Archbishop of Jerusalem. Mar Samuel, although lacking expertise in biblical Hebrew, recognizing the potential value of the scrolls, bought four for about $100.3 He consulted the famous Dominican 'Ecole Biblique et Archeologigue Francaise in East Jerusalem. Through writing and sending manual scrap to Professor William Foxwell Albright of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, the world's leading expert on ancient Jewish scripts, the 'Ecole Biblique received confirmation in February 1948 that the scrolls constituted the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.
Mar Samuel's scrolls, after display at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., were then advertised for sale in a blind ad in the Wall Street Journal. Through an intermediary, the Arch Bishop's manuscripts were purchased by the State of Israel.4
It was destined, however, for Professor Elezar Sukinik, the famed archeologist of Hebrew University, to be the first man to actually read and recognize fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. A special structure called the Shrine of the Book (shaped like the top of the vase in which some of the scrolls were discovered) was constructed to house them at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Israel. The seven scrolls, including three found by Sukenik, remain on public display.
On November 23, 1947 E. L. Sukenik received a phone call at Hebrew University from an Armenian friend, Levon Ohan.5 Ohan, the son of a well-known antiquities dealer, represented Kando who was still attempting to validate scrolls remaining at his shop and house.
Sukenik has recorded his version of events in some detail in a diary published by his son, Yigael Yadin, former chief of operations of the HaganaH who later became Israel's most prominent archeologist in his own right.
Upon receiving the phone call, Sukenik agreed to a secret meeting at the gateway to military Zone B. On the other side of the barricade, Ohan removed a scrap of parchment from his brief case and showed it to Sukenik through the barbed wire, Sukenik noticed that the form of the Hebrew letters resembled that of letters he had studied on ossaries--limestone bone boxes that were common in Jerusalem some 2000 years ago.6 Gazing at the scrap of parchment, this scholar was stunned and amazed. He wrote in his journal:
Today I met the antiquities dealer. A Hebrew book has been discovered in a jar. He showed me a fragment written on parchment. The script was very ancient to me. Is it possible?7
Sukenik immediately decided to obtain a pass to go to Kando's store in zone B, the Arab stronghold of Bethlehem. Against the advice of his wife, who thought he was "crazy" to attempt this risky trip, and that of his son who was preparing immediate warfare, anticipating Arab rejection of the United Nations' proposal for partition of the Holy Land. On November 29, 1947, Sukenik and Ohan boarded a bus for Bethlehem.
Although tension was evident because Sukenik was the only Jew on the bus, he arrived uneventfully at Kando's store. After the usual middle eastern exchange of coffee, Sukenik "borrowed" for scrutinization three documents: the Hymn Scroll and the War Scroll Sukenik took immediately to Jerusalem. In December, a partial Isaiah scroll was received.8
The Dead Sea Scrolls shed information of great biblical significance regarding the book of Isaiah. The Shrine of the Book now contains a manuscript of the Book of Isaiah, some twenty-four feet in length, and virtually complete containing all sixty-six chapters. Although written by three separate scholars over the course of several hundred years, the Book of Isaiah was contained on that single scroll.
In the year 1969, I personally visited the Shrine of Book which was constructed in the early 1960's in Jerusalem to house the seven original scrolls from Cave 1. 1969 was two years after the Six Day War which gave the State of Israel control of East Jerusalem and all scroll material. At this time the holy parchment of the Isaiah scroll was actually on display. Despite a temperature and light controlled environment, the extreme fragility of this ancient documents has caused the original to now be stored underground. Photographic copies are available.
In 1969 heavy security was then necessary including the search of visitors' belongings, similar to that carried on now at most European museums. Cases containing the Seven Scrolls were programmed to drop many feet below ground in the event of war. This is similar to arrangements made to protect the Constitution of the United States in Washington, D.C.
Khirbet Qumran (the ruin of Qumran) was inaccessible to American travelers in 1969. The Jordanians were firing randomly across the Dead Sea. Early on an August morning at 6 a.m., a Palestinian guide and bus drove us the thirteen miles from East Jerusalem to the Dead Sea where temperatures reached 101o. One cave in the marl terrace of Khirbet Qumran was indicated in the distance. Upon reaching the Salt Sea, where a number of undauntable people were floating, our guides indicated a bullet hole in the bathing pavilion where an American girl had been inadvertently killed by Jordanians on the previous day. Our Palestinian guides then vanished to hide behind the bus for safety.
To complete the discovery of the scrolls in Cave 1 in the Judean desert, it is fitting to quote Professor Sukenik, who began examining the documents on the very evening he reached Jerusalem, November 29, 1947. It was on that evening, November 29, 1947 the United Nations voted for the creation of the State of Israel.
Sukenik's diary entry reads:
This great event in Jewish history was thus combined in my home in Jerusalem with another event, no less historic, the one political, the other cultural.9
The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Bible and the creation of the State of Israel, after a 2000 year diaspora, are somehow fatefully linked.
The manuscripts
Yigal Yadir, Purchaser of the Scrolls for Israel, said,
Just as a Christian reader must be excited by the manuscripts of a sect who may have been known and influenced early Christians, so a Jew find nothing more deeply moving than manuscripts written by the People of the Book, more than 2000 years ago.10
The latest lists of manuscripts compiled by James C. Vander Kam that the biblical books of the Old Testament are represented in the following number of copies (using the common order for books in the Hebrew Bible).11
The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, p. 30:
Genesis 15, Exodus 17, Leviticus 13, Numbers 8, Deuteronomy 29,
Joshua 3, Judges 3, Ruth 4, 1-2 Samuel 4, 1-2 Kings 3,
1-2 Chronicles 1, Ezra 1, Nehemiah 0, Esther 0, Job 4,
Psalms 36, Proverbs 2, Ecclesiastes 3, Song of Solomon 4, Isaiah 21,
Jeremiah 6, Lamentations 4, Ezekiel 6, Daniel 8, Twelve Prophets 8,
Esther is omitted because Khirbet Qunram did not recognize Purim as a Hebrew holiday.
If one works with the numbers listed above, the total for the biblical manuscripts is 202 copies, or about one quarter of the 800 manuscripts found at Qumran.12
The numbers cited give what appears to be a reliable impression of where the Qumran Yahid (community) placed its emphasis. The Psalms could be used for worship and meditation. The legal books of the Torah--Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (29)--served as a basis for life under the covenant governing Qumran. The 15 copies of Genesis evidence historical customs followed by the order.
The lack of strict adherence to the law was apparently the main reason the sect split from the Second Temple. The letter of the law is evidenced in the precepts laid down by Qumran's leader: The Teacher of Righteousness. Eschatologically, Qumran lived in end-times. Following the destruction of the Second Temple by Titus in 70 A.D., the book of Lamentations attributes the annihilation of Jerusalem to the fact that impurity and lack of adherence to God's covenant with Moses caused the Lord's anger and vengeance on his chosen people.
Authorities, with the exception of John J. Collins, believe this was an apolyptic Jewish sect, who had gone into the desert to fulfill the command of the prophet Isaiah:
Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the dessert ... a highway for our God. (Isaiah 40:13).
The fact that the Second Temple no longer had a Davidic priest had deluded Judaism. Hellenism had tainted the Jewish heritage.
The exact nature of the Jewish sect at Zumran is presently disputed among scholars. The January-February Biblical Archalogical Review13 yields a number of hypotheses.
The earliest "standard model" was that of Father Roland de Vaux of the 'Ecole Biblique, the scriptorium where the scrolls were first examined. The 'Ecole Biblique was a French Dominican institution in East Jerusalem which was originally Palestinian territory. The first excavation of the Qumran site was headed by Father Roland de Vaux, who believed the community to be Essene.
The confirmation of Essene origin may be found in a new work published this year, 1998, by Hartmann Stegmann, entitled The Library of Qumran.14 The word Essene means the Pious Ones. A letter from the correspondence written by Bar Kochba's group of fighters against the Romans refers to Qumran as the Fortress of the Pious Ones (mesad hasidim) D.I.D. 2 [1961]. Hartmann's work, which originally appeared in German, has been praised by Collins, Vander Kam, and Vermes.
Father de Vaux argued that the earliest remains began around 140 B.C.E. and probably flourished during the reign of the Hasmonian High Priest, John Hyrcanus (150-140 B.C.E). At this time the aqueduct that brings water from the hills into the building structure was constructed and upper stories were added to the older structure. The entire complex was then coated with plaster.
Pere de Vaux formed an international team of eight scholars. in 1955, de Vaux published Discoveries in the Judean Desert. Discoveries in the Judean Desert, written in French, was to be the first of a series to be issued by the Oxford University press. Unfortunately, too many manuscripts were assigned to too few scholars. There was no deadline for publication of the Oxford press series. Many manuscripts first appeared in journals of biblical archeology.
In 1870, Heinrick Schliemann had discovered the exact location of Troy from reading the Iliad. The excavation of Troy developed standard archeological principles of stratifying layers of civilization. Ancient near eastern cities contain different layers of civilization, recognized by distinctive artifacts peculiar to specific dates. Many mounds in Israel which cover cities that have been destroyed and rebuilt on the exact site are called tells. Tells must be excavated by professional archeologists according to Schliemann's procedure.
Qumran was, unfortunately, excavated under de Vaux's direction, principally by Jordanian bedouins, who were ignorant of archeology. These bedouins, aware of the potential value of the scrolls, apparently marketed some to private collectors. The fragility of Khirbet Qumran prevents further digging. De Vaux described Qumran in terms of a monastery containing a scriptorium. His archeological notes, however, were never published except for a few in D.I.D.
Other hypotheses as to the nature of Qumran include that of Professor Norman Golb of the University of Chicago, who has defined Qumran in terms of a fort. According to the Biblical Archeological Review, one archeologist holds the unlikely position that Qumran was once a "Villa Rustica" or country home.
One prevalent theory at this time is that the Jewish sect which founded the community was Sadducee. The scholar whose research led to this new probable reason is Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman whose writings are published by the Jewish Publication Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.15 There is a distinct possibility that many of the scrolls were not produced at Qumran, but brought to the caves for safe keeping. No more than two are in the same handwriting. Perhaps a majority were stored in the caves, prior to the destruction of the Second Temple. Similar manuscripts have been found at Masada.
Although Qumran's "Teacher of Righteousness" was attacked and almost killed by the Wicked Priest on the day of Atonement (a commentary on Habakkek 1QP-Hab), there still appears to be some link between Qumran and the Second Temple. It is true that the "Teacher of Righteousness" rejected the traditional Jewish lunar calendar for a solar calender, felt the High Priest to be of improper lineage and felt that ignoring the laws of Deuteronomy would lead to an eventual final battle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness (War Scroll).
Yet among the secular scrolls, is the famous Capper Scroll, the only work at Qumran on a material other than leather or papyrus. This text, impressed on two sections of copper, was found in Cave 3, so thoroughly oxidized that it could not be unrolled. The Copper Scroll was taken to Manchester, England, and translated by John Allegro, a graduate student at Oxford. John Allegro believed this scroll to be a list of the locations of the missing treasures of the Second Temple prior to destruction by Titus.16 The locations of the treasures, although specific, have been obscured by time and the endless change of topography. Although Allegro, the only atheist on the team, was to be repudiated for other sensational publications, the Allegro translation of the Copper Scroll is unquestionably valid. Some scholars, however, believe the Copper Scroll was stored hastily in another part of Cave 3 than that of the Essenes; and is a bit of assets in the Temple Bank, debts later repaid.
The Validity of the Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls impacting upon the study of the Old Testament ... has been phenomenal. J. Julius Scott, Jr.17
How fortunate for the faith of both Jew and Christian that the scrolls were discovered in our technological era. In the Twentieth century the carbon 14 method of dating manuscripts is now available. The older carbon 14 method of dating was discovered in 1947, the year the first scrolls were found. However, due to the amount of scroll material that had to be lost in the process only fragments were originally dated.
Since 1990 accelerator mass spectronomy (AMS), a more refined form of carbon 14 dating has enabled Amir Drori, Director of the Israel Antiquities to submit Qumran scrolls for A.M.S. testing.18 The great Israel Scroll is A.M.S. dated between 202-107 B.C. The earliest scroll, the Dalyeh deed, has survived since 405- 354 B.C.19
James C. Vander Kam in The Dead Sea Scrolls
Today states unequivocally:
Such information proves that the scrolls come from the last centuries B.C.E. and the first century A.D.20
The second means for dating the ancient scripts is paleography. Paleography is the study of ancient manuscripts or the ways in which scribes shaped the letters they were writing or copying. The styles of letter formation change over time. By observing the style of letter formation, scholars determine where in chronology documents belong.
Frank Moore Cross, Jr. of Harvard University published the standard paleographic study in The Development of Jewish Scripts (1960). Another work, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies, published in 1958, reprinted in 1980.21
The Development of Jewish Scripts is the most frequently cited paper in Dead Sea Scroll scholarship. It is a 70-page article with 180 footnotes. Cross discusses the Hebrew alphabet in its various forms in each relevant period [Archaic 250-150 B.C.E.], Hasmonean [150-30 B.C.E.] and Herodian [30-70 A.D.]. By means of paleography, Cross and other scholars have dated the Dead Sea Scrolls often within a range of 50 years or so.
Cross found that a few manuscripts date to the Archaic period [250-150 B.C.E.] such as a fragment of the biblical book of Samuel, but it was not the versions of Samuel to be found in the standard text of the Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic Text. It conformed instead to the Greek translation known as the Septuagint.
Cross describes this moment: "I suddenly realized I had found something that to me and to other textual critics of the Hebrew Bible was earthshaking."22 Thus, the differences between the traditional Hebrew text and the Old Greek translation for the most part, rested on different textual translations of the Hebrew Bible. Cross's key discovery is that scholars of biblical texts could now have more confidence in the Greek text known as the Septuagint. Its variations from the received Hebrew text could well not be based on errors in translation but on a different Hebrew base text.
Cross found that few manuscripts date to the Archaic period (250-150 B.C.E.). Many more came from Hasmonean period (150-30 B.C.E.) eg. the larger Isaiah scroll and the community's Manual of Discipline from Cave 1, but most of the commentaries were copied in the Herodian age [30 B.C.E.-A.D. 68-70].
Methods for dating actual archeological remains are pottery and hundreds of coins found in the ruins of the settlement. A one-page table of the coins is listed on page 22 of The Dead Sea Scrolls Today by James C. Vander Kam. A majority, 143, came from the time of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 B.C.).
Professor Gaza Vermes of Oxford in 1979 referred to the Qumran Scrolls as the Dead Sea Scrolls as likely to become "the academic scandal par excellence of the twentieth century."23 Professor Vermes was referring to the monopolization of the scrolls and to De Vaux's outright refusal to make scrolls at the 'Ecole Biblique's "scrolling" available to any other qualified scholars.
Herschel Shanks, founder and editor of the Biblical Archeological Review in Washington, D.C., was sued for his unending attempts to free the scrolls and place them in the public domain. Until 1991, the scrolls remained the personal property of the original international team selected by De Vaux. This unusual exclusivity was then given to trusted successors, graduates of the original universities who would be destined to academic fame. Other scholars such as the respected Ben-Zion Wacholder, professor of Talmud at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the vociferous maverick scroll scholar Robert Eisenman of California State University, who holds highly idiosyncratic ideas, were denied microfilm copies.
Both De Vaux and his successor as chief editor, John Strugnell of Harvard, were publicly anti-Semitic. Pere de Vaux began his ministry in Jordan; East Jerusalem in the years of discovery was Palestinian. His bias is, perhaps understandable in the times of fierce conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians (many of whom were converts).
Strugnell of Harvard was frankly a racist who made numerous negative comments publicly on Judiasm. Alcoholism and manic depression illness slowly incapacitated Strugnell, who resigned in 1990, returned to the United States and was rehabilitated by a mental hospital in Cambridge, Massuchusetts.24
John Strungell had thirty copies of the scroll concordance published in Gottingen, Germany, in 1988 but reserved the copies only, according to the BAR, "for the use of editors."25 In fact, transcripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls translated by 1960 could have been released that very year.26
In 1991 William Moffett became director of the Huntington Library of California funded by Rockefeller money. He made an astounding revelation. Little known photographs in a safe
were found containing a complete record of Mar Samuel's scrolls discovered in 1947. These photographs were taken by John Trever in 1949 at the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, today named the W. F. Albright Institute of Archeological Research in honor of the great John Hopkins' scholar who pronounced these scrolls genuine.
Moffett believed in intellectual freedom. "Free the scrolls and you free the scholars," he said on September 21, 1991.27 The Huntington Library made available microfilm copies to any scholar.
Thus, the so-called scandal of the scrolls never involved authenticity or heresy, but academia--too few men monopolizing these documents foundational to the Judeo-Christian heritage. At times the international team who held full-time university positions also suffered from under financing. The blame, however, rests squarely on academic vanity rather than any scroll content.
Most scholars totally discredit The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception by Michael Baignett and Richard Leigh.28 In this best seller a conspiracy by the highest Catholic clergy (performing former functions of the inquisition) suppressed the scrolls. The scrolls were thought by Leigh and Baignett to contain explosive doctrine counter to the church.
Conclusion
Professor Geza Vermes of Oxford writes beautifully in praise of the scrolls concluding:
Qumran, in other words, has provided the world with the oldest Hebrew writings preserved on
leather or papyrus in existence, a priceless library of biblical and post-biblical Jewish literature.29
ENDNOTES
1. Herschel Shanks, The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Random House, 1998), p. xiii.
2. Ibid., p. 97-98.
3. James C. Vander Kam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Erdman's Publishing Company, 1994), p. 3.
4. Gaza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1997), p. 11.
5. Shanks, p. 10.
6. Randall Price, Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Eugene, Oregon: Harvard House Publishers, 1946), p. 40.
7. Kenneth Hanson, Dead Sea Scrolls, The Untold Story (Tulsa: Council oak Books, 1997), p. 20. There are some inaccuracies in this book written for the layman.
8. Hanson, p. 20.
9. Hanson, p. 21.
10. Quoted in Price, Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 75.
11. James C. Vander Kam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, p. 303.
12. Vander Kam, p. 31.
13. Herschel Shanks, ed. The Biblical Archalogy Review (January-February, 1998).
14. Hartmann Stegmann, The Library of Qumran (Brill Academic Publishers: The Netherlands), p. 59.
15. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication society, 1994).
16. Allegro, John Marco, The Treasure of the Copper Scroll, 2nd ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1964).
17. Quoted in Price, p. 144.
18. Vander Kam, p. 17.
19. Vander Kam, p. 19.
20. Ibid.
21. The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Study (Anchor: Garden City, 1961; rev. ed. Baker: Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1980).
22. Quoted in Herschel Shanks, The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 43.
23. Shanks, p. 51.
24. Shanks, pp. 52-53.
25. Shanks, p. 55.
26. Ibid.
27. Shanks, p. 57.
28. Michael Baignett and Richard Leigh, The Dead Sea Scroll Deception (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991).
29. Geza Vermes, p. 36.