Scrolls From the Dead Sea:
The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship

TWO THOUSAND YEARS LATER

About two thousand years elapsed between the time the scrolls were deposited in the caves of the barren hills surrounding the Dead Sea and their discovery in 1947. The fact that they survived for twenty centuries, that they were found accidentally by Bedouin shepherds, that they are the largest and oldest body of manuscripts relating to the Bible and to the time of Jesus of Nazareth make them a truly remarkable archaeological find.

Since their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the subject of great scholarly and public interest. For scholars they represent an invaluable source for exploring the nature of post- biblical times and probing the sources of two of the world's great religions. For the public, they are artifacts of great significance, mystery, and drama.

Interest in the scrolls has, if anything, intensified in recent years. Media coverage has given prominence to scholarly debates over the meaning of the scrolls, the Qumran ruin, as well as particular scroll fragments, raising questions destined to increase attention and heighten the Dead Sea Scrolls mystery. Did the scrolls come from the library of the Second Temple or other libraries and were they hidden to prevent their destruction by the Romans? Was the Qumran site a winter villa for a wealthy Jerusalem family or was it a Roman fortress? Was it a monastery not for Essenes but for a Sadducean sect? Does this mean we need to revise our view of Jewish religious beliefs during the last centuries of the Second Temple? Do the Dead Sea Scrolls provide clues to hidden treasures? Does the "War Rule Scroll" (object no. 12) refer to a pierced or piercing messiah?

Since the late 1980s, no controversy has been more heated than that surrounding access to the scrolls and the movement to accelerate their publication. The push by scholars to gain what the "Biblical Archaeology Review" characterized as "intellectual freedom and the right to scholarly access" has had significant results. In 1988, the administration for scroll research, the Israel Antiquities Authority, began to expand the number of scroll assignments. By 1992, they included more than fifty scholars. In 1991, a computer-generated version as well as a two-volume edition of the scroll photographs were published by the Biblical Archaeology Society. Late in the same year, the Huntington Library of California made available to all scholars the photographic security copies of the scrolls on deposit in its vault. Closing the circle, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced that it too would be issuing an authorized microfiche edition, complete with detailed indices.

Return to the Table of Contents

Go to the Exhibits Home Page

Go to the Library of Congress Home Page