Dead Sea Scrolls Research Paper

Improved Essays
 The ancient manuscripts known as the Dead Sea Scrolls have been called by scholars “the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times.” They include books of the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) and non-biblical texts dating from 100 BC to AD 68. They are not original manuscripts but copies made by scribes. They are a thousand years older than the oldest known traditional Hebrew text of the Torah, which is the basis of the English translation of the Old Testament.

 The first scrolls were found in 1947 in a cave on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, in Jordan.  They were found by a Bedouin shepherd whose account of the details of the discovery varied in later years.  One version was that a runaway goat jumped into
…show more content…
Three scrolls were bought for the Hebrew University in Jerusalem by Eliezer Sukenik, a professor of archaeology. The other four were sold to the head of the Syrian Orthodox Christian church, at the Monastery of St. Mark in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem.

The head took his scrolls to the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem for examination. Satisfied that they were genuine, the American School photographed them and announced the discovery to the world in April 1948. The head then took his scrolls to the United States. In 1954 Professor Yigael Yadin, son of Sukenik, was lecturing in the United States on the three scrolls acquired by his father for the Hebrew University. By chance he learned that the head was advertising the other four scrolls for sale in a New York newspaper. He purchased them for 250,000 dollars for the government of Israel.

Meanwhile Bedouins were searching every cave near the first one and finding thousands of fragments, which they sold to dealers. In 1949 Lankester Harding, British-born director of the Department of Antiquities for Jordan, and Father Roland de Vaux, head of the French Dominican School of Archaeology in Jerusalem, took charge of exploring the caves. Hundreds of manuscripts were found, including almost all the books of the

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Mesopotamia Dbq Analysis

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Torah scrolls are handwritten today and are so sacred that can only be touched by a pointer called a yad and not the human…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Case Study: Hobby Lobby

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Meanwhile, the Museum of the Bible clarified that none of the artifacts acquired by Green were included in the museum’s collections. “The Museum of the Bible was not a party to either the investigation or the settlement,” the museum told the Baptist Press. “None of the artifacts identified in the settlement are part of the Museum’s collection, nor have they ever been. We remain on track to open in November and look forward to sharing our exhibits and displays with the…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Eventually, the writing experts are the ones who find and gather the evidence to prove that the ossuary is a fake, but without the millionaires who pay and push experts to validate this object it never would have been invalidated. The millionaires and biblical relic enthusiasts were by far the most interesting people in this book, majority of them came from a poor homeless background and gained their status by one illegally obtained find. These millionaires continue to fuel their wealth with…

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    King Tut Research Paper

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How we know this is that in 1922 a man named Howard Carter entered King Tut’s Tomb. As he walked in his Tomb, he found a bag of gold lying right on the floor. If Tomb robbers had been in his tomb then they didn’t take that much. The solid gold mask was still on his face and his tomb was full of treasures. In 1914 many archaeologists believed that all of the Pharaohs Tombs in The valley has been found.…

    • 503 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For many centuries bibles were only…

    • 444 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    A newspaper author has a large responsibility to present an academic article in a way that properly conveys the argument of the original author, but it can do more than that. A well written newspaper story about an archeological academic paper can educate the public of finds, challenge theories that could change people’s interpretations of the past, and generate interest in archeology. The conclusions and arguments from the publication, “The Burial of Nefertiti?” contained in the Economist article, “What lies beneath”, present a compelling and balanced presentation of the findings of the original article by choosing to only incorporate certain arguments and present compelling questions to the readers. By studying the Factum Arte, high resolution color photography and scanned records of the painted walls in King Tutankhamun’s Burial Chamber, Dr. Reeves argues that there are hidden rooms and a secret passageway behind two of the walls.…

    • 1358 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Hymns Scroll Analysis

    • 1849 Words
    • 8 Pages

    E.L Sukenik published the Hymns Scroll (The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem) in 1954-5. Between 1946 and 1956 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by Bedouin shepherds and a team of archaeologists. The scrolls contained a series of eleven caves as were found around the site known as Wadi Qumran near the Dead Sea of the Jordan River and it was written in biblical Hebrew. It 's also had over 900 different texts written Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The early Christianity were using the Dead Sea Scroll as their bible because it represented a religious writings as well as biblical texts.…

    • 1849 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A. Wallis Budge, Keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, The Papyrus of Ani is not only a collection of spells and charms, but a complete vision of the judgment day. Printed in the year 1250 B.C. the origins of the Book of the Dead can be traced to the Pyramid Texts which dates ca. 2400 B.C.E. The seventy-eight-foot long scroll was cut in even lengths by Wallis Budge without knowing that it would destroy its continuity and the relation between text and images. This outstanding Book of the Dead has been divided in approximately 200 chapters over 37 plates, and has been translated several time over the…

    • 862 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Tutankhamun's Tomb

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages

    “This “humble” tomb had remained hidden for 3000 years and had tricked tomb robbers and flash floods for many centuries(O'Connor)”. Davis was the first person to find items that led to the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb. “The first clue came from a famous cache”(O’Conner). These items were hidden in a safe tomb, and with more research the came to conclusions that the clay sealing of the cache, was done by Tutankhamun himself. Some scientists believe this royal cache was that tomb raiders.…

    • 341 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many individuals throughout the world love an origin story; People love finding out where something they love comes from. This is a great reason why individuals should pick up a copy of the book “How We Got the Bible” by Neil R. Lightfoot. This book digs much deeper into the history of the Bible and reveals much more information (like showing ancient manuscripts that were used to translate into the Bible and the ways ancient manuscripts were written). The book contains a lot of facts and definitely helps those who are trying to gain a tighter grasp of God’s overall plan and gives the reader a better understanding of the Bible.…

    • 1442 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Brilliant Essays

    Jewish War

    • 2076 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Masada: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-1965: Final Reports. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society,…

    • 2076 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Brilliant Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Imagery In Desiree's Baby

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Analysis of Desiree’s Baby Although the story ‘Desiree’s Baby’ shows numerous similarities in the actions of the people during the civil war in the antebellum south, contrast contributes a vast majority of Armand and Desiree’s assumptions and perceptions during their conflict in the story. Class, gender, racism, and marriage all play a vital role within the conflict that they go through throughout ‘Desiree’s Baby’. Natural Imagery is also very crucial in the story as well. To begin with, Armand’s pride and Desiree’s Love can be considered equal throughout the story, however, also very different in comparison.…

    • 1212 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For those interested in the proving or disproving the Old Testament, it is those areas located in the Near East where currently many biblical archaeology sites are in progress. Primarily, their focus is in the Israel, Palestine and Jordan along with other areas of interest such as Egypt, Syria, Sinai Peninsula, Saudia Arabia and the Mesopotamian Valley. Just in the Levant alone there are currently 71 excavation sites located in Israel and Palestine, 15 sites in Jordan, 62 sites in Lebanon and 23 sites in Syria. During the middle of 1800AD, archaeologists from the Western cultures that participated with excavations in Israel and Palestine area were primarily Christians, which were supported and funded by the churches of Europe.…

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Even though the original documents are gone, I know God has preserved the Word (matthew 24:35). We can know the true Word even today. I can trust it, because God has told Christians that we must treat the Word with utmost care. Those few corrupt copies are due to laziness or a lack of respect for the Word. However, these errors are easy to spot and…

    • 1840 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The manuscripts that are being uncovered are papyrus manuscripts, and are very valuable for the New Testament. This explains why there are so many critics about the New Testament because there are still manuscripts being discovered. Chapter twelve is titled, “The text of the Old Testament”. Reported in this chapter is that the Aleppo Codex and the Leningrad Codex are the best Hebrew Manuscripts. But they date no farther back than to the tenth and eleventh centuries.…

    • 1857 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays