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
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