The Dead Sea Scrolls

Several years ago I had the opportunity to see a huge exhibit at the San Diego Art Museum on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The traveling exhibit took up two levels of museum space. The first consisted of information and photos of Israel-the geography and history. Basically, San Diego is at the same Latitude as Israel, so our weather and terrain is very similar. For those of you familiar with the SD area, much of Israel is a lot like the Escondido-North I-15 route. Lush in some areas, rock, hilly, and barren in others.

But Qumran - where the scrolls were hidden-

is unlike anything we are used to seeing. It is mountainous and rocky, littered with caves EVERYWHERE. See the two holes at the top of the picture? That is where a Bedouin goat herder lost one of his sheep (1948). It fell down the hole and the herder did not want to climb down and get it. The story goes that he threw a rock down the hole in hopes that the old goat would climb out. The result was a breaking sound - and no goat. The herder had broken one of the jars holding the ancient scrolls! And the rest is history as they say.

An ancient sect of Jews (1st century B.C. to 70 A.D), the Essences, were dedicated to the study of the Torah. This religious group spent years in seclusion recording the scrolls that contain portions of every book of the Old Testament (except Esther). The book of Isaiah was found in its complete form! The picture here depicts a portion of the living quarters of these men. Evidence suggests that the Essenes were forced to leave Qumran quickly, hiding their scrolls in earthen jars, hoping to return later. We know that never happened.

Here is a cool thing to consider: until 1947 the oldest complete manuscripts from the Old Testament in our possession dated from approximately 100 A.D. (1400 years after the completion of the Old Testament). Many folks think that changes could have occurred (and logically so) in the text during such a long span of time, BUT comparisons to the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrates the accuracy of today's version!

To me this was as amazing a site as Masada was. Israel's history is so far reaching; we cannot compare with it. It was a desolate place and yet that was the very thing that saved this piece of history for humanity. You can see some of the actual jars where the scrolls were found.

This was probably one of my most memorable and favorite sites. If you ever have the opportunity to see a display about the Scrolls, please do.