In the spring of 1947, an unusual find was made in the Dead Sea region, in the Ras Feshkh mountains. Two Bedouin boys, who went in search of a stray goat, noticed a narrow crevice in the rock. The crevice led into a small grotto, or rather a winding corridor, which measured approximately 8 m in length, 2 m in width and 2.5–3 m in height.
What the Arabs saw in the cave was completely unexpected: here, in the midst of scattered shards and debris, there were eight tightly lidded clay jugs. They were all empty except for one: it contained three leather scrolls wrapped in old linen. The inside of the scrolls was covered with some kind of letters.
Both Bedouins were illiterate, but immediately realized that in front of them were antiques that could be sold at a profit. They took with them leather scrolls and several jugs to show to the antiquities dealers in Bethlehem.
Thus began the long journey of the mysterious scrolls, which two years later were destined to become a real world sensation. Some of them went to the head of the Jacobite Christians Mar Athanasios Joshua Samuel, the archbishop of Jerusalem. Realizing that before him were fragments of the texts of the Old Testament, made in Hebrew, he made an attempt to determine the age of these manuscripts. At his request, experts from the American School of Oriental Studies in Jerusalem, J. Trever and W. Brownlee, examined the scrolls. Photocopies of the manuscripts were sent to one of the most prominent specialists in the field of Palestinian research, Professor William F. Albright. Albright expressed no doubts about the authenticity of the manuscripts and determined that the texts were written approximately one hundred years before our era.
World science has never known anything like it. The oldest known Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament, the so-called Cairo Code, dates back to the 9th century AD. e. So the discovery of Old Testament texts that are a thousand years older became a genuine scientific sensation of great importance.
Scholars at the American School of Oriental Studies in Jerusalem have embarked on a new search for ancient manuscripts. In particular, they managed to locate the scrolls that the Bedouins sold to various antiquities dealers. A special archaeological expedition was sent to the place where the manuscripts were found, which included specialists from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, the French Biblical Archaeological School in Palestine and the Palestinian Archaeological Museum. Having carefully examined the grotto, scientists have collected fragments of clay vessels and about 500 fragments of leather scrolls with ancient inscriptions. According to archaeologists' calculations, this cave once contained about 50 vessels and about 150 scrolls. Some of them were probably plundered by robbers in ancient times.
Near the first cave, over the next few years, 11 more grottoes were discovered, from which about 15 thousand fragments of Old Testament texts and several hundred secular manuscripts were recovered.
Of course, everyone was interested in the question: what kind of people left these mysterious scrolls in the caves? Who could have thought of living in this dead desert, among the naked, devoid of any vegetation rocks? Was there really any settlement here in ancient times? In the early 1950s, an archaeological expedition led by R de Vaux, director of the Biblical School of the Dominican Order in Jerusalem, and D. L. Arabic for "rubble hill". Since the end of 1951, archaeologists have carried out systematic excavations here, which lasted six seasons. The remains of a whole complex of rooms were excavated here with great care, dating from, judging by the numerous finds of Syrian, Jewish and Roman coins, 125 BC. e. - 75 AD e.(A close date - from 167 BC to 233 AD - was also given by radiocarbon analysis of the scrolls). Of the 153 coins found during excavations, 72 belonged to the time preceding the reign of King Herod the Great (35-4 BC), one to the era of his reign and 80 to the 70-year period after his reign. This distribution of coins indicates that the settlement on the Khirbet Qumran hill was abandoned at the beginning of the reign of Herod the Great and re-settled after him. It is known from written sources that in the 7th year of the reign of Herod in Palestine there was a strong earthquake. Most likely it was the reason for the termination of life in the settlement. Among the ruins of Khirbet Qumran, archaeologists discovered a large crack in the ground, stretching for 15 m and damaging part of the buildings - this is probably the trace of that old disaster. At the same time, the land settled by almost half a meter and traces of this collapse are clearly visible today. It is also easy to see that the walls were later repaired and restored. Many other traces - collapsed buildings, blackened in places by fire, “three-winged” Roman arrowheads - indicate that around 67-70, during the first Jewish uprising against Rome, the settlement on Khirbet-Qumran hill was taken and destroyed by the Roman warriors. Probably, it was during this troubled time that the inhabitants of Qumran hid the sacred texts in a cave, carefully wrapping them in linen cloth and placing them in earthen vessels. Probably, they hoped to someday return for them, but none of them succeeded - they were killed, captured or scattered by the Romans.that in the future the walls were repaired and restored. Many other traces - collapsed buildings, blackened in places by fire, “three-winged” Roman arrowheads - indicate that around 67-70, during the first Jewish uprising against Rome, the settlement on Khirbet-Qumran hill was taken and destroyed by the Roman warriors. Probably, it was during this troubled time that the inhabitants of Qumran hid the sacred texts in a cave, carefully wrapping them in linen cloth and placing them in earthen vessels. Probably, they hoped to someday return for them, but none of them succeeded - they were killed, captured or scattered by the Romans.that in the future the walls were repaired and restored. Many other traces - collapsed buildings, blackened in places by fire, “three-winged” Roman arrowheads - indicate that around 67-70, during the first Jewish uprising against Rome, the settlement on Khirbet-Qumran hill was taken and destroyed by the Roman warriors. Probably, it was during this troubled time that the inhabitants of Qumran hid the sacred texts in a cave, carefully wrapping them in linen cloth and placing them in earthen vessels. Probably, they hoped to someday return for them, but none of them succeeded - they were killed, captured or scattered by the Romans.during the first Jewish uprising against Rome, the settlement on the Khirbet Qumran hill was taken and destroyed by Roman soldiers. Probably, it was during this troubled time that the inhabitants of Qumran hid the sacred texts in a cave, carefully wrapping them in linen cloth and placing them in earthen vessels. Probably, they hoped to someday return for them, but none of them succeeded - they were killed, captured or scattered by the Romans.during the first Jewish uprising against Rome, the settlement on the Khirbet Qumran hill was taken and destroyed by Roman soldiers. Probably, it was during this troubled time that the inhabitants of Qumran hid the sacred texts in a cave, carefully wrapping them up in linen cloth and placing them in clay vessels. Probably, they hoped to someday return for them, but none of them succeeded - they were killed, captured or scattered by the Romans.
Promotional video:
But who exactly lived in this secluded settlement? On this score, the opinions of scientists were divided. Some researchers took the side of the hypothesis according to which Qumran was the habitat of the Essenes, about which Pliny the Elder once wrote:
“To the west of the Dead Sea, at some distance from the harmful coastal zone and beyond it, the Essenes live - a secluded and most amazing people of all, without women, without love, without money, living in a society of palm trees. However, they are being renewed all the time, and new recruits come to them in large numbers - people tired of life or prompted by the vicissitudes of fate to choose their way of life. Thus, for thousands of centuries, no matter how incredible it is, this eternal people, in which no one is born. Thus, thanks to them, repentance bears fruit, which their life arouses in others."
It is impossible to understand who the Essenes are from Pliny's message. Therefore, a heated discussion developed around the hypothesis of the Essene origin of Qumran and the Qumran scrolls. According to some scholars, the Essenes are members of a certain religious sect who led a hermitic lifestyle. Other researchers suggest that this is just some kind of special community of Jews. The third group of researchers generally denies the existence of the Essenes.
First of all, the scrolls themselves could shed light on the secret of the Qumran scrolls. To study the collected material - and its amount turned out to be huge - a special research group was created, which included specialists from different countries. The state of the documents that fell into their hands was appalling: obviously, in ancient times there was a tradition not to destroy old, worn manuscripts of sacred texts, but to hide them in secluded places. And over the past two thousand years, time has "worked" on them thoroughly. And now before the scientists lay worn-out, partially torn, half-decayed leather scrolls, eaten by insects and rodents. Before being read, they had to be strengthened and restored. You can imagine what tremendous work is required in order to straighten each piece, having previously moistened it with water vapor,then photograph in infrared rays, then classify by the nature of the writing and the quality of the skin, finally, try to match other passages to it in order to get a coherent text if possible …
Meanwhile, when scientists were just beginning to unravel the Qumran scrolls, two "independent" researchers, a Frenchman and an Englishman, had already rushed to publish their own "sensational discovery": they declared that the results of the study of the scrolls "represent a radical revolution in the history of Christianity." As if from the Qumran texts it follows that the Essenes knew that a certain "teacher of righteousness" was crucified on the cross, his body was then taken off and buried and the apostles awaited the resurrection and return to earth of their "teacher", that is, an image, and more precisely, the prototype, Jesus Christ allegedly already existed among the Essenes.
"The Dead Sea Scrolls are the greatest challenge to Christian doctrine since the advent of Darwinism!" - pompously claims the authors of the hypothesis. This unsubstantiated statement, in spite of the hot protests and refutations of the leading scientists, was immediately picked up and replicated by the world press. This topic was especially widely "covered" in the atheistic Soviet Union, where any stupidity was welcomed, as long as it was directed against Christianity.
There is no doubt that Jewish sects existed even before the rise of Christianity. But the champions of "the greatest challenge to Christian doctrine" can rest in this case. The Qumran texts contain absolutely nothing that could question the basic tenets of Christianity. The Essenes, as evidenced by documents found at Qumran, were deeply committed to traditional Judaism. True, there are some parallels with Christianity in essence, but they are explained by the common roots of both teachings, which originate in the Old Testament. “Thus, if the Essenism contains a number of elements that fertilized the soil on which Christianity was later born, then it is no less obvious that Christianity is something completely new, something that can be explained in the end only by the person of Jesus Christ”,- writes on this occasion one of the largest researchers of the Qumran problem J. T. Milik, an employee of the Paris National Center for Scientific Research.
The discoveries in Qumran, of course, are not interesting for the nonsense that the "anti-religious" propagandists have heaped around them. The Qumran manuscripts are valuable primarily because they have enriched with invaluable information not only the general history and history of religion, but also linguistics (along with the main Hebrew dialects, seven other languages are represented in them), paleography - the science of ancient manuscripts, the history of literature, the history of law (some texts from Qumran represent sales contracts). This circumstance provided the world fame for the Qumran scrolls, far beyond the purely scientific interest. Today it is known that the bulk of the Qumran finds are mainly biblical texts and apocrypha, that is, anonymous works of religious content,not considered divinely inspired and therefore not included in the Bible. Created during the III-I centuries. BC e., they are the most valuable documents of the era.