The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are ancient Jewish religious manuscripts found in the Qumran Caves in the bank near the Dead Sea. They were discovered between the years 1947 and 1956. They include psalms including King David and Joshua and included nineteen books, twenty five Deuteronomy books and thirty copies of the psalms. This finding is one of the most important findings in the history of religion.
The DSS were found between the years 1947 and 1956. The DSS were most likely written by the Essenes from around the year of 200 BC to 68 CE/AD. The DSS were found by teenage Bedouin shepherds and a team of archeologists and are studied by a team of scholars. The teenage shepherds accidentally stumbled upon the first set of DSS tending their goats and sheep near the ancient settlement of Qumran. The scholars put together the texts and translate them into different meanings such and distinguishing the different books and psalms. The DSS are biblical and non-biblical fragments of every book of the Hebrew canon. They include nineteen books of Isaiah, twenty five Deuteronomy books and thirty copies of the psalms. In the non biblical part of the DSS, they include paraphrases that expand on the Law, rules of the community, war conduct, thanksgiving psalms, hymnic compositions, benedictions, liturgical texts, and wisdom writings. The scrolls are written in three different languages, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. Aramaic was the most common language of the Jews. When people read through the scrolls, the DSS greatly enhanced our knowledge of Aramaic and Hebrew. The scrolls are made of animal skins, papyrus and one of copper. They are written with carbon-based ink, from right to left, using no punctuation.
The DSS were found by teenage Bedouin shepherds and a team of archeologists. They are one of the best finds in history.The DSS were most likely written by the Essenes from around the year of 200 BC to 68 CE/AD. They were written from the last two centuries B.C. and of the first two centuries A.D. The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the area 13 miles east of Jerusalem and is 1300 feet below sea level. The mostly fragmented texts, are numbered according to the cave that they came out of. They were found in the Quorum caves and most of them came from cave number three. They were also found in the five caves of Murabba'at and in the Nahal Hever caves. The geographical region that the Dead Sea Scrolls were found is in Khirbet Qumran which is mainly filled with caves, mountains and dry land. The region of Jerusalem which is the main city the scrolls were found in is mainly a dry, hot and sandy environment. Things get covered up by the high winds and the amount of sand. This is very important because things get covered up easily by the mountains, caves and sand and the fact that these archeologists and shepherds were able to find these ancient scrolls is very lucky. This also shows that there may be more scrolls out there to find. Because these were apart of the Old Testament it is important that archeologists keep looking to see if they can find any more important parts of history.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are so important because they shows us many things. An example of what they show us is that they show us new ways of the Aramaic and Hebrew language. It helps us understand it better and it shows us new ways of using it and the people used it in tier ancient writings. Also, it shows us how old documents were written in order to save time and materials the people didn’t use punctuation and they barely put spaces in between each word. Also, it shows us the original writings of scripture from the Old Testament that is used in the Bible to talk about God’s way for his people.The most likely reason for why the scriptures were hidden would be because during the time that they were written, Rome was in power of the Jews. They would sack the Jews for their valuables and take off. So most likely the Jews wanted to keep the scriptures safe and away from the Roma d so they hid them in a cave where they knew they would be safe. Another reason why the scriptures were hidden is because in the time that the DSS were written, after their writings got older and more fragile, they put them in caves and safe places in order to preserve them. When the DSS were found it had a huge cultural impact on the world. It showed us that original scriptures from the Old Testament are still valuable to us. Some ways that the documents are important is because most of the non-biblical scrolls throw light on Judaism in the late Second Temple period and they also help us understand the early Christians and what Jesus Christ was like. Also it helps show us how the people of that time wrote down important information and how they used their materials. The cultural impact that it had for the area is that there are most tourists that come and visit the site that they were found and that it gives the town more publicity and attention. It also the economy for that part of Jerusalem.
Overall the Dead Sea Scrolls help us understand many things about the Bible that we didn’t know before. Without the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls we wouldn’t wonder if there are more scrolls to be found or we wouldn’t even know, important new understandings of the Aramaic and the Hebrew language. Also, it shows us the different ways that people recorded important writings on animal skin and they used ink but to save materials they would not use punctuation or spacings. Overall the Dead Sea Scrolls has gave us a better understanding of the Bible and of God.