The Dead Sea Scrolls

In 1947, a young Bedouin shepherd named Muhammad edh-Dhib was tending his flock near the cliffs of the Judean Desert. While searching for a lost goat, he found a cave near the Dead Sea in the West Bank. He cast a stone into the cave and heard the sound of breaking pottery. This discovery led to one of the largest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Inside the cave, Muhammad and his companions found ancient scrolls stored in clay jars. The scrolls were sold to antiquities dealers, and word of their discovery drew the attention of scholars and archaeologists. Eleazar Sukenik, an Israeli archaeologist, and Mar Samuel, the head of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, acquired the first scrolls. This acquisition prompted a race to search the surrounding Qumran Caves for additional texts. Over the next few years, eleven caves yielded nearly a thousand documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, apocryphal works, and sectarian writings. Dating from the third century BCE to the first century CE, these texts were written predominantly in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic and a few in Greek. They provide direct evidence of Jewish beliefs and practices during the Second Temple period.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are housed primarily at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where scholars study and display them. The scrolls have altered scholarly understanding of Jewish history and the origins of Christianity by documenting multiple Jewish sects and their distinct practices between the third century BCE and the first century CE. Scholars continue to analyze these texts using infrared imaging and DNA extraction techniques, producing new readings of previously illegible fragments.