Biblical Hebrew Blog by ClassicalHebrew.com

In 1947, by the north-western tip of the Dead Sea, a few Bedouins accidentally stumbled upon what would turn out to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the century: the Dead Sea Scrolls. Following this initial discovery of parts of seven scrolls, archaeologists uncovered a huge library, comprised of thousands of scroll fragments in different states of preservation, found in eleven different caves in the vicinity of the ruins called Qumran.

The community preserving the scrolls led a segregate lifestyle at the Qumran site from the second century B.C.E., a time at which they retreated to this desert asylum as a result of ideological disputes with mainstream Judaism based in the Jerusalem Temple, up to their destruction by Roman troops in 68 C.E. The Qumran community (considered by most scholars to be a sect called the Essenes, mentioned by Josephus, Philo and Pliny the Elder) observed strict interpretations of various laws, especially those concerning purity, and also held different views than mainstream Judaism as to the calendar that should be observed and the importance of the luminaries in setting this calendar, keeping a 364-day year, an accurate sun year according to their calculations.

The large library, kept in clay jars and preserved thanks to the dry desert air, includes many biblical scrolls, exposing to us different biblical versions current at the time as well as linguistic and spelling developments, scribal practices, and interpretations of the sacred texts. They also include many sectarian writings, revealing to us the beliefs and practices of the inhabitants of the village and some of the inner-politics of Second Temple Judaism. Some scholars suggested that the roots of early Christianity could be found at Qumran, due to the centrality of purity and baptism, however the abundance of differences causes others to doubt this hypothesis.

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