Dead Sea Finds and Our Biblical Past

 

                                                                     Dead Sea fragments 

As some of you will know, I'm intrigued by archeological finds in Israel and other countries of the Middle East. They often give new insights into the scriptures of Older and Newer Testaments, as well as the first centuries of the Common Era. 

One of the great discoveries of the 20th century was a cache of documents found in the Judean Desert which we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls. The first scrolls, from the 3rd century BCE,  were discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1947 in caves, and over the next decade many more were found. This is a story of intrigue and skullduggery as opportunists pilfered caves and scrolls were sold by unscrupulous vendors. Some were buried by the culprits to hide them and thereby destroyed.

The Dead Sea Scrolls revealed previously unknown information about the Jewish apocalyptic community at Qumran. There are also some of the earliest documents and fragments of Hebrew scripture in existence. 

News emerged earlier this week of the discovery of even more fragments from a later period  in an already known cave, called the Cave of Horror because it contained several dozen skeletons. These are the first discoveries in nearly half a century In the CBC article we find: 

The fragments are believed to have been part of a scroll stashed away in the cave during the Bar Kochba Revolt, an armed Jewish uprising against Rome during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, between 132 and 136 AD.Coins struck by rebels and arrowheads found in other caves in the region also hail from that period.

"We found a textual difference that has no parallel with any other manuscript, either in Hebrew or in Greek," said Oren Ableman, a Dead Sea scroll researcher with the Israel Antiquities Authority..."When we think about the biblical text, we think about something very static. It wasn't static. There are slight differences and some of those differences are important," said Joe Uziel, head of the antiquities authority's Dead Sea scrolls unit.

In the same trove there was a woven basket which has been dated back for longer, to 10,500 years ago and is the oldest ever discovered. Now, that is old-world craftsmanship! Actually, more likely to be crafted by a woman. 

Why do I pay attention to this stuff? The past speaks to us, as we hurtle along into the future. Our scriptures are thousands of years old as well, yet we continue to learn, and grow and apply what God shares with us through them. While we don't want to dwell in the past, we can respect the faithfulness of our foremothers and forefathers.  

                                                                     Oldest basket in existence