Qumran

Given their significance, it's remarkable that the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered less than 72 years ago. And given that the Bedouin who found the scrolls and those to whom they initially showed the scrolls didn't realise what an amazing find they were, we can be thankful that they survived to inform our understanding of the Bible and of Jesus' times.

Looking down at Qumran from a cave

in the hill above, with the Dead Sea in

the distance

The site where the scrolls were found, and which also turned out to be the location of a long-lost Jewish 'monastery', is called Qumran, and we visited it on the way back from Masada (see my previous post). Although also on a plateau, Qumran is considerably lower down than Masada, being more on a foothill of the mountains that surround the Dead Sea.

As with Masada, the desert location makes it impressive that a large community of people could live in such a landscape. It's all the more impressive in the case of Qumran, because the Essenes living there were a Jewish sect for whom ritual purifications were a very important part of life. So in addition to needing water for drinking and agriculture, they also needed a constant supply of water for their baths. In these lower reaches of the mountains, however, there begin to be more springs, as the water that seeped into the limestone of central Israel and Palestine finds it way out again. Still, the Essenes needed to make the most of what was available.

Note the steps going down into this ritual bath and the steps going out on the other side - a similar design to the baptismal fonts of early Christianity

The comparative inhospitableness of the place was an advantage for the Essenes, in that they wanted to separate themselves from the corruption (as they saw it) of mainstream Judaism at the time. The sect seems to have emerged as a result of the Temple priests compromising with the political powers. Calling them a 'sect' might give the impression that they were a small group; but although the Qumran community itself was fairly small, the Essene movement in general was a big presence in the Judaism of Jesus' time. This factor is one of the things that makes the Dead Sea Scrolls so significant.

The caves, as seen from Qumran itself,

in which most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found

The scrolls include, for example, a liturgical calendar that differs somewhat from the 'official' calendar of the Temple in Jerusalem, and some difficulties with the chronology of the Gospels can be solved if Jesus celebrated Passover according to this Essene dating. This seems all the more likely now that we have also found that the traditional site of the Last Supper is in what was the Essene quarter of Jerusalem.

This would not be to say that Jesus was an Essene (nor even that John the Baptist was, although the similarities are stronger in his case). He clearly differed from that sect in various ways: most obviously in that the Essenes were keen on separating themselves from the 'unclean', whereas Jesus was noted for associating freely with 'sinners', etc. But the common threads with groups like the Essenes or the Pharisees help us to realise more deeply that the Gospel didn't emerge from nowhere - God had prepared His people for it.

Another significant element of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the collection of Biblical texts, including a complete scroll of the Prophet Isaiah. These are by far the oldest documents of Scripture that we have, and their similarity with the later texts give all the more credence to the reliability of the Bible's transmission through the centuries.

Coming down to Qumran from the hills behind it

The ruins of the Essene 'monastery'

The wadi leading down to the caves