More than 25 previously unpublished “Dead Sea Scrolls” fragments have been unearthed, dating back 2,000 years and containing text from the Hebrew Bible, the contents of which are detailed in two new books.
The various scroll fragments record portions of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Samuel, Ruth, Kings, Micah, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Joshua, Judges, Proverbs, Numbers, Psalms, Ezekiel, and Jonah. The Qumran caves, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered, had not yet yielded any fragments of the Book of Nehemiah; if this newly revealed snippet is authenticated, it would be the first.
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Scholars have raised concerns that some of the fragments are forgeries. [see photos of the fragments of the dead sea scrolls]
These 25 newly released snippets are just the tip of the iceberg. An academic told Live Science that around 70 newly discovered fragments have turned up on the antiquities market since 2002. Furthermore, the cabinet minister in charge of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), along with several academics, believes that there are undiscovered scrolls being found by looters in caves in the judean desert. The IAA is sponsoring a new series of scientific surveys and excavations to find these scrolls before looters do.
the dead sea scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in a series of 11 caves at the Qumran archaeological site in the Judean Desert, near the Dead Sea. During that time, archaeologists and local Bedouins unearthed thousands of fragments from nearly 900 manuscripts.
Some of the Bedouins sold their scrolls in Bethlehem through an antiquities dealer named Khalil Iskander Shahin, who called himself “Kando”. Shahin died in 1993 and his son William Kando now runs his business and estate.
Many scholars believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls were hidden in the Qumran caves around 2000 AD. 70, during a Jewish revolt against the Roman empire. they may have been written by a Jewish sect known as the Essenes.
qumran and its caves are located in the west bank, territory captured by israel from jordan during the six day war in 1967. jordan has sometimes claimed that the dead sea scrolls belong to them.
Although the term Dead Sea Scrolls generally refers to the scrolls found at Qumran, scrolls have been found in caves at other sites in the Judean Desert that are considered Dead Sea Scrolls.
collecting scrolls
The 25 newly released scroll fragments were purchased by two independent collectors.
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Between 2009 and 2014, Steve Green, owner of Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores, purchased 13 of the fragments, which he has donated, along with thousands of other artifacts, to the Museum of the Bible. Green is helping finance construction of the museum, which is scheduled to open in Washington, D.C., next fall. (You can see a tour of the museum on youtube).
A team of scholars has published details of these donated fragments in the book volume “Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Museum Collection” (Brill, 2016).
The provenance of this batch of scrolls is not certain.
“Some of these fragments must have come from Qumran, probably from Cave 4, while others may have been derived from other sites in the Judean Desert,” Emanuel Tov, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote in the volume of the book. “Unfortunately, little is known about the provenance of these fragments because most sellers did not provide such information at the time of sale.”
antiquities dealer william kando told live science he doesn’t know where the donated fragments originated.
Scientists are running tests on the donated fragments to help determine if any are fakes, Michael Holmes, executive director of the museum’s Bible Scholars Initiative, said in a statement sent to Living Science.
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The results will be combined with an analysis of the handwriting to help determine what the chances are that the different fragments are forgeries.
“The results will be incorporated into our future museum exhibits, inviting visitors to understand and engage with issues surrounding authenticity assessment,” said Holmes.
biblical manuscripts
martin schøyen, a collector from norway, owns the other batch of the recently revealed dead sea scrolls. The texts on those fragments are detailed in the book Spikes from the Caves: Dead Sea Scrolls and Artifacts from the Schøyen Collection (Bloomsbury, 2016). Other scroll-related artifacts are also detailed in the book, including a linen wrapper in which one of the Dead Sea Scrolls was found. [Photos: Who ‘Wrote’ the Dead Sea Scrolls?]
Schøyen, who has a vast collection of antiquities, began collecting biblical manuscripts in 1986. “The ultimate challenge had become acquiring a fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls with a biblical text,” Schøyen wrote in the book. “It was a ‘mission: impossible’ for me.”
His determination paid off as he was gradually able to track down scroll fragments that were for sale from various sources. He bought several from a family collection now in Zurich (name withheld) and several more from descendants of tourists or collectors who had bought scrolls at Shahin’s shop in Bethlehem in the 1950s. He also bought some fragments that They were once owned by two scholars who had worked in the Qumran caves as students in 1948 (the students received the fragments as a gift from a bishop who supported the work).
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“The quest which began as a ‘mission: impossible’ in 1986, gradually grew into a collection of [around] 115 fragments from around 27 different scrolls,” said schøyen. She added that some of the fragments in her collection come from caves 1, 4 and 11 at Qumran, while some come from other caves in the Judean desert.
nehemiah
A featured excerpt from the Book of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 2:13-16) from the recently released Museum of the Bible collection.
The fragment tells of a man named Nehemiah who lived during the 5th century BC, at a time after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC. the persian empire had taken over the territory of babylon and the jews, who had been forced to leave israel by the babylonians, were allowed to return home.
The fragment records Nehemiah’s visit to a ruined Jerusalem only to discover that its gates had been “consumed by fire.” according to the text of the fragment, he inspects the remains of the walls before beginning to rebuild them.
Scholars have noted in previous studies that archaeologists did not find any copies of the Book of Nehemiah in the Qumran caves. How this fragment got to the Americas is unknown, and scholars say they cannot be sure it is from Qumran.
“it is assumed to come from cave 4 [in qumran], but in the final analysis it must be said that the provenance of the fragment remains unknown,” wrote martin g. Abegg Jr., a professor at Trinity Western University who led the team that analyzed the fragment, in the book Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Museum Collection.
Leviticus
the highlight of the schøyen collection is a fragment containing part of the book of leviticus. In the text fragment, God promises that if the Sabbath is observed and the Ten Commandments are obeyed, the people of Israel will be rewarded.
“if you walk according to my laws, and you keep my commandments and put them into practice, then I will grant you rains in due time, so that the earth may yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit”, reads part of the fragment (torleif elgvin translation).
“I will grant peace on earth, and you will lie down without anyone bothering you; and I will exterminate the ferocious beasts of the earth, and no sword will pierce your land,” the fragment continues. “I will look upon you with favor, I will make you fruitful and multiply you.”
schøyen posted a note by william kando that the leviticus scroll fragment was once owned by his father, who obtained it from a bedouin in 1952 or 1953 and sold it, along with other fragments, to a client in zurich in 1956.
original article on living science.