The Dead Sea Scrolls
In 1947 in a cave near the Dead sea in the Jordan Desert, a fifteen year old boy chased after one of his goats that wandered off. This boy's name was Muhammad adh-Dhib. While going after his goat, the boy stumbled upon perhaps the greatest religious discovery of the modern era. Inside the cave, he found broken jars that contained scrolls written in a strange language, wrapped in linen cloth and leather. These scrolls would later become known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. This first discovery produced seven scrolls and started an archaeological search that produced thousands of scroll fragments in eleven caves.
The Dead Sea is located in Israel and Jordan, east of Jerusalem. The dead sea is very deep, salty, and it's
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John Trever of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research was allowed to investigate the scrolls and was stunned to find that the scrolls closely resemble the Nash Papyrus, the once known oldest fragment of the Hebrew Bible dated at or around 150 BC. One of the scrolls was a complete copy of the book of the prophet Isaiah. Trever also examined three other scrolls; the Manual of Discipline, a commentary on the book of Habbakuk, and one called the Genesis Apocryphon. Trever took photographs of the texts to William Foxwell Albright of John Hopkins University in Baltimore, who declared the scrolls dated back to around 100 BC.
The scroll and fragments found in the Qumran is a library of information that contains books or works written in three different languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Many scholars separated the scrolls into three different categories: Biblical - Books found in the Hebrew Bible. Apocryphal or psuedepigraphical - Works not in some Bibles but included in others. Sectarian- ordinances, biblical commentaries, apocalyptic visions, and sacred works. One of the longer texts found in Qumran is the Tehillim or Psalms Scroll. It was found in 1956 in cave 11 and unrolled in 1961. It is a assortment of Psalms, hymns and an indifferent passage about the psalms authored by King David. It is written on sheep skin parchment and it has the thickest surface of any of the scrolls. The Manual Of Discipline or
The Hebrew Bible, also known as the Old Testament, contains many of the religious beliefs and practices as well as the origins of the Israelites. This document may not be perfectly accurate with the history of the Israelites, but it provides a foundation for the events that happened.
Two armies consisting of 4 and 5 kings fought in the valley in the Dead Sea
The great American scholar, William Foxwell Albright was an American Biblical archaeologist, and is considered to by many to be the “father of Biblical archaeology,” because of his contributions to the archaeological historicity of the Bible. “More than any other scholar Albright’s astounding corpus of books, articles, and public lectures defined a new relationship between archaeology and Biblical studies.”
Although it is argued that rabbis began work on compiling the oral histories prior to the fall of the Second Temple, there was a definite resurgence in documentation of the important history and moral laws of Judaism after the fall. The most important of these written documents in the Jewish faith is the Hebrew Bible. This bible is comprised of the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim, these three components combine to make up the Tanakh. The Torah is the core of the Hebrew Bible and contains the story of creation, as well as directions on daily conduct and religious rituals. The Nevi’im contains the stories of prophets. The prophets were people that spoke on behalf of God to the Jewish people. Lastly, the Ketuvim is comprised of mostly imaginative literature such as psalms, proverbs and poetry (Molloy, 294). Shifting the focus from priests and temple to a written work that is accessible to all regardless of location was the main adaptation of Judaism and certainly saved the faith. Although the historical accuracy of the Hebrew Bible is debatable, as some stories may have morphed from their origination to when they were assembled in writing, the bible still remains at the core of Judaism today.
The burning of the Great Alexandria Library, maybe a mistake destroyed over 700, 000 scrolls. Many of these scrolls were the only copies and the information they held are lost forever (Heather Phillips p.4-6).
In the Beginning: At the beginning of the universe. God created heaven and earth in six days and rested on the seventh. During those six days God spoke to the darkness and created the world, brought forth light, created the sky, land and animals and plants to inhabit them. However, even during this creation he was contemplating the creation of a being made in his own image.
The Muslims adopted the Jewish and the Christian practice of using parchment to copy their scriptures; until the Muslims came to Egypt and started to acknowledge the papyrus as writing material. The Arabs called papyrus Qirtas, a word derived from a Greek word Khartes. The papyrus sheets were known in Arabia at the time of the Prophet, a verse in the Quran declared that Allah said to the Prophet that even if he sent down a book of papyrus for his adversaries to hold and feel, they would still reject the revelation. The Arab invading Egypt in 640 A.D enabled them to use papyrus as a writing material to write the Quran similar to the Coptic and the Creek, who also wrote the Bible on the papyrus. The papyrus plant called Bardi in Arabic, which
The most important of these written documents is the Hebrew Bible. This bible is composed of the Torah, Nevi’im and Ketuvim, and these three components combine to make up the Tanakh (Simmons, 83). The Torah is the core of the Hebrew Bible and contains the story of creation, as well as directions on daily conduct and religious rituals. The Nevi’im contains the stories of prophets. The prophets were people who spoke on behalf of God to the Jewish people. Lastly, the Ketuvim is composed of mostly imaginative literature such as psalms, proverbs and poetry (Molloy, 294). Shifting the focal point from
The Dead sea Is another place to visit on this list. It is even more salty than any other lake or ocean or sea in the world. Dont dive under the dead sea unless you want to get really hurt but don’t go in if you have a skin disorder that
Throughout the decades the traditional belief of the author of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible is believed to be Moses. The Pentateuch is the first division of the Hebrew Bible which consists of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Contrary to traditional belief, it is thought that the Pentateuch is a conglomeration of early written documents. The Documentary Hypothesis explains the issues of how and why the Pentateuch was written. The Documentary Hypothesis presents four source documents the Yahwist document, the Elohist document, the Deuteronomist document, and the Priestly document as the basis of the first five books in the Hebrew Bible that would later form the Pentateuch as the world knows it today.
The art of writing has been used through out the world even before the time of Moses. People have been writing things down since the dawn of time, with all different types of materials. According to the book, the Old Testament was originally written on leather, while the New Testament was inked on papyrus. Although this is what the old and New Testament are written on, there are two major divisions of the New Testament: the uncials and cursives or
How the Old Testament is known today, it was composed of works from the first-century B.C.E. However, on the other hand the books themselves date back to later dates close to the eleventh centuries or even maybe earlier. [Source]
The Egyptian Book of the Dead was used primarily from the establishment of the New Kingdom in 1550 BCE to 50 BCE. It consisted of the collection of texts and spells designed to assist the deceased in their journey to the next world. The book of the dead was part of a custom of memorial texts that consisted of the past Coffin Texts and the Pyramid Texts that were decorated on objects. Spells were drained from the past works and other Egyptian history courting to Third Intermediate Period (Budge, 2012:21).
The Old Testament consisted of a set of documentations of religious scriptures, which were written by different people at various times for a different audience. Most of the Old Testament contains short stories of traditional stories and those stories of distinguished ways God established mankind. These stories are often told to the people in narrative form, which are guidelines often referred to as laws, songs, genealogies, and a list from these authors that composed the Old Testaments. The pressing of set documentation is essential because it is the framework for the lives of God 's followers. The term “Old Testament” originated as a means to express spoken traditions and God 's creation of that particular era. It is an method of philosophical investigation was designed to answer the why questions within these spiritual text documentations. These religious documentations consisted of four parts. These four sections retrieved from the Old Testaments are the laws, history, wisdom and prophecy. The laws are a rule of behavior enforced within the community. The rules are sometimes called “Torah.” When analyzing this Torah, these rules viewed within the first five spiritual books of the Bible. For example, in the first Torah in Genesis, it explains the creation, Noah’s Flood, Abraham and Isaac, and Joseph’s coats of many colors. However, the laws in Exodus were in regards to the going out. The going out took about 40 plus years, until the people led to
The revelation of the Dead Sea confirmed that the Jewish and Christian researchers who for hundreds of years duplicated, transcribed and passed along the documents that we call the Bible did so devotedly with care and intention. It remains true that we almost definitely do not have any documents or fragments of a manuscript that is the original writing of the document in question. However, it is equally true that