INTRODUCTION
In 1947, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat
in the Judean Desert, entered a long-untouched cave and found jars
filled with ancient scrolls. That initial discovery by the
Bedouins yielded seven scrolls and began a search that lasted
nearly a decade and eventually produced thousands of scroll
fragments from eleven caves. During those same years,
archaeologists searching for a habitation close to the caves that
might help identify the people who deposited the scrolls, excavated
the Qumran ruin, a complex of structures located on a barren
terrace between the cliffs where the caves are found and the Dead
Sea. Within a fairly short time after their discovery, historical,
paleographic, and linguistic evidence, as well as carbon-14 dating,
established that the scrolls and the Qumran ruin dated from the
third century B.C.E. to 68 C.E. They were indeed ancient! Coming
from the late Second Temple Period, a time when Jesus of Nazareth
lived, they are older than any other surviving biblical manuscripts
by almost one thousand years.
Since their discovery nearly half a century ago, the scrolls
and the identity of the nearby settlement have been the object of
great scholarly and public interest, as well as heated debate and
controversy. Why were the scrolls hidden in the caves? Who placed
them there? Who lived in Qumran? Were its inhabitants responsible
for the scrolls and their presence in the caves? Of what
significance are the scrolls to Judaism and Christianity?
This exhibition presents twelve Dead Sea Scroll fragments and
archaeological artifacts courtesy of the Israel Antiquities
Authority as well as supplementary materials from the Library of
Congress. It is designed to retell the story of the scrolls'
discovery; explore their archaeological and historical context;
introduce the scrolls themselves; explore the various theories
concerning the nature of the Qumran community; and examine some of
the challenges facing modern researchers as they struggle to
reconstruct the scrolls from the tens of thousands of fragments
that remain.
deadsea.scrolls.exhibit, courtesy of the Library of Congress.
(rev 6/18/93)