The Dead Sea is a unique place on our planet. It is surrounded by desert on all sides, fish do not live in its water and you cannot drown. Its coastline is interesting for archaeological sites. The most mysterious of them are the legendary caves of Qumran, where ancient scrolls written 2000 years ago were discovered. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are 1000 years older than the oldest Bible that has survived to this day. Is it so?
Now these mysterious scrolls are the national treasure of Israel. They are dated to the 1st century BC. e. The scrolls were accidentally discovered in 1947 by a Bedouin boy who was looking for a missing goat. Throwing stones into one of the caves in the hope of frightening the animal, he heard a crack. Curiosity overcame fear, and in the gloom he saw ancient clay vessels, one of which crumbled after a stone hit it.
The vessels, carefully wrapped in strips of linen, contained scrolls of leather and papyrus, covered with inscriptions. After long ups and downs, the unique manuscripts ended up in the hands of specialists. Subsequently, about 200 caves in the area were explored, in 11 of them similar scrolls were found. The ruins of an ancient settlement were also located nearby. Since 1947, endless research and excavations have been carried out here. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has presented the scientific community with so many mysteries that, apparently, several generations of scientists will not be able to solve.
What are the legendary Dead Sea Scrolls? These manuscripts recount historical events from the time of the Second Temple (520 BC - 70 AD). There, the period from the 2nd century BC is especially interesting. e. before 70 AD e. - the time of development and establishment of a monotheistic religion.
The Dead Sea Scrolls contain quite a variety of texts. This includes the texts of all the canonical books of the Old Testament (with some of them differing from the known ones), several non-canonical Jewish lists. The 7 earliest fragments tell about the birth of Judaism and Christianity.
The researchers paid special attention to the documents of the communities that lived in the area. In addition, the famous Copper Scroll was found, which contains lists of hidden treasures (a mystery that haunts minds to this day). The largest exhibit is written in the old Hebrew script, which has common roots with the pictographic alphabet. The rest of the manuscripts were written in later Assyrian, Hebrew and Aramaic.
Where could this amazing library come from in the Qumran caves? Who and why left the scrolls under the protection of gloomy cave vaults? The researchers tried to find the answer to this question in the ruins located between the limestone cliffs and the coastal strip. We are talking about a complex of structures 80 x 100 m, with a significant height. The remains of graves were found nearby. Plaster tables with low benches and inkwells were found in one of the interior rooms of the building; some of them retained remnants of ink.
Scientists have suggested that this place became a haven for the Essenes (Essenes) sect, which is mentioned in ancient historians. The Essenes, who went into the desert, led a hermitic life for two centuries. In the texts they called themselves Jews, which corresponds to the third branch of Judaism (Essen), mentioned by the historian Flavius. The sectarians considered themselves true believers, and everyone else - mired in false faith and vices. They were preparing for the last battle between the forces of Light and Darkness under the leadership of the Teacher of Righteousness.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has caused a lot of controversy among experts. A group of skeptics immediately stood out, doubting both the antiquity and the authenticity of the manuscripts. It is difficult to blame them for increased distrust: in 1883, the Jerusalem antiques dealer Moses Shapiro also announced the discovery of the ancient text of Deuteronomy. (These 15 strips of leather caused a sensation in Europe and were exhibited in the British Museum. But later, leading European scholars came to the conclusion that the texts were a crude forgery.)
Some of the scholars argue that the texts cannot be ancient. They argue that, with the exception of the Nash papyrus containing the Shema prayers and the 10 commandments in Hebrew, the biblical texts were known only from the lists of the 9th century AD. e. And in this case, the threat of forgeries is too great, because it is not possible to compare texts with earlier manuscripts.
But the radiocarbon method of studying the fabric in which the scrolls were wrapped, in general, confirmed the antiquity of the find and indicates the period between 167 BC. e. and 237 AD e. To date, the opinion of scientists regarding the dating of the manuscripts from the caves of Qumran is also supported by historical, linguistic and paleographic data. It has been established that some texts were written shortly before the destruction of Qumran by Roman legionnaires in 68 AD. e.
Concerning the origin of the texts, disputes, apparently, will not subside very soon. However, there are 4 main groups of opinions:
The scrolls were created by members of the Qumran community;
The collection had nothing to do with the Essenes and was part of the garrison library;
The Dead Sea Scrolls are the records of predecessors or even followers of Christ;
These texts are the remains of Solomon's Temple library.
Of particular importance were found minor discrepancies with the accepted text of the Bible: they confirm the authenticity of later Jewish manuscripts. For the first time, the scientific world had a unique opportunity to evaluate the relationship between the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Bible) and the ancient Masoretic text.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, all the discrepancies that exist in both versions were considered the result of a scribal error or deliberate distortion of the base text. But after careful analysis of the texts, it turned out that in ancient times there were several versions of the sacred script, which were followed by various schools of scribes. It is from these schools that the most ancient known biblical texts seem to originate.
The Dead Sea Scrolls helped clarify a number of obscure passages in the New Testament and proved that the Hebrew language during the time of Christ's earthly life was not a dead language. It is curious that the scrolls do not mention the events that followed the capture of Jerusalem. The explanation suggests itself: the scrolls are the remains of the library of the Jerusalem Temple, saved from the Romans by a certain priest.
During excavations, it was discovered that the building had been stormed. A coin was found in the ashes, indicating the presence of warriors of the Tenth Legion in it. Apparently, the inhabitants of Qumran were warned of a possible attack and they hid the library in the surrounding caves. Judging by the fact that the texts lay in them until the 20th century, there was no one to pick them up after the storming of the monastery...
The hypothesis linking the appearance of the manuscripts with the destruction of Jerusalem is supported by the contents of the Copper Scroll. It consists of three copper plates fastened with rivets. The rectangular strip with engraved text is almost 2.5 m long and 40 cm wide. The scroll is written in colloquial Hebrew and contains more than 3,000 characters. However, to apply one sign, you need to make 10,000 strokes with a coin!
Why was such an unusual material used for writing? It was probably extremely important that its contents be preserved. And in fact, the Copper Scroll is an inventory list that lists the contents and places of burial of the treasures.
The manuscript claims that the amount of gold and silver buried in the territory of Israel, Jordan and Syria is from 140 to 200 tons! It may be referring to the treasures of the Jerusalem Temple, which were buried before the invaders broke into the city. However, many of the experts argue that such a quantity of precious metals at that time was not only in Judea, but throughout the civilized world. In particular, it was emphasized that none of the treasures was found. But there could be copies of the document. Perhaps such a list ended up in the hands of treasure hunters much earlier...
The very presence of the scroll in the collection confirms that some of the manuscripts actually came here from Jerusalem at the last stage of the Jewish war. Numerous disputes have caused a scroll, which is called "War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness." The mystical nature of its content is in conflict with the realistic details of the text. There is a feeling as if a national liberation war is being described. Isn't the Jewish War spoken of in the scroll? This text is a strategic plan for a campaign against the Romans and their allies. At the same time, one gets the impression that if the Jews could act in accordance with it, the outcome of the war would have been different.
Using ancient texts, some of the researchers have tried to connect the formation of the Christian church with the revival of the Qumran monastery between 4 BC. e. and 68 AD e. Moreover, among the documents of the community, the researchers found the horoscopes of the Forerunner and Jesus. The parallel drawn by specialists between the settlement at Qumran and the life of these biblical characters is indeed interesting.
John the Baptist withdrew into the Judean desert near the mouth of the Jordan River. It should be noted: this place is less than 16 km away from Qumran! Presumably, John was associated with the Essenes or even belonged to their midst. It is known that the Essenes often took children to raise, and nothing is known about the youth of the Forerunner, except that he was "in the deserts." But this is exactly what the Qumranites called their settlements! “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” the Baptist said about himself, literally repeating their slogan.
But in time John had to break with the isolation of Qumran society; he turned the daily sacred ablutions into a "baptism of repentance" performed only once. Jesus Christ came to the place where John preached to ask for baptism. The Baptist immediately recognized Him, although he had never seen Him before. The Essenes distinguished each other by their white linen robes...
It is curious that the Gospel also passes over in silence almost 20 years of the life of Christ himself. After the mention of a 12-year-old boy, a mature man appears before us. He impresses with his erudition, quotes sacred texts and easily wins in disputes with the Pharisees and scribes. Where could the son of a simple carpenter comprehend all this?
Family Essenes made up the lower classes of the community. They were usually engaged in carpentry or weaving. Presumably, the father of Christ, Joseph (the carpenter!) Was an Essenes of the lowest level. The Evangelist Matthew calls Joseph "the righteous" - that is how the people of Qumran were called in those days. Perhaps Jesus, after the death of his father, went to study with the Initiates. Perhaps there he spent the years that “dropped out” of the Holy Scriptures.
N. Roerich suggested that Christ did not stay long in the community. He quickly learned the wisdom of the Essenes (who, according to one version, were the descendants of the Egyptian priest-healers) and was sent to Tibet. In the ancient monasteries of India, Persia and the Himalayas, according to Roerich, there are documents that confirm the stay of Jesus here. In particular, there is information about a man named Issa, who came from Israel and resurrected after being crucified on the cross...
Christ returned to his homeland at the age of 30 - at a time when a person's chakras open and he can engage in healing. When it comes to healing, Jesus behaved like an attentive physician, but by no means an all-powerful man. He did not cure many from the first time, he completely retreated before some ailments, advising them to pray and fast.
Apparently, he perfectly mastered the medical secrets of the Essenes, so that he could take care of himself at the right time. Roman sources report that Jesus died on the cross after 6-7 hours, although as a rule, those crucified died on the third day. He was taken down from the cross and taken to a cave. The body disappeared a day later. Only a young man in white robes was in the cave, who reported a miraculous resurrection.
Egyptian manuscripts have preserved many such stories. The initiates voluntarily passed away, bequeathing to the disciples to resurrect them. Perhaps one of the "resuscitators" of Christ was a mysterious young man in white.
Christ spoke to the disciples, clearly referring to the prophecies that speak of the deeds of the future Messiah. But he mentioned that "the dead are raised" - this is not in the prophecy. The perplexity is resolved by the text of the Qumran scrolls, which indicates the "resurrection of the dead" as one of the works of the Messiah.
So was not Christ himself the Teacher spoken of in the ancient manuscripts? However, the analysis revealed large discrepancies in the description of both personalities. Yes, and the manuscripts were created at least 100 years before the birth of the Messiah of Nazareth.
So, now the scientific world is convinced that the capricious animal of a Bedouin boy was the reason for the discovery of the oldest known Bible. The scrolls are actually 1,000 years older than the surviving Hebrew manuscripts used as the basis of all modern Old Testaments.
Curiously, the Masoretic Text (900 CE) contained an allusion to the treasures of Solomon's Temple hidden in 70 CE. e. (remember the Copper Scroll!). Throughout the Bibles, Deuteronomy speaks of "fear" or "reverence" for God, but the Dead Sea Scrolls speak of "love" instead... But, as scholars put it, "the 11th commandment is not in the scrolls." The changes suggested by the Dead Sea Scrolls do not challenge core beliefs.
Qumran Manuscripts - the name of the manuscripts discovered since 1947 in the caves of Qumran, Wadi Murabbaat (south of Qumran), Khirbet Mirda (southwest of Qumran), as well as in a number of other caves of the Judean Desert and in Masada.
In early 1947, two Taamire shepherd boys were tending goats in a desert area called Wadi Qumran (West Bank of the Jordan), on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, 20 kilometers east of Jerusalem. Their attention was drawn to a hole in the rock. Penetrating through it into the cave, they, to their surprise, found eight large clay vessels there. One of them contained seven scrolls sewn from pieces of parchment and wrapped in pieces of linen. The parchment was written in parallel columns of text in a language other than Arabic. The find remained with the young men for many weeks until they reached Bethlehem, where they offered the scrolls to a Syrian merchant who sent them to the Syrian Metropolitan Yeshua Samuel Athanasius at the monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem. At the end of 1947, Professor E. Sukenik, an archaeologist
from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, managed to acquire the three remaining manuscripts from a merchant in Bethlehem. All seven scrolls (complete or slightly damaged) are now on display at the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
In 1951, systematic excavations and surveys began at Qumran and nearby caves under Jordanian control. The surveys, during which new manuscripts and numerous fragments were discovered, were carried out jointly by the Department of Antiquities of the Jordanian government, the Palestine Archaeological Museum (Rockefeller Museum) and the French Archaeological Bible School.
From 1951 to 1955, they organized four archaeological expeditions to an area a few kilometers south of the first cave, and further south to Wadi Murabbaat. More than 200 caves were explored, and traces of human presence were found in many. The finds date back to between the Bronze Age and the Roman era, with the late period accurately dated by the finds of a large number of coins. 500 meters east of the Qumran caves, at a place called Khirbet Qumran, the researchers discovered the remains of a stone building, apparently a monastery, with a large number of halls, where there were many cisterns and basins, a mill, a pantry for earthenware, a pottery oven and granary. In one of the interiors, table-like structures made of gypsum with low benches and inkwells made of ceramics and bronze were found; some of them retained remnants of ink. It was probably a scriptorium, that is, a room for writing, where many of the found texts were created. To the east of the building was a cemetery with more than 1,000 graves.
With the reunification of Jerusalem in 1967, almost all of these findings, concentrated in the Rockefeller Museum, became available to Israeli scientists. In the same year, I. Yadin managed to acquire (with funds allocated by the Wolfson Foundation) another of the well-known large manuscripts - the so-called Temple Scroll. Outside of Israel, in the capital of Jordan, Amman, there is only one of the significant manuscripts of the Dead Sea - the Copper Scroll.
The Qumran scrolls are written mainly in Hebrew, partly in Aramaic; there are also fragments of Greek translations of Bible texts. Hebrew of non-biblical texts was the literary language of the Second Temple era, some fragments are written in post-biblical Hebrew. The main use is the square Hebrew script, the direct predecessor of modern printed script. The main writing material is parchment made of goat or sheep skin, occasionally papyrus. The ink used was mostly charcoal. Palaeographic data, external evidence, as well as radiocarbon analysis make it possible to date the bulk of these manuscripts to the period from 250 to 68 BC (this is the period of the existence of the Second Jerusalem Temple). They are regarded as the remains of the library of the mysterious Qumran community.
By content, Qumran manuscripts can be divided into three groups: biblical texts (about 29% of the total number of manuscripts); apocrypha and pseudepigrapha; other literature of the Qumran community.
Between 1947 and 1956, more than 190 biblical scrolls were discovered in eleven caves at Qumran. Basically, these are small fragments of the books of the Old Testament (all except the Books of Esther and Nehemiah). One complete text of Isaiah was also found.
Apparently, the foundation of the Qumran settlement dates back to the Maccabean era, possibly to the time of King John Hyrcanus of Judea, since the earliest coins date from his reign in 135-104 BC.
From the first years of work on the found texts, the opinion prevailed in scientific circles that the own works of the Qumranites (“Charter of the Community”, “War Scroll”, “Comments”, etc.) were written in the II-I centuries BC. Only a small group of scholars have chosen to date the scrolls later.
Of the hypotheses in which the manuscripts are dated to the 1st century AD, the concept of the Australian orientalist Barbara Tearing caused the greatest resonance - if not in the scientific community, then at least in the media. The main person appearing in the scrolls is the leader of the community, who is nicknamed the Righteous Instructor, or the Teacher of Righteousness (Heb. More Chatzedek). Identification of him with historical figures of the II-I centuries BC faced great difficulties. At the same time, many Qumran scholars point out that there is much in common between the teachings of this man, as reflected in the manuscripts, and the preaching of John the Baptist. Tearing put an equal sign between these people. And she wasn't the first to do something like that. More
in 1949, the Austrian scholar Robert Eisler, known for his study of the Slavic translation of the "Jewish War", pointed out that the Righteous Instructor is John the Baptist.
It is interesting to note that, apparently, not all the Dead Sea Scrolls have fallen into the hands of scientists. In 2006, Professor Hanan Eshel presented to the scientific community a hitherto unknown Qumran scroll, which contains fragments of the Book of Leviticus. Unfortunately, this scroll was not discovered during new archaeological excavations, but was accidentally seized by the police from an Arab smuggler: neither he nor the police suspected the true value of the find until Eshel, invited for examination, established its origin. This incident once again confirmed that a significant part of the Dead Sea Scrolls can be in the hands of looters and dealers in antiquities, gradually falling into disrepair.
Of particular interest is the connection between the Qumran manuscripts and early Christianity. It turned out that the Dead Sea Scrolls, created several decades before the birth of Christ, contain many Christian ideas, for example, about the imminent change in the course of history. The Qumran community itself, which arose several centuries before this event, was similar to a monastery in the Christian sense of the word: a strict charter, joint meals, obedience to the abbot (called the Righteous Mentor) and abstinence from sexual intercourse.
The manuscripts also depict two antagonists of the Righteous Mentor - the Wicked Priest and the Man of Lies. Having identified both, Tearing saw in them Jesus Christ, who, in her opinion, opposed his teaching to the position of John and therefore was rejected by those Qumranites who remained faithful to the Righteous Instructor. She interprets the Gospels as an allegorical description of the schism from the standpoint of the early Christians. She also believes that one of the most important manuscripts - a commentary on the book of the prophet Habakkuk - was written in the late 30s of the 1st century AD.
Almost all Qumran scholars agree that the scrolls were hidden in caves during the war with the Romans - most likely in 68 AD, shortly before Qumran was captured by the latter. At the same time, it is obvious that the comments were created by witnesses of the events described in them.
The value of the found scrolls and their fragments is enormous. If the complete scroll of the Book of Isaiah reveals minor discrepancies with the accepted text of the Bible, then its fragments almost completely correspond to it and thus confirm the authenticity of the later Jewish texts. Even more important, however, are manuscripts of non-biblical content, reflecting a hitherto little-known aspect of Jewish thought in that era. They tell about people who lived and were buried in Qumran and called themselves the Community of the Covenant. The order of life of the community is fixed in its Charter. The ideas set forth in it are similar to those attributed to the Jewish sect of the Essenes (Essenes), who, according to Pliny, lived on the western shore of the Dead Sea, where Qumran is located. The Temple Scroll, discovered in 1967, contains detailed instructions for building a large temple and touches on topics such as ritual impurity and purification. The text is often given as being spoken in the first person by God himself.
Before the Qumran finds, the analysis of the biblical text was based on medieval manuscripts. The Qumran scrolls have greatly expanded our knowledge of the text of the Old Testament. Previously unknown readings help to better understand many of its details. The textual diversity reflected in the groups of texts described above gives a good idea of the multiplicity of textual traditions that existed during the Second Temple period.
The Qumran scrolls have provided valuable information about the process of textual transmission of the Old Testament during the Second Temple period. Thanks to these scrolls, the reliability of ancient translations, especially the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, made back in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, was confirmed.
Some commentators speak of the existence of a historical continuity between the teachings of the Essenes and the ideas of early Christianity. In addition to the ideological similarity, a certain chronological and geographical coincidence of the two groups is emphasized. Thus, the formation of the Christian church is associated with the revival of the Qumran monastery between 4 BC and 68 AD. Moreover, these scholars point out that when the Word of God was revealed to John the Baptist, he withdrew into the Judean Desert near the mouth of the Jordan River. There he baptized Jesus - in a place less than 16 kilometers from Qumran.
Thus, the discovery and study of the Qumran manuscripts helped scientists get closer to unraveling the writing of the Bible - the main book for millions of people. Author: A.V. Dzyuba
Michael Baigent
Richard Lee
Dead Sea Scrolls
dedication
The abbey remembers the ancient years, Its chapel pleases the eye, And the ladies that captivated us Came down under the vaulted vaults of Ancient crypts. Armfuls of mowed hay Wrapped a shroud of salt, And the bell, the voice of pain, Sad as a humble monk. And just as alone. But more than a sleepy virgin And all sorts of miracles The spell of one of the druidesses shines, And the sun enchants her cat. Jean l "Askuse (Trans. C . V. Head and A. M. Head)
Foreword
Four Dead Sea Scrolls
For sale are four biblical-era manuscripts dating from at least 200 B.C. They would make an ideal gift for an educational or religious organization from an individual or group. Box F 206.
This is what the announcement looked like, published on June 1, 1954 in the pages of the Wall Street Journals. If an announcement of this kind appeared today, it would no doubt be taken as a kind of joke, and, moreover, not in the best tone. In addition, it could raise suspicions that this is a coded message, the purpose of which is to mask, for example, secret information about a scam or anything related to espionage.
Of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls are quite well known these days, but usually only by name. Most people who build the most incredible fantasies about what they are have at least heard of the existence of the scrolls. Among other things, there is an opinion that these scrolls are in some respects unique and priceless artifacts, archaeological evidence of great value and significance. It's hard to expect to find things of this kind when digging around in your garden or backyard. It is equally useless, although some think otherwise, to try to look for them among rusty weapons, household garbage, broken dishes, the remains of harness and other household items that can be found, say, during excavations at the site of Roman legionnaires in Britain.
The discovery in 1947 of the Dead Sea Scrolls caused a stir and avid interest both in scientific circles and among the general public. But by 1954, the first wave of excitement was skillfully dispelled. It was believed that the scrolls contained only what such things could store, and the information they carried turned out to be much less burning than expected. Therefore, the announcement of the sale of the four scrolls, published in the Wall Street Journal (p. 14), did not arouse wide public interest. Directly below him were advertisements for the sale of industrial steel tanks, electric welding machines and other equipment. In the next column were placed lists of premises and objects for rent, and various kinds of vacancies. In short, this can only be compared with an advertisement for the sale of treasures from the tomb of Tutankhamen, placed among advertisements for water pipes or components and consumables for computers. This book will focus on how such a glaring anomaly could have arisen.
Having traced the fate and path of the Dead Sea Scrolls from their discovery in the Judean Desert to the vaults of various organizations and institutions where they are stored today, we find ourselves faced with the same contradiction that we have already had to deal with before: the contradiction between Jesus the historical figure and the Christ of faith. Our research began in Israel. Then they were continued in the corridors of the Vatican and, which is quite strange, in the offices of the Inquisition. We had to face strong opposition from the "consensus" of interpretations regarding the content and dating of the scrolls and realize how explosive an impartial and independent study of them can be for the entire theological tradition of Christianity. Moreover, we have seen from our own experience with what fury the world of orthodox biblical scholasticism is ready to fight in the name of maintaining its monopoly on all sacred information.
Christians today consider it perfectly acceptable to recognize the existence of, for example, Buddha or Muhammad as real historical figures, such as Alexander the Great or Caesar, and to separate them from all sorts of legends, traditions and theological heaps that have long surrounded their names. As for Jesus, such a division turns out to be a much more complicated matter. The very essence of Christian beliefs, historical traditions and theology turns out to be inexplicably confused and contradictory. One overshadows the other. And at the same time, each individually poses a potential threat to everyone else. Thus, it is much easier and safer to remove all the demarcation lines between them. Thus, for a believer, two significantly different figures will merge into one image. On the one hand, this is a real historical figure, a person who, according to most scientists, really existed and roamed the sands of Palestine two thousand years ago. On the other hand, this is the God-man of the Christian faith, the Divine Person, for the deification, glorification and preaching of which the Apostle Paul did a lot. The study of this character as a real historical person, that is, an attempt to fit him into a historical context and put him on the same level as Muhammad or Buddha, Caesar or Alexander the Great, for many Christians is still tantamount to blasphemy.
In the mid 1980s. we have been accused of precisely this blasphemy. As part of a research project we were working on at the time, we tried to separate history from theological dogma, to separate the historical Jesus from the Christ of faith. In the process of research, we plunged headlong into the thick of the contradictions that all researchers of biblical materials face. And like everything
Priest Dimitry Yurevich
1 . in 11 caves near the ruins of the Qumran settlement;
2 . in the ruins of the ancient Israeli fortress Masada;
3 . in 4 (according to other sources - in 5) caves of Wadi Murabaʽat;
4 . in the caves of Nahal Khever (next to Wadi Habra);
5 . in the Nahal Tse'elim cave (near Wadi Seyal);
6 . in the Nahal Mishmar cave (near Wadi Matras);
7 . in the ruins of a Greek monastery at Khirbet Mird (ancient Hyrcania);
8 . in the genizah of Ezra's synagogue in Old Cairo;
9 . according to some researchers - even in the cave of Wadi ed-Daliyeg (Samaritan papyri).
For all manuscripts found in the indicated places, the name is used. Dead Sea Manuscripts in broad sense. The scrolls found in the Qumran region represent a special important class, therefore they are called Qumran manuscripts or Dead Sea Manuscripts in narrow sense(only they are considered in this work). The Masada Scrolls, which relate to them chronologically, and documents from the Cairo synagogue, related thematically, are also sometimes included in the "Dead Sea manuscripts" in the narrow sense or Qumran.
In total, 11 caves were discovered in the Qumran region, in which more than 10 well-preserved scrolls and about 25 thousand fragmentary fragments were found, many of which do not exceed the size of a postage stamp. Originally, when the scrolls were intact, the library must have contained at least a thousand manuscripts. At present, about 900 fragments of ancient texts have been isolated from fragments through complex analysis and comparison. In the 4th cave, the maximum number of fragments was found - about 15 thousand. The manuscripts are written predominantly in Hebrew and Aramaic, with only a few in Greek.
In 1951, an expedition led by Lankester Harding, director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, and Father Roland de Vaux of the French Biblical Archaeological Institute in Jerusalem, worked in the Khirbet Qumran area. For several consecutive seasons, excavations were carried out in winter (since the summer is unbearably hot), and from 1952 to 1956, Father Roland de Vaux led the work. He published preliminary reports about his research, but the final report, which would have analyzed all the objects found at the excavation site, never saw the light of day. The absence of a final report does not allow archaeologists to draw accurate conclusions about what was found at Khirbet Qumran. This is one of the reasons for the ongoing debate about the identification of Qumran.
In the early 1950s, the government of Jordan (on whose territory the discovery area was then located) allowed foreign scientists to form a group of researchers who would deal with texts coming from the caves. A group of 8 young scientists was created, who were given a responsibility - but at the same time a privilege! - publish all texts.
The young explorers got off to a good start with the publication in 1955 of the first volume in the long-term series that followed, Discoveries in the Judean Wilderness. Discoveries in the Judean Desert, further abbreviated: DJD), dedicated to the manuscripts from the 1st cave. “Work of this kind is inevitably slow,” wrote H. L. Harding in the preface. “It could probably be several years before the series is completed.” However, he could not foresee that the work would not be completed for nearly half a century. What caused this?
On the one hand, the work required more time than originally expected, since the researchers faced the difficult task of restoring the original text of the manuscripts from poorly preserved, scattered and incomplete fragments of the manuscripts. Initially, it was planned to publish only photographs of the manuscripts, but this still had to be preceded by the selection of fragments. Even now, after the publication of almost all the texts, the work of combining passages continues and brings very interesting results.
The first group of researchers did their job well, but “it is now clear that the task was too broad and the group of scientists too small.” 2nd volume of the series DJD came out in 1961 (with texts from Masada), 3rd in 1962 (with texts of manuscripts from 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 10 - the so-called "small (according to the comparative number of scrolls found) caves" . 4th volume DJD, published in 1965, was dedicated to a single manuscript of the Book of Psalms from Cave 11. And only in 1968 (20 years after the discovery, when the manuscripts were already being discussed with might and main and overgrown with various kinds of scientific theories and near-scientific conjectures!) in the 5th collection DJD the first texts from the 4th cave, the main one in terms of the number of scrolls found there, were published.
By this point, the slow process of publishing manuscripts had practically come to a halt. As a result of the six-day war in June 1967, the State of Israel became the owner of the Palestinian Archaeological Museum, where fragments of the scrolls were kept. The members of the scientific group for the publication of the manuscripts, for the most part, held pro-Arab convictions and, with great reluctance, continued to work under Israeli protection, despite the guarantee of non-interference in their affairs. As a result, ten years later (in 1977) the 6th volume of the series was published. DJD, containing a few not-too-important texts.
“By this time, however, the community of scholars had grown considerably, unfortunately for the official scroll study team,” modern manuscript scholars write. – The manuscripts that have already been published revolutionized the study of the Bible, early Judaism and early Christianity. The idea that hundreds of texts - more than half of what was found - had never been seen outside the small circle of privileged editors was maddening and was, in the words of Briton Geza Vermes (Geza Vermes), " academic scandal of the century" .
Compounding the problem was the fact that an international team of scientists had completed the initial work of reconstructing the manuscripts by as early as 1960. However, they decided that simply publishing the scrolls would not be enough. The study of manuscripts became a whole area of ancient history, and the "proper" (in their opinion) publication of the manuscripts had to include "an enormous analysis, an extensive synthesis and a detailed assessment for each fragment of its place in the history of Judaism, Christianity and mankind. This task would be burdensome even for a large group of scientists, for a small group it was simply impossible. And despite the fact that the group began to slowly expand its ranks,<...>she is still refused to allow access to texts for other researchers" .
1.3. The emergence and spread of the "standard model" (the Essene-Qumran hypothesis)
“It is not true that already a month after the discovery of the scrolls, everyone thought that the Essenes wrote them, although in retrospect it may seem so,” write M. Wise, M. Abegg and E. Cook. -<...>It is true that a preliminary press release in April 1948 mentioned them, and both popular and academic studies of the first scrolls concluded in favor of Essene authorship. At the dawn of Qumran research, due to the limited number of scrolls that initially fell into the hands of scientists and subjected to analysis, and also under the influence of the interpretation of the ruins of Qumran proposed by Father Roland de Vaux, who drew a not entirely correct analogy between a medieval Catholic monastery and a hypothetical settlement of the Essenes, this theory received wide distribution. She said that Almost all or even all the scrolls found in the caves were written in Qumran itself, where one of the communities of the Essene religious movement lived (in the next chapter, the theory of Father R. de Vaux will be discussed in more detail). Due to its wide distribution until the moment when all the texts became available to researchers, this theory, called " Qumran-Essene", is now also called" standard model" .
1.4. Publication of previously unpublished manuscripts and controversy with the "standard model"
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, dissatisfaction grew catastrophically in academic circles with the fact that the publication of texts was unreasonably slow. Members of the official group continued to publish individual texts from time to time, but “the management of this process always remained in their hands. Even when the texts were published, it looked like noblesse oblige[the position obliges] and was perceived as arrogance hiding behind the slow pace of publications. The rest of the scientists were looking for ways for free access to the texts of the manuscripts. New conditions contributed to this: several members of the official group died, some declared too poor health.
In the early 1990s, the monopoly on the right to access manuscript texts was finally broken. In 1990, John Strugnell, who had been head of the international manuscript study group since 1987, resigned under pressure from the Israeli Antiquities Authorities for his irreverent comments about Judaism. The department placed Israeli scientists in charge of the project, who began inviting more researchers to join the team to speed up publication. External circumstances also influenced the fall of the monopoly: at one time, the official group concordance- a comprehensive list of all the words of unpublished manuscripts, in which the context (one or two adjacent words) was indicated for each word. Even before his resignation, J. Strugnell allowed several academic libraries to receive copies of the concordance. Theoretically, using this list, it was possible to restore not only individual lines, but entire manuscripts of the scrolls. This was done using a personal computer by Martin Abegg, a student at the Hebrew United College in Cincinnati, under the guidance of Ben Zion Wacholder. The first volume of hitherto unpublished manuscripts came out in September 1991. At the end of the same month, the Huntington Library (Southern California) announced that it had photographs of all unpublished scrolls in its possession and unlimited access to them for researchers. In December 1991, the new head of the international group of scientists, Emanuel Το v, announced that all scientists were given free and unconditional access to photographs of the Dead Sea manuscripts.
Of the most significant editions of texts and translations of new manuscripts published after this point, in addition to the series DJD, we can name first of all the book by Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise "The Dead Sea Scrolls Ajar: the first complete translation with an interpretation of 50 key documents inaccessible for 35 years" with texts in Hebrew (Aramaic) and English, accompanied by detailed comments. Of great importance was the 1996 publication of The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation by Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, and Edward Cooke, with a detailed introduction and preface to each manuscript. In the introduction to the book, the authors substantiate the emergence of texts from various currents of Palestinian religious thought and reject the Essene theory. The latter was the starting point for the author of another important collection of manuscript translations, Florentino Garcia Martinez. His book entitled The Dead Sea Manuscripts in Translation, published simultaneously with the previous collection, has a higher level of textual commentary, but its drawback is that it was originally translated into Spanish, and only then into English. By 2002, the publication of manuscripts was completed and in the official series DJD. Volumes 8 to 39 have been published, the last of which contains an index of published manuscripts. Over the past decade, there have also been several educational publications in which the Hebrew text of the manuscripts runs in parallel with the English translation (for example, the two-volume collection of all non-biblical manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, published by Florentino Martinez and Eibert Tigchalaar).
Speaking about the interpretation of the scrolls in general, one can say, firstly, about the continuing line of authors who share the Qumran-Essene theory. One of the best books of its kind is The Dead Sea Manuscripts Today by James Vanderkam (1994). Among the researchers who adhere to the "standard model", one can single out a special direction of the "historical Jesus" school, headed by James X. Charlesworth (James N. Charlesworth). Carrying out work to restore the "personality of the historical Jesus", that is, the image of Christ, "cleansed" from later layers and interpretations and understood on an earthly, human level, without taking into account His Divine nature, James Charlesworth is trying to find out what influence the Essenes could have had on Jesus Christ , and in what cases He could argue with them. The main work of the scientist on this topic is a collection written together with a number of other authors, "Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" (the first edition was published in 1992). The views of the researcher became known in Russia thanks to the publication of his lecture in the journal World of the Bible in 2000. The problem of J. Charlesworth's approach lies in the original belonging to the school of "historical Jesus": trying to analyze human motives of behavior and "closing his eyes" to the divine nature of the Savior, the scientist talks about the influence essentially, that is, in fundamental theological questions, the Essenes against Christ in the doctrine that He proclaimed. But if you firmly stand on the position of the Chalcedon Oros, you must remember the divinely revealed nature of the teachings of Christ: the doctrinal truths were revealed to Him by the Heavenly Father and transmitted through Him by the apostles to the whole world. The commonality of some ideas in the Qumran scrolls and in the Gospel is just a fact of the intense reflection of the Jews on issues of faith in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah.
In general, among scholars who support the Qumran-Essene theory, one can see a wide range of views regarding the influence of Essene, in their opinion, ideas, on the teachings of Jesus Christ. Many of the authors, instead of the moderate position of the two above-mentioned researchers, assert a more radical influence up to the identification of the persons mentioned in the Qumran documents with the person of Jesus Christ or the Christian apostles. One of the most active modern scientists in this direction is Robert Eisenman, who together with M. Wise published the first translation of previously inaccessible manuscripts mentioned above. R. Eisenman considers the Qumran manuscripts as the creations of Palestinian Judeo-Christians, and the persons referred to in the Qumran manuscripts of the Damascus Document, the Commentary on Habakkuk and the Commentary on the Psalms, namely, the Teacher of Righteousness. The Man of Lies and the Evil High Priest - he identifies respectively as ap. Jacob, app. Paul and High Priest Ananias (under whom the Apostle James was killed).
In the last decade, alternative (in relation to the "standard model") approaches to the study of manuscripts are gaining more and more strength. Lorenz Shifman's 1994 book Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls treats the documents as strictly Jewish. The author suggests a non-Essean origin of the manuscripts, using the Halachic Letter (4QMMT) as a key text and sees in it evidence of a dispute between the Sadducees (in his opinion, the authors of the scrolls) and the Pharisees. In the same year, Robert Donceel and Pauline Donceel-Voûte, based on an analysis of Fr. R. de Vaux proposed the identification of the ruins of Qumran as a country estate (villa). A year later (in 1995) came the famous book by Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? , in which the author criticizes the traditional Essene theory of the origin of manuscripts. The book contains more questions than answers, but it is extremely important for understanding the weaknesses of the Qumran-Essene hypothesis and as an excellent proof of the various sources of origin of the manuscripts found in the Judean desert. Finally, in 1998–2002, the results of the research of the Israeli scientist Yizhar Hirschfeld, who carried out aerial photography of Qumran within the framework of the program of the Orion Center (created specifically for the study of the Dead Sea manuscripts), as well as archaeological surveys at Qumran and other places in Palestine. He concluded that Qumran was a fortified feudal estate, but not an Essene center.
1.5. Studies of Qumran Manuscripts in Russia
In the middle of the 20th century, when the Qumran manuscripts were discovered, the situation in post-war Russia continued to be extremely unfavorable for objective studies of religious literature. The official state ideology was atheistic Marxism-Leninism, and all humanitarian research in the Soviet Union was conducted from its position. Other points of view were not allowed in the official press.
Because of this, from the very first years after the start of Qumran research, a unified general approach was formed in official Soviet science, and specific researchers could only slightly vary their beliefs within a certain ideological corridor. An alternative view took place only among church researchers, however, due to persecution, there was practically no opportunity for church scientists to really oppose official secular science.
The first journal publications devoted to manuscripts appeared in Russia in 1956, and the first small monograph was published 3 years later - this is the book by G. M. Livshits "The Qumran Manuscripts and Their Historical Significance" published in Minsk. It is very curious that it outlined the approach that would dominate official Soviet and then Russian Qumranology until the end of the 20th century! The ideas expressed here by G. M. Livshits concisely were expounded at length in his other book, published 11 years later. Based on the Marxist-Leninist attitude that this is a social movement based on the legend of the suffering and resurrection of the Messiah, Livshits is in a hurry to find the very “roots of the myth” from which Christianity originated. He does not dare to directly identify the leader of the hypothetical Qumranites of the Teacher of Righteousness with Jesus Christ, however, he happily grabs onto hypotheses that tried to find elements of a divine attitude towards the Teacher of Righteousness among his followers and attribute the borrowing of these elements by Christians. He writes: “It is impossible to deny the existence of a known relationship between the Qumran sectarians and the early Christians. They had many common features in the field of ideology, rituals and organizational structure of their communities. Their faith in the Divine Savior brought them together. The early Christians borrowed the legendary image of the "Righteous Teacher" from the Qumran sectarians. who has much in common with the gospel Jesus Christ. However, realizing the profound difference between the Christian teaching and the teaching of that Jewish association, from which some of the scrolls found at Qumran originated, G. M. Livshits stipulates that “Christianity was a syncretic religion that absorbed elements of many religious and idealistic philosophical systems” . In general, he stands in the position of F. Engels, who thought that he had withstood a kind of “competitive struggle” with other religious movements that arose at that time in Palestine and in the East. It overcame the "shortcomings" of the hypothetical Qumranites - it emerged from the Jewish national isolation and turned to wide social strata.
Just a year after the first work of G. M. Livshits, the book by I. D. Amusin “The Dead Sea Manuscripts” was published, which for the next few decades became the main reference point for Soviet and Russian Qumranology and is still popular. On the whole conscientious, this work has experienced both the unconditional influence of the standard model of the Qumran-Essene hypothesis and the atheistic Soviet ideology. Like almost all scientists of that time who fell under the influence of the views of Father Roland de Vaux and did not have access to most of the texts found, I. D. Amusin did not question the existence of a religious community in Qumran and saw it as an offshoot of the Essene movement. Based on the Marxist ideological attitude, which rejects the historicity and independence of Christianity, I. D. Amusin, like G. M. Livshits, considers the Essene community as "one of the important elements from which the early was created" . Naturally, this approach forced him to go to certain stretches. As an example, we can point to his translation of lines 1–3 of column 8 of the “Commentary on Habkakum”: those who fulfill the law in the house of Judah “God will save from the house of judgment for their suffering and faith (אֲמָנָה “amana”) in the Teacher of righteousness” . However, the word "faith" in the Old Testament period (אֱמָוּנָה , "emuna") meant not a system of dogmatic concepts, but above all trust, confidence. Faith in God in this sense is trust in God, entrusting oneself to His good will, confidence in His providence for us. In this regard, the expression from the book of Deuteronomy 32:4 is indicative: “The God of fidelity” (אֶמָוּנָה אֵל, “el emuna”), i.e. "A God worthy of trust" that does not deceive the believer. A form more in line with the spelling of the Qumran original (אֲמָנָה, “amana”) is found in a late biblical text and conveys the concept of “agreement, obligation” (), for example, the obligation of the king to issue daily maintenance to the choristers of the Jerusalem temple (). The inadequacy of the biblical meaning to the translation of I. D. Amusin was so significant that soon a remark by K. B. Starkova appeared in the press, in which she not only explained the biblical meaning of the term, but also gave a completely adequate revised translation: “for the sake of their work and commitment to relation to the Righteous teacher (or: ... loyalty to the Righteous teacher) ". This translation conveys the earthly, human relations of the mysterious sectarians with their leader, but by no means the appearance in the sectarian environment of the doctrine of the divinity of their teacher! It is this meaning that is conveyed in English translations of manuscripts as supporters of the Qumran-Essene hypothesis (for example, F. G. Martinez and E. J. Tigchelaar), and her opponents (in the edition of M. Wise, M. Abegg and E. Cook): the word אֲמָנָה (“amana”) is translated as loyalty (loyalty, devotion, loyalty). Unfortunately, despite the remark of K. B. Starkova, I. D. Amusin retained his controversial translation in a separate edition of the texts, which was published 10 years later.
In general, the Soviet period can be characterized as unfavorable for research in Qumranology: for 35 years (until the early 1990s) only 2 collections of Qumran texts were prepared for publication in Russian, which contained translations of only 23 manuscripts (this is especially upsetting now, when about 900 texts have already been published abroad), published only 10 books (of which two are translated), and only about 60 articles in periodicals. For example, by 1965 there were about 6,000 publications by foreign authors devoted to the Dead Sea manuscripts in the world. Unlike foreign science, in which there are about a dozen periodicals devoted to scrolls, there are still no regular publications in Russia.
Of the church scientists, Archbishop Michael (Chub) was the first to respond to the discovery of manuscripts, publishing two articles in the ZhMP - in 1957 and 1958: "On the Tenth Anniversary of Discoveries on the Shores of the Dead Sea" and "John the Baptist and the Community of Qumran". Like other scientists of that time, he was directly influenced by the Qumran-Esse hypothesis. However, his explanation of why common ideas can be found in the manuscripts from Qumran and the teachings of Christ, not only has not lost relevance until now, but even better agrees with new studies: “the teachings and terminology of the Qumranites were an integral part of<...>gospel preparation, - i.e. preparation of broad layers of Palestinian Judaism for the preaching of the Messiah, accomplished according to Divine Providence.
After the beginning of democratic reforms in 1996, the 2nd volume of the "Texts of Qumran" was published in St. Petersburg, prepared for publication in 1967, but then not published. It mainly contains documents that regulated the activities of an unknown Jewish religious community, whose manuscripts make up about 30% of all the manuscripts of the ancient library.
Unfortunately, the few Russian-language publications of the last decade practically do not take into account new foreign studies, but only continue the line that was formed back in the Soviet period. Here we can mention the book of the St. Petersburg researcher I. R. Tantlevsky "History and ideology of the Qumran community" published in 1994. The author offers his own version of the "standard model", in which he not only ignores the fact of the non-Essean origin of most manuscripts, now recognized even by conservative scientists, but also makes methodically unreasonable manipulation of the texts of the manuscripts out of context. He builds a whole system designed to reject the originality of Christianity and present the latter as an almost exact copy of the Qumran ideology. However, in many places of his work, the author makes assumptions that do not find direct evidence. Then he resorts either to a controversial reading or translation of the Qumran texts, or to a proof by analogy, which is rather an illustration: finding some general ideas in the Qumran manuscripts, New Testament books, Gnostic writings and the works of the Church Fathers, he draws conclusions in favor of his theory. Such an approach cannot be recognized as methodologically correct, since the meaning and authority of the New Testament books, patristic works, Gnostic works and the Dead Sea manuscripts are completely different, just as the historical and religious context in which they appeared and circulated is different.
The situation has not fundamentally changed over the past few years. In 2002, A. Vladimirov's book "Qumran and Christ" was published. Rejecting the conclusions of I. R. Tantlevsky, but experiencing a strong dependence on his work in general and adopting his methodology, A. Vladimirov draws on his constructions not only apocrypha and gnostic works, but even the occult works of N. Roerich and E. Blavatsky. He builds his own system in which he tries to date the life of the "historical Jesus" almost a century earlier than the generally accepted date, identifying Him with the Teacher of righteousness.
1.6. Important Publications on Messianism in the Dead Sea Scrolls
Almost all authors who touched upon the issues of correlating the Dead Sea manuscripts and Christian teachings also touched on the messianic views expressed in the Qumran scrolls. Due to the huge number of works, it seems reasonable to indicate only the most significant of the studies of recent years.
Two books in the new series, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, deal with questions of messianism in the manuscripts. The first, published in 1997, is a collection of leading scholars and is called Eschatology, Messianism and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unfortunately, the articles of the collection do not express any integral concept, which somewhat reduces its value. The second book is a monograph by the famous Catholic scholar, who has been studying the Qumran manuscripts for decades, Joseph Fitzmyer (Joseph A. Fitzmyer) The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of Christianity. The author analyzes all the fragments of the manuscripts in which there is a mention of the Messiah. Being a supporter of the Qumran-Essene theory in its moderate version, he recognizes the non-Essene origin of most of the manuscripts. His previous fundamental works on the Qumran manuscripts also contain much material on messianism.
The recent study by J. Collins "The Scepter and the Star", devoted to the study of messianic ideas in Middle Eastern literature at the turn of the era, including the Qumran texts, has gained sufficient fame.
I am not aware of any special studies on the messianic conception of the book of Isaiah in connection with the Qumran scrolls. In an already fairly old work by William Brownlee, attention is paid to the significance of the manuscripts for the study of the book of Isaiah, as the title suggests: The Significance of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible (with Special Reference to the Book of Isaiah). And in a recent (1999) study by Fred Miller (Fred Miller), dedicated to the Great Scroll of Isaiah, the focus is on the features of the Qumran text in comparison with the Masoretic.
Some other interesting but less extensive and significant studies will be indicated in the text of this work in the following chapters.
The terms "intertestamental period" (intertestamental time) and "intertestamental literature" (intertestamental literature) are widely used in the works of Western researchers. With a strict understanding of the concept of "Covenant", these names are not entirely correct (since there is no gap in time between the Old and New Testaments, moreover, the New, it is just a qualitatively different, transfigured, and not any second testament). However, if we accept that the mentioned terms indicate a period of time between writing the last books of the Old Testament and the first books of the New Testament canon, then they can be used as synonyms for the concepts of the “late period of the Second Temple” (III century BC - I AD) and “literature of this period”, respectively.
The history of the Qumran discoveries is described in detail in various sources. In Russian lang. see for example: Shtol G. Cave near the Dead Sea. M., 1965; Amusin A. D. Dead Sea Manuscripts. M., 1961; Sorokin V., sacred Dead Sea Manuscripts. L., LDA, 1965, etc.
Camper F. Clear as Mud. The Dead Sea Scrolls according to Kenneth Mull, Norman Golb, the Field Museum and a chorus of experts // The Reader's Guide, vol. 4, No. 27, 21.04.2000, p. one.
Thousands of documents have been recovered from the genizah of the Cairo synagogue, but most of them have nothing to do with Qumran. Thematically related to the Qumran manuscripts is the "Damascus Document" ( CD), The Testament of Levi, and possibly some texts of wisdom literature that echo the Qumran instructive texts from Cave 4. See: ibid., p. 3.
Abegg M., Flint P, Ulrich E. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible. The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English. San-Francisco, 1999, p. xv.
The posthumous publication of the works of Father R. de Vaux, who died in 1971 (Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls. London, 1973), was of a generalizing and interpretive nature. In the late 1980s, the French Biblical Archaeological Institute invited the Belgian archaeologist Robert Doncel to prepare a report based on de Vaux's notes, photographs, and finds. Together with his wife Paulina, they published a work, the remarkable feature of which was the identification of the Qumran buildings as villas ( Donceel R., Donceel-Vounte R. The Archeology of Khirbet Qumran / Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects. Ed. Michael O. Wise, Norman Golb, John J. Collins and Dennis G. Pardee (Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 722). N.Y., 1994, p. 1–38). The work noted that it was impossible to write a final report, since the diaries and coins were lost, and the Qumran objects survived two more stages of excavation. The French Biblical Archaeological Institute soon released photographs, measurement sheets and summary descriptions from de Vaux's diaries (see: L. A. Belyaev, Christian antiquities. St. Petersburg, 2001, p. 60).
Murthy C. The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Part 1 Introduction. http://www-relg-studies.scu.Edu/facstaff/murphy/courses/sctr108/archaeology/01-introduction.
Some new readings and translations of manuscripts as a result of further restoration work can be found in the said book. Wise M., Abegg M., Cook E. The Dead Sea Scrolls...
Benoit P., Milik J.T, do Vaux R, Les grottes de Murabba'at (DJD II). Oxford, 1961. xv + 814 ρρ. + 107 plates.
Baillet M., Milik J.T, de Vaux R. Les 'petites grottes' de Qumrân (DJDJ III). Oxford, 1982. xiii + 315 pp. + Ixxi plates.
Sanders J. A. The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa) (DJDJ IV). Oxford, 1965.X! + 97 ρρ . + xvli piates.
Vaux R. de, Milik J.T. Qumran grotte 4.II (DJD VI), Oxford, 1977. xi + 91 pp. + x.xviii plates.
The first part of the book is an archaeological description of Fr. R. de Vaux of the 4th cave, the second - the publication by J. Milik of two Targums (on the books of Leviticus and Job), as well as texts of phylacteries and mezuzots.
Wise M., Abegg M., Cook E. The Dead Sea Scrolls..., p. 7. The authors go on to note with a sad smile that “in academic science, of course, ‘knowledge is power’, and the editors of the scrolls enjoyed it greatly” (ibid.).
In series DJD during this time only one volume was published in 1982: Bailet M. Qumrân grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD VII). Oxford, 1982. xiv + 339 pp. + Ixxx plates. It included the publication of a number of texts from Cave 4: several microscopic fragments of the Apocrypha (4Q482–490), fragments of the text of the Scroll of War (4Q491–497), liturgical texts (the main part of the publication: 4Q498–512), halachic texts (4Q 513-514) and papyrus fragments (4Q515-512).
Jillette P. You May Already be a "Computer Expert" // PC-Computing, 1991, vol. 4, 12 / Dec., p. 430.
Eisenman R. H., Wise M. The Dead Sea Scrolls uncovered. The First Complete Translation and Interpretation of 50 Key Documents Withheld for Over 35 Years. N. Y., , 286 pp.
One of the greatest archaeological discoveries was made in what is today known as one of the hotspots where there has been no peace for many decades - on the west bank of the Jordan River, 20 km from Jerusalem.
In the spring of 1947, two Arab youths, Mohammed Ed-Dib and Omar, were grazing goats there. One of the goats got lost, and Muhammad, in his search for her, stumbled upon some kind of cave. The shepherds climbed into it, hoping to find treasures, and saw earthenware jugs. In one of them were parchment scrolls with letters incomprehensible to Muhammad and Omar. They did not suspect that they were seeing the oldest manuscript of the Bible.
In Bethlehem, the shepherds sold the manuscripts to a local sheikh, and at the end of the same year they ended up in the possession of two people - a professor at the University of Jerusalem, E. L. Sukenik, and the abbot of the Syrian monastery of St. Mark of Metropolitan Athanasius. Sukenik quickly figured out that the manuscripts date back to the 1st century BC. BC e. and began to analyze them. The Metropolitan, for a long time, could not believe in the value of the find, because he did not know exactly its origin. But after consulting with Sukenik and the young American scientists John Trever and William Brownlee, he also understood what he was dealing with. Some of the documents ended up in the United States, then they were acquired by the University of Jerusalem.
The first Qumran manuscripts were called by the researchers "Dead Sea Manuscripts". This not entirely accurate name has become generally accepted in the scientific literature in almost all languages of the world.
An active search for ancient manuscripts began in this area. 200 caves were found, where people lived from the Bronze Age until Roman times. Eleven caves contained hundreds of manuscripts, partially or completely preserved. They were made on papyrus, leather, parchment, sherds, wood, and copper, and were written in Aramaic, Nabataean, Greek, Latin, and Arabic. The earliest document dates from the 3rd century BC. BC e., the latest - II century. n. e. Almost all biblical books have been found in multiple copies.
Archaeologists have also studied the ruins near the cave, where young shepherds once looked for a goat. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the Essenes lived there - a kind of religious community. In their house, a kind of monastery, there were many rooms, cisterns for drinking water and pools for ablution, a mill, a pottery workshop, and granaries. One of the inner rooms turned out to be a scriptorium - benches, tables, bronze and clay inkwells with remnants of ink were found there. Scientists understood that it was here, most likely, that the manuscripts found only in the 20th century were created. To the east of the building was a cemetery with more than 1,000 graves.
It is noteworthy that no items were found in any of the excavated graves. A huge number of sherds were found, and in the caves - a lot of biblical, apocryphal and liturgical manuscripts in Hebrew and Aramaic (tens of thousands of fragments included in more than 600 books). And just before the end of the excavations, scrolls were found made of thin copper sheets, which had to be cut to see the texts. It is believed that these are lists of treasures that the Essenes hid from the Romans.
Obviously, the Essenes, before the attack of the Romans, decided to save their library. They placed the scrolls of manuscripts in earthen jars, sealed them with resin to prevent air and moisture from getting inside, and hid the jars in caves. After the death of the settlement, caches with book treasures were apparently forgotten.
Considering in aggregate all the available information and, above all, the coins found, scientists seek to restore the history of the community that owned the Dead Sea Scrolls. Apparently, the foundation of the Qumran settlement dates back to the Maccabean era, possibly to the time of the king of Judea, John Hyrcanus, since the earliest coins date back to the period of his reign (135-104 BC). The latest coins were minted in 37 BC. e. Then people left from there, probably because of the earthquake - there are traces of damage on the building. In 4 BC. e. the Essenes returned, and remained in the settlement until 68 CE. e. - the time of the Jewish war, described by Josephus Flavius. Flavius writes that in that year Vespasian with his Tenth Legion marched to Jericho and the Dead Sea. He probably stormed the building, because all the rooms are littered with iron arrowheads, and the layers of ash speak of a fire. One of the coins actually bears the inscription Legio X Fretensis. But most of the Essenes probably managed to leave, hiding their manuscripts. People returned here again in 132 AD. when the Bar Kokhba rebellion began. In 135, it was suppressed, and silence reigned in these places for many centuries.
The value of the found scrolls and their fragments is enormous. If the complete scroll of the book of Isaiah reveals minor discrepancies with the accepted text of the Bible, then its fragments almost completely correspond to it and confirm the authenticity of the later Jewish texts. Even more important, however, are manuscripts of non-biblical content. They tell about people who lived and were buried in Qumran and called themselves the Community of the Covenant. Their spiritual leader was the Teacher of Righteousness, or the Chosen One; The order of life of the community is fixed in its Charter. Their customs are known from the books of ancient authors - Pliny, Philo and Joseph. The Essenes founded a brotherhood of equals and jointly owned property. They rejected wealth and pleasure and preached humility and self-control. Celibacy was accepted in some groups. The Essenes were ruled by priests who were in charge of the property of the group. Not a single coin has been found outside the central building at Qumran, and no funeral offerings have been found in the graves of the large Qumran cemetery. Great importance was attached to ritual ablutions, members of the community wore white clothes. The Essenes took part in collective meals, which were a religious act that began with the blessing of food.
But the members of the Qumran community did not call themselves Essenes, but the sons of Zadok (Zadok in the Russian Bible), that is, Sadducees. Today there is a stable version that the inhabitants of Qumran were the forerunners of the first Christians. Its supporters associate the formation of the Christian Church with the revival of the Qumran monastery from 4 BC. e. before 68 AD e. Moreover, these scholars point out that, according to Scripture, John the Baptist baptized Jesus on the banks of the Jordan, less than 16 km from Qumran. However, opponents of this version believe that the parallels between the Essenes and Christians are not very significant, and faith in the messiah from the family of Zadok, and not David, is incompatible with Christian teaching.
At the same time, the study of the entire set of scrolls and fragments from the Dead Sea region is still far from being completed, and none of the interpretations can be considered final.
