Dead Sea Scrolls 
The
designation popularly given to manuscripts discovered since 1947 in the area
west of the Dead Sea. Qumran. The most
important manuscripts are those found in eleven caves overlooking the Wadi
Qumran, apparently the remnants of the library of a religious community which
had its headquarters at Khirbet Qumran between ca. 145 B.C. and A.D. 68 (with a
break of thirty years ca. 34-4 B.C.). This community, organized by a leader
usually referred to by a phrase meaning "the Teacher of Righteousness,"
regarded itself as the godly remnant of Israel. It withdrew to the wilderness
of Judea to prepare for the cataclysmic events which would bring the current
"epoch of wickedness" to an end and introduce the kingdom of God. By
diligent study and practice of the law of God its members hoped to win his
acceptance and expiate the errors of their misguided fellow Israelites; they
also expected to be the executors of his judgment on the ungodly at the end of
the age.
They refused to recognize the priesthood that
controlled the Jerusalem temple during the "epoch of wickedness" (the
Hasmonean priesthood), partly because it did not belong to the family of Zadok
and partly because of its moral unfitness for the sacred office. In their own
ranks they preserved the framework of worthy priests and Levites, ready to
resume a pure sacrificial worship in the temple of the new Jerusalem.
The men of Qumran believed in the absolute
sovereignty of God. He knew the end from the beginning and disposed all things
in accordance with his eternal purpose, despite attempts by man to frustrate
it.
They were also strict predestinarians: men
and angels alike have been allotted by God to the realm of light or the realm
or darkness, each realm governed by its appropriate "prince." The
idea of someone being redeemed from the realm of darkness to share the
inheritance of the "sons of light" was scarcely contemplated; the
impression is given, however, that it might be all too easy for sons of light
to defect to the realm of darkness: only unremitting vigilance and divine grace
could keep them true.
God
has given his law to Israel. It is therefore for Israel to obey his law, but
Israel as a whole has failed to do so. The faithful remnant, as a miniature
Israel, set itself to render the obedience that Israel as a whole had failed to
render, according to a radically strict intepretation of the law, considerably
stricter than that of the Pharisees, whom the men of Qumran disparaged as
"seekers after smooth things" or "givers of smooth
interpretations" (cf. Isa. 30:10). The sabbath law and the marriage law
were interpreted with special severity. But the members of the sect did not
complain; they entered its ranks as "volunteers for holiness,"
setting themselves willingly to attain a standard of righteousness higher than
that of the scribes and Pharisees (cf. Matt. 5:20).
But, while they knew they could not win God's
approval without unremitting devotion to his law, they were far from supposing
that such devotion could establish a claim of God. When they had done all, they
were not thereby justified: their justification in God's sight depended
entirely on his grace. His righteousness was understood by them, as later by
Paul, in a twofold sense, not only of his personal character but also of his
gracious act in justifying those who would not venture to regard their own
righteousness as an adequate basis for being accepted by him.
The Qumran library, of which over four
hundred documents have been identified (most in very fragmentary condition),
included biblical and nonbiblical texts. About a hundred out of the four
hundred are biblical texts. All the OT books except Esther are represented,
some of them several times over. These biblical manuscripts date from the
closing centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. They attest at least three
distinct textual traditions of Hebrew Scripture, not only the text (preserved
in Babylonia) which underlies the later Massoretic recension, but also the text
(of Egyptian provenance) underlying the Septuagint and a text (native to
Palestine) akin to the Samaritan Pentateuch. The discovery of these manuscripts
has reduced the gap separating the autographs from the oldest extant copies by
about a thousand years and is of great importance for the textual history of
the OT. In addition to copies of the type of Hebrew text used by the Septuagint
translators, pieces of their actual
Greek translation have also been identified.
The nonbiblical manuscripts, along with the
archaeological evidence furnished by the excavation of Khirbet Qumran, give a
picture of the beliefs and practices of this community, which almost certainly
was an Essene group. The members practiced ceremonial ablutions; they held
fellowship meals; they followed the solar calendar of the book of Jubilees;
they cherished apocalyptic hopes; they interpreted prophetic Scripture in terms
of persons and events of their own days and of the days immediately to follow.
Some of the most interesting documents are
commentaries (pesarim) on biblical texts, from which may be learned the ideas
of bibical interpretation which may be learned the ideas of biblical
interpretation favored by the community. The prophets, it was believed, knew by
revelation what God was going to do at the end time, but they were not told
when the end time would come. This further revelation was reserved for the
Teacher of Righteousness, who imparted it to his followers. They accordingly
congratulated themselves as men whom God had specially favored by initiating
them into his wonderful mysteries. Their system of interpretation presents
striking points of resemblance and contrast with the interpretation of the OT
found in the NT.
Their expectations, however, were not
fulfilled. The community was dispersed, and its headquarters destroyed, during
the Roman suppression of the Judean revolt between A.D. 66 and 70.
The Qumran community has been compared to the
primitive church in its eschatological outlook and its remnant mentality, as
well as in its biblical interpretation. But the decisive difference between the
two lies in the person and work of Jesus. The Teacher of Righteousness was
exactly what his title suggests: he was no messiah or savior. Jesus was to the
early Christians all that the Teacher was to the men of Qumran, but he was
more. As Messiah, he was prophet and priest and king in one; and he fulfilled
his messianic mission in terms of the portrayal of the suffering servant which
the Qumran community may have endeavored to fulfill corporately. If (as appears
possible) refugees from Qumran after the destruction of their headquarters made
common cause in Transjordan with the refugee church of Jerusalem, they would
have learned at last how Jesus fulfilled the hopes which had not been realized
in the way they had formerly been led to expect.
Murabba'at. In caves in the Wadi Murabba'at
about eleven miles south of Qumran, manuscripts were discovered around 1952.
The most significant belonged to the period when Murabba'at was occupied by a
garrison of Simeon Ben Kosebah (commonly called Bar Kochba), leader of the
second Jewish revolt against Rome (A.D. 132-35). From some of the documents,
including two letters from the leader himself, it was discovered for the first
time that his proper patronymic was Ben Kosebah. The manuscripts included many
fragments of biblical texts of the period, all of them showing a
"proto-Massoretic" recension. From caves in neighboring wadis further
manuscripts came to light, including a fragmentary copy of the minor prophets
in Greek.
Khirbet Mird. Another collection of
manuscripts was unearthed at Khirbet Mird, north of the Wadi en-Nar (Kidron
Valley), midway between Qumran and Murabba'at. This collection dates between
the fifth and eighth centuries A.D., is if Christian origin, and contains
several biblical texts in Greek (including fragments of unical codices of Wisdom,
Mark, John, and Acts) and in Palestinian Syriac (including fragments of Joshua,
Luke, John, Acts, and Colossians).
Masada. During the excavations of the rock
fortress of Masada between 1963 and 1965 several manuscripts were found. These
had been left there since the place was stormed by the Romans early in A.D. 74.
They included portions of Psalms, Leviticus, Ecclesiasticus (the Wisdom of Ben
Sira), and Jubilees, as well as a liturgical text already known from the Qumran
finds, all in Hebrew.