The Unsorted BBS Collection/thegreatunsorted.tar/thegreatunsorted/texts/txtfiles_misc/brochure.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 16KB | 344 lines

                   SCROLLS FROM THE DEAD SEA:
      THE ANCIENT LIBRARY OF QUMRAN AND MODERN SCHOLARSHIP

                        EXHIBIT BROCHURE

CONTENTS
     Introduction
     The Dead Sea Region
     The Late Second Temple Period (200 B.C.E. - 70 C.E.)
     The Qumran Community
     Qumran Library
     2,000 Years Later
     Judaism & Christianity & the Dead Sea Scrolls
     Conclusion

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                          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.


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                          THE DEAD SEA

     The Dead Sea is located in Israel and Jordan, about 15 miles
east of Jerusalem.  It is extremely deep (averaging about 1,000
feet), salty (some parts containing the highest amount of salts
possible), and the lowest body of water in the world.  The Dead
Sea is supplied by a number of smaller streams, springs, and the
Jordan River.

     Because of its low elevation and its position in a deep
basin, the climate of the Dead Sea area is unusual.  Its very
high evaporation does produce a haze yet its atmospheric humidity
is low.  Adjacent areas to it are very arid and favorable for the
preservation of materials like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

     The Bible's description, in Genesis 19, of a destructive
earthquake near the Dead Sea area during the time of Abraham is
borne out by archaeological and historic investigation.  While no
evidence remains of the five cities of the plain (Zeboim, Admah,
Bela or Zoar, Sodom, and Gomorrah) their sites are believed to be
beneath the waters at the southern end of the sea.

     Archaeological sites near the Dead Sea include Masada, Ein
Gedi, and Qumran (where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found).


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      THE LATE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD (200 B.C.E. - 70 C.E.)

     In 168 B.C.E., the Maccabees (or Hasmoneans), led by Judah
Maccabee, wrested Judea from the rule of the Seleucids--Syrian
rulers who supported the spread of Greek religion and culture.
The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah commemorates the recapture of
Jerusalem by the Maccabees and the consecration of the Temple in
164 B.C.E.  The Maccabees ruled Judea until Herod took power in
37 B.C.E.

Contemporary historian Flavius Josephus divided Judeans into
three main groups:

Sadducees: The Sadducees were priestly and aristocratic families
who interpreted the law more literally than the Pharisees.  They
dominated the Temple worship and its rites, including the
sacrificial cult.  The Sadducees only recognized precepts derived
directly from the Torah as binding.  They, therefore, denied the
concept of the immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the
body, and the existence of angels.  The Sadducees were unpopular
with the common people.

Pharisees: The Pharisees, unlike the Sadducees, maintained the
validity of the oral as well as the written law.  They were
flexible in their interpretations and willing to adapt the law to
changing circumstances.  They believed in an afterlife and in the
resurrection of the dead.  By the first century C.E., the
Pharisees came to represent the beliefs and practices of the
majority of Palestinian Jewry.

Essenes: The Essenes were a separatist group, some of whom formed
an ascetic monastic community and retreated to the wilderness of
Judea.  They shared material possessions and occupied themselves
with disciplined study, worship, and work.  They practiced ritual
immersion and ate their meals communally.  One branch did not
marry.

     In 6 C.E., Rome formed Judea, Samaria, and Idumea into one
province governed by procurators.  A Judean revolt against Rome
in 66 C.E. was quickly put down.  Qumran fell to the Roman
legions in ca. 68 C.E., the Temple in 70 C.E., and Masada in 73
C.E.


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                      THE QUMRAN COMMUNITY

     Like the scrolls themselves, the nature of the Qumran
settlement has aroused much debate and differing opinions.
Located on a barren terrace between the limestone cliffs of the
Judean desert and the maritime bed along the Dead Sea, the Qumran
site was excavated by Père Roland de Vaux, a French Dominican, as
part of his effort to find the habitation of those who deposited
the scrolls in the nearby caves.  The excavations uncovered a
complex of structures, 262 by 328 feet which de Vaux suggested
were communal in nature.  In de Vaux's view the site was the
wilderness retreat of the Essenes, a separatist Jewish sect of
the Second Temple Period, a portion of whom had formed an ascetic
monastic community.  According to de Vaux, the sectarians
inhabited neighboring locations, most likely caves, tents, and
solid structures, but depended on the center for communal
facilities such as stores of food and water.

     Following de Vaux's interpretation and citing ancient
historians as well as the nature of some scroll texts for
substantiation, many scholars believe the Essene community wrote,
copied, or collected the scrolls at Qumran and deposited them in
the caves of the adjacent hills.  Others dispute this
interpretation, claiming either that the scroll sect was
Sadducean in nature; that the site was no monastery but rather a
Roman fortress or a winter villa; that the Qumran site has little
if anything to do with the scrolls; or that the evidence
available does not support a single definitive answer.

     Whatever the nature of the habitation, archaeological and
historical evidence indicates that the excavated settlement was
founded in the second half of the second century B.C.E., during
the time of the Maccabees, a priestly Jewish family which ruled
Judea in the second and first centuries B.C.E.  A hiatus in the
occupation of the site is linked to evidence of a huge
earthquake.  Qumran was abandoned about the time of the Roman
incursion of 68 C.E., two years before the collapse of Jewish
self-government in Judea and the destruction of the Temple in
Jerusalem in 70 C.E.


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                         QUMRAN LIBRARY

     The scrolls and scroll fragments recovered in the Qumran
environs represent a voluminous body of Jewish documents, a
veritable "library", dating from the third century B.C.E. to 68
C.E.  Unquestionably, the "library," which is the greatest
manuscript find of the twentieth century, demonstrates the rich
literary activity of Second Temple Period Jewry and sheds insight
into centuries pivotal to both Judaism and Christianity.  The
library contains some books or works in a large number of copies,
yet others are represented only fragmentarily by mere scraps of
parchment.  There are tens of thousands of scroll fragments.  The
number of different compositions represented is almost one
thousand, and they are written in three different languages:
Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

     There is less agreement on the specifics of what the Qumran
library contains.  According to many scholars, the chief
categories represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls are:

Biblical: those works contained in the Hebrew Bible.  All of the
books of the Bible are represented in the Dead Sea Scroll
collection except Esther.

Apocryphal or pseudepigraphical: those works which are omitted
from various canons of the Bible and included in others.

Sectarian: those scrolls related to a pietistic commune and
include ordinances, biblical commentaries, apocalyptic visions,
and liturgical works.

     While the group producing the sectarian scrolls is believed
by many to be the Essenes, there are other scholars who state
that there is too little evidence to support the view that one
sect produced all of the sectarian material.  Also, there are
scholars who believe there is a fourth category of scroll
materials which is neither biblical, apocryphal, nor "sectarian."
In their view, such scrolls, which may include "Songs of the the
Sabbath Sacrifice" (object no. 9), should be designated simply as
contemporary Jewish writing.


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                        2,000 YEARS LATER

     About two thousand years elapsed between the time the
scrolls were deposited in the caves of the barren hills
surrounding the Dead Sea and their discovery in 1947.  The fact
that they survived for twenty centuries, that they were found
accidentally by Bedouin shepherds, that they are the largest and
oldest body of manuscripts relating to the Bible and to the time
of Jesus of Nazareth make them a truly remarkable archaeological
find.

     Since their discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the
subject of great scholarly and public interest.  For scholars
they represent an invaluable source for exploring the nature of
post-biblical times and probing the sources of two of the world's
great religions.  For the public, they are artifacts of great
significance, mystery, and drama.

     Interest in the scrolls has, if anything, intensified in
recent years.  Media coverage has given prominence to scholarly
debates over the meaning of the scrolls, the Qumran ruin, as well
as particular scroll fragments, raising questions destined to
increase attention and heighten the Dead Sea Scrolls mystery.
Did the scrolls come from the library of the Second Temple or
other libraries and were they hidden to prevent their destruction
by the Romans?  Was the Qumran site a winter villa for a wealthy
Jerusalem family or was it a Roman fortress?  Was it a monastery
not for Essenes but for a Sadducean sect?  Does this mean we need
to revise our view of Jewish religious beliefs during the last
centuries of the Second Temple?  Do the Dead Sea Scrolls provide
clues to hidden treasures?  Does the "War Rule Scroll" (object
no. 12) refer to a pierced or piercing messiah?

     Since the late 1980s, no controversy has been more heated
than that surrounding access to the scrolls and the movement to
accelerate their publication.  The push by scholars to gain what
the _Biblical_Archaeology_Review_ characterized as "intellectual
freedom and the right to scholarly access" has had significant
results.  In 1988, the administration for scroll research, the
Israel Antiquities Authority, began to expand the number of
scroll assignments.  By 1992, they included more than fifty
scholars.  In 1991, a computer-generated version as well as a
two-volume edition of the scroll photographs were published by
the Biblical Archaeology Society.  Late in the same year, the
Huntington Library of California made available to all scholars
the photographic security copies of the scrolls on deposit in its
vault.  Closing the circle, the Israel Antiquities Authority
announced that it too would be issuing an authorized microfiche
edition, complete with detailed indices.


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        JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

     The Dead Sea Scrolls include a range of contemporary
documents that serve as a window on a turbulent and critical
period in the history of Judaism.  In addition to the three
groups identified by Josephus (Pharisees, Sadducees, and
Essenes), Judaism was further divided into numerous religious
sects and political parties.  With the destruction of the Temple
and the commonwealth in 70 C.E., all that came to an end.  Only
the Judaism of the Pharisees--Rabbinic Judaism--survived.
Reflected in Qumran literature is a Judaism in transition: moving
from the religion of Israel as described in the Bible to the
Judaism of the rabbis as expounded in the Mishnah (a third-
century compilation of Jewish laws and customs which forms the
basis of modern Jewish practice).

     The Dead Sea Scrolls, which date back to the events
described in the New Testament, have added to our understanding
of the Jewish background of Christianity.  Scholars have pointed
to similarities between beliefs and practices outlined in the
Qumran literature and those of early Christians.  These parallels
include comparable rituals of baptism, communal meals, and
property.  Most interesting is the parallel organizational
structures: the sectarians divided themselves into twelve tribes
led by twelve chiefs, similar to the structure of the early
Church, with twelve apostles who, according to Jesus, would to
sit on twelve thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.  Many
scholars believe that both the literature of Qumran and the early
Christian teachings stem from a common stream within Judaism and
do not reflect a direct link between the Qumran community and the
early Christians.


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                           CONCLUSION

     The Dead Sea Scrolls have been the subject of avid interest
and curiosity for nearly fifty years.  Today, scholars agree on
their significance but disagree on who produced them.  They
debate specific passages of individual scrolls and are still
assessing their impact on the foundations of Judaism and
Christianity.  For the public in this country and throughout the
world, the scrolls have an aura of reverence and intrigue which
is reinvigorated periodically by the media--journalists who
report serious disagreements among well-known scholars, as well
as tabloids which claim that the scrolls can predict the future
or answer life's mysteries.

     This Library of Congress exhibition presents a significant
sampling of scrolls and explores both their history and their
meaning.  It is the Library's hope that visitors will leave both
satisfied in having seen these remarkable survivors of a far-off
past and in having learned something of the challenges facing
scroll scholars and intrigued by questions that surround the
scrolls and the community that may have produced them.

     Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?  How did the Qumran library
come to be?  Whose scrolls were they?  Why were they hidden in
the caves?  Today, with specialists and scholars throughout the
world poring over the newly released scroll texts, solutions to
these mysteries undoubtedly will be proposed.  But these
solutions will themselves raise questions--fueling continuing
public interest and scholarly debate.

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deadsea.scrolls.exhibit                        rev. 7/23/93 (kde)