Theological Tuesdays: Dead Sea Scrolls

Today we are going to look at the "Dead Sea Scrolls." The reason I chose to check out the Dead Sea Scrolls this week is due to my once in a lifetime opportunity to see the scrolls first-hand over the weekend which are now located in Charlotte, NC at the Discovery Place, (see link), for 100 hundred days after 2300 years spent in the desert. Some of these scrolls have never left Jerusalem before and will probably never come back. I urge you to try and find the time to head to the Discovery Place and check out the Scrolls. It is a truly amazing experience. It is almost surreal to read (if you know Hebrew) the Word of God written by someone's pen almost 2300 years ago and it still be just as alive today as it was then. Amazing.


Dead Sea Scrolls: This is the name given to a large group of ancient Jewish Manuscripts which have been discovered from a series of caves along the northern edge of the Dead Sea located about 15 miles east of Jerusalem in what is known as the Qumran community. They were discovered in 1949 by a young Bedouin shepherd boy who was wandering around into the caves looking for a lost sheep. While he stumbled around in the caves he discovered several clay jars which contained the manuscripts. The manuscripts included fragments of Old Testament books and even entire Old Testament books like the famous Isaiah Scroll. The manuscripts dated back to around 300 BC and as recent as 100 AD. They included OT writings, as well as other Jewish writings not found in the Bible. What makes these Dead Sea Scrolls so important to defending our faith is that they outdated the previous Hebrew Manuscripts by almost 1000 years. Before the Scrolls were found the oldest manuscripts of the OT that had been discovered dated back to the 10th century AD. What an awesome discovery to find the Word of God written by someone's hand some 300 years before Jesus walked the Earth and yet the same words written in the Isaiah Scroll are found in the manuscripts found 1000 years later and even today some 2300 years later. I hope you can see the significance of this discovery. And what a coincidence that a shepherd looking for a lost sheep found the scrolls. Sound familiar? Reminds me of the passage found in Luke 15: 1-7 where Jesus reminds us of the shepherd leaving the 99 to find the one lost sheep and how there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting than 99 righteous persons.


So now you should be able to tell someone what the Dead Sea Scrolls are when they ask you about the exhibit in Charlotte. If you plan on going to see the scrolls you need to call in advance and get tickets. The day we went, every time slot was sold out for the entire day. You can't purchase tickets the day of. The exhibit takes about and hour or so to go through and it includes all kinds of displays on the Jewish history and the group of Essene Jews which lived in the Qumran community and who are thought to be the writers of these manuscripts. It's a definite must-go thing. Hope you enjoy!