On our way to Qumran we passed Jericho in the distance and Mount Quarantania or The Mount of Temptation as it has come to be known. It is believed by many to be the hill in the Judean Desert where Jesus was tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:8). (The day might have started really hazy but it didn't take long for the sun to burn off the haze and the skies to clear!!!)
We have arrived in Qumran National Park and our guide, Kenny, has begun to acclimate us to our surroundings.
What looks to be a rather large rock pile is the sloping stone rampart base to a tower. (OK, the plan was to back up and get a better picture but when your walking on the face of the sun and you're moving fairly quickly to get to Masada before lunch well...)
Here he is pointing out the caves in the distance.
I believe this is cave six. In all scrolls were found in eleven different caves.
Beyond the ruins in the distance is the Dead Sea.
"They labor with great diligence till the fifth hour after which they have clothed themselves in white veils. They bath their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over, they meet together in an apartment of their own...while they go in a pure manner in to the dining room, as in to a certain holy temple."
Ritual bath.
Some scholars have maintained that ordinary needs for water, for drinking and bathing, could have been sufficient cause for the construction of the Qumran aqueducts and cisterns and such. It is more likely that the unusually elaborate provisions for water are a reflection of the sect’s sensitivity to matters of purity as described in the scrolls. (The aqueduct is seen above.)
Another of the ritual baths.
The central treasury of the sectarians. Three pottery jugs containing 56o silver coins were found in this room.
If I look cool, looks can be deceiving!! BUT I am cool compared to what was coming (Masada).
In this picture I am overlooking the scribe's room.
In the above picture you can see the ruins of the kitchen.
The Refectory - Members of the sect assemble in this room for communal meals and doctrinal deliberations.
This is a picture of cave four. Discovered in 1952, it produced the largest find. About 15,000 fragments from more than 500 manuscripts were found.
The Judean desert was beautiful in it's own way and it amazed me how people carved their lives out of what appeared to be such an unforgiving land!
Yes, cave six was accessible by way of one of the old aqueducts and if you look close people were making the hike over!!
"The Potter's Workshop - Pottery for everyday use was manufactured here. Numerous pottery utensils characteristic of the Roman period (first century C.E.) were discovered at Qumran.
- In all, scholars have identified the remains of about 825 to 870 separate scrolls.
- The Scrolls can be divided into two categories—biblical and non-biblical. Fragments of every book of the Hebrew canon (Old Testament) have been discovered except for the book of Esther.
- There are now identified among the scrolls, 19 copies of the Book of Isaiah, 25 copies of Deuteronomy and 30 copies of the Psalms.
- The Isaiah Scroll, found relatively intact, is 1000 years older than any previously known copy of Isaiah. In fact, the scrolls are the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts ever found.
- The Temple Scroll, found in Cave 11, is the longest scroll. Its present total length is 26.7 feet (8.148 meters). The overall length of the scroll must have been over 28 feet (8.75m).
- The major intact texts, from Caves 1 & 11, were published by the late fifties and are now housed in the Shrine of the Book museum in Jerusalem.
Finally, Dr. Richard Price, Archaeologist and Professor at Liberty University, believes that the Dead Sea scrolls were perhaps our most important witness to the integrity of the Bible. In a conversation with Jan Markell, Dr. Price said the following.
"The Old Testament was translated from Hebrew manuscripts. Those Hebrew manuscripts were very good manuscripts and they were the ones that were present at about 1000AD. But they were still far removed from the originals. But the Dead Sea scrolls closed that gap in time taking us back in time hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus sometimes not within that far distance of the authors of scriptures themselves. And as a result, when we compare text with text, for instance with the entire book of Isaiah, all 66 books, you couldn't have wanted a better book to be entirely preserved in the Dead Sea scrolls. It happens to be the oldest. And we can compare that line for line, word for word, with those manuscripts that are Old Testament translated and it is 95% identical. And the 5% that’s not identical is either spelling errors which are not really errors because no one had a standard grammar. What they did was inserted consonants in to take the place of vowels so people could be able to read them better. That, of course, made it read a little different but that’s not any real change."
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