Dating the dead sea scrolls
The first trove found by the Bedouins in the Judean Desert consisted of seven large scrolls from Cave I.
The unusual circumstances of the find, on the eve of Israel's war of independence, obstructed the initial negotiations for the purchase of all the scrolls.
On June 1, 1954, Mar Samuel placed an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal offering "The Four Dead Sea Scrolls" for sale. His heirs sponsored construction of the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem's Israel Museum, in which these unique manuscripts are exhibited to the public.
The advertisement was brought to the attention of Yigael Yadin, Professor Sukenik's son, who had just retired as chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces and had reverted to his primary vocation, archeology. The seven scrolls from Cave I, now housed together in the Shrine of the Book, are Isaiah A, Isaiah B, the Habakkuk Commentary, the Thanksgiving Scroll, the Community Rule (or the Manual of Discipline), the War Rule (or the War of Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness), and the Genesis Apocryphon, the last being in Aramaic. At least a year elapsed between the discovery of the scrolls in 1947 and the initiation of a systematic archeological investigation of the Qumran site.
The only complete book of the Hebrew Bible preserved among the manuscripts from Qumran is Isaiah; this copy, dated to the first century B.
C., is considered the earliest Old Testament manuscript still in existence. In addition, several texts feature translations of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which some Jews used instead of or in addition to Hebrew at the time of the scrolls’ creation.
Finally, in 1954, he placed an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal—under the category “Miscellaneous Items for Sale”’—that read: “Biblical Manuscripts dating back to at least 200 B. Unfortunately for Samuel, much of the 0,000 he received went to the U. Internal Revenue Service since the bill of sale had not been properly drawn up. D., remains the subject of scholarly debate to this day.
The origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written between 150 B. According to the prevailing theory, they are the work of a Jewish population that inhabited Qumran until Roman troops destroyed the settlement around 70 A. These Jews are thought to have belonged to a devout, ascetic and communal sect called the Essenes, one of four distinct Jewish groups living in Judaea before and during the Roman era.
Exploration of the cave, which lay one kilometer north of Wadi Qumran, yielded at least seventy fragments, including bits of the original seven scrolls.
Using an unconventional vocabulary and odd spelling, the Copper Scroll describes 64 underground hiding places around Israel that purportedly contain riches stashed for safekeeping.