The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery, Meaning, and Biblical Significance

Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Hershel Shanks begins his book The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Shanks, 1998) with a startling revelation: despite numerous treatises, articles, and books on the subject, it is still unclear who found the Dead Sea Scrolls. An Arab shepherd boy — or perhaps two shepherd boys — searching for lost sheep close to the banks of the Dead Sea discovered the scrolls in 1947 in a cave near Qumran, though the precise date varies depending on the source. While looking for the lost sheep, the Bedouin shepherd began throwing stones into nearby caves. An unexpected cracking sound of earthenware inside one of the caves encouraged him to explore further. Muhammad Ahmad el-Hamed of the Ta'amireh tribe is assumed to be the shepherd who made the discovery, though this has been constantly debated, and identifying the right individual was never possible at the time.

An official archaeological expedition began in 1949, eventually resulting in the discovery of ten additional caves in the surrounding area, each also containing scrolls. Initially, seven scrolls were discovered in the first cave. These were divided into two lots: one of four scrolls and another of three scrolls. The shepherds sold the four-scroll lot to Khalil Iskander Shahin (known as Kando) and the three-scroll lot to Faidi Salahi, both for very small sums of money. The finders were assured that once the scrolls were resold, they would receive more. Kando sold four scrolls to Mar Athanasius Yeshue Samuel; Salahi sold the three-scroll lot to Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, a professor at Hebrew University who immediately recognized the significance of the discovery.

The year 1947 was a very difficult period in the Dead Sea region. November 29, 1947, was the day the United Nations voted for the re-establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. The final days of the British Mandate period in Palestine were filled with tension and terror, making scholarly examination of the scrolls extremely dangerous. The three scrolls obtained by Sukenik found a home in the newly created Israeli state. Samuel's repeated attempts to find a buyer for his four scrolls proved unsuccessful, and he was eventually forced to place an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal. Yigael Yadin, an Israeli professor, noticed the advertisement and set in motion a chain of events that resulted in all four scrolls passing into Israeli possession. The scrolls were purchased for $250,000 — a pittance compared to payments made for other famous texts of the era. The ongoing tension between Jordan and Israel at the time effectively prevented any other institution from purchasing them. Today, the scrolls are displayed in a special museum at Hebrew University in Israel, in a building aptly named the Shrine of the Book.

Bibliography

Shanks, H. (1998). The mystery and meaning of the Dead Sea scrolls. Random House.