By Lisa T. Bergren

On the northern edge of the Dead Sea, along the barren, chalky cliffs, riddled with caves, a Bedouin boy found treasure in 1947.

More Priceless Than Gold

The original story goes that he was a shepherd out with his brothers, minding the goats. He had a dream of finding hidden gold, so he routinely tossed rocks into those caves he couldn’t reach, hoping to hear the magical sound of metal in response. One day, when he threw a rock and heard not the clinking of coins but instead, breaking pottery, he eagerly climbed up and peered inside. Tall, gracefully formed urns lined the cave, each sealed shut.

In a rush, he opened the first to see nothing but ancient words written on brittle vellum, wrapped in linen. Disappointed that it wasn’t gold, he rolled up the scroll, climbed out and showed it to his brothers. They carried it in a leather pouch upon their donkey for weeks before they showed it to another, who showed it to an antiquities dealer, who paid the Bedouin boys a meager sum for the scroll and to show him the way to the cave in which it was found—and who would later make far more on the discovery than if they had found gold.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

That child had found the first of what would become the Dead Sea scrolls, the most significant biblical archeology discovery of modern times. In exploring almost a thousand caves among the slopes and crevices above and beside Qumran, archeologists have found over tens of thousands of fragments representing over 800 documents, and believe many more existed before earthquakes and erosion collapsed other caves.

Most were found in eleven principal caves, and almost all were found by Bedouin guides. Cave #4, down near the settlement rather than up in the cliffs (pictured at top), was found by an old man who remembered chasing a partridge down into a cave and seeing pottery. An extensive survey was done in the ’80s, which expanded the search to those thousand caves and utilized modern sonar equipment, but little else was found.

The Essenes

Written by members of a Jewish sect called the Essenes, the scrolls include books of the Old Testament of the Bible, the Apocrypha, and some of their own work. Some are now on display in “The Shrine of the Book” exhibit in the Israel Museum.

2000 years ago, the Essenes were an extreme, monastic sect who broke off from the Pharisees in Jerusalem because of a disagreement over Temple practices. They moved to the desert to live an ascetic, communal life, eating together in silence, partaking in frequent, ritual baths (a significant feat in the desert), and spending hours and hours in the Scriptorium, carefully copying the ancient texts 24/7. Some believe they did it to prepare for the coming Messiah by meditating on Scripture, day and night. But what they provided for modern scholars was the oldest existing biblical scripts—by over a thousand years.

The Essenes lived in the area during the reign of Herod (c. 31 B.C.), and after an earthquake, left for a time. But they rebuilt (c. 4 B.C.) and remained there until the great Jewish Revolt (68 A.D.) against the Romans, when they were conquered and dispersed. Some believe that John the Baptist was adopted into the sect as a boy and raised among them, but there is no conclusive evidence to that fact. He did, however, live an ascetic life just north of the Essene community, subscribed to the message of “in the desert, prepare a highway for the Lord,” and had a certain propensity for ritual bathing…

For those on their way to Masada or the shores of the Dead Sea, it’s worth a brief stop to watch the introductory film in the visitor’s center and walk among the ruins of what was once Qumran. Above, you can see where winter rains (3.9” a year) feed a briefly massive flood waterfall (which the Essenes once carefully captured in cisterns), and tiny ibex (wild goats) leap from rock to rock in small groups.

If you want to climb the path and get closer to some of the caves in which scrolls were found, plan on an extra hour or two, bring lots of water and start early to beat the heat.

Other posts in this series:

Arriving in Jerusalem

Hezekiah’s Tunnel

Masada

Been to Qumran? Thoughts? Please comment below.