Learn About the Holy Land Dead Sea Scrolls Saga

 

It was a stray goat which led to what is considered to be the most important manuscript find of the 20th century. In January of 1947, Mohammed ed-Dib, a Beduin goat herder in the Judean wilderness, threw a stone inside a cave. When he heard the stone clink against a clay jar, he may have thought "gold??" The next day he returned with his cousin to investigate.

Dead Sea Scrolls jars

To their chagrin, the jars contained not gold coins, but old bundles of leathers. They collected them and brought them to a cobbler in Bethlehem. Luckily for us, the cobbler inspected the leathers, identified writing on them and advised the Beduin to show the leathers to Khalil Eskander, an antiquities dealer nicknamed Kando, down the street.

When Kando, a Syrian Orthodox Christian, expressed interest in the scrolls, the Beduin returned to the same cave overlooking the Dead Sea in the Judean cliffs to search for more leathers. They discovered several earthenware jars, some still covered with upturned dishes. Inside were another four scrolls.

In July 1947, the Metropolitan (or the bishop) of the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of Saint Mark in Jerusalem’s Old City, Mar Athanasius Samuel, purchased four scrolls from Kando, for the sum of $97.20. Kando pocketed one third and the Beduin two thirds. Thereafter for the next half century, decked in his trademark cranberry-felt tarbush (hat), Kando would become an icon of the antiquities market.

It was only in November 1947, 11 months after the initial discovery, that the true date and worth of the scrolls was recognized. Professor Eleazar Sukenik, head of Hebrew University’s Department of Archeology, was shown a scrap of leather by a friend of his, an Armenian antiquities dealer.

Immediately Sukenik realized that this scrap of leather might be 2,000 years old, for the Hebrew letters were similar to letters he had found carved on ossuaries (limestone bone burial boxes) he had discovered in and around Jerusalem in tombs dating back before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

At this time, the newly-formed UN was concluding its debate on the future of Palestine and it was clear that war was imminent. The UN vote about whether to partition Palestine was to have been taken on November 28th. When it was postponed for a day, Professor Sukenik decided this was positively his last chance to go with his Armenian friend to the Bethlehem dealer holding the scrolls.

In a tense threatening atmosphere the next morning, the two men made the journey by bus to Bethlehem. In a musty attic not far from the Church of the Nativity, they sipped cardamom-flavored Turkish coffee and chit-chatted with the dealer in the polite, round-about Oriental way, while the fateful moments before the UN vote ticked away. Finally, Professor Sukenik was shown two scrolls in the jars in which they had been discovered.

2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scroll

When he began reading the Hebrew, Sukenik noted that the language was in a style similar to the Psalms, but the text was unknown to him. He brought the scrolls home to Jerusalem to study and several days later bought them. One was a collection of psalm-styled poems, later named the Thanksgiving Scroll and the other was an apocalyptic description of a war in the end of days between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. The price of the scrolls was $324.00. Later Sukenik raised additional funds and bought a partial text of Isaiah (called Isaiah Manuscript 2) as well as two jars.

In the meantime, Sukenik learned that the previous summer when he was on sabbatical, the Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan had asked Hebrew University scholars for their opinion on the age and contents of four old scrolls. The “experts” had examined the scrolls and declared them to be “not particularly significant.”

When word reached the Metropolitan that Sukenik, a Jew, had risked his life to travel to Bethlehem to buy leather manuscripts, perhaps similar to the ones in his possession, he decided to seek a second opinion himself. He contacted the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. A graduate student photographed the scrolls and sent a copy on to headquarters in the U.S.

America’s top archeologist, William F. Albright, immediately wired back, “Congratulations, this is the most important manuscript finding of the 20th century!”

The Metropolitan’s scrolls were taken out of Israel to the U.S. and offered for sale in 1949, but no buyers stepped forward. At the same time, permission had been given to scholars at the American School of Oriental Research to publish facsimiles of the scrolls. Since the texts were available to scholars for study, no one felt a pressing need for the original manuscripts.

Professor Sukenik, who had dreamed of buying the four scrolls for Israel, died in 1953. A year later, his son, archeologist Yigael Yadin (who later excavated Masada) while on a lecture tour in the U.S., learned of the difficulties the Metropolitan was having in finding a buyer.

By coincidence, a few days after Yadin had determined to search out the scrolls, a small notice in the Wall Street Journal offered the four Dead Sea scrolls for sale. With a banker serving as intermediary, a sale price of $250,000 was agreed upon. (Remember the original purchase price was $97.20!) Today scholars consider this one of the greatest antiquity bargains ever struck. A single fragment from the Dead Sea caves – not to mention complete scrolls – is insured for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

By far, the most important scroll is the complete manuscript of Isaiah, with all 66 chapters. As recorded in Luke 4, Jesus unrolled the scroll of Isaiah in his hometown synagogue and read from the 61st chapter of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” Jesus’ interpretation of the Scripture first astonished and then angered his neighbors, so much so, that they conspired to push him off the precipice of the closely-knit conservative Galilean village.

During your pilgrimage around the Holy Land, we visit the Nazareth precipice and read Luke 4 as we look way down to the Jezreel Valley. The synagogue has not survived the ravages of 2,000 years, but a scroll of Isaiah has, because it was hidden in a cave in the dry cliffs towering over the Dead Sea, some 100 miles south of Nazareth.

Cave #4 at Qumran    ©Gila Yudkin

On the day you visit the Dead Sea, don’t miss visiting Qumran where the scribes were copying the scrolls. You’ll look across to Cave Number 4 where the most number of Dead Sea scroll fragments were found – over 550 of 850 major fragments. And when you get to Jerusalem, you can view some of the Dead Sea Scrolls and artifacts on exhibition at the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum.

Contact Kenes Christian Tours to discuss how to tailor your next Holy Land pilgrimage to suit the specific interests of your group.

 

 

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