jan 1, 1947 - Dead sea scrolls found

Description:

The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient, mostly Hebrew manuscripts first found in 1947 by a shepherd boy on the Northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. They represent the largest manuscript collections of texts from the Second Temple Period found in the area of Judah, an area notorious for its lack of manuscripts. The scrolls came from various sites and dates from the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd century AD. However, the term Dead Sea Scrolls usually refers to 930 manuscript found in 11 caves near the ruins of Qumrān, which most scholars think was the home of the community of Essenes that owned the scrolls. The documents were recovered in the Judaean wilderness from five principal sites: Khirbat Qumrān, Wadi Al-Murabbaʿāt, Naḥal Ḥever (Wadi Khabrah) and Naḥal Ẓeʾelim (Wadi Seiyal), Wadi Daliyeh, and Masada. The group at Qumrān has been identified with many Jewish sects of the time. It is believed to have fled or driven out to the wilderness as a result of a dispute with the priestly leaders in Jerusalem. At Qumran, this group preserved their beliefs and even developed a worldview that rejected the rest of the Jewish people, with black and white morality and expectation of close divine judgment of the wicked. They also created a communal life of ritual purity, and could be the first steps to the emergence of Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. The history of that community can be glimpsed through the scrolls. They are significant because they shed considerable light on the religious and political world of late Second Temple Judaism and on the text of the Hebrew Bible.
Among the DSS, every book of the Hebrew Bible has been found except for Esther. They also provide information about a wider spectrum of Jewish belief, practice and origins, vetoing notions of any uniform Judaism at the time. The biblical scrolls found among the DSS represented a significant opportunity to study the text of the standard Hebrew Bible, the Masoretic Text. For example, the version of Jeremiah found in the Septuagint (the Greek Translation of the Hebrew Bible) is one eighth shorter than that found in the Masoretic Text. It was initially thought that the Septuagint represented a poor translation. However, Hebrew versions of both the longer and shorter versions have been found among the DSS. Contrary to the claims of some, no single New Testament manuscript has been found among the DSS.
In late 1946 or 1947 CE, three Bedouin (a nomadic Arab ethnic group) wandering in the desert along the Northwest shore of the Dead Sea along the Wadi Qumran stumbled across a cave containing ten jars. All but two of which were empty. One contained dirt, but the other contained what later proved to be the Great Isaiah Scroll, a rule book called The Manual of Discipline (or the Rule of the Community), and a commentary on the biblical book of Habakkuk. Later four other scrolls were found by the Bedouin. It took nearly a year before the scholarly world was made aware of the existence of these seven manuscripts.
Today, many of the Dead Sea Scrolls—which total some 100,000 fragments—are housed in the Shrine of the Book, part of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

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