Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit in Raleigh, NC

It is important for the church to wrestly with God, or else, we will assume we understand Him while all together forgetting to worship Him. The Dead Sea Scrolls may help us in our southern culture of Christian malaise.


Dead Sea Scrolls at the Museum of Natural Sciences
Scott Redd
Jul 24, 2008
Series: Resources


The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit currently showing at the Museum of Natural Sciences (June 28-Dec. 28) gives rise to several difficult questions not the least of which are "what are the Dead Sea Scrolls and what is the big deal?" Since their discovery in the mid-twentieth century the Scrolls have been universally lauded as a major development in historical and religious studies, but their significance is still largely misunderstood. The Scrolls are one of those subjects about which people know very much while at the same time knowing very little. If you mention the Dead Sea Scrolls in a conversation, you will be met with knowing nods and hmmm's, yet if you ask why they are important, blank stares emerge. So what are the Scrolls and why do they matter?

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Sometime in late 1946 or early 1947, three Bedouin shepherds came across a cave located on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, approximately due south of the ancient city of Jericho. The find would become one of the greatest archeological discoveries of the twentieth century.

Inside the cave, a small library of scrolls had been stored by a community of Jewish ascetics who had sought refuge in the arid desert crags of the Dead Sea coastline. These ascetics, possibly identified with the Essene sect of Judaism, intermittently inhabited a nearby site known as Qumran from the middle of the second century B.C. onward. Their community had withdrawn from the cosmopolitan culture of Jerusalem, thereby distancing themselves from the religious center of the Temple, in order to live what they deemed to be a covenantally faithful life unhindered by the corruption of the city.

The Qumranites saw themselves as living at a particularly poignant time in human history, a time when the "last days" prophesied by the Old Testament prophets would be fulfilled. They found justification for this belief in the Old Testament prophets. The prophet Jeremiah had calculated that Jerusalem would be restored seventy years after being destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. and that this restoration would usher in the messianic age (Jer. 25:11-12; 29:10). It was this calculation that led the prophet Daniel to commit himself to prayer as the end of that seventy-year period drew near (Daniel 9). During his prayer and fasting, Daniel was visited by an angelic messenger named Gabriel who gave him a new figure: seventy weeks of years or 490 years (Dan 9:24) must pass before the coming of the Messiah. If taken literally, with the starting date set at 586 B.C. (the year of the last last deportation of Israelite exiles), this updated calculation sets the end of the judgment of Jerusalem and the coming of the Messiah at 96 B.C., a date that roughly coincides with the early inhabitation of the Qumran settlement. While such a literal reading may not be the best interpretation of Gabriel's numbers, it does explain the religious fervor of the time.

The Dead Sea ascetics saw themselves as an eschatological community (one that was living in the "end times"), and they perceived their times with a sense of wonderment animated by imminent judgment and final salvation. For them the end times were an present reality and a motivation to live a righteous life. One text, a commentary on Habakkuk, describes the end times expectation by which the community lived:

. . . the final age will be extended and go beyond all that the prophets
say, because the mysteries of God are wonderful. Though it might delay,
wait for it; it definitely has to come and will not delay.

Even if the time of God's judgment and salvation had not occurred, it could occur at any time and so the righteous arranged their lives around that expectation.

The impending presence of a messianic age, the time when the mysterious character (or characters) called "Messiah" would come again, lay at the heart of the Qumranite experience. The Qumranites' hope for salvation was based on their faithful membership to this community which was awaiting the coming of the Messiah. They codified what it meant to be a faithful member of the community in the many non-biblical texts found hidden in the hills around their settlement.

One of the first scrolls on display at the Museum of Natural Sciences, called the Rule of the Community, admonishes the members to strictly follow the "counsel of the law . . . until the prophet comes, the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel." While the identity of the prophet is difficult to ascertain, the messiahs have been identified with other figures who emerge in the Dead Sea literature, namely a sage called the Teacher of Righteousness and another figure called the Suffering Messiah. Whatever the identities of these messianic figures, their coming signifies the end of the age and the beginning of a new period in which the Messiah(s) will rule over the faithful and judge the unrighteous.

Texts like the Rule of the Community shows that the people of the Dead Sea communities, particularly Qumran, feared, respected, loved, and followed their Scriptures, and they made sure that their communities were equipped with usable copies of the Old Testament and the theological texts that helped them apply the Scriptures to their lives.

Why Do the Dead Sea Scrolls Matter?
The Scrolls matter for two reasons. Both have to do with the Bible, but they have to do with the Bible in different ways. The Dead Sea Scrolls give us insight into the Biblical text because they offer a very early witness to the books of the Bible found in the Old Testament. Second, the Scrolls give us insight into the religious world in which Jesus and the Apostles were ministering.

First, the Scrolls offer what are by far the earliest copies of biblical texts known to the modern world. Such early witnesses augment biblical scholars' understanding of the Bible and aid in the work of modern translators. It is hard to overstate the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls in their contribution to modern understanding of the Bible. Not only do they support many of the manuscripts currently used as the basis of our modern translations; they give us very early examples of how the Bible was used by religious people living before and during the time of Jesus and the Apostles. For instance, it seems that most of the Old Testament books were already recognized as authoritative Scripture by the time of the establishment of Qumran community. (Only the book of Esther was excluded as authoritative, probably because the Jewish festival of Purim associated with it conflicted with the unique religious calendar that was observed by the Qumran community.)

Of the twelve scroll fragments on display at the Museum of Natural Sciences, six are biblical texts, including passages from two scrolls of Genesis, two scrolls of Exodus, one from Deuteronomy, and one from Isaiah. The non-biblical scrolls, Jubilees, Some Torah Precepts, the Brachot ("Blessings"), and the Hodayot ("Hymns") draw heavily from the Old Testament
stories and genres. Therefore they provide a glimpse into how the Dead Sea communities understood the Old Testament and how they used it in worship.

Second, the Scrolls offer a glimpse into the religious climate of Jesus' day. No doubt, the sort of "end times" fervor described in the Scrolls would have been felt in varying degrees around the region of Judea. The Scrolls give us insight into the person and work of John the Baptist as well as the some of the teachings of Jesus.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and John the Baptist

Upon the discovery of the ancient library buried in vicinity of Qumran, biblical scholars were giddy with excitement over what seemed to be a clear connection between the Qumran
ascetics and the figure of John the Baptist. The similarities are compelling. John, the son of a priest, spent a period of time prior to his ministry in the desert (Luke 1:80), and when he does appear, it is on the banks of the Jordan which feeds into the Dead Sea less than ten miles northeast of Qumran itself. John bases his prophetic ministry on the prophecy of Isaiah pertaining to the coming of the Lord (Isa 40:3-5; Luke 3:4-6), seeing himself as the fulfillment of the "one calling in the desert." This is the same prophetic passage cited in the The Rule of the Community scroll as the Qumranites' motivation for withdrawing into their community in the Judean desert.

Much like the community in Qumran, John's message was animated by a present and pressing sense that the end times judgment was at hand. He likewise recognized the importance of communal repentance as a means of hastening the coming of the Lord (Isa 59:20; Hos 11:5). As a result, he was blunt and confrontational with those who came out to hear him preach ("You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?" [Luke 3:7]), and he was more interested in true repentance than simple blood-membership to the
covenant people of Israel: "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham" (Luke 3:8). In fact, John's call for repentance closely matches the concern for the same amongst the members of the community at Qumran.

Furthermore, much like the Qumranites, John's followers perceived themselves as a subsect within the Jewish people as a whole. John is not concerned with circumcision as a mark of membership in the nation of Israel, but rather he is much more concerned with a person's disposition toward the Lord. Likewise, in Qumran, circumcision is eclipsed by the relative importance of personal commitment to the law and the community. The Dead Sea Scrolls and Jesus' Teaching Jesus stepped into this electrified atmosphere in which there were many diverse beliefs about who the Messiah would be and what he would do. Given this context, it is not hard to understand why Jesus might be extremely careful about how he reveals himself as the true Messiah. This conversation in Mark 8 is particularly revealing:

And Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea
Philippi. And on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that I
am?"

And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others,
one of the prophets."

And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?"

Peter answered him, "You are the Christ." (Mark 8:27-29)

"Christ" is the Greek word for "Messiah." Notice that this is relatively late in Jesus ministry. In other words, Jesus did not burst on to the scene declaring that he is Christ, but he waits until his disciples have developed a relationship with him, seen him work, and become well-versed in his teachings. It is as if Jesus wants to show his disciples what Messiah means before he tells them that he is the Messiah. This approach makes sense given the diversity of beliefs about the Messiah that were present during his ministry.

Second, notice that Jesus lets them come to the conclusion about his "Christ-hood" instead of telling them. Spending time with Jesus meant slowly coming to the conclusion of who the Messiah ought to be. The Messiah ought to be someone like Jesus. Peter recognizes it, he confesses it, and his confession marks the turning point of the Gospel of Mark.

The previous discussion contains only a couple of instances in which the Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on the world of the New Testament. Of the scrolls on display at the Museum of Natural Sciences, The Rule of the Community and the Damascus Document in particular describe the way that the Dead Sea communities saw themselves in relation to the religious world around them.

We should remember that the Dead Sea Scrolls are helpful but not crucial to our understanding of the Bible. This is because God has communicated to us a Word whose message is clear by itself. As a result, we do not depend on external evidence, whether historical, literary, or scientific to give authority or clarity to the Scriptures, but certain resources do help us experience the Scriptures in a deeper, more informed way. When we have such resources available to us, we do well to engage them in a biblically responsible way in order to see what they have to say.