The two discoveries of Dead Sea Scrolls
- Albert Benhamou
- 4 days ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the middle of the 20th century has been considered by many scholars as the most important archaeological find of the century. The story, well-known to many visitors to Israel when they either visit the national park of Qumran or if they visit the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, goes as follows.
Discovery of the 20th century
In the winter of 1946-1947, two Bedouin cousins of the Judean desert were searching for one of their goats which escaped the herd. They found a cave. Before entering it, as it was dark inside, they threw a stone and heard the sound of breaking pottery. Upon entering, they found 10 terracotta jars with 7 rolled-up scrolls inside: this would become Cave 1. And it will be the only cave with terracotta jars: in other caves discovered later, the scrolls were just scattered on the floor.
These seven scrolls were brought by the Bedouins to an antique dealer in Bethlehem who recognized the Hebrew writing (the same writing as for modern Hebrew). So he contacted Prof. Eleazar Sukenik from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (father of the archaeologist Yigal Yadin who later excavated Masada and other sites) who bought three scrolls that were offered to him for sale. The antique dealer also contacted Athanasius Samuel, the Syriac Patriarch of Jerusalem, who bought the four other scrolls.
Among the seven scrolls, some of them were Biblical texts from the books of Samuel and of Isaiah. The excitement was intense because, for Jews, these were manuscripts of the Bible that dated back 1000 years before the oldest known Biblical manuscript from the Middle Ages (it is the Leningrad Codex, dated 1008 CE). So the hunt to find more manupscripts was on the table.
But, in May 1948, war erupted between the newly declared State of Israel and all the Arab countries. In particular, the Jordanian army (so called Arab Legion, trained, armed and led by British officers) invaded the regions of Judea and Samaria and captured Jerusalem Old City.
The scrolls go public
Athanasius Samuel fled to the USA with his four untranslated manuscripts. In 1950, an exhibition of his manuscripts was held at Dukes University. Noticeably, this exhibition was set in the chapel of the university because the manuscripts were described as being contemporary to Jesus, which was indeed true and unique. For this reason, the exhibition attracted 30,000 visitors in barely six days. Some of them even fainted at the sight of the manuscripts.
Then came a storm : in 1951, Israel published one of the scrolls acquired by Sukenik. It revealed the proof that the sect of the Essenes existed because the scroll described the rules of their community. This scroll is now known as 1QS: 1 as it was found in Cave 1, Q as it is a Qumran scroll, and S from the word Serekh in Hebrew (סרך as the rule of the community). This publication confirmed historical sources about the Essenes (Josephus, Plato, Plinius the Elder). This Israeli publication immediately sparked Christian interest in conducting excavations in the Qumran area. The task was given to the École Biblique of Jerusalem which was under Jordanian jurisdiction.
Excavations
The leader of the excavations was Roland de Vaux. He was born in Paris in 1903 and later joined the Dominican Order. He then taught at the École Biblique. During his excavations in 1951-1956, he explored 267 caves, and found eleven of them to contain the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls. This represented nearly a thousand manuscripts or fragments. In 1952, he discovered the Copper Scroll which is currently exhibited at Amman's museum of archaeology.
De Vaux also excavated the site of Qumran and he was the first to present the theory linking the archaeological site of Qumran, the caves, and the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Essenes. I will not expand here on the ongoing debate of the connection between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the sect of the Essenes, or even their connection with John the Baptist: this is another topic I may write about one day. But De Vaux was cautious about finding any text contemporary to Jesus, in case any of them would contradict the New Testament compiled some 300 years after Jesus' crucifixion. So, in order to preserve the secrecy of the contents of the scrolls, he denied access to historians and researchers. He was obviously criticized for his dictatorial control over the manuscripts. And this lasted for two decades until he died in 1971. De Vaux is buried in the crypt of St. Stephen's Basilica in Jerusalem (in a Jewish necropolis dating from the First Temple period).
The Shrine of the Book
Meanwhile, in 1954, the four scrolls of Samuel were purchased (through an intermediary) by Yadin (Sukenik's son) on behalf of Israel. At this point, Israel planned to permanently exhibit the seven scrolls now in their hands. In 1965, they inaugurated the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.
The great Isaiah scroll that Samuel had initially purchased is displayed there. The Biblical text of Isaiah is entirely prophetic so was of great interest to Jews and Christians alike. The scroll is over 2000 years old, as it dates back from the 2nd century BCE when eschatological movements and sects started to flourish in Judea. And, in fact, when a text of the New Testament mentions "as it is written", without giving a source, it likely comes from the book of Isaiah.
War and Peace
In 1967, the Six Day War broke out and Israel repelled the Jordanian army back to their international border, east of the Dead Sea valley and the Jordan River. At that time, the copper scroll was on display in Amman and have remained there since then. Although Israel took control of all Jerusalem region, the École Biblique continued to control the manuscripts under the direction of Roland de Vaux. When he died in 1971, the reading committee finally started to open up. But it was only in the 1980's that an Israeli scholar joined the committee. In 1993, the Vatican finally recognized the State of Israel (which had not taken place since its independence in 1948), and it was followed by an exhibition of the manuscripts at the Vatican in 1994.
What do the Dead Sea Scrolls contain?
Eleven caves were discovered up to 1956 with more than 50,000 fragments comprising approximately 930 manuscripts. The materials of the scrolls are made up of 82% parchment, 18% papyrus, and one text is on copper (the Copper Scroll currently in Amman). The manuscripts are written on animal skins separated by thin cloth. The languages of the scrolls are 80% Hebrew, 17% Aramaic, 3% Greek. The contents are for 25% texts from the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh), 37% are sectarian (ideological), 27% are apocryphal texts (some of them have been included in the Old Testament), and 11% are unidentified texts. The scrolls date from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE when the Roman war against the Jews broke out.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are numerically labelled according to the chronology of their discovery of each cave. For example, manuscripts called 1Qxx refers to the manuscripts found in Cave 1, the first cave which was discovered by the two Bedouins.
The most complete Biblical text is the book of Isaiah, a manuscript now referenced as 1QIsa. It is 8 meters long and a facsimile of it is displayed at the Shrine of the Book.
Why are the Dead Sea Scrolls important to Christians?
As previously mentioned, the manuscripts are contemporary to Jesus. They don't mention him because they pre-date his lifetime by 100-300 years. But some texts of the New Testament are better understood now as their source was from apocryphical writings which had been lost over the centuries and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Also, the New Testament was compiled by order of Constantine, some 300 years after Jesus lifetime, and in Greek, a langage which was not used by Jesus or his evangelists and disciples (most of them being of humble origin, non educated, such as fishermen). The compilers of the New Testament understood Greek and used the Septuagint (the original translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, not free of mistakes) as a base for the scriptures. Alterations have also taken place by the Byzantine copists, in order to accomodate the new Christian dogma. Last, concerning the Essenes, it is clear that some of their rules of community were the source of later Christian practices such as baptism, celibacy, communal ownership of goods, communal meals, priestly hierarchy, etc. This led Christian scholars to believe that the Essenes were actually the first Christians, but this cannot be right for multiple reasons not useful to elaborate here.
Discovery of the 9th century
The discovery of the 20th century is not the only and first one in history. Some manuscripts were discovered in the 9th century in a similar fashion by Arabs in the Judean desert. This earlier discovery is mentioned in letter 47 from Timothy I, Syriac Patriarch, towards the end of his life (820 CE). His task was to manage a team of texts copists. Most of his letter gives a glimpse of the difficulties he encountered with the monks and the errors in the texts among various versions of the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek. As we know the earliest translation was the Septuagint (see document C30a, year 230 BCE) but many other versions followed such as the Hexapla, compiled by Origen around year 240 CE, which contains 4 Greek versions ! This letter from Timothy proves that monks committed mistakes in copying, even with the same Greek langage.
But our interest here is the last part of the letter which narrated an extraordinary discovery:
We have learnt from certain Jews who are worthy of credence, because they have recently been converted to Christianity, that ten years ago some books [manuscripts] were discovered in the vicinity of Jericho, in a cave-dwelling in the mountain. They say that the dog of an Arab who was hunting game went into a cleft after an animal and did not come out. Its owner then went in after him and found a chamber [a cave] inside the mountain containing many books. That hunter went to Jerusalem and reported this to the Jews. Many of them came and found books of the Old Testament as well as others in Hebrew script. Because the person who told me this knows the script and is skilled in reading it, I asked him about certain verses adduced in our New Testament as coming from the Old Testament, but for which there is no mention at all of them in the Old Testament, neither among us Christians, nor among the Jews. He told me that they are found in those books that had been discovered there. When I heard this from that catechumen [a converted person], I asked other people as well, besides him, and I discovered the same story without any difference.
I wrote about the matter to the excellent Gabriel, and also to Shubhalmaran, Metropolitan of Damascus, in order that they might make investigation into these books and see if there is to be found in the prophets that ‘seal’, ”He will be called Nazarene” [Matthew 2:23], or “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard” [1 Corinthians 2:9], or “Cursed is everyone who is hung on the wood” [Galatians 3:13], or “He restored the boundary to Israel, in accordance with the word of the Lord which he spoke through Jonah the prophet from Gat Hefer” [2 Kings 14:25], and other passages like these which were adduced by the New or Old Testaments but are not at all in the Bible versions that we possess. I further implored him that, if they found such verses in these books, they certainly had to translate them. [...]
If any of these verses are to be found in the aforementioned books, it is obvious that they are more trustworthy than the texts in currency among the Hebrews and among us. Although I have written, I have not received any answer from them on this matter, and I have not got anyone sufficiently capable whom I could send. The matter has been like a burning fire in my heart and it has set my bones alight.
The ageing patriarch sought to understand the source of Matthew 2:23 : And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene. He could not find any source of this in the Biblical books of the prophets, because, indeed, no prophet could possibly talk about someone who would come from Nazareth. And this was for a good reason: the prophets all lived in the times of the First Temple whereas Nazareth became as a small village only at the time of the Second Temple. This unanswered question seems to have become his passion in later life as he concluded that the matter has been like a burning fire in my heart and it has set my bones alight.
To discover more facts about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and visit the two main sites related to them, viz. the Shrine of the Book and Qumran archeological site, please do hire a private tour guide to enrich your visit and experience.
Albert Benhamou
Private Tour Guide in Israel
November 2025
