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Dead Sea Scrolls Report - By Jim Voelz
Dr. James Voelz reviews the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit, which is running from 2/8/2007 through 5/13/2007 at Union Station in Kansas City, MO.
Dead Sea Scrolls Report
James W. Voelz
Readers of this webpage will, no doubt, be interested in an exhibit on
display now in Kansas City, MO, focusing upon the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Running from February 8th through May 13th of 2007, this presentation
at the city’s gorgeous Union Station is worth more than a casual
glance. It is much more comprehensive than one would be led to believe
from the basic advertising information. Yes, there are impressive
fragments of ancient manuscripts (on which see more, below), but
perhaps just as fascinating is the information given on virtually every
factor surrounding these treasures, especially details of the find
itself, problems of preservation and presentation of the documents, the
geography of the Qumran area, reconstructions of the life of the
community, as well as information on the time period and its events in
general (a nice display of coins from Palestine in the centuries before
and after Christ is included). In fact, with the time lines and the
charts that are also on display, the entire exhibit provides an
outstanding review of the historical and cultural setting of the
ministry of our Lord, all at an intelligent layman/non-specialist
level, but with an accuracy that a specialist can appreciate and
enjoy. Personally, I was very impressed by the balanced and fair
treatment of the Qumran evidence as a whole. It was clearly stated
that there are conflicting assessments of the data, with, indeed, a
minority of scholars not being sure, either that the Essenes were the
inhabitants of Qumran, or that the scrolls can actually be linked to
the inhabitants, whoever they may have been.
Now concerning the manuscripts. The display clearly articulated
the fact that the scrolls discovered in the caves around Qumran are of
three types, viz., Biblical, apocryphal, and sectarian. The first
comprises books of our Old Testament (or, the Hebrew Bible), the second
non-canonical books such as Jubilees, the third documents related to
the community and to the conduct of its members, such as the Community
Rule and commentaries on Biblical books. The first are the most
significant, because they have provided for us, for the first time, an
insight into the state of the Hebrew OT text fully one thousand years
earlier than previously known Hebrew texts (which are 10/11th century
AD), with many dating from around 100 BC or older. Exciting to see is
actual manuscript evidence that the name of Yahweh was inscribed in the
old (= paleo) Hebrew script, not in the more familiar block script, in
some of the texts before the Christian era. Probably of primary
significance is the discovery of Hebrew texts which testify to the form
of the text preserved in the LXX, demonstrating that the latter is not
simply a “bad edit job” but a different recension of the OT text—though
most Qumran readings do conform to what we know later as the Massoretic
text. It is also of interest that the OT books found most frequently
at Qumran, viz., Psalms (30 texts), Deuteronomy (25), Isaiah (24)
Genesis (20), Exodus (14) are the books quoted most frequently within
the NT, viz., Psalms (79), Isaiah (66), Deuteronomy (54), Exodus (44),
and Genesis (39). (It may be noted that cave 4 contains evidence of
all books of the OT except Esther.) The Apocryphal scrolls are
significant especially because they present the books in their original
Hebrew or Aramaic versions, while such works were known previously only
in translation. Finally, the sectarian scrolls provide us with an
insight into the community’s life and belief system (probably beginning
in the last half of the second century BC and lasting until AD 68),
including astronomical data that indicates that their calendar was
solar-based, not lunar based, as was the calendar of the Pharisees.
Key here are the commentaries that use the so-called Pesher method, a
hermeneutical approach which interprets verses of OT texts as applying
directly and specifically to the time period of the commentary itself.
(The parallel to NT citations is not hard to see.)
Scrolls on display at the exhibit are a fragment of 4Q1 (= the
first manuscript from Qumran cave 4), containing a portion of chapters
34-39 of Genesis (ca. 100 BC), a fragment of 4Q47, the earliest known
copy of Joshua, with an independent text, unlike either the MT or LXX
(ca. 100 BC), a fragment of 11Q5, a portion of Psalms 135-136, with
paleo-Hebrew letters used for the name of Yahweh (ca. 80 BC), a
fragment of 11Q10, written in Aramaic, one of the earliest translations
of the book of Job, from chapter 36 (ca. 80 BC), 4Q161, a fragment of a
Pesher/commentary on the book of Isaiah, containing a portion of Isaiah
11 (ca. 50 BC), 4Q41, a portion of the book of Deuteronomy, containing
the text of chapter 5 and the ten commandments, but (perhaps as part of
a liturgical text) following 8:5-10 (ca. 30 BC), as well as a portion
of the Community Rule, 4Q258, (ca. 30 BC), an Aramaic Apocryphon of
Daniel, 4Q246, (ca. 30 BC), and a portion of the so-called Damascus
Document, 4Q266, (ca. 50 BC).
Admission to the Qumran exhibit is a bit steep at $19.95, but it is
well worth the money, considering the quality of the contents. Also
worthwhile is a visit to the store attached to the exhibit, which
contains both mementos of the presentation and resources to develop
further understanding.
Written By: host
Date Posted: 2/23/2007
Number of Views: 1072
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