Dead Sea Scrolls

  • Greg and I recently took in an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Union Sta­tion in Kansas City. I thought it would be inter­est­ing, and it was. I also thought that it would be care­fully scripted to negate any Chris­t­ian impli­ca­tions, and it was. Oh well.

    dead-sea-scroll.jpg


    I try not to take it per­son­ally that the ban didn’t apply to all reli­gions. I mean, you can’t redact Judaism from an exhibit about the Dead Sea Scrolls. These are frag­ments of 800-some doc­u­ments that com­prise the ear­li­est found Old Tes­ta­ment texts. They were put in pot­tery jars and stored in caves near the Dead Sea in Israel, where they stayed for cen­turies until a Bedouin shep­herd found them in 1947 when he was look­ing for a stray goat. They appear to have been writ­ten from the 2nd cen­tury BC to the 1st cen­tury AD and hid­den around 70 A.D.So I’m not say­ing there’s some­thing inher­ently Chris­t­ian in the scrolls them­selves. I just find it hard to believe that those who pro­duced this exhibit could ignore the ele­phant in the liv­ing room. Come on: Israel from the 2nd cen­tury BC to 1st cen­tury AD? Would it have killed them to at least men­tion what incred­i­ble events were tak­ing place in this period of time? The Jews, hav­ing been con­quered and then fight­ing back many times (here’s a fas­ci­nat­ing time­line of how many time Jerusalem has changed hands.), were on the brink of being destroyed and dri­ven out for the last time, as they prob­a­bly knew. The Scrolls were hid­den (along with one cop­per scroll that appears to be an ancient trea­sure map, by the way), because they were pre­cious objects.

    Think about it. You are part of a com­mu­nity of God’s cho­sen peo­ple that knows that armies are com­ing that you can’t with­stand. Per­haps the Tem­ple in Jerusalem had already been destroyed by the Roman emperor’s son Titus; per­haps they had already heard that the nearby Jew­ish com­mu­nity at Masada had been reduced to mass sui­cide. What is it that you hide in the nearby caves? Your­selves? Your live­stock? Any wealth you pos­sessed? There was noth­ing like that in the 11 caves near the Dead Sea. Just pot­tery jars full of writ­ing that fell into four categories.

    1. Bib­li­cal texts — canon­i­cal books like Deuteron­omy and non-canonical books like Enoch
    2. “Com­mu­nity” text regard­ing the rit­u­als and cus­toms of a Jew­ish sect (prob­a­bly the Essenes)
    3. Bib­li­cal com­men­tary
    4. Mes­sianic texts (link about them HERE)

    Of that fourth type, there is a book called “The Ara­maic Apoc­ryphon” that con­tains this fragment:

    “The son of God he will be pro­claimed and the son of the Most High they will call him. Like the sparks of the vision, so will be their king­dom. They will reign for years on the earth and they will tram­ple all. Peo­ple will tram­ple peo­ple (cf. Dan.7:23) and one province another province until the peo­ple of God will arise and all will rest from the sword. Their king­dom will be an eter­nal king­dom (cf. Dan.7:27) and all their path will be in truth. They will jud[ge] the earth in truth and all will make peace. The sword will cease from the earth, and all the provinces will pay homage to them. The Great God (cf. Dan.2:45) is their helper. He will wage war for them. He will give peo­ples into their hands and all of them (the peo­ples) He will cast before them. Their domin­ion will be an eter­nal domin­ion (cf. Dan.7:14) and all the bound­aries of…”

    That frag­ment of text reaches across two mil­len­nia with the strength of real courage, real hope. I don’t think we see much of this anymore.

    It seems a lit­tle fit­ting to have heard the epis­tle read­ing yes­ter­day about those “of whom the world was not wor­thy” who didn’t live to see Christ. I feel inad­e­quate when I think of the com­par­a­tive wealth of the Church Age, and how lit­tle I remem­ber to give thanks for it.

    If you get a chance to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, do it. Since our Kansas City exhibit only con­tained five or six of the actual frag­ments, there would be quite a few of the nearly 100,000 frag­ments left to visit many other stops around the world at the same time. Don’t expect the Chris­t­ian impli­ca­tions to be writ­ten down any­where — I think we’ve all got­ten used to being in the only reli­gion that it’s unsci­en­tific and improper to men­tion. But if you don’t mind look­ing a lit­tle bit, you’ll find it.

    So those who hid their most valu­able pos­ses­sions in the caves near the Dead Sea had the final word after all. They out­lasted armies and empires to say a word to us. ” … the Son of the Most High they will call Him. … “

    Amen.


    Related posts:

    1. Old Media — are they dead yet?
    2. Today in Beth­le­hem hear I
    3. 7 Signs End Times Begin in 2007!
    4. Chris­t­ian Carnival
    5. Prayer request

    February 26th, 2007 | Grace | No Comments |

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