The Dead Sea Scrolls are the most famous ancient manuscript ever recovered. But, why are they so important?
The Dead Sea Scrolls are 972 manuscripts that have been found around a network of 12 caves in Qumran in the West Bank near Palestine.
These scrolls feature texts that are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. They were also all written on parchment and papyri. They are the oldest substantial biblical texts to have survived up to the 21st century.
The first scrolls were discovered in 1946 by Bedouin shepherds (totally fits the biblical narrative, right?), which then spurred a search that helped archaeologists uncover the rest over the course of 10 years following the initial event.
Although there are technically only 972 full remaining manuscripts, thousands of fragments of these scrolls have been recovered around the Dead Sea.
Scholarly consensus dates these scrolls from the final three centuries BCE, and the first century in CE. They have enormous historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they host a wealth of information about the original Hebrew Bible canon.
Believe it or not, when translated, these papers describe multitudes of diverse representations within religious thought, which is contrary to the modern incantation of progressive religious text.
The King James Bible essentially scrapped what the original texts were supposed to mean and made them benefit the perception of royalty. Boo.