Scrolls of the Qumran caves of Palestine. Qumran Manuscripts - Dead Sea Scrolls

50 years ago, Joseph Amusin’s book “Dead Sea Manuscripts” became a bestseller in Soviet popular science literature. When the intelligentsia read this book, science knew less than a quarter of what we know about Qumran today. Recorded between the middle of the 3rd century BC. e. and the middle of the 1st century AD. e. on thousands of scraps of parchment, the texts form the library of a Jewish sect that influenced the development of Christianity.

In early February 1947, a fifteen-year-old Bedouin, Muhammad ad-Din, nicknamed the Wolf from the Taamire tribe, was herding goats in the desert area of ​​Wadi Qumran (two kilometers west of the Dead Sea, 13 kilometers south of Jericho and 25 kilometers east of Jerusalem) and accidentally found seven parchment scrolls in a cave. ... This is how all the stories about the Qumran epic begin without exception. The version sounds romantic, but somewhat simplifies the reality: manuscripts from the Qumran community had been stumbled upon before. In the 3rd century, the great Christian theologian Origen found them in the vicinity of Jericho in a clay vessel. Around 800, a dog led an Arab hunter to one of the Qumran caves, from where he took out some scrolls and handed them over to the Jews of Jerusalem. Finally, at the end of the 19th century, a Qumran document was discovered in an ancient Cairo synagogue. But these finds did not make a difference in science. Qumran came to the forefront of history at the same time as the entire Middle East - in the middle of the twentieth century.

"Indiana Jones"

In April 1947, the Bedouin Wolf offered the find to the Bethlehem antiquarian Ibrahim Ijha, who showed no interest in it. Another merchant, Kando, agreed to look for a buyer for a third of the future profits. The scrolls were offered to the monastery of St. Mark - and again unsuccessfully. Only in July, Metropolitan Samuel of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Jerusalem agreed to buy four manuscripts for 24 pounds ($250). A month later, a certain Egyptian businessman brought another manuscript to US intelligence agent in Damascus Miles Copland. He agreed to photograph it and find out if anyone would be interested in this rarity. They decided to shoot on the roof to make it brighter - a strong gust of wind blew the scroll into dust. In November, three scrolls were purchased by archeology professor Eliezer Sukenik from Hebrew University. In February 1948, the scrolls purchased by Christians were delivered to the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem. Their antiquity was recognized there. Following the Americans, Sukenik made a similar statement, who previously did not want to make a fuss so as not to inflate the price. But the Arab-Israeli war that began in May interrupted all contacts between sellers and buyers, and scientists with each other. Sukenik lost his son on it and forgot about the scrolls for a while.

Metropolitan Samuel transported the manuscripts that were purchased by Syrian Christians to New York, where he went to raise funds for the needs of Palestinian refugees. The scrolls were displayed at the Library of Congress. In 1950, a public debate took place in Philadelphia, in which supporters of the authenticity of the scrolls won a decisive victory over those who considered them to be fakes. Meanwhile, Jordan outlawed Samuel as a thief, and he decided to sell the scrolls. For $250,000, they were bought for Israel by Professor Sukenik’s second son, the hero of the Arab-Israeli war, Yiggael Yadin, for whom this was the fulfillment of his father’s dying will. Of course, he acted through dummies: the Metropolitan would not have sold it to an Israeli for anything!

As a result of the war, the territory of Qumran went to Jordan, and all research there was carried out by French Catholic archaeologists, who sought to find the most ancient roots of Christianity in Palestine. In November 1951, Bedouins from the Taamire tribe brought the found scroll to the director of the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, Joseph Saad. When they refused to reveal the place where the discovery was made, the director, without thinking twice, took one of them hostage and thus learned about the new cave of scrolls. But he was still ahead of the priest Roland de Vaux, who was already on the spot. In 1952, five caves were opened and 15,000 fragments from 574 manuscripts were found - they were collected at the French Biblical and Archaeological School in East Jerusalem. That same year, after the end of the archaeological season, the Bedouins found another cave near the excavation site - from there they sold thousands of scraps from 575 manuscripts. All this moved to the Rockefeller Museum. In the spring of 1955, four more caves with scrolls were discovered.

In January 1956, the era of new caves ended: in total, about 40 of them were discovered near the Dead Sea, but manuscripts were found in only 11. In the “team competition” of the competition between scientists and Bedouins, the first ones won with a score of 6: 5. The number of finds reached 25,000, but of these there were only 10 whole scrolls, and the rest were scraps, many of which were no larger than a postage stamp. Some of the scrolls were torn to pieces by the Bedouins, who earned a Jordanian pound for every square centimeter.

Copper scroll

Undoubtedly, the most sensational discovery at Qumran was not scraps of parchment, but two large scrolls of pure, although highly oxidized, copper. They were excavated in 1953 at the entrance to the Third Cave. Some ancient Hebrew text was engraved on the inner surface of the metal, but it was impossible to read: it turned out to be impossible to unroll the scrolls without breaking them. Then the scientists obtained permission to take them to Manchester, where they were carefully cut into strips and finally read. And here the scientists were in for a real sensation: the scroll (it was a single object 2.4 meters long, about 39 centimeters wide, broken in half) contained indications of specific 60 places in Palestine where gigantic treasures were buried, totaling from 138 to 200 tons of precious metals !

For example: “In the fortress that is in the valley of Achor, forty cubits under the steps leading to the east, a chest of money and its contents: seventeen talents in weight” (No. 1); “Sixty cubits from “Solomon’s Ditch” in the direction of the great watchtower are buried for three cubits: 13 talents of silver” (No. 24); “Under the tomb of Absalom, on the west side, there is buried twelve cubits worth: 80 talents” (No. 49). The first thought was: where did the poor Qumranite community get such wealth? The answer was found quickly: it was the priests of the Jerusalem Temple who put the temple treasures into hiding places on the eve of the Roman siege of 70, and hid the key to the treasures in a cave. In 1959, hastily, before treasure hunters found out about the secret, archaeologists organized an expedition, guided by the instructions of the Copper Scroll... In vain! Everything turned out to be a scam. But who would want to engrave such lies on expensive metal? Apparently, the text is allegorical in nature and it is about mystical, and not about real, wealth. Be that as it may, during the 1967 war, the Copper Scroll became the only Qumran item that was evacuated to Amman as a strategic object.

Shortening Goliath

Radiocarbon dating has shown that the Qumran parchments date back to the period between 250 BC. e. and 70 AD e. They are exactly a thousand years older than all (with the exception of one) physically preserved biblical manuscripts. For example, a fragment of the copy of the Book of the Prophet Daniel is only 50 years away from the moment when, according to scientists, this book itself was written! From the fragments obtained, through complex analysis and comparison, it was possible to identify about 900 fragments of ancient texts, mainly in Hebrew and Aramaic, with only a few in Greek. A fourth of the finds were excerpts from the biblical canon - all parts of the Old Testament, with the exception of the Book of Esther. The discovery of lists so close to the time of the original writings forces us to reconsider the traditional textual criticism of the Bible in some ways. For example, Goliath’s height of “six cubits and a span” (more than three meters) should be corrected to “four cubits and a span,” that is, the fairy-tale giant simply turned into a two-meter basketball player.

In addition to biblical texts and commentaries on them, there were also apocryphal texts, that is, adjacent in content to the canonical ones, but not included in the canon for various reasons. For example, the Book of Giants in the 3rd century AD. e. became the sacred text of Manichaeism, a religion that almost won the competition with Christianity. And also the Book of Jubilees, the Apocrypha of the Book of Genesis, the Book of Enoch. But still, the most interesting was the third section of the “library” - the Qumran community’s own texts: statutes, liturgical instructions, horoscopes. The names alone can turn your head: The Book of Fires, Hymns of the Poor, The Book of the Watchers, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Astronomical Book of Enoch, The Rule of War, The Songs of the Admonisher, The Instruction of the Sons of the Dawn, Curses of Satan, The Hymn of Washing, The Book of Secrets, Songs of the Sabbath Burnt Offering, Servants of Darkness, Children of salvation and, most intriguingly, the tricks of a dissolute woman.

For a long time it was unclear who the inhabitants of Qumran were. The first hypothesis (which eventually became established) was that the Qumran library belonged to the Essenes sect. A lot is known about it from written sources: dissatisfied with the fact that official Judaism was adapting to the Hellenistic fashion, the sectarians retired to caves to literally carry out the instructions of the Bible. Their customs were so strange that Josephus, trying to give an idea of ​​them to the Greek reader, said that they “practice the mode of life which Pythagoras exhibited among the Greeks.” Not far from the caves, archaeologists discovered the remains of a settlement. The coins found there date from the same period as the scrolls. Water tanks, meeting rooms and even... two inkwells were discovered. But the problem is that hundreds of different handwritings can be traced in the scrolls found, and in general it is not clear how a huge scriptorium could exist in a small settlement? Therefore, the scrolls were brought from somewhere else, maybe there was not even a library in the caves, but just a hiding place? But does this mean that the totality of the texts found there does not necessarily reflect the sectarian views of the Essenes? The mystery of Qumran is that, unlike several other places nearby, where scrolls were also found, there are no non-religious texts here: the Qumranites did not leave us a single economic inventory or private letter, not a single promissory note or court verdict, and yet such documents usually provide evidence of community life. That is why various hypotheses appear up to the present day. Thus, in 1998, one researcher suggested that Qumran was not the capital of the Essene community, but a temporary refuge for extremists who had broken away from it. In 2004, several archaeologists hypothesized that the settlement at Qumran was actually a pottery factory, and that the scrolls in the caves were left by refugees from Jerusalem destroyed by the Romans. Another mystery of the Qumran caves: not a single human bone was found there. But most of the caves discovered in the Judean Desert served as the last refuge for refugees seeking salvation from Macedonian and later Roman terror. One even got the name Cave of Horrors - 200 skeletons were found in it.

Bargaining is inappropriate

In 1960, General Yiggael Yadin, son of Professor Sukenik, retired and took up archaeology. One day he received a letter from the USA from an anonymous person who volunteered to mediate the sale of a scroll of incredible value. For $10,000, the intermediary sent Yadin a fragment torn from the manuscript, but then the connection was interrupted. As soon as the salvoes of the “Six Day War” died down, Yadin, using his army connections, organized a raid on Bethlehem: he rightly judged that the anonymous seller could only be the antique dealer Kando, with whom the Qumran epic began 20 years earlier. And indeed, in the basement of his house, in a shoe box, lay a large, almost complete scroll (the fragment received by mail immediately fell into place in it), which received the name Temple. The antique dealer was paid $105,000, but was not allowed to bargain.

One of the hard-to-reach caves of Qumran, especially rich in finds. Photo: REMI BENALI/CORBIS/FSA

"The Da Vinci Code"

In essence, no matter how curious the Qumran manuscripts are, no matter how valuable they are for science, interest in them would not have lasted at its original level for half a century now if historians had not seen in them a possible clue to the origin of Christianity. In 1956, one of the main researchers of the scrolls, the Englishman John Allegro, unveiled his own theory in a speech on the BBC that the Qumran community worshiped a crucified Messiah, that is, that Christians were simply plagiarists. Other scientists published indignant retractions in The Times, but the genie of public hype was already out of the bottle. Subsequently, Allegro became an “enthusiast” of Qumran studies: in 1966, he published “The Untold Story of the Dead Sea Scrolls” in the venerable Harper’s magazine, where he argued that the clergy were maliciously concealing the unpleasant truth about Christ for them. Allegro was no longer taken seriously after the scandalous monograph “The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross” (1970), which stated that all religions, including Christianity, developed from the cult of hallucinogenic mushrooms. (The discovery of Sergei Kuryokhin, memorable to many, made in 1991, that the mushroom was V.I. Lenin, cannot be considered completely original.) So no one was surprised by Allegro’s book “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth” (1979), where he insisted that Jesus was a fictional character, copied from the Qumran Teacher of Righteousness.” Allegro, of course, exaggerated the degree of politicization and clericalization of Qumran studies, but there is no smoke without fire. Indeed, the texts were published extremely slowly, no one wanted to share with others, people who had access to the scrolls did not allow their competitors to access them, the impression was created that someone was hiding something or deliberately distorting something in the translation. And the place where the conflict between scientists unfolded was not conducive to calm. In 1966, Allegro convinced the Jordanian government to nationalize the Rockefeller Museum, but his triumph was short-lived: the “Six Day War” that soon broke out brought East Jerusalem under Jewish control. The Temple Scroll fell into the hands of Israeli researchers.

However, the Israelis, in order not to aggravate the situation, left the collection of the Rockefeller Museum in the hands of Catholic researchers - Roland de Vaux and Joseph Milik. They had not allowed Jews to see the scrolls before, and now they have completely refused to cooperate with the occupiers. In 1990, the head of the publishing project, Catholic John Strugnell, gave an interview to an Israeli newspaper in which he called Judaism a “disgusting religion” and expressed regret that Jews survived at all. After this, however, he lost his post.

By 1991, barely a fifth of the texts found had been published! That same year, the sensational book The Dead Sea Scrolls Hoax was published, the authors of which, Michael Baigent and Richard Lee, insisted that there was a Catholic conspiracy to hide the shameful secrets of Christianity. As always, the conspiracy theory underestimated smaller but no less important factors, such as personal ambition. Be that as it may, the situation became unbearable, and finally the new management of the project announced a policy of complete openness of all texts for everyone (which was facilitated by the spread of personal computers). This made it easier to work with old texts: in 1993, photographs of all the surviving fragments were published. But the situation with new ones has only worsened: back in 1979, Israel decreed that every ancient find is a state property. This immediately made any legal acquisition of scrolls from treasure hunters impossible. In 2005, Professor Canaan Eshel was arrested for buying scroll fragments on the black market, but was later released without charge. The fragments were confiscated by the Israel Antiquities Authority and were later found to have died during testing as officials tried to prove they were falsified. The problem of legalizing finds remains extremely acute for Qumran studies. But there are also reasons for optimism. For example, the advent of new methods such as DNA analysis will make it easier to put together a puzzle of thousands of scraps: first, it will become clear which of them are written on parchment made from the skin of the same animal. Secondly, it will be possible to establish the hierarchical significance of different scrolls: after all, a cow or a domestic goat was considered more “ritually pure” animals than a gazelle or a wild goat. And finally, 38 volumes of the academic series “Texts of the Judean Desert” have already been published, and another volume is in the works. New discoveries may await us.

Tema non grata

For obvious reasons, Soviet scientists could not participate in the search and deciphering of the scrolls, but their colleagues kept them in the know. Already in 1956, information about Qumran was published in the “Bulletin of Ancient History” by the wonderful St. Petersburg Hebraist Claudia Starkova. But the true intellectual sensation was produced by Joseph Amusin’s book “Dead Sea Manuscripts” (1960), which outlined the detective story of the finds. Its entire circulation was immediately sold out, and the second factory immediately released the same edition. It was the height of the “thaw”, and still the appearance of such a book during the Khrushchev offensive on religion looks like a complete miracle. After all, Amusin somehow managed to mention Jesus in it as a real person. However, the documentary publication “Texts of Qumran” prepared by Starkova was stopped by censorship due to the “Six Day War” and the outbreak of the “fight against Zionism.” The book appeared only 30 years later.

Gemini rivals

In addition to scandals and rivalries, the very essence of the Qumran texts literally provoked scholars to jump to conclusions. The scrolls spoke of a certain Teacher of Righteousness who died at the hands of former followers. The Man of Lies, who betrayed the Teacher, is also mentioned in these texts. In addition to the obvious identifications with Jesus and Judas, scientists have proposed the most surprising identifications. For example, in 1986, American biblical scholar Robert Eisenman announced that the Teacher of Righteousness is the New Testament James, the brother of the Lord, and the Man of Lies is the Apostle Paul. In 1992, Australian theologian Barbara Thiering published the book Jesus and the Mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which she argued that the Teacher of Righteousness is John the Baptist and the Man of Lies is Jesus. True, the publication of the complete corpus of Qumran texts finally convinced everyone that the community arose long before Christianity, around 197 BC. e., and that the Teacher lived about 30 years later.

All the circumstances of the creation of the sect and the internal struggle in it are set out in the scrolls in an extremely vague and allegorical form; much can be reconstructed with the greatest difficulty. However, now we can be sure that the teachings of the Qumranites were very far from the postulates of early Christianity; there are simply typological similarities between sects. For example, the supernatural resilience of the Essenes is very reminiscent of early Christian martyrs. According to Josephus, the Romans “screwed and stretched the Essenes, their members were burned and crushed; All instruments of torture were tried on them in order to force them to blaspheme the legislator or taste forbidden food, but nothing could persuade them to do either one or the other. They steadfastly withstood the torment, without making a single sound and without shedding a single tear. Smiling under torture, laughing at those who tortured them, they cheerfully gave up their souls in full confidence that they would receive them again in the future.” But such exaltation is characteristic of followers of many other sects in different eras, and here both relied on the same Old Testament and acted in the same area. It is clear why the “Christian” interpretation was literally on the researchers’ tongues. For example, the first publisher, using infrared scanning, deciphered one very damaged passage as “When God gives birth to the anointed one.” But then about a dozen other readings were proposed, and in the end the passage was declared unreadable.

Fragment of the Aramaic text of the apocryphal Testaments of the twelve Patriarchs. Photo: EYEDEA/EAST NEWS

Yet the Qumran texts help us understand a lot about early Christianity, restoring the atmosphere of intense anticipation of the Messiah that reigned in Judea during the era of crisis. For example, in the Old Testament Melchizedek is mentioned only twice, in a very vague context, and therefore the popularity of this image in New Testament literature, especially the fact that Christ is compared to him, seemed completely inexplicable. Now this has become clear: in the Qumran document, Melchizedek is a celestial being, the head of a host of angels, the patron of the “sons of light,” an eschatological judge and evangelist of salvation. If Jesus cruelly polemicizes in the Gospel with the main two currents of Judaism - Pharisaism and Sadducees, then the third most important movement, Esseneism, is not mentioned even once. Can we conclude from this that Jesus did not know about him? This is unlikely. Some expressions, like “Holy Spirit”, “Son of God”, “sons of light”, “poor in spirit”, were clearly borrowed by Christians from the Qumranites. The phrase “New Testament” was also introduced by them. By the way, the Temple Scroll was apparently written by the Teacher of Righteousness and declared by him to be part of the Torah, its divinely inspired addition. There are striking similarities between the Essene communal meal of bread and wine and the Eucharist. And the most paradoxical call of Jesus - not to resist evil - finds a parallel in the Essenes’ charter: “I will not repay anyone with evil, but I will pursue a man with good.” And why be surprised here if John the Baptist “was in the deserts until the day of his appearing to Israel” and “preaching in the wilderness of Judea,” and Jesus “was there in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the beasts,” and later again he “went to a country near the desert,” and in general the desert was (and always remains!) - just a stone’s throw from the flowering gardens of Judea. When John the Baptist sent to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who should come, or should we expect someone else?”, he declared: “Go, tell John what you have seen and heard - the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor hear the good news.” These words are a montage of many Old Testament quotes. And only one motive is missing from the Bible - it does not say anywhere about the resurrection of the dead. But this is a direct quote from the Qumran essay “On the Resurrection.” There is strong speculation that the Essenes inhabited an entire neighborhood in the southwestern part of Jerusalem, and it was there that Jesus stayed and the Last Supper took place there. There are also motifs in the Gospel that, in the light of the Qumran scrolls, look like a polemic with the Essenes. For example, Christ asks: “Which of you, having one sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take it and pull it out?” This may be a direct objection to the Essene tenet: “And if an animal falls into a pit or ditch, let no one pick it up on the Sabbath.”

However, the main difference is rooted in the very essence: the Essenes turned to only the Jews, the Christians switched to propaganda among the pagans; the Essenes considered the Teacher a prophet, but not God; the Essenes hoped for a real earthly victory over the “sons of darkness”; as for Christians, their religion acquired so many followers precisely because after the destruction in 70 AD. e. Emperor Titus of the Jerusalem Temple made it impossible to dream of any real victory over invincible Rome. There was only one weapon left - the word. Or the Word.

The Dead Sea is a unique place on our planet. It is surrounded by desert on all sides; fish do not live in its water and it is impossible to drown. Its coastline is interesting for its archaeological sites. The most mysterious of them are the legendary caves of Qumran, where ancient scrolls written 2000 years ago were discovered. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are 1,000 years older than the oldest surviving Bible. Is it so?

Now these mysterious scrolls are a national treasure of Israel. They are dated to the 1st century BC. e. The scrolls were discovered by chance in 1947 by a Bedouin boy who was looking for a missing goat. While throwing stones into one of the caves in the hope of scaring the animal away, he heard a crash. Curiosity overcame fear, and in the darkness he saw ancient clay vessels, one of which crumbled after a stone hit it.

The vessels, carefully wrapped in strips of linen, contained scrolls of leather and papyrus, covered with writing. After lengthy ups and downs, the unique manuscripts ended up in the hands of specialists. Subsequently, about 200 caves in the area were explored, and similar scrolls were found in 11 of them. The ruins of an ancient settlement were also located nearby. Since 1947, endless research and excavations have been carried out here. The discovered Dead Sea Scrolls have presented the scientific community with so many mysteries that, apparently, several generations of scientists will not be able to solve.

What are the legendary Dead Sea Scrolls? These manuscripts tell the historical events of the Second Temple period (520 BC – 70 AD). The period from the 2nd century BC is especially interesting there. e. until 70 AD e. – the time of development and establishment of monotheistic religion.

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain quite a variety of texts. This included the texts of all the canonical books of the Old Testament (some of them differ from the known ones), and several non-canonical Jewish lists. The 7 earliest fragments tell about the origins of Judaism and Christianity.

The researchers' particular attention was drawn to the documents of the communities that lived in this area. In addition, the famous Copper Scroll was found, which contains lists of hidden treasures (a mystery that haunts minds to this day). The largest exhibit is written in an old Hebrew script that has common roots with the pictographic alphabet. The rest of the manuscripts were written in later Assyrian, Hebrew, and Aramaic scripts.

Where could this amazing library come from in the Qumran caves? Who and why left the scrolls under the protection of gloomy cave vaults? Researchers tried to find the answer to this question in the ruins located between the limestone cliffs and the coastal strip. We are talking about a complex of structures 80 x 100 m, having a significant height. The remains of burials were discovered nearby. In one of the interior rooms of the building, plaster tables with low benches and inkwells were found; Some of them still contain traces of ink.

Scientists have suggested that this place became the refuge of the Essenes (Essenes) sect, which is mentioned in ancient historians. The Essenes, who went into the desert, led a hermit life for two centuries. In the texts they called themselves Jews, which corresponds to the third branch of Judaism (Essen), mentioned by the historian Josephus. The sectarians considered themselves true believers, and everyone else – mired in false faith and vices. They were preparing for the final battle between the forces of Light and Darkness under the leadership of the Teacher of Righteousness.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has caused much controversy among experts. A group of skeptics immediately emerged, doubting both the antiquity and the authenticity of the manuscripts. It is difficult to blame them for increased distrust: in 1883, the Jerusalem antiques dealer Moses Shapiro also announced the discovery of the ancient text of Deuteronomy. (These 15 strips of leather caused a sensation in Europe and were exhibited in the British Museum. But later, leading European scientists came to the conclusion that the texts were a crude forgery.)

Some scholars argue that the texts cannot be ancient. They argue that, with the exception of the Nash papyrus containing the Shema prayers and the 10 Commandments in Hebrew, the biblical texts were known only from copies of the 9th century AD. e. And in this case, the threat of forgeries is too great, because it is not possible to compare the texts with earlier manuscripts.

But radiocarbon dating of the fabric in which the scrolls were wrapped generally confirmed the antiquity of the find and points to the period between 167 BC. e. and 237 AD e. Today, the opinion of scientists regarding the dating of manuscripts from the caves of Qumran is also supported by historical, linguistic and paleographic data. It has been established that some texts were written shortly before the destruction of Qumran by Roman legionaries in 68 AD. e.

Controversy regarding the origin of the texts, apparently, will not subside very soon. However, four main groups of opinions can be distinguished:

The scrolls were created by members of the Qumran community;

The collection had nothing to do with the Essenes and was part of the garrison library;

The Dead Sea Scrolls are records of predecessors or even followers of Christ;

These texts are the remains of the library of Solomon's Temple.

The minor discrepancies found with the accepted text of the Bible were of particular importance: they confirm the authenticity of the later Jewish manuscripts. For the first time, the scientific world had a unique opportunity to evaluate the relationship between the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Bible) and the ancient Masoretic text.

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, all discrepancies that exist in both versions were considered the result of scribal error or intentional distortions of the base text. But after a thorough analysis of the texts, they found out that in ancient times there were several versions of the sacred letter, which were adhered to by various schools of scribes. The most ancient of the known biblical texts apparently originate from these schools.

The Dead Sea Scrolls helped clarify a number of unclear passages in the New Testament and proved that the Hebrew language was not a dead language during Christ's earthly life. It is curious that the scrolls do not mention the events that followed the capture of Jerusalem. The explanation suggests itself: the scrolls are the remains of the library of the Jerusalem Temple, saved from the Romans by a certain priest.

During excavations, they discovered that the building had been stormed. A coin was discovered in the ashes, indicating the presence of warriors of the Tenth Legion in it. Apparently, the inhabitants of Qumran were warned about a possible attack and they hid the library in the surrounding caves. Judging by the fact that the texts lay in them until the 20th century, there was no one to take them after the storming of the monastery...

The hypothesis linking the appearance of the manuscripts with the destruction of Jerusalem is confirmed by the contents of the Copper Scroll. It consists of three copper plates held together with rivets. The rectangular strip with embossed text is almost 2.5 m long and 40 cm wide. The scroll is written in colloquial Hebrew and contains more than 3,000 characters. However, to make one sign, you need to make 10,000 strikes with the coin!

Why did they use such unusual material for writing? It was probably extremely important that its contents be preserved. And in fact, the Copper Roll is an inventory listing the contents and burial locations of treasures.

The manuscript claims that the amount of gold and silver buried in Israel, Jordan and Syria is between 140 and 200 tons! Perhaps this refers to the treasures of the Jerusalem Temple, buried before the invaders broke into the city. However, many experts argue: there was not such a quantity of precious metals at that time, not only in Judea, but in the entire civilized world. It was especially emphasized that none of the treasures were found. But there could also be copies of the document. Perhaps such a list ended up in the hands of treasure hunters much earlier...

The very presence of the scroll in the collection confirms that some of the manuscripts actually came here from Jerusalem at the last stage of the Jewish War. The scroll, which is called “The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness,” caused numerous disputes. The mystical nature of its content contradicts the realistic details of the text. There is a feeling as if a national liberation war is being described. Isn't the scroll talking about the Jewish War? This text is a strategic plan for the campaign against the Romans and their allies. At the same time, one gets the impression that if the Jews had been able to act in accordance with it, the outcome of the war would have been different.

Using ancient texts, some researchers have tried to link the formation of the Christian church with the revival of the Qumran monastery between 4 BC. e. and 68 AD e. Moreover, among the documents of the community, researchers discovered horoscopes of the Forerunner and Jesus. The parallel that experts draw between the settlement at Qumran and the lives of these biblical characters is actually interesting.

John the Baptist withdrew into the Judean desert near the mouth of the Jordan River. Please note: this place is less than 16 km away from Qumran! Presumably, John was associated with the Essenes or even belonged to their midst. It is known that the Essenes often took in children to raise, but nothing is known about the youth of the Forerunner, except that he was “in the deserts.” But that’s exactly what the Qumranites called their settlements! “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness,” the Baptist said about himself, repeating their slogan word for word.

But in time John had to break with the isolation of Qumranite society; He turned the daily sacred ablutions into a “baptism of repentance,” performed only once. Jesus Christ came to the place where John preached to ask for baptism. The Baptist immediately recognized Him, although he had never seen Him before. The Essenes distinguished each other by their white linen clothes...

It is curious that the Gospel also passes over in silence almost 20 years of the life of Christ himself. After mentioning the 12-year-old boy, a mature man appears before us. He amazes with his erudition, quotes sacred texts and easily wins disputes with the Pharisees and scribes. Where could the son of a simple carpenter comprehend all this?

Family Essenes made up the lower classes of the community. They were usually engaged in carpentry or weaving. Presumably, Christ's father Joseph (a carpenter!) was an Essene of the lowest level. The Evangelist Matthew calls Joseph “the righteous” - this is what the people of Qumran were called in those days. Perhaps Jesus, after the death of his father, went to teach among the Initiates. Perhaps there he spent the years that “fell out” of the Holy Scriptures.

N. Roerich suggested that Christ did not stay long in the community. He quickly learned the wisdom of the Essenes (who, according to one version, were descendants of Egyptian priest-healers) and was sent to Tibet. In the ancient monasteries of India, Persia and the Himalayas, according to Roerich, there are documents that confirm the presence of Jesus here. In particular, there is information about a man named Issa, who came from Israel and was resurrected after crucifixion...

Christ returned to his homeland at the age of 30 - at a time when a person’s chakras open and he can practice healing. When it came to healings, Jesus behaved like a careful doctor, but by no means an omnipotent person. He did not cure many the first time, and he completely retreated from some illnesses, advising them to pray and fast.

Apparently, he was fluent in the medical secrets of the Essenes, so that he could take care of himself at the right time. Roman sources report that Jesus died on the cross after 6–7 hours, although as a rule, those crucified died on the third day. He was taken down from the cross and taken to a cave. A day later the body disappeared. In the cave there was only a young man in white robes, who reported a miraculous resurrection.

Egyptian manuscripts contain many stories of this kind. The initiates voluntarily passed away, bequeathing their disciples to resurrect them. Perhaps one of Christ’s “reanimatologists” was the mysterious young man in white.

Christ spoke to his disciples, clearly referring to prophecies that speak of the deeds of the future Messiah. But he mentioned that “the dead are raised” - this is not in the prophecy. The confusion is resolved by the text of the Qumran scrolls, which indicates the “resurrection of the dead” as one of the works of the Messiah.

So, wasn’t Christ himself the Teacher spoken of in the ancient manuscripts? However, the analysis revealed large discrepancies in the description of both personalities. And the manuscripts were created at least 100 years before the birth of the Messiah from Nazareth.

So, the scientific world is now convinced that the capricious animal of a Bedouin boy was the reason for the discovery of the oldest known Bible. The scrolls are actually 1,000 years older than the surviving Hebrew manuscripts used as the basis for all modern Old Testaments.

Interestingly, the Masoretic Text (900 AD) hinted at the treasures of Solomon's Temple hidden in 70 AD. e. (remember the Copper Scroll!). In all the Bibles, Deuteronomy speaks of “fear” or “reverence” of God, but the Dead Sea Scrolls speak instead of “love”... But, as the researchers put it: “The 11th commandment is not in the scrolls.” The changes suggested by the Dead Sea Scrolls do not challenge basic beliefs.

In the spring of 1947, an unusual discovery was made in the Dead Sea area, in the Ras Feshkha mountains. Two Bedouin boys, who went in search of a goat that had strayed from the herd, noticed a narrow cleft in the rock. The crevice led to a small grotto, or rather a winding corridor, the dimensions of which were approximately 8 m in length, 2 m in width and 2.5–3 m in height.

What the Arabs saw in the cave was completely unexpected: here, among the scattered shards and debris, stood eight tightly closed clay jugs. All of them turned out to be empty, except for one: it contained three leather scrolls wrapped in old linen. The inside of the scrolls was covered with some letters.

Both Bedouins were illiterate, but they immediately realized that in front of them were antiques that could be sold at a profit. They took leather scrolls and several jars with them to show them to antiquities dealers in Bethlehem.

Thus began the long journey of mysterious scrolls, which two years later were destined to become a real world sensation. Some of them went to the head of the Jacobite Christians, Mar Athanasios Joshua Samuel, Archbishop of Jerusalem. Realizing that in front of him were fragments of Old Testament texts written in Hebrew, he attempted to determine the age of these manuscripts. At his request, specialists from the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, J. Trever and W. Brownlie, conducted an examination of the scrolls. Photocopies of the manuscripts were sent to one of the leading experts in the field of Palestine studies, Professor William F. Albright. Albright expressed no doubt about the authenticity of the manuscripts and determined that the texts were written approximately one hundred years BC.

World science has never known anything like this before. The oldest Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament known at that time, the so-called Cairo Codex, dates back to the 9th century AD. e. So the discovery of Old Testament texts dating back a thousand years became a genuine scientific sensation of enormous significance.

Scientists from the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem have undertaken a new search for ancient manuscripts. In particular, they managed to find those scrolls that the Bedouins sold to various antiquities dealers. A special archaeological expedition was sent to the place where the manuscripts were found, which included specialists from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, the French Biblical Archaeological School in Palestine and the Palestine Archaeological Museum. Having carefully examined the grotto, scientists collected fragments of clay vessels and about 500 fragments of leather scrolls with ancient writings. According to archaeologists, in total this cave once contained about 50 vessels and about 150 scrolls. Some of them were probably stolen by robbers in ancient times.

Near the first cave, over the next few years, 11 more grottoes were discovered, from which about 15 thousand fragments of Old Testament texts and several hundred manuscripts of secular content were extracted.

Of course, everyone was interested in the question: what kind of people left these mysterious scrolls in the caves? Who could have thought of living in this dead desert, among bare rocks devoid of any vegetation? Were there really any settlements here in ancient times? In the early 1950s, an archaeological expedition led by R. de Vaux, director of the Bible School of the Dominican Order in Jerusalem, and D. L. Harding, director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, began exploring the Khirbet Qumran hill located near the mysterious grottoes. Arabic for "hill of rubble". Since the end of 1951, archaeologists have carried out systematic excavations here, which lasted six seasons. The remains of a whole complex of premises were excavated here with great care, dating back to 125 BC, judging by numerous finds of Syrian, Jewish and Roman coins. e. - 75 AD e. (a close date - from 167 BC to 233 AD - was also given by radiocarbon analysis of the scrolls). Of the 153 coins found during excavations, 72 belonged to the time preceding the reign of King Herod the Great (35-4 BC), one - to the era of his reign and 80 - to the 70-year period of time after his reign. This distribution of coins indicates that the settlement on the Khirbet Qumran hill was abandoned at the beginning of the reign of Herod the Great and repopulated after him. It is known from written sources that in the 7th year of Herod’s reign a strong earthquake occurred in Palestine. Most likely, it was the reason for the end of life in the settlement. Among the ruins of Khirbet Qumran, archaeologists discovered a large crack in the ground, stretching 15 m and damaging part of the buildings - this is probably a trace of that long-ago disaster. At the same time, the ground settled by almost half a meter and traces of this collapse are clearly visible today. It is also easy to notice that the walls were subsequently corrected and restored. Many other traces - collapsed buildings, sometimes blackened by fire, "three-winged" Roman arrowheads - indicate that around 67–70, during the first Jewish uprising against Rome, the settlement on the Khirbet Qumran hill was taken and destroyed by Roman warriors. It was probably during this troubled time that the inhabitants of Qumran hid the sacred texts in a cave, carefully wrapping them in linen and placing them in clay vessels. They probably hoped to return for them someday, but none of them succeeded - they were killed, captured or scattered by the Romans.

But who exactly lived in this secluded settlement? Scientists are divided on this matter. Some researchers sided with the hypothesis that Qumran was the habitat of the Essenes, about whom Pliny the Elder wrote in his time:

“To the west of the Dead Sea, at some distance from the harmful coastal zone and beyond it, live the Essenes - a solitary and most amazing people of all, without women, without love, without money, living in a society of palm trees. However, they are renewed all the time, and new recruits come to them in large numbers - people tired of life or prompted by the vicissitudes of fate to choose their way of life. Thus, for thousands of centuries, no matter how incredible it is, this eternal people has existed, into which no one is born. Thus, thanks to them, the repentance that their life arouses in others bears fruit.”

It is impossible to understand who the Essenes were from Pliny’s message. Therefore, a heated debate developed around the hypothesis about the Essene origin of Qumran and the Qumran scrolls. According to some scientists, the Essenes were members of a certain religious sect who led a hermitic lifestyle. Other researchers suggest that this is simply some special community of Jews. The third group of researchers generally denies the existence of the Essenes.

First of all, the scrolls themselves could shed light on the mystery of the Qumran scrolls. To study the collected material - and its quantity turned out to be enormous - a special research group was created, which included specialists from different countries. The condition of the documents that fell into their hands was terrifying: apparently, in ancient times there was a tradition not to destroy old, worn-out manuscripts of sacred texts, but to hide them in secluded places. And over the past two thousand years, time has thoroughly “worked” on them. And now before the scientists lay worn, partially torn, half-decayed leather scrolls, eaten away by insects and rodents. Before they could be read, they had to be strengthened and restored. One can imagine what colossal work is required in order to straighten each fragment, after moistening it with water vapor, then photograph it in infrared rays, then classify it according to the nature of the writing and the quality of the skin, and finally, try to match it with other fragments in order to obtain, if possible, connected text...

Meanwhile, when scientists were just beginning to unravel the Qumran scrolls, two “independent” researchers, a Frenchman and an Englishman, had already rushed to publish their own “sensational discovery”: they declared that the results of the study of the scrolls “represent a radical revolution in the history of Christianity.” As if from the Qumran texts it follows that the Essenes knew that a certain “teacher of righteousness” was crucified on the cross, his body was then taken down and buried, and the apostles expected the resurrection and return to earth of their “teacher”, that is, the image, and more precisely, the prototype of Jesus Christ supposedly already existed among the Essenes.

“The handwritten Dead Sea Scrolls are the greatest challenge to Christian teaching since the advent of Darwinism!” - the authors of the hypothesis pompously claim. This unfounded assertion, despite the heated protests and refutations of major scientists, was immediately picked up and disseminated by the world press. This topic was “covered” especially widely in the atheistic Soviet Union, where any stupidity was welcomed, as long as it was directed against Christianity.

There is no doubt that Jewish sects existed even before the advent of Christianity. But the champions of “the greatest challenge to Christian teaching” can rest in this case. The Qumran texts contain absolutely nothing that could call into question the basic tenets of Christianity. The Essene community, as is clear from the documents found at Qumran, was deeply committed to traditional Judaism. Some parallels with Christianity in Esseneism, however, are present, but they are explained by the common roots of both teachings, which originate in the Old Testament. “Thus, if Esseneism contains a number of elements that fertilized the soil on which Christianity was subsequently born, then it is no less obvious that Christianity represents something completely new, something ultimately explainable only by the person of Jesus Christ,” - One of the largest researchers of the Qumran problem, J. T. Milik, an employee of the Paris National Center for Scientific Research, writes about this.

The discoveries at Qumran are, of course, interesting not because of the nonsense that “anti-religious” propagandists piled up around them. The Qumran manuscripts are valuable primarily because they enriched with invaluable information not only the general history and history of religion, but also linguistics (along with the main Hebrew dialects, seven other languages ​​are represented in them), paleography - the science of ancient manuscripts, the history of literature, the history of law (some texts from Qumran represent contracts for purchase and sale). This circumstance ensured world fame for the Qumran scrolls, far beyond the limits of purely scientific interest. Today it is known that the bulk of the Qumran finds are predominantly biblical texts and apocrypha, that is, anonymous works of religious content that are not considered divinely inspired and therefore not included in the Bible. Created during the 3rd–1st centuries. BC e., they are the most valuable documents of the era.

In 1947, Seven Scrolls (complete or slightly damaged) fell into the hands of antiquities dealers, who offered them to scholars.

Three manuscripts (Second Scroll of Isaiah, Hymns, War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness) were acquired for the Hebrew University of Jerusalem by E. L. Sukenik, who first established their antiquity and published excerpts in 1948–50. (full edition - posthumously in 1954).

Four other manuscripts fell into the hands of the Metropolitan of the Syrian Church, Samuel Athanasius, and from him to the USA, where three of them (the First Scroll of Isaiah, the Commentary on Havakuk /Habakkuk/ and the Charter of the Community) were read by a group of researchers led by M. Burrows and published in 1950–51 These manuscripts were subsequently acquired by the Israeli government (with money donated for this purpose by D. S. Gottesman, 1884–1956), and the last of these seven manuscripts (the Apocrypha of Genesis), published in 1956 by N. Avigad, was read in Israel and I. Yadin.

Now all seven manuscripts are on display in the Temple of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

It should be noted that, apparently, not all of the Dead Sea Scrolls have yet fallen into the hands of scientists. After completing the publication of the DJD series, in 2006, Professor Hanan Eshel presented to the scientific community a hitherto unknown Qumran scroll containing fragments of the book of Leviticus.

Unfortunately, the scroll was not discovered during new archaeological excavations, but was accidentally seized by the police from an Arab smuggler: neither one nor the others suspected the true value of the find until Eshel, who was invited to the examination, established its origin. This case once again reminds us that a significant part of the Dead Sea Scrolls may pass through the hands of thieves and antiquities dealers, gradually falling into disrepair.

Excavations

Following these finds, systematic excavations and surveys began in 1951 in Qumran and nearby caves, which were under Jordanian control at that time. The surveys, which uncovered new manuscripts and numerous fragments, were carried out jointly by the Jordanian government's Department of Antiquities, the Palestine Archaeological Museum (Rockefeller Museum) and the French Archaeological Biblical School; Scientific activities were led by Roland de Vaux.

Between 1947 and 1956, more than 190 biblical scrolls were discovered in eleven Qumran caves. Basically these are small fragments of the books of TaNaKha (all except the books of Esther and Nehemiah). One complete text of the book of Isaiah has also been found - 1QIsa a. In addition to biblical texts, valuable information is also contained in quotations from non-biblical texts, such as pesharim.

• Previously unknown readings help to better understand many details of the text of the TANAKH.
• The textual diversity reflected in the five groups of texts described above gives a good idea of ​​the multiplicity of textual traditions that existed during the Second Temple period.
• The Qumran Scrolls provided valuable information about the process of textual transmission of the Tanakh during the Second Temple period.
• The reliability of ancient translations, primarily the Septuagint, has been confirmed. The discovered scrolls, belonging to the fourth group of texts, confirm the correctness of the previously made reconstructions of the Hebrew original of the Septuagint.

The Qumran scrolls are written mainly in Hebrew, partly in Aramaic; there are fragments of Greek translations of biblical texts. Hebrew of non-biblical texts is the literary language of the Second Temple era; some passages are written in post-biblical Hebrew. The spelling is usually “full” (the so-called ktiw maleh with particularly extensive use of the letters vav and yod to represent the vowels o, u, and).

Often such orthography indicates phonetic and grammatical forms different from the extant Tiberian Masorah, but there is no uniformity in this regard among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The main type used is the square Hebrew font, a direct predecessor of the modern printed font. There are two styles of writing - a more archaic one (the so-called Hasmonean letter) and a later one (the so-called Herodian letter).

Finds of similar texts in Masada date back to 73 AD. e., the year of the fall of the fortress, as terminus ad quet. Fragments of tefillin on parchment were also discovered; Tefillin belong to a type that precedes the modern one.

Qumran manuscripts, written in the period from the 2nd century. BC e. up to 1st century n. BC, represent invaluable historical material that allows us to better understand the spiritual processes that characterized Jewish society at the end of the Second Temple era, and sheds light on many general issues of Jewish history. The Dead Sea Scrolls are also of particular importance for understanding the origins and ideology of early Christianity (see below).

Texts created by members of the Qumran community play a huge role in the study of Hebrew history. The most important of this group are the Charter (1QSa), Blessings (1QSb), Hymns (1QH), Commentary on Habbakuk (1QpHab), War Scroll (1QM) and Temple Scroll (11QT). . The language of the Copper Scroll (3QTr) differs from that of these documents and can be attributed to the spoken language of the time, a precursor to Mishnaic Hebrew.

The language of the remaining documents created by members of the community, on the one hand, is close in vocabulary to early biblical Hebrew. On the other hand, features common to Late Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew are absent from the language of the Qumran manuscripts (Qumran Hebrew). Based on this, scholars suggest that members of the Qumran community, in written and perhaps spoken language, deliberately avoided trends characteristic of the spoken language of the time, such as the increasing influence of Aramaic dialects. To protect themselves from the outside world, sect members used terminology based on biblical expressions, thereby symbolizing a return to the “pure” religion of the Exodus generation.

Thus, Qumran Hebrew is not a transitional link between late biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, but represents a separate branch in the development of the language.

The finds at Qumran led to the emergence of a special field of Jewish studies - Qumran studies, which deals with the study of both the manuscripts themselves and the whole range of problems associated with them. In 1953, the international Committee for the Publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls was created (seven volumes of its publications were published under the title “Discoveries in the Judean Desert”, Oxford, 1955–82). The main publication of Qumran scholars is the Revue de Qumran (published in Paris since 1958). Rich literature on Qumran studies exists in Russian (I. Amusin, K.B. Starkova and others).

Biblical texts

Among the Qumran finds, about 180 copies of (mostly fragmentary) biblical books have been identified. Of the 24 books of the canonical Hebrew Bible, only one is not represented - the Scroll of Esther, which is perhaps not accidental. Along with Jewish texts, fragments of the Greek Septuagint (from the books of Leviticus, Numbers, Exodus) were discovered.

Another type of biblical material is the verbatim verses quoted as part of the Qumran commentary (see below).

The Dead Sea Scrolls reflect the diverse textual variants of the Bible. Apparently, in 70–130. the biblical text was standardized by Rabbi Akiva and his companions. Among the textual variants found at Qumran, along with the proto-Masoretic ones, there are types previously hypothetically accepted as the basis of the Septuagint and close to the Samaritan Bible, but without the sectarian tendencies of the latter, as well as types attested only in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Fragments of the last book represent all the main sections with the exception of the second (chapters 37–71 - the so-called Allegories), the absence of which is especially noteworthy, since here the image of the “son of man” appears (a development of the image from the book of Daniel 7:13). The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (several fragments of the Testament of Levi in ​​Aramaic and the Testament of Naphtali in Hebrew) are also pseudepigrapha - works preserved in the Greek Christianized version.

The fragments of the Testaments found at Qumran are more extensive than the corresponding passages in the Greek text. Part of the Epistle of Jeremiah (usually included in the book of Baruch) was also found. Previously unknown pseudepigrapha include the Sayings of Moses, the Vision of Amram (Moses' father), the Psalms of Joshua bin Nun, several passages from the Daniel cycle, including the Prayer of Nabonidus (a variant of Daniel 4), and the Book of Secrets.

Literature of the Qumran community

Section 5:1–9:25, in a style often reminiscent of the Bible, sets out the ethical ideals of the community (truthfulness, modesty, obedience, love, etc.). The community is metaphorically described as a spiritual temple, consisting of Aaron and Israel, that is, priests and laity, whose members, due to the perfection of their lives, are able to atone for human sins (5:6; 8:3; 10; 9:4).

Then follow the rules on the organization of the community and its daily life, listing the punishable offenses (blasphemy, lying, insubordination, loud laughter, spitting in the meeting, etc.). The section ends with a list of the virtues of the ideal, “reasonable” member of the sect (maskil). Three hymns, similar in all respects to those contained in the Hymn Roll (see below), complete the manuscript (10:1–8a; 10:86–11:15a; 11:156–22).

Scroll of Hymns

The Hymn Roll (Megillat ha-hodayot; 18 more or less complete columns of text and 66 fragments) contains about 35 psalms; The manuscript dates back to the 1st century. BC e. Most of the psalms begin with the formula “I thank you, Lord,” while a smaller part begins with “Blessed be you, Lord.” The content of the hymns is thanksgiving to God for the salvation of mankind.

Man is described as a being sinful by his very nature; he is created from clay mixed with water (1:21; 3:21) and returns to dust (10:4; 12:36); man is a carnal creature (15:21; 18:23), born of a woman (13:14). Sin permeates the entire human being, even affecting the spirit (3:21; 7:27). Man has no justification before God (7:28; 9:14ff), is unable to know His essence and His glory (12:30), since the human heart and ears are unclean and “uncircumcised” (18:4, 20 , 24).

Human destiny is entirely in God's hands (10:5ff.). In contrast to man, God is an omnipotent creator (1:13ff; 15:13ff), who gave man a destiny (15:13ff) and determined even his thoughts (9:12, 30). God's wisdom is infinite (9:17) and inaccessible to man (10:2).

Only those to whom God has revealed himself are able to comprehend His mysteries (12:20), devote themselves to Him (11:10ff), and glorify His name (11:25). These chosen ones are not identical with the people of Israel (the word "Israel" is never mentioned in the surviving text), but are those who received revelation - not of their own free will, but by God's design (6:8) - and were cleared of their guilt God (3:21).

Humanity is therefore divided into two parts: the chosen ones, who belong to God and for whom there is hope (2:13; 6:6), and the wicked, who are far from God (14:21) and who are allies of Bliyal (2:22 ) in his struggle with the righteous (5:7; 9, 25). Salvation is possible only for the chosen ones and, which is very characteristic, is considered as having already taken place (2:20, 5:18): acceptance into the community in itself is salvation (7:19ff; 18:24, 28) and therefore not surprising that there is no clear distinction between entry into the community and eschatological salvation.

The idea of ​​the resurrection of the righteous is present (6:34), but does not play a significant role. Eschatologically, salvation does not consist in the deliverance of the righteous, but in the final destruction of wickedness. The Psalms show a literary dependence on the Bible, primarily on the biblical psalms, but also on the prophetic books, especially Isaiah, and are full of numerous allusions to biblical passages. Philological studies reveal significant stylistic, phraseological and lexical differences between the psalms, which suggests that they belong to different authors. Although the manuscript dates back to the 1st century. BC BC, the discovery of fragments of these psalms in another cave suggests that the Roll of Hymns is not the original, but a copy of an earlier manuscript.

Damascus Document

Damascus Document (Sefer brit Damesek - Book of the Damascus Covenant), a work that presents the views of the sect that left Judea and moved to the “land of Damascus” (if the name is taken literally). The existence of the work has been known since 1896 from two fragments discovered in the Cairo Geniza. Significant fragments of this work were found at Qumran, allowing one to get an idea of ​​its structure and content. The Qumran version is an epitomized version of a more extensive prototype.

The introductory part contains exhortations and warnings addressed to members of the sect, and polemics with its opponents. It also contains some historical information about the sect itself. After 390 years (cf. Ech. 4:5) from the day of the destruction of the First Temple, “from Israel and Aaron” the “planted seed” sprouted, that is, a sect arose, and after another 20 years the Teacher of righteousness appeared (1:11; in 20 :14 he is called the sea ha-yachid - “the only teacher” or “the teacher of the one”; or, if you read ha-yahad - “the teacher of the /Qumran/ community”), who united those who accepted his teaching into a “new testament”.

At the same time, the Preacher of Lies appeared, a “mocker” who led Israel along the wrong path, as a result of which many members of the community apostatized from the “new covenant” and left it. When the influence of apostates and opponents of the sect increased, those remaining faithful to the covenant left the holy city and fled to the “land of Damascus.” Their leader was the “lawgiver who expounds the Torah,” who established the laws of life for those who “entered into the new covenant in the land of Damascus.” These laws are valid until the appearance of the “Teacher of Righteousness at the end of days.”

The “people of mockery” who followed the Preacher of Lies apparently refers to the Pharisees who “made a fence for the Torah.” The Torah was initially inaccessible: it was sealed and hidden in the Ark of the Covenant until the time of the high priest Zadok, whose descendants were "chosen in Israel", that is, have an unquestionable right to the high priesthood. Now the Temple has been desecrated, and therefore those who entered into the “new covenant” should not even approach it. The "people of mockery" have profaned the Temple, do not observe the laws of ritual purity prescribed by the Torah, and rebel against the commands of God.

The second part of the essay is devoted to the laws of the sect and its structure. The laws include regulations on the Sabbath, the altar, the place for prayer, the “temple city,” idolatry, ritual purity, etc. Some of the laws correspond to generally accepted Jewish ones, others are the opposite of them and are similar to those adopted by the Karaites and Samaritans, with a pronounced general tendency to rigorism.

The organization of the sect is characterized by the division of members into four classes: priests, Levites, the rest of Israel, and proselytes. The names of sect members must be included in special lists. The sect is divided into “camps,” each of which is headed by a priest, followed in rank by a “supervisor” (ha-mevaker), whose functions include leadership and instruction of the sect members. There appears to have been a distinction between those who lived in the "camps" as actual members of the community and those who "lived in the camps by the law of the land," which perhaps meant community members living in villages.

The work is written in Biblical Hebrew, free of Aramaicisms. Sermons and teachings are composed in the spirit of ancient midrashim. The images of the Teacher of Righteousness and the Preacher of Lies are found in a number of other works of Qumran literature. It is possible that the sect described here was an offshoot of the Qumran one and that the composition reflects later events than the Charter of the community.

On the other hand, "Damascus" can be understood metaphorically to refer to the deserts of Judah (cf. Amos 5:27). If the name Damascus is taken literally, then the event of flight could only relate to a time when Jerusalem and Damascus were not under the rule of one ruler, that is, to the time of the Hasmoneans: in this case, the most likely is the reign of Alexander Janna (103–76 BC) . BC), during which, after defeat in the civil war, Alexander's opponents and many of the Pharisees and circles close to them fled from Judea.

Temple Scroll

The Temple Scroll (Megillat HaMikdash), one of the most important Qumran finds, is the longest manuscript discovered (8.6 m, 66 columns of text) and dates from the 2nd–1st centuries. BC e.

The work claims to be part of the Torah given by God to Moses: God appears here in the first person, and the Tetragrammaton is always written in full form and in the same square script that the Qumran scribes used only when copying biblical texts. The essay treats four topics: halakhic regulations, religious holidays, the structure of the Temple and regulations regarding the king.

The halakhic section contains a significant number of regulations that are not only arranged in a different order than in the Torah, but also include additional laws, often of a sectarian and polemical nature, as well as regulations similar to, but often divergent from, the Mishnaic ones. Numerous laws on ritual purity reveal a much more strict approach than that adopted in the Mishnah.

In the section on holidays, along with detailed instructions relating to the holidays of the traditional Jewish calendar, there are instructions for two additional holidays - New Wine and New Oil (the latter is also known from other Dead Sea manuscripts), which should be celebrated respectively 50 and 100 days after the holiday Shavuot.

The section on the Temple is written in the style of the chapters of the book of Exodus (chapter 35 and subsequent), telling about the construction of the Ark of the Covenant, and, in all likelihood, is intended to serve as a filler for the “lost” instructions about the construction of the Temple given by God to David (I Chron. 28: 11 ff). The temple is interpreted as a man-made structure that must exist until God erects His temple not made by hands. The plan of the Temple, the ritual of sacrifice, holiday rituals and the rules of ritual purity in the Temple and in Jerusalem as a whole are interpreted in detail.

The last section establishes the number of the royal guard (twelve thousand people, one thousand from each tribe of Israel); the task of this guard is to protect the king from an external enemy; it must be composed of “people of truth, fearing God and hating self-interest” (cf. Ex. 18:21). Next, mobilization plans are established depending on the degree of threat to the state from the outside.

Comment on Havakuka

War is conceived on the model of the ancient institution of holy wars. The sacred nature of war is emphasized by the mottos inscribed on the trumpets and banners of the sons of light; in particular, on the banner carried at the head of the army, there will be the inscription “people of God” (3:13; cf. the official title of Shimon Hasmonean “prince of the people of God” - sar am El, I Macc. 14:28). Like Judah Maccabee, who encouraged his soldiers before battle with a reminder of how God helped their ancestors in similar circumstances by destroying the army of Sancherib (II Macc. 8:19), the author of the work recalls the victory of David over Goliath.

Just as Judah Maccabee and his soldiers, returning from the battlefield, sang psalms of praise (I Macc. 14:24), the author of the work instructs the high priest, kohanim and Levites to bless those going into battle (10:1 ff.), and the soldiers after battles sing a hymn of thanksgiving (14:4 ff.). As befits a holy war, the priests are given a special role: they are prescribed special vestments during battle, in which they accompany the fighters in order to strengthen their courage; they must give battle signals with their trumpets. Kohenim, however, should not be in the thick of battle, so as not to defile themselves by touching the dead (9:7-9).

Ritual purity must be observed in the strictest manner: just as physical defect makes a person unfit for temple service, in the same way it makes him unfit for participation in war; During military operations, soldiers are forbidden to engage in sexual intercourse, etc. (7:3–8). Although war is conceived according to the ancient model of holy war, detailed instructions on the method of conducting combat operations, tactics, weapons, etc. partly reflect the author’s contemporary military practice.

However, the entire course of the war is completely subordinated to a pattern predetermined by God. At the same time, it is obvious that the author familiarized himself with contemporary manuals on military affairs. The military formation prescribed by him resembles the Roman triplex acies, and the weapons are the equipment of the Roman legionnaires of the era of Caesar (from the works of Josephus it is known that the Jewish rebels, when preparing and arming fighters, took the Roman army as a model).

Copper scroll

The Copper Scroll (Megillat ha-nehoshet) is a document, variously dated by scholars (30–135), written on three plates of soft copper alloy, fastened with rivets and rolled into a scroll (length 2.46 m, width about 39 cm): in During the rolling process, one row of rivets burst, and the remaining part was rolled separately. The text is minted (about 10 mints per letter) on the inside of the scroll.

The only way to read the document was to cut the scroll into transverse strips; the operation was carried out in 1956 (four years after the scroll was found) at the Manchester Institute of Technology, and with such care that no more than 5% of the text was damaged.

The document is written in colloquial Mishnaic Hebrew and contains approximately 3,000 characters. A French translation was published in 1959 by J. T. Milik; transcription and English translation with commentary - in 1960 by D. M. Allegro (Russian translation of the English edition was published in 1967); The official publication of the text with facsimile, translation, introduction and commentary was carried out by Milik in 1962.

The total weight of the gold and silver treasures listed in the scroll is about 140 or even 200 tons, according to various estimates. If the treasures listed are real, it can be assumed that the scroll contains a list of treasures from the Temple and other places rescued by the defenders of Jerusalem in the final stages of the war against the Romans. It is typical that among the hidden treasures are incense, valuable wood, tithe jars, etc.

The use of such a durable material as copper allows us to conclude that the listed treasures are real (according to Allegro). Just because a document was found at Qumran does not necessarily mean it belonged to the Qumran community. There is speculation that the Qumran caves were used by the Zealots or their allies, the Edomites, who may have hidden the document here as the Romans approached.

Other materials from Qumran

Other documents of the Qumran community include the Charter of Blessings (Sereh Ha-Berakhot), the so-called Angelic Liturgy, or Songs of the Sabbath Burnt Offering (Sereh Shirot Olat Ha-Shabbat), the Priestly Orders (Mishmarot) and other texts, as well as numerous minor fragments.

Publishing texts

Documents found at Qumran and other areas are published in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) series, currently numbering 40 volumes, published since 1955 by Oxford University Press. The first 8 volumes are written in French, the rest in English. The chief editors of the publication were R. de Vaux (volumes I-V), P. Benoit (volumes VI-VII), I. Strungel (volume VIII) and E. Tov (volumes IX-XXXIX).

Document publications contain the following components:

• A general introduction describing the bibliographic data, physical description including fragment dimensions, material, list of features such as errors and corrections, orthography, morphology, paleography, and dating of the document. A list of variant readings is also provided for biblical texts.
• Transcription of the text. Physically lost elements - words or letters - are given in square brackets.
• Translation (for non-biblical work).
• Notes regarding complex or alternative readings.
• Photographs of fragments, sometimes infrared, usually on a 1:1 scale.

Volume XXXIX of the series contains an annotated list of all previously published texts. Some documents were previously published in scientific journals dedicated to biblical studies.

Many materials from Qumran are still being deciphered and awaiting publication.

Golb's conjecture

Manuscript materials discovered in the caves of Wadi Murabbaat include texts dating back to the 8th–7th centuries. BC e. and up to the Arab period. The oldest written monument is a papyrus palimpsest (twice used sheet), which was originally, apparently, a letter (`...[name] tells you: I send greetings to your family. Now, don’t believe the words that tell you... .`), on top of the washed-out text is a list of four lines, each of which contains a personal name and numbers (apparently, the amount of tax paid); the document is written in Phoenician (Paleo-Hebrew) script.

Tefillin of the type that became accepted from the beginning of the 2nd century. n. BC, in contrast to fragments of an earlier type, including the Ten Commandments, which were found at Qumran.

Fragments of a liturgical nature in Hebrew and a literary nature in Greek were discovered. A significant portion of the manuscript material consists of business documents (contracts and bills of sale) in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, most dating to the years leading up to the Bar Kokhba revolt and the years of the revolt. Of particular interest are the letters from the rebels, including two letters in Hebrew signed by the leader of the uprising, Shimon ben Koseva (i.e. Bar Kochba).

One of the letters reads: “From Shimon ben Koseva to Yehoshua ben Galgole [apparently the leader of the local rebels] and to the people of his fortress [?] - peace! I call heaven to witness that if any of the Galileans who are with you are ill-treated, I will put your feet in shackles... Sh. K. himself.”

Second letter: “From Shimon Yehoshua ben Galgole - peace! Know that you must prepare five pots of grain to be sent through [the members of] my household. So prepare a place for each of them to spend the night. Let them stay with you all Saturday. Make sure that the heart of each of them is filled with contentment. Be brave and encourage courage among the locals. Shalom! I have ordered that those who give you their grain should bring it the day after the Sabbath.”

One early Aramaic document (55 or 56 CE) contains the name of the Emperor Nero written in such a way (נרון קסר) to form the apocalyptic number 666.

Manuscript materials from the Murabbaat caves indicate that the population of Judea in this period, as in the Herodian era, was trilingual, using Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek with equal ease.

In Khirbet Mirda, as a result of excavations (1952–53), fragments of New Testament and apocryphal literature, business documents, fragments of the tragedy of Euripides and other manuscripts were found, mainly in Greek and Syriac, as well as in Arabic (4th–8th centuries). .

A number of important manuscripts (biblical fragments, letters of Bar Kochba) were also discovered in Nahal Hever, Nahal Mishmar and Nahal Tze'elim.

Manuscripts discovered in caves in the Wadi Qumran area of ​​the Dead Sea in Jordan. The first finds date back to 1947. To this day. vr. open approx. 40 thousand fragments, ch. arr. to other euros and Arameysk. languages. The manuscripts belonged to religions. group... Atheist Dictionary

QUMRAN TEXTS- QUMRAN TEXTS, manuscripts (scrolls) of the Dead Sea manuscripts of the 3rd century. BC e. 1st century n. e. in Hebrew and Aramaic, discovered since 1947 in the caves of Khirbet Qumran near the northwest coast of the Dead Sea. The manuscripts belonged to the so-called... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Dead Sea Scrolls

Dead Sea Scrolls- Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display at the Archaeological Museum in Amman Bible ... Wikipedia

Qumran scrolls- Fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls on display at the Archaeological Museum in Amman Bible ... Wikipedia

DEAD SEA MANUSCRIPTS- ancient manuscripts found in 1947 65 in storage caves along the western coast of the Dead Sea (in Jordan and Israel). Manuscripts written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Nabatean, Greek, Latin, Syrupalestine and Arabic differ in their... ... Soviet historical encyclopedia

Bible manuscripts- Bible... Wikipedia

Dead Sea Manuscripts- ancient manuscripts found in 1947–1965 in storage caves along the west. coast of the Dead Sea (in Jordan and Israel). Manuscripts, written in Hebrew, Arabic Nabatean, Greek, Latin, Syrupalestine and Arabic. languages, differ in their content... ... Ancient world. encyclopedic Dictionary

QUMRAN FINDS- QUMRAN FINDS, see the article on the Dead Sea manuscripts... Modern encyclopedia

QUMRAN FINDS- see art. Dead Sea manuscript... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

• Dead Sea Manuscripts Buy for 1902 UAH (Ukraine only)
• Dead Sea Scrolls, I.D. Amusin. The book tells about the discoveries of ancient manuscripts in caves on the shores of the Dead Sea. These manuscripts turned out to be the most valuable documents dating back to the 3rd century. BC e.-VIII century. n. e. These…