The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Greatest Archaeological Find of the 20th Century

hello everybody welcome back to another episode of sidepro if you ever have one of those topics where it's like you just know embarrassing little about it for me it's uh lord of the rings star wars anything to do with the marvel cinematic universe except for iron man because i've seen the iron man movies and also the dead sea scrolls and i was like the best way to learn about something is me to ask whatever one of my writers to write about it and then i will read it on camera for you guys so we'll learn together isn't it wonderful imagine being able to scientifically study the bible much discussion and countless debates have centered on religion and in particular each belief's sacred book it's often a touchy subject one based on beliefs and feelings rather than things like facts and evidence loves of facts and evidence science being a relatively recent development in terms of history had little to say about the topic while they do now it's like the earth it's not a few thousand years old is it is it is it that is until the 1950s and the discovery of the dead sea scrolls for archaeologists these remnants of parchment papyrus leather and copper represent the single greatest find of the 20th century if not ever it is because of these discoveries that researchers scholars and academics have been able to clarify many historical and archaeological questions that surround religion although the dead sea scrolls do not answer questions such as is god real what is my purpose in life very disappointingly they do offer a clearer vision into the ancient world of the modern day middle east and offer a totally new perspective to judaism christianity and the world in which jesus walked it seems fitting that shepherds are responsible for one of history's greatest religious discoveries members of the nomadic bedouin peoples came across the dead sea scrolls by chance in 1947 over the next two decades in curbat qumran in modern day israeli occupied west bank bedouin herders and archaeological expeditions uncovered close to a dozen more caves and fragments of around 950 scrolls these compromise what we know today as the dead sea scrolls since 1946 numerous excavations have taken place but they found no other artifacts the words and teachings of the dead sea scrolls written in hebrew aramaic and greek contain an abundance of information about religious matters and everyday life back in ancient palestine they are thought to be the products and belongings of the community that lived in the qumran area of the dead sea coast from the third to the first century bce the scrolls are often classified into three categories religious apocryphal and sectarian the religious scrolls comprise the entire hebrew bible or tanakh say for the books of nehemiah and esther these discoveries proved significant for both judaism and christianity since many of the books in the hebrew bible make up the old testament of the christian bible it is clear from this portion of the scrolls that the community responsible for writing them valued their religious beliefs highly upwards of 30 copies of certain books of the tanakh have been found such as those of deuteronomy they made over 200 copies of the 24 books in the tanakh the religious girls provide the earliest evidence for examples of biblical text this evidence offers insight into how the modern day hebrew and christian bibles came to be and how their corresponding beliefs started and evolved the crown jewel discovery of the religious manuscripts is the isaiah scroll this is the only scroll to be found and preserved in its entirety all other religious documents were uncovered in fragments since the book of isaiah has a prominent messianic scene scholars now know that this community living just before jesus time believed strongly in the coming of a heavenly savior and the end of times the apocryphal scrolls have religious themes as well but the jewish community kept the secret and excluded them from the collection of the hebrew bible the reason for this secrecy is unknown making these scrolls an object of curiosity research and speculation the sectarian scrolls deal less with telling biblical stories and more with critical analysis of them as far as researchers know this type of biblical interpretation was unique to the qumran community in which the scrolls were found through a mixture of detailing specific cases in some parts and providing a running commentary in others the authors of the sectarian scrolls offered explanations of biblical texts and laid out rules and laws that members of the community lived by as much information and answers as the dead sea scrolls give us they raise just as many questions if not perhaps even more one of the most debated questions surrounding this famous find is its authorship with claims ranging from a religious community that inhabited the qumran region to a fleeing group of exiles the question of whom to attribute these exhilarating excavations to remains unanswered one of the wider told origin stories of the scrolls gives a community called the essenes credit according to historians the scenes were a group of jewish ascetics living in the qumran region over 2000 years ago they dedicated their lives to resisting earthly pleasures and writing and preserving sacred texts as the story goes the essenes worked well into the life and even past the death of jesus creating and conserving what we now call the dead sea scrolls they continued this work until the roman empire destroyed their community in 68 ce if this story is true it could provide a new link between the jewish and christian religions john the baptist the aptly named baptizer of jesus could have been a student and member of the essene ascetics other historians doubt the essenes had anything to do with the scrolls saying there is no sufficient evidence to suggest a religious community inhabited the region of qumran another origin theory for the scrolls credits their authorship to a community of jews fleeing the persecution of the roman empire this origin story claims the refugees happened upon the caves in komron and hurriedly stashed the scrolls there for their protection still other theories claim komron was a manor house another a perfume manufacturing center and yet another a tannery many origin theories for the dead sea scrolls have been offered analyzed and debated making this question one of contention and potent feelings but why is the origin of the scrolls so important one of the greatest revelations of the dead sea scrolls was the historical insight the laws the teachings and the lives of the people who lived during biblical times and helped write two of history's most influential books one such story concerns the maccabean revolt in the second judean temple when the maccabees overthrew the seleucid empire that ruled judea in 164 bce they overthrew the priestly class that ruled the second temple that is usually the case when a power vacuum emerges different factions formed and fought for control of the temple and the newly established maccabean kingdom these rival sects are the different groups variously attributed for writing the dead sea scrolls the question of who exactly wrote them would have a vast impact on how scholars and historians view the context in which the tanakh and the old testament were written and the history of both judaism and christianity [Music] perhaps one of the few aspects of this archaeological discovery that experts can agree on is that the dead sea scrolls are the most important find of the 20th century their notoriety among scholars and popularity among lay people launched the scrolls to legend level fame but payne can be a fickle friends thanks to their popularity the dead sea scrolls have been the victim of forgery counterfeiting and black market circulation in some cases as recently as 2020. in washington dc the museum of the bible offers visitors a stroll through the history meaning and significance of one of history's most important books the crowning achievement of their artifact collection was 16 fragments of the dead sea scrolls however independent research conducted in 2020 found that all the fragments in the museum were forgeries the fragments consisted of pieces of ancient leather but the writing on the leather was written during modern times this bombshell sent shock waves through the archaeological community and threw many dead sea scroll artifacts into question further investigation is verifying that though all the original pieces found in the 1940s to the 1960s and which now lie in the shrine of the book and the israel museum and jerusalem are authentic much if not all of the artifacts introduced in 2000 and later are actually fakes some of the original fragments are not free of shady dealings however in the late 1940s a syrian orthodox archbishop of jerusalem bought four of the original pieces from a cobbler for a hundred dollars he fled the arab israeli war and went to the united states in 1948 where he posted four of the fragments for sale in the classified section of the wall street journal he negotiated their sale to the state of israel for a quarter million dollars hefty profit right well yes for the irs which confiscated a vast majority of the money because of an improperly drafted bill of sale in addition to this shady underbelly of the dead sea scroll story myths and legends bring intrigue into the mix it is rumored that some scrolls namely the texts inscribed on copper plates contain a treasure map the hebrew and greek infoscripts use peculiar vocabulary and unconventional spelling apparently to encrypt the location of boards of gold silver and other plunder to this day though no further treasure has been found further rumors have been born to explain the absence of these riches ranging from roman pillaging of judea to these stores never existing in the first place or perhaps the real treasures are the scores of knowledge and wealth of information that these scrolls give us yeah i mean that's brilliant and it's fantastic for archaeologists but it's not the people who want to make a profit the disney scrolls have proven to be that rare archaeological find that captivates both experts and lay people alike even their discovery was a shared effort between nomadic bedouin herders and professional archaeological expeditions the dead sea troll significance it's really hard to exaggerate their information affects every field of study from religion to history to archaeology and even sheds light on the origin authorship and background of the hebrew and christian bibles but their impact also came with a seedier side their fame mixed with the measure of that good old greedy human nature spurred some high-profile cases of forgery hard to believe mundane transactions of priceless artifacts and larger-than-life rumors of priceless treasures while there is still much to learn from the dead sea scrolls and scores of debates yet to be argued one thing is for certain their discovery constitutes one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did you know what to do smash that like button below and as always thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Sideprojects

Views: 503,466

Keywords: megaprojects, construction, engineering, projects

Id: 8XCSEtjT7rg

Length: 10min 39sec (639 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021