The Dead Sea Scrolls

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that the Dead Sea Scrolls, since their discovery in 1947 and their subsequent translations by numerous scholars, continue to demonstrate many contradictions among the books in the Old and New Testaments, which points to the conclusion that the Essenes and other religious groups at Qumran either wrote certain books of the Holy Bible or copied the text from much older sources that are now lost. The author points out that the Dead Sea Scrolls have strengthened the Jewish faith because they made it abundantly clear that Jewish history as it is related in the Old Testament and in the Torah is quite accurate. The paper contends that for Christians the overall importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls lie in the fact that what theologians and religious historians currently accept as the truth concerning the history of Palestine and the role of Jesus within it may be inaccurate with the result being a complete re-writing of history as it is reflected in the scrolls.

From the Paper:

"One of the first scholars to actually see and photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 was John Trever, who has provided a highly-researched and documented history of the initial find at Qumran. According to Trever's account, three Bedouin shepherds were in the area of Qumran, located on the northwest side of the Dead Sea, in the spring of 1947. During this time, the area was under the control of the British Mandate in Palestine, and the shepherds were apparently tending their flocks when one of them casually began to throw stones at what appeared to be the opening of a cave just west of the plateau at Qumran."

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