DEAD SEA SCROLLS For Everybody!

The Dead Sea Scrolls are an amazing trove of ancient parchment discovered by Bedouin shepherds near the Dead Sea in 1947. The story goes that a shepherd was looking for a sheep, when he stumbled across a dark cave, one of 11. To see whether anything was inside he tossed a rock and what he heard was the sound of breaking pottery.


Going inside he discovered what turned out to be the earliest existing versions of Biblical and Apocryphal texts ever found, dating from before 200 A.D. Before this discovery the oldest Biblical texts were from around 900 A.D.
That is an amazing thing, and these bad motherfuckers are still being translated to this day. Of course there is considerable decay and difficulty in reading 2000 year old writing, but the scientists are ass-kicking and diligent.



The good people at the Israel Antiquities Authority are painstakingly scanning each of the scrolls and will be making them available for anyone online! That is so fucking cool! Now, there are not many people that can read ancient languages but FUCK, it would be sweet to see some of these fucking things. The collected scrolls are called the Qumran Library, and contain a lot more than just Biblical passages.

According to many scholars, the chief categories represented among the
Dead Sea Scrolls are:

Biblical
Those works contained in the Hebrew Bible. All of the books of the Bible are represented in the Dead Sea Scroll collection except Esther.

Apocryphal or pseudepigraphical
Those works which are omitted from various canons of the Bible and included in others.

Sectarian
Those scrolls related to a pietistic commune and include ordinances, biblical commentaries, apocalyptic visions, and liturgical works. (from Ibiblio.org)

-FUPPETS- loves the future for it is here.