Dead Sea Scrolls Research Paper

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient manuscripts that were found at several sites near the western shore of the Dead Sea in a small community named Khirbet Qumran (Kee 62). The most important site was near Qumran, where eleven caves containing scrolls and artifacts were discovered. In early 1947, a shepherd boy by the name of Muhammed the Wolf was searching for some goats near a cliff on the western shore of the Dead Sea. Climbing up after one that had strayed away, he noticed a cave that he had never seen before, and so he decided to throw a stone into it. There was an unfamiliar sound of breakage. The boy was frightened and ran away. Later on that day, the boy returned with another boy and together they explored the cave. Inside, they came upon a numerous amount of tall clay jars that were filled with tiny manuscripts and scraps of scrolls that were poorly preserved (Wilson 1). When the boy took off the lids to the jars a very bad smell arose. The smell came from dark lumps that were found inside all the jars. When he got these lumps out of the cave, he saw they were wrapped up in wax. Although these manuscripts had faded and crumbled in places, they were in general remarkably clear (Wilson 3). Some of the
He abbreviates the data to organize the material, the first method of abbreviations when only the first cave was known soon became obsolete. This being the case, Fitzmyer explains, that the new system is based on five different headings: the material on which the text is written, the name of the place of discovery, the title of the document, the copy of the document at the given sight, and the language that the text is written; since some of the documents are in different languages. This system lays the ground work for anyone wishing to find out more of one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the 20th century (Fitzmyer