Leaps of Consciousness

In 1947, while looking for a lost goat, Mohammed edh-Dhib, a young Ta’amireh shepherd, discovered rows of jars in a hidden desert cave near the Dead Sea in Israel. This was the first of eleven finds in the Qumran caves which lasted to 1956. They represent a large collection of Biblical and non-biblical documents ranging from the third century BCE to the first century CE, before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE by the Romans.

The biblical scrolls include about 230 manuscripts that form part of the Hebrew Bible. The non-biblical manuscripts are some 950 fragments of different scrolls.

Believed to originate from an Essene settlement, and written in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, the documents shed new light on the Essenes’ way of life.

Jesus was an Essene. They provide a first-hand glimpse of the lives of those pietists, through the “Rule” literature that governed their lives. This literature is unknown in the Bible, and these texts are the earliest evidence of its existence. It is thought the Essenes hid the library to stop the Romans destroying it.

References

Media	Author	Title
Book	Dr Geza Vermes	The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English