The Maccabees established an independent kingdom and, in so doing, tossed out the priestly class that had controlled the temple in Jerusalem since the time of King Solomon. In 164 B.C., a group of Jewish dissidents, the Maccabees, overthrew the Seleucid Empire that then ruled Judea. Nobody doubts the scrolls’ authenticity, but the question of authorship has implications for understanding the history of both Judaism and Christianity.

Qumran has prompted bitter feuds and even a recent criminal investigation. She says the sheer breadth and age of the writings-during a period that intersects with the life of Jesus and the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in Jerusalem-make Qumran “a powder keg” among normally placid scholars. “It’s an enigmatic and confusing site,” acknowledges Risa Levitt Kohn, who in 2007 curated an exhibit about the Dead Sea Scrolls in San Diego. Despite decades of excavations and careful analysis, there is no consensus about who lived there-and, consequently, no consensus about who actually wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Other scholars describe Qumran variously as a manor house, a perfume manufacturing center and even a tannery. Later, it was converted into a pottery factory to serve nearby towns like Jericho, he says. After digging at the site for ten years, he also believes that Qumran was originally a fort designed to protect a growing Jewish population from threats to the east. He believes, rather, that Jews fleeing the Roman rampage hurriedly stuffed the documents into the Qumran caves for safekeeping. Evidence for a religious community here, he says, is unconvincing. He says the scrolls had nothing to do with the settlement. “There is no connection to the Essenes at this site,” he tells me as a hawk circles above in the warming air. 68.īut hearing the dramatic recitation, Peleg, 40, rolls his eyes. They were hard at work by the time Jesus began preaching ultimately they stored the scrolls in 11 caves before Romans destroyed their settlement in A.D. Qumran, the guides say, was home to a community of Jewish ascetics called the Essenes, who devoted their lives to writing and preserving sacred texts. Tour guides shepherding the tourists through the modest desert ruins speak of the scrolls’ origin, a narrative that has been repeated almost since they were discovered more than 60 years ago. 66 to 70-predating by 8 to 11 centuries the oldest previously known Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible. and the period prior to the failed Jewish revolt to gain political and religious independence from Rome that lasted from A.D. The scrolls also contain a collection of previously unknown hymns, prayers, commentaries, mystical formulas and the earliest version of the Ten Commandments. Among the texts are parts of every book of the Hebrew canon-what Christians call the Old Testament-except the book of Esther. The Dead Sea Scrolls-comprising more than 800 documents made of animal skin, papyrus and even forged copper-deepened our understanding of the Bible and shed light on the histories of Judaism and Christianity. They have come to this harsh and remote site in the West Bank, known as Qumran, because this is where the most important religious texts in the Western world were found in 1947. It is a scene of silent desolation-until, that is, tourists in hats and visors pour out of shiny buses. There are no trees or grass, just a few crumbling stone walls. The heat on this spring morning is already intense. Before us, across the flat-calm Dead Sea, the sun rises over the mountains of Jordan. Israeli archaeologist yuval peleg halts his jeep where the jagged Judean hills peter out into a jumble of boulders.

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