Qumran

In 1947, a young shepherd of the Ta’amireh tribe was looking for a lost sheep when he came upon a cave in Qumran near the Dead Sea. What he would find inside of this cave would change the way scholars look at Judaism and early Christianity forever. An unusual finding, he saw clay jars containing old scrolls inside of the cave. The shepherd did not know the true value of these scrolls until much later, but he gathered the seven scrolls up and sold them to antiques dealers in Bethlehem. This…

an actual place of punishment, but it is clear that it is only used (even in reference to the righteous) when they are faced with some unhappy situation, which they interpret as divine judgment. Furthermore, a slight change occurred in how Sheol is presented in the prophets. There, it is often associated with prophetic judgments, punishment and suffering for the wicked. As the OT closes and we move to the NT, the term Sheol disappears, and a new term “Hell” is introduced. What had happened to…

In 2 Enoch 19, the author uses a similar idea to 1 Enoch 100:10; although in this text, angels record and study the movements of the heavenly bodies for “evil activity,” working to “harmonize all existence, heavenly and earthly” (19:3). The author also expands Gen 1:14, reminiscent of Jubilees (see next subsection) connecting newborns and horoscopes with cosmological authority: And I appointed the sun over the illumination of the day, but the moon and stars over the illumination of the night.…

The question concerning this appearance lies in textual criticism. If manuscripts A, B, and C, represent the earlier reading, then a later author may have written covenant into the text. If Gp and Ethiopian Enoch represent the earlier text, then later authors may have written covenant out of the text. More likely, however, these distinctions identify differing interpretations, as no reason exists to assume a normative text and its variations. Jubilees and Testament of Moses Jubilees, as an…

Through an investigation of the hermeneutical and archeological evidence available, Yamauchi argues that there is little reason to doubt that Daniel should be attributed to the sixth century B.C. Archaeological Background The main idea of this article is to reason that the available archaeological evidence testifies to a sixth century dating of the book of Daniel. First, Yamauchi explores the considerations given to Nebuchadnezzar. Here, the author brings into question the idea of the…

“The well the princes dug, the nobility dug it with a rod.” From the looks of it, this Bible verse seems to have nothing to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls sect. On further examination, this verse characterizes the theology and community life of the Qumran. Through two important Jewish Sectarian works, the Damascus Document and the Rule of the Community, researchers can analyze the complicated and peculiar rules and regulations that held these sects together. The Damascus Document and the Rule of…

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a group of ancient scrolls found by the Dead Sea in a cave. In 1947, a Bedouin shepherd tossed a stone into a cave close to the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, in Qumran. Rather than the sound of the stone striking rock or earth, he heard the sound of breaking pottery. Upon investigating he saw a number of tall clay jars. Together with a cousin, he entered the cave, where he found one jar containing some scrolls. The two began showing them to people, looking for a buyer…

Title: The Dead Sea Human Imprint Description: The Dead Sea human imprint features phases of the body of water that involves the presence of various human behavior. Keyword: Manmade canals Dead Sea Human Imprint The named Dead Sea traces its roots to the Hellenistic Age (323 to 30 BCE). The Dead Sea figures in biblical accounts that can be traced to the time of Abraham and the eradication of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Hebrew Bible states that the city of Sin is one of the two cities along the…

For this reason, Creach justifies violence as a tool for God’s purpose alone. “If Scripture declared only that God shows compassion but did not also declare that God is involved in vengeance, it would then portray God as inept in expressing compassion in concrete ways.” While it may seem as if God’s nature of vengeance is contradictory to His nature of compassion, the two qualities actually go hand in hand. “God acts destructively in order to restore or preserve the order God intends; that…

In ANE literature, tablets are both a medium for writing, and a symbol of writing itself, but writing gains authority through message or author. Adoption and sale tablets, Suzerainty treaties, and written prayers laid beside idols exemplify authority by a message. In them, the authority emanated from the confines of the writing dictating relationships between parties. Orpheus tablets typify the second condition by the issue of pseudepigraphical authorship (as discussed under the subheading,…