What is the signifcance of the Dead Sea Scrolls and why should we study them today.?

Answer 1

What would Jesus do?

Answer 2

The Dead Sea Scrolls contain:
- All of the books of the Old Testament (Hebrew Scriptures) except Esther
- Several books that never became part of the Hebrew Scriptures
- Numerous commentaries on the Scriptures
- Books having to do with
.....- Community life
.....- Rules for living
.....- Temple worship
.....- Other matters

There are many duplicates. Fourteen copies of Deuteronomy have been found and two of Isaiah.

The scrolls are important because they:
- Testify to the accuracy of the people who copied and recopied the Scriptures over the centuries. Despite minor errors, they show us that the Old Testament has not changed since it was compiled.
- Throw light on beliefs and customs in Palestine during times between the Old and New Testamants. There was far more diversity among the Jews than had been thought.

With love in Christ.

Answer 3

Before the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest copies of the 'old testament' we had were the ones with the vowels added to the originals which were written with only the consonants. The OT scrolls had only consonants which is the same case with the scrolls (The book of Esther was not found there). There is no interpretation of word meanings added. i.e. YHWH which some pronounce Jehovah, even though we didn't use the letter "J" and it's pronunciation until the 17th century.

Also, the book of Enoch was there which speaks of itself to be a book for another time generations later (this book had always been canonized by Ethiopia and translated to English in 1921 by R.H. Charles). There are many quotes in the New Testament there (i.e. Heb 11:6, Jude 14,15) and over 100 references to Christ, which is why many of the Jewish leaders back then tried to disclaim it even as they did with Jesus (this was not new testament Apocrypha and was not available to the Nicene council in the 4th century).

In all they are good studies to add to biblical knowledge.

Answer 4

Here's Wikipedia's top-level on the Dead Sea Scrolls:

The Dead Sea scrolls comprise roughly 825-870 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Wadi Qumran (near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea). The texts are of great religious and historical significance, as they are practically the only known surviving Biblical documents written before AD 100."

Start at the link below, there's a whole section about them, including links to other stuff.

As to why study them, well, they're an important historical document (set of documents).

Answer 5

Professor Julio Trebolle Barrera, a member of the international team of editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls, states: “The Isaiah Scroll [from Qumran] provides irrefutable proof that the transmission of the biblical text through a period of more than one thousand years by the hands of Jewish copyists has been extremely faithful and careful.”

Although the scrolls demonstrate that the Bible has not undergone fundamental changes, they also reveal that to some extent there were different versions of Hebrew Bible texts used by Jews in the Second Temple period, each with its own variations. Now the scrolls reveal that many of these differences were actually due to variations in the Hebrew text.

Thus, this treasure trove of Biblical scrolls and fragments provides an excellent basis for studying the transmission of the Hebrew Bible text. The Dead Sea Scrolls have confirmed the value of both the Septuagint and the Samaritan Pentateuch for textual comparison. They provide an additional source for Bible translators to consider for possible emendations to the Masoretic text. In a number of cases, they confirm decisions by the New World Bible Translation Committee to restore Jehovah’s name to places where it had been removed from the Masoretic text.

The scrolls describing the rules and beliefs of the Qumran sect make very clear that there was not just one form of Judaism in the time of Jesus. The Qumran sect had traditions different from those of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These differences likely led to the sect’s retreating to the wilderness. They incorrectly saw in themselves a fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3 about a voice in the wilderness making the way of Jehovah straight. A number of the scroll fragments refer to the Messiah, whose coming the authors saw as imminent. This is of particular interest because of Luke’s comment that “the people were in expectation” of the Messiah’s coming.—Luke 3:15.

The Dead Sea Scrolls help us to a degree to understand the context of Jewish life during the time that Jesus preached. They provide comparative information for the study of ancient Hebrew and the Bible text. But the text of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls still needs closer analysis. Therefore, new insights may yet be gained. Yes, the greatest archaeological discovery of the 20th century continues to excite both scholars and Bible students as we move along in the 21st century.

Answer 6

Interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a great business to venture... we study them because it's a part of world history happened thousand years ago.

Answer 7

Testaments from the times that were chosen to be omitted from the holy bible. We should study them, we should learn from them. The bible as it is compiled, though written by spiritual men was compiled by other men, and it was assembled with the goals of the men that assembled it. I personally feel, that nothing from the time should have been left out, and I would like a new version to be done including everything from that time, especially the dead sea scrolls.

Answer 8

a better question is why noy study them, compare them,verify they are real etc etc etc on and on. had you noticed all the confussion about religious formats , perhaps even people are hoping that these perhaps will untangle some of the mazes
whereas religions are concerned as we all know that the catholic church rewrote everything deligating various scribtures to different churches, many books are missing why, because somebody before our time decided to take them out because of whatever??
that in it;'s self is reasonable reasoning to study these new found dead sea data.

Answer 9

G_d has purpose in all He allows & the timing of the finding of these 'artifacts' was well timed - it answered a lot of silly arguments about integrity of our modern copies, it gave added historical literature status to the Bible for those who are into arguing based on that stuff, it added a lot to our understanding & acceptance of what G_d's people understood a long time ago,.

Answer 10

They give us a better understanding of the era's mindset; what was important and why. This information can also be applied to understanding how our societies' morays developed. But, most importantly, for me, is the umbrella lesson of taking away the romantic notions of the era that keep getting propagated via contemporary media.

Answer 11

This reeks of homework. If you have any idea what the Dead Sea Scrolls are, then you know why they are important.