Dead Sea Scrolls — Selected Texts

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The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of approximately 900 texts discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves near the site of Khirbet Qumran, northwest of the Dead Sea. They were written primarily in Hebrew and Aramaic, with some Greek texts, between approximately 250 BCE and 68 CE. The scrolls fall into three main categories: biblical manuscripts (including the oldest known copies of Hebrew Bible books, nearly 1,000 years older than the previously known Masoretic texts), sectarian documents (texts specific to the Qumran community, likely the Essenes), and non-biblical Jewish literature previously known only in translation or not at all. The Community Rule (Serekh ha-Yahad) is the most important sectarian document, describing the organisation, theology, and practice of the Qumran community. The community practiced strict purity, communal ownership of property, and believed itself to be living in the last days before a great cosmic battle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. The Two Spirits doctrine in the Community Rule (1QS III–IV) is strikingly similar to Zoroastrian theology, raising questions of Persian influence during the Babylonian exile (586–538 BCE). The War Scroll envisions an eschatological forty-year war fought according to Roman military formations, suggesting composition in the 1st century BCE. The Copper Scroll — uniquely engraved on copper rather than leather — lists 64 locations where enormous quantities of gold and silver are supposedly buried. Whether it describes real treasures or is a literary exercise remains debated.