![]() ![]() In a heap of debris outside the walls, they found another copy of Leviticus. In casemate room 1109, they found a fragment of the apocryphal text called Ben Sira, and in a wall tower west of the Western Palace, under almost nine feet of debris, excavators found a small fragment of a text many scholars believe to be the book of Jubilees, a book widely attested in Jewish and Christian traditions. In another casemate wall near the gate leading to the “Snake Path,” excavators found another fragment of white leather containing the last chapter of the book of Psalms, Psalm 150. Most of the fragments found at Masada appear to have been cut and torn intentionally, a fact that led Yadin to speculate they were deliberately destroyed by Romans soldiers garrisoned at Masada after its fall. In addition, they found small fragments of a text tentatively identified as an apocryphal book of Joshua, a fragment of a text written in paleo-Hebrew, and a text in Aramaic-both too fragmentary to identify or classify. For example, in a small room constructed in the casemate wall (room 1039), 8 under six feet of debris, excavators found fragments from the book of Psalms, the book of Leviticus, and a text known at Qumran as Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. The scrolls were found in various locations at Masada. In this short study, we will describe the written evidence found at Masada, compare it with the texts found at Qumran, and identify and discuss some of the interesting issues relevant to the New Testament. While none of the documents mention Jesus or allude to Christianity, they help us to better understand and appreciate a myriad of contemporary religious beliefs and practices reflected in the various books of the New Testament. ![]() These manuscripts, together with the hundreds of other texts found near the Dead Sea, give us vivid and detailed evidence of the history of Judaism in the period just before and after the ministry of Christ. Most important of his discoveries are fragments of sixteen parchment Hebrew scrolls, 7 of which six were biblical scrolls and the rest were categorized as apocryphal and pseudepigraphical texts or fragments too small to identify. Now, as we approached Masada, we asked ourselves: “Had the Zealots hidden their writings before committing suicide? And if they had, would any of them still be preserved? And would we find them?” 6įortunately, Yadin did discover written material at Masada. Hitherto, all the scrolls which had been found in the vicinity of the Dead Sea had been discovered only in caves, where they had been hidden intentionally, and where the only damage they suffered-comparatively slight-had been damage by nature, such as mild dampness, or by the nibbling of small animals. I say “dreamed” because the hope that we would could not be very bright. Yadin wrote:īefore starting the excavations at Masada, we dreamed of the possibility of finding scrolls there. 5 We can imagine Yadin’s anticipation as he prepared in 1962 to excavate the site of Masada. The team led by Yadin excavated the caves in Nahal Hever, where they discovered the Cave of Letters, which contained letters written by Simon Bar-Kokhba, fragments of a Psalms scroll, and an entire archive of legal documents of a woman named Babata. 4įollowing the dramatic finds at Qumran, Israeli scholars organized in 1960 a systematic search in the caves to the south of Qumran, looking for any further manuscripts. 3 And later, in 1967, it was Yadin who secured and eventually published the Temple Scroll. Yadin himself was instrumental in obtaining the other four scrolls after seeing them advertised for sale in the Wall Street Journal. His father, Elazar Sukenik, was the Israeli scholar who secured three of the seven scrolls from Cave 1. ![]() Yigael Yadin, who would eventually excavate Masada, was closely connected with the discovery of the Qumran Scrolls. In the years 1947–56, eleven caves in the vicinity of the ruins at Qumran produced over eight hundred documents. 1 All of these manuscripts are properly referred to as the Dead Sea Scrolls. During the last fifty years, the Judean Desert on the western shore of the Dead Sea has yielded a wealth of textual material from many locations, evidence that has illuminated our understanding of the history of Israel and Judaism in the two centuries preceding and the two centuries following Christ. ![]()
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