WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.160 OK, let's just frame this for a second. Imagine 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:04.580 you're a historian and there's a black hole in 00:00:04.580 --> 00:00:07.839 your knowledge, a huge one, a 1000 year gap. 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:11.080 Not just any gap, a gap in our understanding 00:00:11.080 --> 00:00:13.439 of how the most foundational religious texts 00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:16.570 of Western civilization were. Well, how they 00:00:16.570 --> 00:00:19.989 survived. Exactly. For centuries, the oldest 00:00:19.989 --> 00:00:22.390 complete versions of the Hebrew Bible we had 00:00:22.390 --> 00:00:25.390 were the Masoretic texts, and they dated to the 00:00:25.390 --> 00:00:29.250 10th century, the 10th century CE. Which means 00:00:29.250 --> 00:00:32.490 for a full millennium before that, we were basically 00:00:32.490 --> 00:00:34.810 flying blind. We had later copies, translations, 00:00:35.049 --> 00:00:38.329 but the Hebrew source, it was a dark age, textually 00:00:38.329 --> 00:00:40.789 speaking. And then almost overnight, that thousand 00:00:40.789 --> 00:00:42.909 -year void gets filled. And that's what we're 00:00:42.909 --> 00:00:46.060 diving into today. the Dead Sea Scrolls. And 00:00:46.060 --> 00:00:47.700 this isn't just about finding old documents. 00:00:47.859 --> 00:00:50.700 You said it before we started. It's like history's 00:00:50.700 --> 00:00:53.200 greatest shortcut. It really is. So let's be 00:00:53.200 --> 00:00:55.740 precise. When we say Dead Sea Scrolls, what exactly 00:00:55.740 --> 00:00:57.560 are we talking about? Right. So in the strictest 00:00:57.560 --> 00:00:59.200 academic sense, we're talking about the Qumran 00:00:59.200 --> 00:01:02.520 Cave Scrolls. It's this incredible, just mind 00:01:02.520 --> 00:01:06.640 -boggling collection of 981 distinct texts. 981. 00:01:06.939 --> 00:01:10.019 Ancient Jewish manuscripts. And they give us 00:01:10.019 --> 00:01:13.420 this perfect snapshot of a forgotten world dating 00:01:13.420 --> 00:01:17.340 from... uh roughly the third century bce so well 00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:20.000 before the time of jesus oh absolutely about 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:22.680 250 years before and they go all the way up to 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:25.519 the first century ce so they bracket this incredibly 00:01:25.519 --> 00:01:28.540 pivotal period in religious history and the location 00:01:28.540 --> 00:01:30.359 where they were found i mean it's just the stuff 00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:33.340 of legend it really is they were found over about 00:01:33.340 --> 00:01:37.920 a decade between late 46 and 1956 in a series 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:41.219 of caves, originally 11, now we know of a 12th. 00:01:41.239 --> 00:01:42.859 And these are all clustered around the Dead Sea. 00:01:43.060 --> 00:01:45.159 Right, near a place called Ein Feshka on the 00:01:45.159 --> 00:01:46.859 northern shore of the Dead Sea in what's now 00:01:46.859 --> 00:01:49.400 the West Bank. And the critical thing, the thing 00:01:49.400 --> 00:01:51.180 you have to remember, is that they're right next 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:53.420 to this ancient settlement called Kerbet Qumran. 00:01:53.579 --> 00:01:55.659 And that's where the big mystery comes in, right? 00:01:55.859 --> 00:01:58.120 That's the million -dollar question that we are 00:01:58.120 --> 00:02:01.159 definitely going to get to. So our mission today 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:03.819 is to trace that entire story. We're going to 00:02:03.819 --> 00:02:07.400 start with the, frankly, unbelievable story of 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:09.979 their accidental discovery. Unpack what's actually 00:02:09.979 --> 00:02:12.300 in them, the different kinds of texts. Then wade 00:02:12.300 --> 00:02:14.919 into the fierce, and I mean fierce, academic 00:02:14.919 --> 00:02:18.180 debates about who wrote them. And finally, bring 00:02:18.180 --> 00:02:20.759 it into the modern era. The fights over publication, 00:02:21.120 --> 00:02:23.639 the tragedy of their decay, and the political 00:02:23.639 --> 00:02:26.039 battle over who actually owns them today. Okay, 00:02:26.099 --> 00:02:28.020 so this is where the story stops being about 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:30.939 dusty academic timelines and turns into a real 00:02:30.939 --> 00:02:33.439 adventure story. And the heroes aren't scholars, 00:02:33.620 --> 00:02:36.180 they're shepherds. That's what makes it so perfect. 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:39.479 The protagonists are three Bedouin shepherds. 00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:43.180 Teenagers, really. Mohamed Edib, his cousin Juma 00:02:43.180 --> 00:02:46.319 Mohamed, and Khalil Musa. And the discovery itself 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:50.939 between late 1946 and early 1947 is pure chance. 00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:53.199 It's the classic anecdote of how history turns 00:02:53.199 --> 00:02:55.680 on a dime. The story that's been passed down 00:02:55.680 --> 00:02:57.379 is that they were out in the cliffs just looking 00:02:57.379 --> 00:03:00.620 for a lost goat. As one does. Exactly. And one 00:03:00.620 --> 00:03:03.199 of them spots an opening to a cave way up high. 00:03:03.719 --> 00:03:06.500 But as Mohammed Edib, who, depending on the version 00:03:06.500 --> 00:03:09.080 you hear, was either curious enough or clumsy 00:03:09.080 --> 00:03:11.039 enough to be the first one to actually get inside, 00:03:11.319 --> 00:03:13.479 he literally fell into history. He falls into 00:03:13.479 --> 00:03:15.479 cave one. And what's in there? It's incredible. 00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:20.439 He finds these tall, cylindrical clay jars, and 00:03:20.439 --> 00:03:23.240 inside them are the first scrolls. And these 00:03:23.240 --> 00:03:25.379 weren't just, you know, minor fragments to start. 00:03:25.500 --> 00:03:27.379 No, this was the motherlode right out of the 00:03:27.379 --> 00:03:30.060 gate. It was. He pulls out the Great Isaiah scroll, 00:03:30.259 --> 00:03:33.379 almost perfectly complete, the Habakkuk commentary, 00:03:33.639 --> 00:03:37.379 and the Community Rule. These are some of the 00:03:37.379 --> 00:03:40.199 most famous and important texts in the entire 00:03:40.199 --> 00:03:43.479 collection, found on day one. By accident. Which 00:03:43.479 --> 00:03:45.300 leads to the part of the story that just makes 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:48.139 every curator and historian on the planet break 00:03:48.139 --> 00:03:50.879 out in a cold sweat. Their early treatment. It's 00:03:50.879 --> 00:03:53.259 terrifying, to put it mildly. They had no idea 00:03:53.259 --> 00:03:55.400 what they'd found. So they take these 2 ,000 00:03:55.400 --> 00:03:57.520 -year -old manuscripts, the oldest biblical texts 00:03:57.520 --> 00:04:00.039 in existence. And do what with them? And hang 00:04:00.039 --> 00:04:01.620 them on a tent pole in their camp while they 00:04:01.620 --> 00:04:04.979 figure out what to do. On a tent pole? Yes. And 00:04:04.979 --> 00:04:06.879 we know for a fact that during this time, the 00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:08.960 Community Rules Scroll, which was one single 00:04:08.960 --> 00:04:11.889 document, was actually torn in half. Split right 00:04:11.889 --> 00:04:14.530 in two. The two pieces were separated for years 00:04:14.530 --> 00:04:17.470 because of that casual handling. It's just wow. 00:04:18.310 --> 00:04:20.870 It really highlights the gap between what they 00:04:20.870 --> 00:04:23.910 were and what people thought they were. I understand 00:04:23.910 --> 00:04:25.389 they tried to sell them at first and were told 00:04:25.389 --> 00:04:27.490 they were worthless. That's right. The first 00:04:27.490 --> 00:04:30.149 dealer they took them to just dismissed them, 00:04:30.189 --> 00:04:32.649 said they were nothing. So eventually they made 00:04:32.649 --> 00:04:35.810 their way to a man named Kondo Khalil Iskander 00:04:35.810 --> 00:04:39.189 Shaheen, who was an antiquities dealer and of 00:04:39.189 --> 00:04:42.310 all things. a cobbler in Bethlehem. And he's 00:04:42.310 --> 00:04:44.910 the one who brokers the first sale. He is. After 00:04:44.910 --> 00:04:47.089 a lot of back and forth, they finally agree on 00:04:47.089 --> 00:04:49.170 a price for three of the first scrolls. And let's 00:04:49.170 --> 00:04:51.629 just pause on this. The price for these texts, 00:04:51.850 --> 00:04:54.269 which are now, you know, priceless national treasures 00:04:54.269 --> 00:04:57.370 insured for stattering amounts, what did they 00:04:57.370 --> 00:05:00.110 sell for? Seven Jordanian pounds. Seven. Seven. 00:05:00.470 --> 00:05:02.870 If you do the math, adjusting for inflation to 00:05:02.870 --> 00:05:06.180 today, that's somewhere around... Maybe 400 U 00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:09.060 .S. dollars. $394. I looked it up. It's just 00:05:09.060 --> 00:05:12.480 it's unbelievable. A collection that would redefine 00:05:12.480 --> 00:05:15.199 an entire field of study. But that tiny transaction, 00:05:15.459 --> 00:05:17.139 that's what kicked everything into motion. It 00:05:17.139 --> 00:05:19.879 got the scrolls into hands that could eventually 00:05:19.879 --> 00:05:22.379 recognize them. So how does the academic world 00:05:22.379 --> 00:05:24.699 finally get wind of this? Who is the first person 00:05:24.699 --> 00:05:26.879 to look at these and say, wait a minute, this 00:05:26.879 --> 00:05:29.519 is something big. So the scrolls start to move 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:31.339 through this network of dealers and religious 00:05:31.339 --> 00:05:35.670 figures. And the key moment comes in 1947. A 00:05:35.670 --> 00:05:38.089 man named Mar Samuel, who is the Syrian metropolitan 00:05:38.089 --> 00:05:41.170 at St. Mark's Monastery in Jerusalem, he buys 00:05:41.170 --> 00:05:43.629 four of the scrolls. Okay. And he shows them 00:05:43.629 --> 00:05:46.089 to a scholar named John C. Trevor, who is at 00:05:46.089 --> 00:05:48.790 the American Schools of Oriental Research. And 00:05:48.790 --> 00:05:51.500 Trevor does something brilliant. He compares 00:05:51.500 --> 00:05:54.240 the script, the actual style of the Hebrew letters, 00:05:54.399 --> 00:05:57.220 to the Nash papyrus. Which at that time was the 00:05:57.220 --> 00:06:00.120 oldest biblical manuscript known to exist. It 00:06:00.120 --> 00:06:02.600 was the gold standard for antiquity. And Trevor 00:06:02.600 --> 00:06:05.060 looked at the scroll and the papyrus and he saw 00:06:05.060 --> 00:06:08.339 not just a similarity. He saw a style that was 00:06:08.339 --> 00:06:10.860 clearly just as old, if not older. That was the 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:12.819 eureka moment. That's the confirmation. That's 00:06:12.819 --> 00:06:14.579 the moment they knew these were genuinely ancient. 00:06:14.779 --> 00:06:17.189 The problem, of course, was the timing. This 00:06:17.189 --> 00:06:20.449 is 1947. The 1948 Arab -Israeli War was about 00:06:20.449 --> 00:06:22.689 to break out. So the whole area becomes a conflict 00:06:22.689 --> 00:06:25.670 zone. Exactly. Any kind of large -scale, organized 00:06:25.670 --> 00:06:28.310 archaeological search was impossible. It just 00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:31.069 put everything on hold. But eventually the conflict 00:06:31.069 --> 00:06:33.790 subsides enough for a proper search to begin. 00:06:33.949 --> 00:06:37.269 It does. By 1949, the government of Jordan gives 00:06:37.269 --> 00:06:39.509 the green light for the Arab Legion to go search 00:06:39.509 --> 00:06:42.430 the area. And that's when Cave 1 is officially 00:06:42.430 --> 00:06:46.329 rediscovered on January 28, 1949 by a couple 00:06:46.329 --> 00:06:48.649 of captains. And that kicks off the first official 00:06:48.649 --> 00:06:51.470 dig. Led by two giants in the field, Gerald Lancaster 00:06:51.470 --> 00:06:54.110 Harding and Roland DeVoe. And once the scholars 00:06:54.110 --> 00:06:56.290 were on the scene and once the Bedouins realized 00:06:56.290 --> 00:06:58.029 that these things were actually worth a fortune. 00:06:58.149 --> 00:07:00.810 It becomes a race. It becomes an absolute frenzy. 00:07:00.829 --> 00:07:03.529 What we call the Qumran Cave Explosion from 49 00:07:03.529 --> 00:07:07.370 to 56. It was a mad dash. The academics versus 00:07:07.370 --> 00:07:10.279 the Bedouins to find the next cave. So what did 00:07:10.279 --> 00:07:12.839 they start turning up? Well, Cave 2 was found 00:07:12.839 --> 00:07:16.240 in 1952. It gave us about 300 fragments from 00:07:16.240 --> 00:07:18.920 33 different manuscripts. And importantly, that 00:07:18.920 --> 00:07:21.779 included bits of non -canonical books like Jubilees 00:07:21.779 --> 00:07:24.300 and The Wisdom of Sirach, both written in Hebrew, 00:07:24.439 --> 00:07:26.740 which was a big deal. And then came Cave 3, which 00:07:26.740 --> 00:07:29.199 had something totally unique. Right, just a month 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:32.360 later. That's where they found the famous Copper 00:07:32.360 --> 00:07:35.399 Scroll. And it's unique because, first, it's 00:07:35.399 --> 00:07:38.180 not parchment or papyrus. It's literally etched 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:40.379 onto copper sheets. And the content is different, 00:07:40.459 --> 00:07:42.860 too. It's not a religious text. Not at all. It's 00:07:42.860 --> 00:07:46.139 a list. A list of 64 locations where a massive 00:07:46.139 --> 00:07:50.000 treasure of gold and silver is supposedly hidden. 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:52.819 It is, for all intents and purposes, a treasure 00:07:52.819 --> 00:07:54.959 map. Has anyone ever found the treasure? No. 00:07:55.279 --> 00:07:57.379 And scholars are deeply divided on whether it's 00:07:57.379 --> 00:08:00.519 a real literal list or if it's some kind of symbolic 00:08:00.519 --> 00:08:03.160 or allegorical text. It's a complete outlier. 00:08:03.300 --> 00:08:06.319 Now, amid this cave explosion, one cave stands 00:08:06.319 --> 00:08:08.800 out. It's the big one. Cave four. Why was that 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:11.180 such a goldmine? Cave four is the heart of the 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:13.189 collection. And part of the reason is that it 00:08:13.189 --> 00:08:16.089 was obvious. It's actually two smaller man -made 00:08:16.089 --> 00:08:19.490 caves, 4A and 4B, and you can see them from the 00:08:19.490 --> 00:08:21.449 Kunran settlement plateau. So it was easy to 00:08:21.449 --> 00:08:23.569 find, which probably means it was looted first. 00:08:23.990 --> 00:08:26.230 Relentlessly looted. But even so, it was the 00:08:26.230 --> 00:08:28.430 most productive site by an astronomical margin. 00:08:28.670 --> 00:08:31.079 The numbers I've seen are just staggering. They 00:08:31.079 --> 00:08:35.000 are. 90%. 90 % of all the fragments ever found 00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:37.799 came from Cave 4. We're talking about 15 ,000 00:08:37.799 --> 00:08:40.460 fragments, something like 500 different texts. 00:08:40.700 --> 00:08:43.500 500 texts from one location. It's unbelievable. 00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:45.559 It had, I think, 10 different copies of the Book 00:08:45.559 --> 00:08:48.360 of Jubilees. It had religious items like tefillin 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:52.259 and mizzo. It was clearly a major, major repository, 00:08:52.360 --> 00:08:55.740 whether it was a library or a Geniza, a sacred 00:08:55.740 --> 00:08:58.250 storage site. So after this massive haul from 00:08:58.250 --> 00:09:00.590 Cave 4, did things start to slow down? They did. 00:09:00.970 --> 00:09:03.490 The last of the original Kermarang caves to be 00:09:03.490 --> 00:09:07.250 found was Cave 11 in 1956. And it had some of 00:09:07.250 --> 00:09:09.309 the best preserved scrolls of all, including 00:09:09.309 --> 00:09:11.509 the longest one, the Temple Scroll. But the story 00:09:11.509 --> 00:09:14.169 doesn't end in 1956. We're still finding things, 00:09:14.309 --> 00:09:16.509 right? There was the discovery of Cave 12. Exactly. 00:09:16.570 --> 00:09:19.269 In 2017, archaeologists announced they'd found 00:09:19.269 --> 00:09:21.690 a 12th cave. Now, it was empty of scrolls. It 00:09:21.690 --> 00:09:24.450 was a dud. Not at all. Because they found broken 00:09:24.450 --> 00:09:27.649 storage jars. just like in the other caves. And 00:09:27.649 --> 00:09:31.149 they found pickaxes from the 1950s. It was the 00:09:31.149 --> 00:09:33.129 smoking gun that proved there had been widespread 00:09:33.129 --> 00:09:35.990 looting back in the day and that there were probably 00:09:35.990 --> 00:09:38.210 more scrolls out there that were lost to the 00:09:38.210 --> 00:09:40.049 black market. And it also proves the practice 00:09:40.049 --> 00:09:42.029 of storing scrolls was more widespread. Right. 00:09:42.070 --> 00:09:44.070 And they did find one piece of rolled up blank 00:09:44.070 --> 00:09:46.690 parchment ready to be written on. So it was absolutely 00:09:46.690 --> 00:09:49.070 a scroll cave. And then even more recently, the 00:09:49.070 --> 00:09:52.710 finds in the Cave of Horrors, that's a name that 00:09:52.710 --> 00:09:54.649 gets your attention. It's a grim name. It comes 00:09:54.649 --> 00:09:56.730 from... the dozens of skeletons of people who 00:09:56.730 --> 00:09:58.389 were hiding from the Romans that were found there 00:09:58.389 --> 00:10:02.110 decades ago. But in 2021, archaeologists found 00:10:02.110 --> 00:10:05.330 new things. More biblical texts? Dozens of new 00:10:05.330 --> 00:10:06.809 fragments. And this is fascinating. They contain 00:10:06.809 --> 00:10:09.129 texts from the biblical books of Zechariah and 00:10:09.129 --> 00:10:12.309 Nahum, but written in Greek. In Greek? Yes. And 00:10:12.309 --> 00:10:14.610 the crucial part is the dating. These are believed 00:10:14.610 --> 00:10:16.970 to have been hidden much later than the Qumran 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:19.269 scrolls, during the Bar Kokhba revolt against 00:10:19.269 --> 00:10:22.730 Rome, around 130 to 136 CE. So what does that 00:10:22.730 --> 00:10:25.509 tell us? It tells us that hiding sacred texts 00:10:25.509 --> 00:10:28.190 in these desert caves wasn't a one -off event 00:10:28.190 --> 00:10:31.309 by one weird community. It was a well -established 00:10:31.309 --> 00:10:34.529 Jewish tradition, a Geniza practice, used during 00:10:34.529 --> 00:10:36.909 times of crisis to protect their scriptures. 00:10:37.409 --> 00:10:40.230 It provides a much broader historical context 00:10:40.230 --> 00:10:43.269 for everything found at Qumran. Okay, so we have 00:10:43.269 --> 00:10:45.169 tens of thousands of fragments pulled out of 00:10:45.169 --> 00:10:47.850 caves, now sitting in labs. Before we can even 00:10:47.850 --> 00:10:49.830 read the words, we have to understand what they 00:10:49.830 --> 00:10:52.879 are physically. What were these things made of 00:10:52.879 --> 00:10:55.860 to survive for two millennia? Well, their survival 00:10:55.860 --> 00:10:58.379 is a combination of the materials and that incredibly 00:10:58.379 --> 00:11:01.460 dry, stable desert climate. But the materials 00:11:01.460 --> 00:11:04.139 themselves are key. The vast, vast majority, 00:11:04.460 --> 00:11:07.299 somewhere between 85 and 90 percent, are parchment. 00:11:07.460 --> 00:11:10.299 Which is basically animal skin. Exactly. Processed 00:11:10.299 --> 00:11:12.679 animal hide or vellum. Then you have a smaller 00:11:12.679 --> 00:11:15.779 chunk, maybe 8 to 13 percent, that's papyrus, 00:11:15.779 --> 00:11:17.460 which is made from reeds. And then there's that 00:11:17.460 --> 00:11:19.679 one oddball. And then the 1 .5 percent, that 00:11:19.679 --> 00:11:21.480 is the copper scroll. Which is, you know, thin 00:11:21.480 --> 00:11:24.559 sheets of metal, about 99 % copper, 1 % tin. 00:11:24.679 --> 00:11:27.500 A completely different category. And those physical 00:11:27.500 --> 00:11:30.200 materials, the animal skins, have opened up a 00:11:30.200 --> 00:11:32.940 whole new field of research thanks to modern 00:11:32.940 --> 00:11:35.559 tech. I'm talking about DNA analysis. This is 00:11:35.559 --> 00:11:38.340 one of the most exciting new frontiers in scrolls 00:11:38.340 --> 00:11:41.629 research. It's a huge leap forward. You know, 00:11:41.629 --> 00:11:43.669 for decades, putting the fragments together was 00:11:43.669 --> 00:11:45.750 like the world's hardest jigsaw puzzle. You'd 00:11:45.750 --> 00:11:48.210 use paleography. Handwriting. Right, trying to 00:11:48.210 --> 00:11:50.330 match the handwriting style. But DNA analysis 00:11:50.330 --> 00:11:53.850 goes a layer deeper. Scientists can now extract 00:11:53.850 --> 00:11:56.389 DNA from the parchment itself. From the animal 00:11:56.389 --> 00:11:59.049 it came from. Precisely. So if you have two fragments 00:11:59.049 --> 00:12:01.649 and the DNA shows they came from the same individual 00:12:01.649 --> 00:12:04.809 sheep or goat, you have a very strong indication 00:12:04.809 --> 00:12:07.610 they belong together. It's a powerful tool for 00:12:07.610 --> 00:12:10.120 reassembly. But it also gives us cultural clues, 00:12:10.360 --> 00:12:12.299 right? It's not just about the puzzle. That's 00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:14.379 the really fascinating part. It seems to suggest 00:12:14.379 --> 00:12:17.720 a kind of hierarchy of texts. The DNA analysis 00:12:17.720 --> 00:12:19.840 has shown that certain texts, often the ones 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:21.840 scholars consider more central or important, 00:12:22.039 --> 00:12:24.320 tended to be written on the hides of domesticated 00:12:24.320 --> 00:12:27.340 animals like goats or calves. Whereas other, 00:12:27.500 --> 00:12:30.360 perhaps less central texts, were written on the 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:32.759 hides of wild animals like gazelles or ibex. 00:12:33.019 --> 00:12:35.360 So it's possible the community saw the texts 00:12:35.360 --> 00:12:39.279 on calfskin as being more... I don't know, significant, 00:12:39.480 --> 00:12:42.340 more core to their collection. That's the implication. 00:12:42.580 --> 00:12:44.799 It's a remarkable insight into how they might 00:12:44.799 --> 00:12:47.399 have categorized their own library, an idea we 00:12:47.399 --> 00:12:49.460 could never have gotten just from reading the 00:12:49.460 --> 00:12:52.120 words. It comes from the very fabric of the scrolls. 00:12:52.220 --> 00:12:56.059 Speaking of what's on the fabric, the ink. How 00:12:56.059 --> 00:12:58.659 did they write on these things? The ink is remarkably 00:12:58.659 --> 00:13:01.000 consistent. All the black ink is what we call 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:03.539 carbon black. It's basically soot. Soot from 00:13:03.539 --> 00:13:05.860 what? most likely from burning olive oil in their 00:13:05.860 --> 00:13:08.340 lamps. They would collect the soot and then mix 00:13:08.340 --> 00:13:10.580 it with a binder. It could have been honey, oil, 00:13:10.720 --> 00:13:13.240 or just water to get the right consistency to 00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:15.320 use with their reed pens. And I heard that color 00:13:15.320 --> 00:13:18.340 was almost never used. Vanishingly rare. We've 00:13:18.340 --> 00:13:21.080 only found red ink in four instances across the 00:13:21.080 --> 00:13:23.299 entire collection. Four. And what was it made 00:13:23.299 --> 00:13:25.970 of? It was made from cinnabar, which is mercury 00:13:25.970 --> 00:13:29.610 sulfide, a difficult and, frankly, toxic material 00:13:29.610 --> 00:13:32.570 to work with. The fact that it was used so sparingly 00:13:32.570 --> 00:13:34.549 tells you something. That color was reserved 00:13:34.549 --> 00:13:36.669 for something incredibly special. Exactly. They 00:13:36.669 --> 00:13:39.070 were following a very strict scribal tradition. 00:13:39.629 --> 00:13:43.149 Any deviation from black ink was a major, major 00:13:43.149 --> 00:13:45.769 decision. So once they have the fragments, the 00:13:45.769 --> 00:13:48.149 very first question has to be, are these real? 00:13:48.409 --> 00:13:51.230 How did they establish their age? It was a two 00:13:51.230 --> 00:13:53.840 -pronged approach initially. First, as we mentioned, 00:13:53.919 --> 00:13:55.840 was paleography, the study of the handwriting. 00:13:56.220 --> 00:13:58.879 Scholars like Frank Morecross were masters at 00:13:58.879 --> 00:14:00.740 this. They could look at the shape of a letter, 00:14:00.840 --> 00:14:03.179 the way a scribe made their stroke, and trace 00:14:03.179 --> 00:14:05.279 its evolution over time. And just by looking, 00:14:05.399 --> 00:14:07.620 they could date them. They could get a pretty 00:14:07.620 --> 00:14:09.559 good range. They placed the bulk of the material 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:13.639 between about 225 BCE and 50 CE, which was a 00:14:13.639 --> 00:14:15.840 stunning claim at the time. But a claim that 00:14:15.840 --> 00:14:18.179 needed scientific backup. Absolutely. The scientific 00:14:18.179 --> 00:14:21.320 slam dunk was radiocarbon dating, C14 dating. 00:14:21.690 --> 00:14:23.730 This is what blew all the theories about them 00:14:23.730 --> 00:14:25.649 being medieval forgeries out of the water. What 00:14:25.649 --> 00:14:28.529 were the results? The very first test, back in 00:14:28.529 --> 00:14:31.750 1950, was on a piece of the linen wrapping. It 00:14:31.750 --> 00:14:34.850 came back with a date of 33 CE, plus or minus 00:14:34.850 --> 00:14:38.389 200 years. So a huge range, but it firmly placed 00:14:38.389 --> 00:14:40.529 it in the right period. Later tests have refined 00:14:40.529 --> 00:14:42.929 that, confirming that most scrolls are from the 00:14:42.929 --> 00:14:45.350 last couple centuries BCE and the first century 00:14:45.350 --> 00:14:48.330 CE. But now, even that technology is being superseded. 00:14:48.429 --> 00:14:51.940 We're in the age of AI. We are. The problem with 00:14:51.940 --> 00:14:54.820 C14 is that it's destructive. You have to burn 00:14:54.820 --> 00:14:57.059 a piece of the manuscript, and it can be imprecise. 00:14:57.139 --> 00:14:59.279 So now we're seeing this incredible new approach 00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:01.620 using artificial intelligence to refine the dating. 00:15:01.960 --> 00:15:04.299 Tell me about this AI Enoch. I love the name. 00:15:04.460 --> 00:15:06.720 It's very appropriate, isn't it? Enoch is a new 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:09.240 AI model that doesn't look at chemicals. It looks 00:15:09.240 --> 00:15:11.460 at handwriting in a way humans can't. You feed 00:15:11.460 --> 00:15:13.360 high -resolution images of fragments that have 00:15:13.360 --> 00:15:15.580 already been securely dated by radiocarbon. So 00:15:15.580 --> 00:15:18.299 you train it on known data. Exactly. It learns 00:15:18.299 --> 00:15:20.960 the microscopic, subtle tells of a scribe's hand, 00:15:21.139 --> 00:15:24.000 the pen pressure, the angle of a stroke, things 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:26.620 the human eye just glazes over. It creates a 00:15:26.620 --> 00:15:28.940 digital fingerprint for handwriting from a specific 00:15:28.940 --> 00:15:32.110 microperiod. And what is this AI telling us? 00:15:32.149 --> 00:15:35.710 Is it changing the dates? It is. In some cases, 00:15:35.710 --> 00:15:38.389 dramatically. For example, there's a key fragment 00:15:38.389 --> 00:15:40.789 of the Book of Daniel. Enoch's analysis dates 00:15:40.789 --> 00:15:45.529 it to between 230 and 160 BCE. That's a full 00:15:45.529 --> 00:15:48.090 60 years earlier than the previous consensus. 00:15:48.370 --> 00:15:51.909 Wow. That's a big shift. It's huge. But what's 00:15:51.909 --> 00:15:54.009 even more revolutionary is what it's telling 00:15:54.009 --> 00:15:56.610 us about scribal practices. Scholars used to 00:15:56.610 --> 00:15:58.490 think of handwriting styles as evolving in a 00:15:58.490 --> 00:16:01.190 straight line. You know, one style neatly replacing 00:16:01.190 --> 00:16:03.769 the next. The Hasmonean style gives way to the 00:16:03.769 --> 00:16:06.289 Herodian style. Right. But the AI shows that 00:16:06.289 --> 00:16:08.710 the date ranges for these styles overlap far 00:16:08.710 --> 00:16:11.169 more than we thought. The Herodian style seems 00:16:11.169 --> 00:16:13.330 to start way back in the second century BCE. 00:16:14.029 --> 00:16:16.009 It means these different styles were being used 00:16:16.009 --> 00:16:18.169 at the same time. So it wasn't a clean evolution. 00:16:18.289 --> 00:16:21.570 It was a more complex, messier picture. A much 00:16:21.570 --> 00:16:24.009 messier, more human picture. It complicates our 00:16:24.009 --> 00:16:25.690 neat little theories, which is what good science 00:16:25.690 --> 00:16:27.690 does. So we have the materials. We have the dates. 00:16:27.850 --> 00:16:29.750 What about the language? What are these texts 00:16:29.750 --> 00:16:32.610 written in? It's a linguistic mosaic, which is 00:16:32.610 --> 00:16:34.870 exactly what you'd expect from that period. The 00:16:34.870 --> 00:16:38.110 overwhelming majority, about 76 to 79 percent, 00:16:38.330 --> 00:16:42.039 is Hebrew, mostly in that familiar square. Blocks 00:16:42.039 --> 00:16:46.080 script. And the rest. About 16 to 17 % is Aramaic, 00:16:46.080 --> 00:16:48.200 which was the common spoken language of the region. 00:16:48.460 --> 00:16:50.740 There are even different dialects of Aramaic. 00:16:50.759 --> 00:16:54.139 Then you have about 3 % in Greek. Greek. All 00:16:54.139 --> 00:16:57.039 the way out in the Judean desert. Yep. Which 00:16:57.039 --> 00:16:59.340 tells you how pervasive Hellenistic culture was. 00:16:59.559 --> 00:17:02.159 And then you have tiny, tiny traces of texts 00:17:02.159 --> 00:17:05.240 in the ancient Paleo -Hebrew script. A beautiful 00:17:05.240 --> 00:17:08.130 but archaic form of writing. Okay, so let's get 00:17:08.130 --> 00:17:10.750 to the content. Scholars have this handy 40 -30 00:17:10.750 --> 00:17:13.190 -30 breakdown to understand this massive library. 00:17:13.589 --> 00:17:16.269 Let's start with the biggest piece, the 40%. 00:17:16.269 --> 00:17:18.569 Right, so 40 % of the collection is biblical 00:17:18.569 --> 00:17:21.029 texts. These are copies of the books from the 00:17:21.029 --> 00:17:23.190 Hebrew scriptures, what Christians call the Old 00:17:23.190 --> 00:17:25.190 Testament. And this is the part that was the 00:17:25.190 --> 00:17:27.410 real bombshell. Because it pushed the clock back 00:17:27.410 --> 00:17:30.210 a thousand years. Instantly. Suddenly, scholars 00:17:30.210 --> 00:17:34.009 had copies of Isaiah, of Deuteronomy, of Psalms. 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:37.019 that were a millennium older than anything they 00:17:37.019 --> 00:17:40.440 had before. It was an unprecedented window into 00:17:40.440 --> 00:17:42.319 the state of the Bible before it was standardized. 00:17:42.680 --> 00:17:45.000 And famously, they found copies of every book 00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:47.299 of the Hebrew Bible except for one. That's right. 00:17:47.640 --> 00:17:50.019 Every single book was found in at least fragmentary 00:17:50.019 --> 00:17:52.420 form, except for the book of Esther. We'll have 00:17:52.420 --> 00:17:54.440 to circle back to why that might be. So that's 00:17:54.440 --> 00:17:57.259 40%. What's the next 30 %? The next 30 % are 00:17:57.259 --> 00:18:00.619 deuterocanonical or extra -biblical texts. These 00:18:00.619 --> 00:18:02.519 are books that were clearly important and widely 00:18:02.519 --> 00:18:05.059 read in the Second Temple period, but for whatever 00:18:05.059 --> 00:18:08.200 reason, didn't make the final cut into the official 00:18:08.200 --> 00:18:10.599 Hebrew canon. So this is stuff like the Apocrypha. 00:18:10.740 --> 00:18:13.240 Exactly. This is where you find the incredible, 00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:16.640 sprawling, apocalyptic visions of the Book of 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:19.420 Enoch. You find the Book of Jubilees, which retells 00:18:19.420 --> 00:18:22.490 Genesis and Exodus with a focus on a... very 00:18:22.490 --> 00:18:25.289 specific solar calendar. So it's like the B -sides 00:18:25.289 --> 00:18:27.170 of the Bible, the popular tracks that weren't 00:18:27.170 --> 00:18:29.089 on the final album. That's a great way to put 00:18:29.089 --> 00:18:31.690 it. You have wisdom texts like Tobit and Sirach, 00:18:31.869 --> 00:18:35.769 extra psalms like Psalm 151. Their presence proves 00:18:35.769 --> 00:18:38.650 that the idea of a fixed, closed Bible hadn't 00:18:38.650 --> 00:18:41.359 happened yet. the library was much more fluid 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:44.480 and expansive. Which brings us to the final 30%. 00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:46.440 And this to me is the most fascinating category 00:18:46.440 --> 00:18:48.519 because these are texts that were completely 00:18:48.519 --> 00:18:51.460 unknown to history. This is a real treasure trove 00:18:51.460 --> 00:18:54.220 for understanding the community itself. 30 % 00:18:54.220 --> 00:18:56.740 are sectarian documents. These are the internal 00:18:56.740 --> 00:18:59.759 documents, the rule books, the manifestos, the 00:18:59.759 --> 00:19:02.259 unique beliefs of the group or groups who collected 00:19:02.259 --> 00:19:04.619 this library. This is where we get a look inside 00:19:04.619 --> 00:19:06.940 their heads. A direct look. You have the community 00:19:06.940 --> 00:19:08.640 rule, which is basically their constitution. 00:19:09.019 --> 00:19:11.059 It lays out the rules for joining the group, 00:19:11.119 --> 00:19:13.200 for sharing property, for their communal meals, 00:19:13.319 --> 00:19:15.759 how to expel someone. It's incredibly detailed. 00:19:15.960 --> 00:19:18.160 And then you have the more apocalyptic stuff. 00:19:18.460 --> 00:19:21.299 Oh, yeah. You have the war scroll. Which is a 00:19:21.299 --> 00:19:24.480 literal, detailed battle plan for the final cosmic 00:19:24.480 --> 00:19:27.180 war between the Sons of Light, that's them, and 00:19:27.180 --> 00:19:29.160 the Sons of Darkness, which is everyone else. 00:19:29.339 --> 00:19:32.359 It describes military formations, trumpet signals, 00:19:32.700 --> 00:19:35.420 the types of weapons to be used. It's a manual 00:19:35.420 --> 00:19:37.299 for the end of the world. It's just incredible 00:19:37.299 --> 00:19:40.220 to have that kind of direct insight. Now, among 00:19:40.220 --> 00:19:42.640 all these texts, there are a few standouts. The 00:19:42.640 --> 00:19:44.779 Celebrity Scrolls. We mentioned the Great Isaiah 00:19:44.779 --> 00:19:47.799 Scroll. Found in Cave 1, almost perfectly intact. 00:19:48.440 --> 00:19:51.920 It's the superstar. A complete book of a major 00:19:51.920 --> 00:19:54.240 prophet, a thousand years older than we had before. 00:19:54.539 --> 00:19:57.519 A miracle of survival. And then there's the giant 00:19:57.519 --> 00:19:59.380 of the collection, the Temple Scroll. The big 00:19:59.380 --> 00:20:02.240 one from Cave 11. It's the longest scroll ever 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:04.680 found, over 26 feet long. And it was probably 00:20:04.680 --> 00:20:06.960 even longer originally. And its content, which 00:20:06.960 --> 00:20:09.539 is all about how to build and run the ideal Jerusalem 00:20:09.539 --> 00:20:13.099 temple, it sparked a huge scholarly fight. It 00:20:13.099 --> 00:20:15.619 really did. It came down to how important this 00:20:15.619 --> 00:20:18.319 scroll actually was to the community. The great 00:20:18.319 --> 00:20:22.200 Israeli scholar Yigael Yadin, he saw it as central. 00:20:22.380 --> 00:20:25.259 He called it the Torah, according to the Essenes. 00:20:25.319 --> 00:20:27.079 He thought it was basically their alternative 00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:29.240 sixth book of Moses. Their own special version 00:20:29.240 --> 00:20:32.019 of the law. Exactly. But another major scholar, 00:20:32.279 --> 00:20:35.019 Hartmut Stajman, pushed back hard against that. 00:20:35.119 --> 00:20:37.380 What was his argument? Stajan pointed out something 00:20:37.380 --> 00:20:40.150 very simple. For a text that's supposedly so 00:20:40.150 --> 00:20:42.829 central, it's never quoted or even mentioned 00:20:42.829 --> 00:20:45.410 in any of the other sectarian documents from 00:20:45.410 --> 00:20:48.809 Qumran. Not once. So he saw it as just another 00:20:48.809 --> 00:20:50.890 book they had in their library, not their foundational 00:20:50.890 --> 00:20:53.920 text. Precisely. Maybe it was an important book, 00:20:54.019 --> 00:20:56.859 a respected one, but not the book. And that debate 00:20:56.859 --> 00:20:59.039 perfectly illustrates how even with a nearly 00:20:59.039 --> 00:21:02.299 complete scroll, its actual meaning and function 00:21:02.299 --> 00:21:04.460 can still be a source of intense disagreement. 00:21:04.720 --> 00:21:07.039 So the contents show us what this community was 00:21:07.039 --> 00:21:08.700 reading, what they valued, but that just leads 00:21:08.700 --> 00:21:10.980 to the biggest question of all. Who were they? 00:21:11.240 --> 00:21:14.079 Who were the people who wrote, collected, and 00:21:14.079 --> 00:21:17.299 painstakingly hid this incredible library? That 00:21:17.299 --> 00:21:20.539 is the central enduring mystery. And it's a question 00:21:20.539 --> 00:21:23.039 that has fractured. Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship 00:21:23.039 --> 00:21:25.839 for 70 years. Because when you look at the evidence, 00:21:26.059 --> 00:21:29.960 it's complicated. You have this huge diversity 00:21:29.960 --> 00:21:32.799 of thought in the texts, from mainstream biblical 00:21:32.799 --> 00:21:35.960 books to really extreme sectarian rules. There's 00:21:35.960 --> 00:21:38.240 a huge diversity of handwriting. A staggering 00:21:38.240 --> 00:21:40.839 diversity, which makes the idea of a single, 00:21:40.880 --> 00:21:44.039 small, isolated group being responsible for all 00:21:44.039 --> 00:21:47.190 of it difficult. So the field has basically shaken 00:21:47.190 --> 00:21:49.670 out into three major theories about who these 00:21:49.670 --> 00:21:51.650 people were. Okay, let's break them down. Let's 00:21:51.650 --> 00:21:53.650 start with theory number one, the classic traditional 00:21:53.650 --> 00:21:57.170 view, the Qumran -Essene hypothesis. This was 00:21:57.170 --> 00:22:00.230 the consensus view for decades, almost universally 00:22:00.230 --> 00:22:03.130 accepted until the 1990s. It's the idea that 00:22:03.130 --> 00:22:05.349 the scrolls were the library of a community of 00:22:05.349 --> 00:22:07.769 Essenes, a well -known ascetic Jewish sect from 00:22:07.769 --> 00:22:10.089 that period who lived at that nearby settlement 00:22:10.089 --> 00:22:12.190 of Kerbet Qumran. So the monks in the desert 00:22:12.190 --> 00:22:14.220 theory. That's the popular version of it, yes. 00:22:14.579 --> 00:22:17.839 The idea is that this Essene community wrote 00:22:17.839 --> 00:22:20.500 their own sectarian texts, copied the biblical 00:22:20.500 --> 00:22:23.160 ones, and then when the Roman armies were invading 00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:26.380 around 68 CE, they hid their precious library 00:22:26.380 --> 00:22:29.119 in the caves for safekeeping and fled. What's 00:22:29.119 --> 00:22:31.220 the best evidence for this theory? What connects 00:22:31.220 --> 00:22:34.200 the scrolls to the Essenes at Qumran? There are 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:36.700 really four strong pillars supporting it. The 00:22:36.700 --> 00:22:39.799 first is textual. The descriptions we have of 00:22:39.799 --> 00:22:41.960 a scene life from ancient historians, especially 00:22:41.960 --> 00:22:45.039 Josephus, match up remarkably well with the rules 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:46.880 you find in scrolls like the community rule. 00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:49.779 Things like sharing property, strict initiation 00:22:49.779 --> 00:22:52.480 rites. All of it. The communal lifestyle, the 00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:54.839 emphasis on purity. It's a very strong correlation. 00:22:55.259 --> 00:22:57.700 The second pillar is the archaeology at Qumran 00:22:57.700 --> 00:22:59.720 itself. Right. What did they find there? The 00:22:59.720 --> 00:23:01.819 excavators found a room with plastered benches 00:23:01.819 --> 00:23:04.319 and tables, which they interpreted as a scriptorium, 00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:07.460 a room for writing. They also found two inkwells 00:23:07.460 --> 00:23:09.700 there. The smoking gun, a place where they were 00:23:09.700 --> 00:23:12.119 physically writing scrolls. That was the interpretation. 00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:16.400 They also found numerous mikah, or Jewish ritual 00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:19.539 baths, which points to a community obsessed with 00:23:19.539 --> 00:23:22.319 ritual purity, just as the S were described. 00:23:23.099 --> 00:23:25.539 And finally, you have a geographical reference 00:23:25.539 --> 00:23:28.380 from a Roman writer, Pliny the Elder. What did 00:23:28.380 --> 00:23:31.460 he say? Writing just after the war, he describes 00:23:31.460 --> 00:23:33.859 a community of Essenes living in the desert on 00:23:33.859 --> 00:23:36.240 the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, away from 00:23:36.240 --> 00:23:39.450 the noxious air. The location he describes is 00:23:39.450 --> 00:23:42.329 a perfect match for Qumran. Okay, so that's a 00:23:42.329 --> 00:23:44.450 pretty compelling case. But then we have theory 00:23:44.450 --> 00:23:47.130 two, which is a variation on this theme. The 00:23:47.130 --> 00:23:49.589 Qumran sectarian idea. It keeps the scrolls at 00:23:49.589 --> 00:23:52.390 Qumran, but questions if they were strictly Essene. 00:23:52.490 --> 00:23:55.190 Right. This theory says, OK, there was definitely 00:23:55.190 --> 00:23:57.730 a religious sect at Qumran and they were responsible 00:23:57.730 --> 00:24:00.430 for the scrolls. But maybe Yassin is too broad 00:24:00.430 --> 00:24:03.190 or even the wrong label. Maybe they were a specific 00:24:03.190 --> 00:24:05.369 radical offshoot of the Yassins. Or in another 00:24:05.369 --> 00:24:07.910 group entirely. Or another group. The most prominent 00:24:07.910 --> 00:24:09.309 version of this theory comes from the scholar 00:24:09.309 --> 00:24:11.569 Lawrence Schiffman. He argues that the community 00:24:11.569 --> 00:24:15.250 was led by a group of Zadokite priests. So Sadducees. 00:24:15.250 --> 00:24:17.230 Or at least a group with Sadducean leadership. 00:24:17.710 --> 00:24:19.990 A group with strong Sadducean leanings, yes. 00:24:20.610 --> 00:24:23.650 And his key piece of evidence is one of the most 00:24:23.650 --> 00:24:26.690 important sectarian texts we have, a document 00:24:26.690 --> 00:24:31.829 known by its code, 4QMMT. MMT, what is that? 00:24:32.170 --> 00:24:35.769 It stands for Missat Ma 'az HaTorah, which translates 00:24:35.769 --> 00:24:38.230 to Some Works of the Law. And it's basically 00:24:38.230 --> 00:24:41.069 a letter, a legal manifesto from the leader of 00:24:41.069 --> 00:24:43.269 the Qumran group, probably the figure they call 00:24:43.269 --> 00:24:45.450 the teacher of righteousness, sent to the religious 00:24:45.450 --> 00:24:47.559 establishment back in Jerusalem. And what's in 00:24:47.559 --> 00:24:50.000 the letter that points to Sadducees? It lists 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.240 about two dozen points of religious law where 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:54.220 the Qumran group disagrees with the Jerusalem 00:24:54.220 --> 00:24:57.380 priests. And the specific legal positions they 00:24:57.380 --> 00:24:59.519 take on, things like how ritual impurity is transferred 00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:02.000 through liquids, are identical to legal positions 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:04.619 later attributed in rabbinic literature to the 00:25:04.619 --> 00:25:06.900 Sadducees. Wow. So it's a direct textual link. 00:25:07.230 --> 00:25:09.670 It's a very direct link. The letter also promotes 00:25:09.670 --> 00:25:11.990 a solar calendar for festivals that aligns with 00:25:11.990 --> 00:25:14.890 seduction principles, not Pharisaic ones. So 00:25:14.890 --> 00:25:16.549 it suggests that this community, whatever you 00:25:16.549 --> 00:25:19.089 call them, was born out of a priestly seduction 00:25:19.089 --> 00:25:21.049 conflict with the Jerusalem temple authorities. 00:25:21.430 --> 00:25:23.990 Which brings us to theory three. And this one 00:25:23.990 --> 00:25:26.369 throws the whole Qumran -centered idea out the 00:25:26.369 --> 00:25:29.089 window. This is the Jerusalem origin theory. 00:25:29.369 --> 00:25:32.329 This is the major competing paradigm. It was 00:25:32.329 --> 00:25:34.910 first proposed by Karl Heinrich Ringstorff and 00:25:34.910 --> 00:25:37.349 is now most famously championed by Norman Gold. 00:25:37.730 --> 00:25:41.069 And their argument is simple. The scrolls are 00:25:41.069 --> 00:25:44.529 not the library of one small fringe desert sect. 00:25:44.789 --> 00:25:46.970 They're what then? They are the rescued libraries 00:25:46.970 --> 00:25:50.319 of Jerusalem. Plural. The idea is that when the 00:25:50.319 --> 00:25:53.400 Romans were sacking Jerusalem in 70 CE, priests 00:25:53.400 --> 00:25:55.319 and scribes grabbed everything they could from 00:25:55.319 --> 00:25:57.619 the temple library, from other synagogue libraries, 00:25:57.859 --> 00:26:00.180 from private collections, and fled into the desert 00:26:00.180 --> 00:26:02.180 to hide them. And Qumran was just a convenient 00:26:02.180 --> 00:26:04.859 hiding spot. Exactly. It's on a major road from 00:26:04.859 --> 00:26:06.960 Jerusalem down to the desert. It was a known 00:26:06.960 --> 00:26:09.819 area with lots of caves. It was a desperate act 00:26:09.819 --> 00:26:11.880 of cultural preservation by the mainstream of 00:26:11.880 --> 00:26:14.970 Judaism, not the work of a tiny sect. And their 00:26:14.970 --> 00:26:17.329 main argument against the Qumran theory is just 00:26:17.329 --> 00:26:19.509 the sheer scale and diversity of the collection. 00:26:19.869 --> 00:26:22.130 That's the core of it. The math just doesn't 00:26:22.130 --> 00:26:24.750 work for them. Paleographers have identified 00:26:24.750 --> 00:26:27.349 the handwriting of more than 500 different scribes 00:26:27.349 --> 00:26:30.650 in the Qumran collection. 500? How could a tiny, 00:26:30.670 --> 00:26:33.150 isolated settlement like Qumran, which should 00:26:33.150 --> 00:26:36.269 probably only support 150, maybe 200 people max, 00:26:36.450 --> 00:26:39.660 have 500 scribes working there? And why would 00:26:39.660 --> 00:26:42.900 this tiny radical sect have so many copies of 00:26:42.900 --> 00:26:44.960 mainstream biblical texts? It doesn't add up. 00:26:45.059 --> 00:26:47.259 So under this theory, what was the settlement 00:26:47.259 --> 00:26:50.119 at Qumran? They reinterpret the archaeology completely. 00:26:50.460 --> 00:26:53.559 They argue it wasn't a monastery. It was a Hasmonean 00:26:53.559 --> 00:26:56.819 fort, a military outpost, later maybe a pottery 00:26:56.819 --> 00:26:59.380 production center, the ritual baths, the jars. 00:26:59.619 --> 00:27:01.680 They argue these are all things you'd find in 00:27:01.680 --> 00:27:03.880 any normal Jewish settlement of the period. And 00:27:03.880 --> 00:27:06.779 the famous scriptorium. They argue it was most 00:27:06.779 --> 00:27:09.880 likely a dining hall. The whole sectarian settlement 00:27:09.880 --> 00:27:12.460 idea, they say, is a myth created to explain 00:27:12.460 --> 00:27:14.640 the scrolls when it should be the other way around. 00:27:14.880 --> 00:27:16.779 And finally, we have to at least touch on Theory 00:27:16.779 --> 00:27:19.559 4, which you noted is by far the most controversial 00:27:19.559 --> 00:27:22.400 of the Christian origin theories. Right. These 00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:24.240 are theories that exist very much on the scholarly 00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:26.880 fringe, but they get a lot of popular attention 00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:29.420 because they connect the scrolls directly to 00:27:29.420 --> 00:27:31.759 early Christianity. What's the main claim? The 00:27:31.759 --> 00:27:34.059 most famous claim was made in the 60s by a Spanish 00:27:34.059 --> 00:27:38.079 Jesuit named José O 'Callaghan Martínez. He argued 00:27:38.079 --> 00:27:40.779 that a tiny, tiny scrap of papyrus from Cave 00:27:40.779 --> 00:27:44.500 7, known as 7Q5, was actually a fragment of the 00:27:44.500 --> 00:27:47.220 New Testament, specifically from the Gospel of 00:27:47.220 --> 00:27:50.279 Mark. And if that were true, it would be huge. 00:27:50.359 --> 00:27:51.859 It would be earth -shattering. It would prove 00:27:51.859 --> 00:27:53.440 the Gospel of Mark was written and circulating 00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.420 before 70 CE, completely rewriting the timeline 00:27:56.420 --> 00:27:58.740 of the New Testament. But? But the fragment is 00:27:58.740 --> 00:28:01.259 minuscule. It has maybe five legible letters 00:28:01.259 --> 00:28:04.500 on it. The overwhelming, near -unanimous consensus 00:28:04.500 --> 00:28:07.660 of paleographers is that the identification is 00:28:07.660 --> 00:28:10.119 just wishful thinking. The math doesn't work. 00:28:10.200 --> 00:28:12.160 Are there other Christian theories? There are. 00:28:12.569 --> 00:28:15.150 Robert Eisenman has famously argued that the 00:28:15.150 --> 00:28:17.490 figures in the sectarian scrolls, the Teacher 00:28:17.490 --> 00:28:20.130 of Righteousness, the Wicked Priest, are actually 00:28:20.130 --> 00:28:23.410 coded references to early Christian figures like 00:28:23.410 --> 00:28:26.309 James, the Brother of Jesus, and the Apostle 00:28:26.309 --> 00:28:29.029 Paul. But again, these theories remain far outside 00:28:29.029 --> 00:28:32.269 the academic mainstream because the dating, the 00:28:32.269 --> 00:28:35.089 language, and the historical context just don't 00:28:35.089 --> 00:28:37.069 line up with the evidence from the scrolls themselves. 00:28:37.640 --> 00:28:40.160 So we found the scrolls, we've debated who wrote 00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:42.839 them, but now the story moves into the 20th century 00:28:42.839 --> 00:28:45.599 and it becomes a story of a crisis. The very 00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:48.059 act of discovering them started a clock ticking 00:28:48.059 --> 00:28:49.859 on their destruction. It's the ultimate irony. 00:28:50.039 --> 00:28:52.160 The same environment that preserved them for 00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:54.940 2 ,000 years, that dry, dark, stable climate, 00:28:55.059 --> 00:28:57.160 was instantly gone. The moment they were brought 00:28:57.160 --> 00:28:59.079 out into the light and air, they started to decay. 00:28:59.660 --> 00:29:01.920 Rapidly. What was it about being exposed that 00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:03.940 was so damaging? Well, you have moisture, you 00:29:03.940 --> 00:29:06.829 have oxygen. Light. But the biggest problem initially 00:29:06.829 --> 00:29:10.250 wasn't nature. It was humans, well -intentioned 00:29:10.250 --> 00:29:12.309 humans. The early researchers, what did they 00:29:12.309 --> 00:29:15.089 do? The most catastrophic mistake was the widespread 00:29:15.089 --> 00:29:18.150 use of adhesive tape, scotch tape. Wait, they 00:29:18.150 --> 00:29:20.849 used scotch tape on 2 ,000 -year -old documents? 00:29:21.190 --> 00:29:23.930 They did. In the late 40s and 50s, to try and 00:29:23.930 --> 00:29:26.349 piece the little fragments together, the chemicals 00:29:26.349 --> 00:29:28.170 in the tape's adhesive seeped into the parchment, 00:29:28.289 --> 00:29:30.970 stained it, made it brittle, and in some cases, 00:29:30.990 --> 00:29:33.130 it literally lifted the ink right off the surface. 00:29:33.230 --> 00:29:35.829 It was a disaster. Just a complete, unmitigated 00:29:35.829 --> 00:29:37.630 disaster. But it gets worse, right? There was 00:29:37.630 --> 00:29:39.690 a specific event that caused a huge amount of 00:29:39.690 --> 00:29:41.710 damage all at once. There was. It was during 00:29:41.710 --> 00:29:45.450 the Suez Crisis in 1956. For security reasons, 00:29:45.670 --> 00:29:47.730 the main collection of scrolls, which was in 00:29:47.730 --> 00:29:50.589 Jerusalem, was moved for safekeeping. To where? 00:29:50.809 --> 00:29:53.309 To the vault of the Ottoman Bank in Amman, Jordan. 00:29:53.769 --> 00:29:56.529 And a bank vault, you know, is designed to protect 00:29:56.529 --> 00:29:59.089 money and gold. It's often cool and damp. The 00:29:59.089 --> 00:30:01.329 worst possible environment for ancient parchment. 00:30:01.589 --> 00:30:03.730 The absolute worst. They were stored there for 00:30:03.730 --> 00:30:06.349 about a year in these humid conditions. Mildew 00:30:06.349 --> 00:30:08.650 started to grow on them. The glue on the storage 00:30:08.650 --> 00:30:10.529 plates they were using began to melt and cause 00:30:10.529 --> 00:30:13.769 damage. By 1958, an assessment found that some 00:30:13.769 --> 00:30:16.769 scrolls had lost up to 5 % of their text in just 00:30:16.769 --> 00:30:19.390 that short period. They had darkened so much 00:30:19.390 --> 00:30:21.730 the ink was becoming illegible. It's just heartbreaking. 00:30:21.970 --> 00:30:24.490 So how did they finally stop the bleeding? How 00:30:24.490 --> 00:30:27.150 do we preserve them today? Modern science finally 00:30:27.150 --> 00:30:31.309 caught up. Starting in 1991, the Israel Antiquities 00:30:31.309 --> 00:30:34.250 Authority, the IAA, created a state -of -the 00:30:34.250 --> 00:30:36.950 -art conservation lab. Their whole job is to 00:30:36.950 --> 00:30:39.029 undo the damage of the past. So they're removing 00:30:39.029 --> 00:30:42.339 the tape? Meticulously. They painstakingly removed 00:30:42.339 --> 00:30:45.200 the old tape, the oils, the salts, all the contaminants, 00:30:45.240 --> 00:30:47.680 and now the fragments are stored in climate -controlled 00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:50.740 vaults in acid -free materials under conditions 00:30:50.740 --> 00:30:53.059 that mimic the stability of the caves they came 00:30:53.059 --> 00:30:55.200 from. Thank goodness, then, for photography, 00:30:55.440 --> 00:30:58.000 because we have images of the scrolls from before 00:30:58.000 --> 00:31:00.660 the worst of that damage occurred. The photography 00:31:00.660 --> 00:31:02.720 is the scroll's insurance policy. There was a 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:05.079 photographer named Najeeb Albina who worked from 00:31:05.079 --> 00:31:08.980 1952 to 1967. And he used this new technique 00:31:08.980 --> 00:31:11.019 at the time, infrared photography. Which lets 00:31:11.019 --> 00:31:13.200 you see things the naked eye can't. Exactly. 00:31:13.380 --> 00:31:17.359 His photos, all 1 ,750 of them, were taken before 00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:19.799 that horrible year in the bank vault. In many 00:31:19.799 --> 00:31:22.119 cases, his infrared plates are the best record 00:31:22.119 --> 00:31:24.619 we have. They show letters and words that have 00:31:24.619 --> 00:31:26.940 since faded into oblivion on the actual fragments. 00:31:27.299 --> 00:31:29.519 And the imaging technology has only gotten better. 00:31:29.940 --> 00:31:32.279 NASA got involved at one point. Yeah, which is 00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:35.509 just a fantastic crossover. In the 90s, scientists 00:31:35.509 --> 00:31:38.710 from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the people 00:31:38.710 --> 00:31:41.529 who design cameras for Mars rovers, they applied 00:31:41.529 --> 00:31:44.089 their technology to the scrolls. What did they 00:31:44.089 --> 00:31:46.970 use? They used multispectral imaging. It's a 00:31:46.970 --> 00:31:49.089 system that takes photos in dozens of different 00:31:49.089 --> 00:31:51.089 wavelengths of light, far beyond what the human 00:31:51.089 --> 00:31:53.529 eye can see. And by doing that, they were able 00:31:53.529 --> 00:31:56.230 to digitally distinguish the carbon -based black 00:31:56.230 --> 00:31:59.150 ink from the animal hide parchment, making previously 00:31:59.150 --> 00:32:01.750 unreadable text just pop off the page. And that 00:32:01.750 --> 00:32:03.930 all culminates in the big digitization project 00:32:03.930 --> 00:32:06.210 with Google. The ultimate act of preservation 00:32:06.210 --> 00:32:09.910 and access. From 2011 to 2016, the Israel Museum 00:32:09.910 --> 00:32:12.710 and Google collaborated on this massive project 00:32:12.710 --> 00:32:15.170 and digitized the major scrolls in unbelievable 00:32:15.170 --> 00:32:17.950 detail. We're talking 1 ,200 megapixel images. 00:32:18.230 --> 00:32:20.430 So you can zoom in and see the individual fibers 00:32:20.430 --> 00:32:23.410 of the parchment. You can. And they did it using 00:32:23.410 --> 00:32:26.529 special flashes that filter out UV light to prevent 00:32:26.529 --> 00:32:30.089 any further damage. The result is that now anyone 00:32:30.089 --> 00:32:32.390 on Earth with an Internet connection can study 00:32:32.390 --> 00:32:34.450 these scrolls in more detail than most scholars 00:32:34.450 --> 00:32:37.230 could a generation ago. But that access is a 00:32:37.230 --> 00:32:39.990 very new thing. For decades, the story of the 00:32:39.990 --> 00:32:42.650 scrolls wasn't one of open access, but of an 00:32:42.650 --> 00:32:46.680 academic scandal. A lockdown. It was a huge controversy. 00:32:46.920 --> 00:32:49.980 For about 40 years, from the 50s until 1991, 00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:53.240 access to the majority of the unpublished fragments 00:32:53.240 --> 00:32:56.279 was controlled by a small international committee 00:32:56.279 --> 00:32:59.299 of scholars. And they just sat on them. The pace 00:32:59.299 --> 00:33:01.460 of publication was glacial. They effectively 00:33:01.460 --> 00:33:03.880 created an academic monopoly. If you weren't 00:33:03.880 --> 00:33:05.339 on the committee, you couldn't study the texts. 00:33:06.009 --> 00:33:08.069 Scholars around the world were furious, arguing 00:33:08.069 --> 00:33:10.349 that this shared human heritage was being held 00:33:10.349 --> 00:33:13.529 hostage by a tiny group. So what broke the logjam? 00:33:13.769 --> 00:33:15.230 It was a couple of things that happened all at 00:33:15.230 --> 00:33:18.190 once in 1991. First, the Huntington Library in 00:33:18.190 --> 00:33:20.329 California revealed that they had a complete 00:33:20.329 --> 00:33:22.910 set of photographic negatives of all the scrolls, 00:33:22.910 --> 00:33:24.829 and they announced they were making them available 00:33:24.829 --> 00:33:27.509 to any qualified scholar. They just opened the 00:33:27.509 --> 00:33:30.740 floodgates. They did. At the same time, some 00:33:30.740 --> 00:33:32.819 other scholars used computers to reconstruct 00:33:32.819 --> 00:33:36.160 the unpublished texts from a preliminary concordance 00:33:36.160 --> 00:33:38.960 and published it themselves. The monopoly was 00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:41.220 broken. The official committee had no choice 00:33:41.220 --> 00:33:43.720 but to open up Access, which finally led to the 00:33:43.720 --> 00:33:46.160 complete publication of everything in a massive 00:33:46.160 --> 00:33:49.440 40 -volume series. But opening up Access created 00:33:49.440 --> 00:33:52.420 a new kind of legal problem, didn't it? A battle 00:33:52.420 --> 00:33:55.039 over copyright. A fascinating and landmark case. 00:33:55.319 --> 00:33:58.769 It was called Cameron v. Shanks. A scholar named 00:33:58.769 --> 00:34:02.130 Elisha Kimron had spent more than a decade painstakingly 00:34:02.130 --> 00:34:04.490 piecing together that MMT scroll we talked about 00:34:04.490 --> 00:34:07.210 from hundreds of tiny fragments. And someone 00:34:07.210 --> 00:34:09.570 published his work without permission. Herschel 00:34:09.570 --> 00:34:11.909 Shanks, the editor of Biblical Archaeology Review, 00:34:12.210 --> 00:34:15.409 published Kimron's reconstructed text. Kimron 00:34:15.409 --> 00:34:17.849 sued. But how can you copyright an ancient text? 00:34:17.909 --> 00:34:20.010 It should be in the public domain. That was Shanks' 00:34:20.130 --> 00:34:22.530 argument. But Kimron's argument was more nuanced. 00:34:22.690 --> 00:34:25.380 He said, I didn't write the original text. But 00:34:25.380 --> 00:34:27.440 I did the scholarly work of deciphering these 00:34:27.440 --> 00:34:29.800 illegible scraps and arranging them into a coherent 00:34:29.800 --> 00:34:32.920 whole. That act of reconstruction is an original 00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:35.480 creative work. And the court agreed? The Israeli 00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:38.119 Supreme Court agreed with him. They set a major 00:34:38.119 --> 00:34:41.119 precedent. The ancient text itself is public 00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:44.280 domain. But a scholar's unique decipherment and 00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:47.420 reconstruction of a fragmentary text can be protected 00:34:47.420 --> 00:34:50.719 by copyright. It was a huge victory for the intellectual 00:34:50.719 --> 00:34:53.000 property rights of scholars. OK, so let's get 00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:56.179 to the big so what question. Why do these scrolls 00:34:56.179 --> 00:34:59.239 truly matter to people today outside of academia? 00:34:59.579 --> 00:35:02.000 Let's talk about their impact on the Bible itself. 00:35:02.420 --> 00:35:04.860 This is their most profound legacy. As we said 00:35:04.860 --> 00:35:07.619 at the top before the scrolls, our oldest complete 00:35:07.619 --> 00:35:10.400 Hebrew Bibles were from the 10th century CE. 00:35:11.179 --> 00:35:14.360 The scrolls instantly pushed that date back a 00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:17.280 full thousand years to the second century BCE. 00:35:17.579 --> 00:35:19.860 A thousand years closer to the original authors. 00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:22.139 Exactly. It gave us a window into the Bible's 00:35:22.139 --> 00:35:23.900 textual history that we never thought we'd have. 00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:25.860 And the first big takeaway, the one that made 00:35:25.860 --> 00:35:28.119 all the headlines, was how remarkably accurate 00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:30.000 the transmission had been. It was astounding. 00:35:30.159 --> 00:35:32.300 One of the early scholars, Miller Burroughs, 00:35:32.300 --> 00:35:34.599 used the famous example from Isaiah chapter 53. 00:35:34.840 --> 00:35:37.059 He compared the text in the great Isaiah scroll 00:35:37.059 --> 00:35:39.940 from Qumran with the Masoretic text from a thousand 00:35:39.940 --> 00:35:43.099 years later. And what did you find? In 166 words, 00:35:43.340 --> 00:35:45.880 there were only 17 letters that were different. 00:35:46.280 --> 00:35:48.880 And most of those were just minor spelling variations, 00:35:49.139 --> 00:35:51.539 like the difference between color and color. 00:35:52.019 --> 00:35:54.559 It was a stunning testament to the care and fidelity 00:35:54.559 --> 00:35:57.340 of the scribal tradition over a millennium. But 00:35:57.340 --> 00:35:59.280 that's only half the story. Because while some 00:35:59.280 --> 00:36:02.239 scrolls showed that amazing consistency, others 00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:04.840 showed the complete opposite. They showed a text 00:36:04.840 --> 00:36:07.280 that was still in flux. And this is the deeper, 00:36:07.380 --> 00:36:09.500 more complex truth that the scrolls revealed. 00:36:10.269 --> 00:36:13.489 Yes, Isaiah was very stable. But when you look 00:36:13.489 --> 00:36:16.070 at the Qumran manuscripts of, say, the books 00:36:16.070 --> 00:36:19.070 of Exodus or Samuel, you see huge differences 00:36:19.070 --> 00:36:21.150 from the text we know today. Not just spelling 00:36:21.150 --> 00:36:23.690 differences. No, entire paragraphs that are there 00:36:23.690 --> 00:36:25.630 in one version and missing in another. Different 00:36:25.630 --> 00:36:27.889 phrasing, different order of events. What the 00:36:27.889 --> 00:36:29.949 scrolls proved is that in the Second Temple period, 00:36:30.170 --> 00:36:33.090 there wasn't one single authoritative version 00:36:33.090 --> 00:36:35.250 of the Old Testament. There were multiple versions 00:36:35.250 --> 00:36:38.460 circulating at the same time. Exactly. It forced 00:36:38.460 --> 00:36:40.500 scholars to accept that the biblical text was 00:36:40.500 --> 00:36:43.519 extremely fluid and existed in several different 00:36:43.519 --> 00:36:45.579 textual traditions right up until it was finally 00:36:45.579 --> 00:36:49.699 standardized or canonized around 100 CE. The 00:36:49.699 --> 00:36:52.460 scrolls don't just affirm the Bible. They show 00:36:52.460 --> 00:36:55.500 us the messy living process of how it became 00:36:55.500 --> 00:36:58.099 the Bible. Now, we mentioned earlier that the 00:36:58.099 --> 00:37:00.219 Book of Esther is the one book of the Hebrew 00:37:00.219 --> 00:37:02.820 Bible they didn't find at Qumran. Any theories 00:37:02.820 --> 00:37:06.170 as to why? It's a conspicuous absence. There 00:37:06.170 --> 00:37:09.050 are two main theories. One is theological. The 00:37:09.050 --> 00:37:12.210 community at Qumran was intensely pious and sectarian, 00:37:12.329 --> 00:37:15.869 very focused on purity and separation. They may 00:37:15.869 --> 00:37:17.369 have had a problem with the story of Esther, 00:37:17.530 --> 00:37:20.550 a Jewish woman marrying a foreign Persian king. 00:37:20.750 --> 00:37:22.929 It didn't fit their worldview. It may have been 00:37:22.929 --> 00:37:25.889 ideologically objectionable to them. The other 00:37:25.889 --> 00:37:27.650 theory is liturgical. It has to do with their 00:37:27.650 --> 00:37:30.400 calendar. The festival of Purim, which is the 00:37:30.400 --> 00:37:32.619 whole point of the Book of Esther, is not part 00:37:32.619 --> 00:37:34.760 of the unique solar calendar that the Qumran 00:37:34.760 --> 00:37:36.800 community followed. So if they didn't celebrate 00:37:36.800 --> 00:37:39.119 Purim, they had no need for the book that explains 00:37:39.119 --> 00:37:41.659 Purim. Exactly. It was simply irrelevant to their 00:37:41.659 --> 00:37:44.159 religious life. Which brings us to the most modern 00:37:44.159 --> 00:37:46.800 and most politically charged aspect of the scrolls, 00:37:46.800 --> 00:37:49.780 the fight over who owns them. Yes, the custody 00:37:49.780 --> 00:37:52.860 battle. The scrolls have been caught up in geopolitics 00:37:52.860 --> 00:37:55.480 from the very beginning. Remember, they were 00:37:55.480 --> 00:37:57.460 found in an area that was controlled by Jordan 00:37:57.460 --> 00:38:01.059 after the 1948 war. The main collection was housed 00:38:01.059 --> 00:38:04.500 in a museum in East Jerusalem. Until 1967. Until 00:38:04.500 --> 00:38:08.440 the Six -Day War in 1967. When Israeli forces 00:38:08.440 --> 00:38:10.900 took control of East Jerusalem, they also took 00:38:10.900 --> 00:38:13.780 control of the museum and its contents, including 00:38:13.780 --> 00:38:16.119 the scrolls. They were moved to the Shrine of 00:38:16.119 --> 00:38:18.739 the Book at the Israel Museum in West Jerusalem, 00:38:18.880 --> 00:38:20.920 where they are today. And that's the heart of 00:38:20.920 --> 00:38:23.849 the current dispute. It is. Israel claims ownership 00:38:23.849 --> 00:38:26.289 based on them being the paramount heritage of 00:38:26.289 --> 00:38:28.710 the Jewish people. They argue they are the rightful 00:38:28.710 --> 00:38:31.769 custodians. But Jordan and the Palestinian Authority 00:38:31.769 --> 00:38:34.110 argue that the scrolls were taken illegally from 00:38:34.110 --> 00:38:36.610 occupied territory in violation of international 00:38:36.610 --> 00:38:39.949 law like the 1954 Hague Convention on Cultural 00:38:39.949 --> 00:38:42.579 Property. So the scrolls have become a potent 00:38:42.579 --> 00:38:45.260 symbol in the larger Israeli -Palestinian conflict. 00:38:45.579 --> 00:38:47.920 A very potent symbol. And it's worth noting that 00:38:47.920 --> 00:38:50.480 Jordan does still own a small number of scrolls 00:38:50.480 --> 00:38:53.940 that were acquired before 1967, which are on 00:38:53.940 --> 00:38:56.760 display in a museum in Amman. So even the collection 00:38:56.760 --> 00:38:59.139 itself is physically divided by this conflict. 00:38:59.539 --> 00:39:01.739 And as if all that weren't complicated enough, 00:39:01.820 --> 00:39:04.260 the fame and value of the scrolls have spawned 00:39:04.260 --> 00:39:08.440 a dark modern industry forgeries. This is a huge 00:39:08.440 --> 00:39:11.829 problem. Since about 2002, with the price of 00:39:11.829 --> 00:39:14.170 genuine fragments going into the millions, the 00:39:14.170 --> 00:39:16.170 black market has been flooded with fakes. And 00:39:16.170 --> 00:39:17.969 these forgeries are getting good. Very good. 00:39:18.230 --> 00:39:20.489 They'll often take a genuine piece of ancient 00:39:20.489 --> 00:39:23.349 blank parchment or leather and then write on 00:39:23.349 --> 00:39:25.869 it with modern ink, trying to mimic the ancient 00:39:25.869 --> 00:39:28.389 script. It takes serious scientific analysis 00:39:28.389 --> 00:39:31.030 to spot them. And there was a very public, very 00:39:31.030 --> 00:39:33.210 embarrassing example of this recently. There 00:39:33.210 --> 00:39:35.760 was. The Museum of the Bible in Washington, D 00:39:35.760 --> 00:39:39.099 .C. had spent millions acquiring 16 purported 00:39:39.099 --> 00:39:42.739 Dead Sea Scroll fragments. In 2020, after extensive 00:39:42.739 --> 00:39:45.519 testing, they had to announce that all 16 of 00:39:45.519 --> 00:39:48.219 them were modern forgeries. All of them? Every 00:39:48.219 --> 00:39:50.320 single one. It was a massive wake -up call from 00:39:50.320 --> 00:39:52.980 museums and collectors everywhere. It proves 00:39:52.980 --> 00:39:55.039 that for any fragment that appears on the market 00:39:55.039 --> 00:39:57.719 now, you need ironclad provenance and rigorous 00:39:57.719 --> 00:40:00.039 scientific testing because the incentive to cheat 00:40:00.039 --> 00:40:04.190 is just too high. Hashtag tag tag outro. So when 00:40:04.190 --> 00:40:06.550 you step back and you try to sum up the value 00:40:06.550 --> 00:40:10.170 of all this, it's just it's immense. On one level, 00:40:10.190 --> 00:40:12.110 they gave us our oldest surviving manuscripts 00:40:12.110 --> 00:40:14.789 of the Bible, closing that thousand year gap 00:40:14.789 --> 00:40:17.409 and confirming the incredible dedication of ancient 00:40:17.409 --> 00:40:19.530 scribes. But it's more than that. It's so much 00:40:19.530 --> 00:40:22.769 more. They gave us this direct. unfiltered insight 00:40:22.769 --> 00:40:24.989 into the diversity and the passion of Jewish 00:40:24.989 --> 00:40:27.610 life and belief during that critical Second Temple 00:40:27.610 --> 00:40:29.630 period, the time just before the Bible as we 00:40:29.630 --> 00:40:32.150 know it was finalized, and just before rabbinic 00:40:32.150 --> 00:40:34.730 Judaism and Christianity emerged as distinct 00:40:34.730 --> 00:40:38.110 movements. So after all this, what does it mean 00:40:38.110 --> 00:40:40.389 for you listening to this? You're looking for 00:40:40.389 --> 00:40:42.329 some kind of certainty in history. And what you 00:40:42.329 --> 00:40:45.570 find is complexity. You find a sacred scripture 00:40:45.570 --> 00:40:48.369 that was once extremely fluid. You find half 00:40:48.369 --> 00:40:50.250 a dozen competing theories about who even wrote 00:40:50.250 --> 00:40:52.710 it down. You find priceless texts that were almost 00:40:52.710 --> 00:40:54.989 destroyed by something as mundane as scotch tape. 00:40:55.289 --> 00:40:57.730 And you have this bitter, unresolved political 00:40:57.730 --> 00:41:00.809 fight over who even gets to call them their own. 00:41:01.289 --> 00:41:03.789 So I think that leaves us with a question. Given 00:41:03.789 --> 00:41:06.670 all this evidence of fluidity, of debate, of 00:41:06.670 --> 00:41:09.349 human error, and of modern conflict, what does 00:41:09.349 --> 00:41:12.230 it really mean when even our most sacred and 00:41:12.230 --> 00:41:15.250 ancient documents are not settled facts but are 00:41:15.250 --> 00:41:17.590 still living sources of discovery and a fierce 00:41:17.590 --> 00:41:20.190 argument today? It means that our understanding 00:41:20.190 --> 00:41:23.019 of history is never truly final. The documents 00:41:23.019 --> 00:41:25.179 themselves might be ancient, trapped in time 00:41:25.179 --> 00:41:27.500 for 2 ,000 years, but the fight over what they 00:41:27.500 --> 00:41:29.400 mean, where they came from, and who they belong 00:41:29.400 --> 00:41:32.519 to, that's a thoroughly modern struggle. And 00:41:32.519 --> 00:41:34.440 it's one that is constantly reshaping how we 00:41:34.440 --> 00:41:36.900 think about our own history, our identity, and 00:41:36.900 --> 00:41:37.280 our faith.