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One dramatic evidence of its preservation is in the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in a number of caves in the wilderness of Judea between 1947 and the mid 1960s. These caves, occupied by the Essenes in the time of Jesus, produced tens of thousands of fragments of ancient books, including about 100 biblical manuscripts that represent the entire Old Testament except the book of Esther. A full copy of Isaiah was found dating to the second century BC, the oldest copy of a book of the Hebrew Bible known to exist. The Essenes' documents were produced between 200 BC and 50 AD.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls pushed back the dates of existing manuscripts by about a thousand years, yet their text has been found to be 99% identical to later copies used for our common translations—a testimony to the carefulness and skill of the copyists.
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In 1947, this, the first of a number of caves that contained scrolls, many preserved in clay jars, was discovered. |
