Catholic Word of the Day: DEAD SEA SCROLLS, 09-28-13

CCDictionary ^ | 09-28-13 | Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary

[Salvation]

Featured Term (selected at random):

DEAD SEA SCROLLS

A collection of manuscripts and numerous fragments excavated in 1947 at the site of the ancient Qumran community, located close tot he Dead Sea in Palestine. The principal texts include a set of rules for a monastic community, namely, The Manual of Discipline, A Zadokite Document (discovered earlier in Cairo), and a Formulary of Blessings; two collections of hymns; several commentaries on the Books of Micah, Nahum, and Habakuk; a long oration of Moses; and epic on The War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness; and a manual for the future congregation of Israel, the so-called Messianic Banquet. Conservative scholarship holds that the scrolls were composed at various dates between 170 B.C. and A.D. 68. There is in the Dead Sea Scrolls no trace of any of the principal doctrines of Christianity: the Incarnation or the universality of the Messianic Kingdom. But there are many affinities that have shed much light on the meaning of the Christian faith, notably in revealing the existence of an ascetical community, similar to the Essenes, in first-century Palestine.

All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

[Salvation]

Quite interesting. Haven't more been discovered?

[knarf]

I heard years ago, that the entire book of Isaiah was part of the scrolls.

[Salvation]

Catholic Word of the Day Ping!

 

Endometriosis	Causality	Patron Saint
Sacristy	Shrovetide	Predestination
Olive Branch	Charisms of Administration	Hedonism
Mater Dolorosa	Detachment	Comforter
Parthenos	Anathema	Quality
Eucharistic Congress	Diaspora	Responsorial Psalm
Analogical Difference	Obstinacy	Agape
House Blessing	Perfect Contrition	Reprobation
Blessed Trinity Scapular	Nunc Pro Tunc	Glastonbury
Interior Struggle	Marital Separation	Family
Jehu	Preventing Grace	Casuistry
Religious Order	Heresy	COUNCIL OF EPISCOPAL CONFERENCES OF EUROPE (C.C.E.E.)
Nestorianism	Koinonia	Washing of the Hands
Quo Vadis?	Dead Sea Scrolls

If you aren’t on this Catholic Word of the Day Ping list and would like to be, please send me a FReepmail.

[Salvation]

That would be astonishing; it’s such a long book.

[count-your-change]

Indeed it was and has been dated to two or three hundred years B.C.

[Salvation]

Wow! Modern science is just fascinating.

[count-your-change]

Also the Isaiah Scroll can be compared with the manuscripts translated into Hebrew from Greek by the Masoretes. And it uses a form of the Tetragrammaton repeatedly.

Modern science is fascinating and all the more so when it helps preserve works like the Dead Sea Scrolls.