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In a Remarkable Find, Archaeologists Exploring the ‘Cave of Horror’ in Israel Have Discovered a New Dead Sea Scroll
Artnet News ^ | March 16, 2021 | Sarah Cascone

Posted on 03/16/2021 5:48:17 PM PDT by nickcarraway

They also discovered a partially mummified 6,000-year-old skeleton of a child.

For the first time in 60 years, archaeologists have discovered a new fragment of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a cache of ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts uncovered in the Qumran Caves on the northern shore of the Dead Sea.

The Israel Antiquities Authority, which carried out the excavations, believes the new scroll, written in Greek, is actually a missing part of the “Book of the 12 Minor Prophets” scroll, first discovered in 1961. It contains verses from Zechariah 8:16-17 and Nahum 1:5-6. The minor differences in the wording compared to other known manuscripts are important in helping shape our understanding of the evolution of the standardized Hebrew Bible.

“When we think about the biblical text, we think about something very static. It wasn’t static. There are slight differences and some of those differences are important,” Joe Uziel, head of the antiquities authority’s Dead Sea Scrolls unit, told the Associated Press.

The first Dead Sea Scroll was found by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 in one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.

Dating from the third century BC to the first century AD, the parchment and papyrus manuscripts contain the earliest known texts from the Hebrew Bible, as well as other apocryphal writings. (Fragments of the scrolls that came on the market after 2002, some of which were infamously purchased by the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., are now believed to be forgeries.)

The new fragments were uncovered in the so-called “Cave of Horror,” where archaeologists in the 1950s found skeletons of men, women, and children killed during the Bar Kokhba revolt, a Jewish rebellion against Rome circa 132 to 136, during the reign of Emperor Hadrian.

Evidence of Roman encampments on the cliff above the cave suggests that the rebels remained under siege until they died of starvation. The only way to access the cave is by rope, lowering down some 200 feet.

“The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth,” Israel Hasson, the director of the Israel Antiquities Authority, told the New York Times. The archaeologists then went “digging and sifting through [the caves], enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind.”

There have been extensive excavations in the Qumran Caves since 2017, carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority in an effort to prevent looters from getting their hands on historic artifacts in the desert’s remote caves.

“For the first time in 70 years, we were able to preempt the plunderers,” Amir Ganor, head of the antiquities theft prevention unit, told the AP.

The new Dead Sea Scroll is among several recent archaeological finds, including a partially mummified 6,000-year-old skeleton of a child, Jewish coins from the time of the Bar Kokhba rebellion, ancient arrowheads, and a 10,500-year-old basket, kept intact—lid and all—over the millennia thanks to the desert’s hot, arid environment.

“The child’s skeleton and the cloth wrapping were remarkably well preserved,” antiquities authority historian Ronit Lupu told the Jerusalem Post. “Because of the climatic conditions in the cave, a process of natural mummification had taken place; the skin, tendons, and even the hair were partially preserved, despite the passage of time.”

Teenagers from the Nofei Prat pre-military academy were responsible for the basket discovery, which the Israel Antiquities Authority believes may be the oldest-known basket in the world. Made from woven reeds, it is from the Neolithic period, predating the development of pottery in the region.


TOPICS: Books/Literature; History; Local News
KEYWORDS: 1ad; 3bc; ancientautopsies; archaeology; barkochba; barkokhba; barkokhbarevolt; basket; bible; bronzeage; byzantineempire; carbon14; caveofhorror; dead; deadsea; deadseascrolls; epigraphyandlanguage; godsgravesglyphs; greek; hadrian; hellenism; israel; judea; judeandesert; judeandessert; manuscripts; mummifiedremains; mummy; nahalhever; nahum; neolithic; persianempire; qumran; qumrancaves; radiocarbon; radiocarbondating; rcdating; romanempire; zechariah
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1 posted on 03/16/2021 5:48:17 PM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Middle East is just one damn thing after another.


2 posted on 03/16/2021 5:50:52 PM PDT by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: SunkenCiv

Ping


3 posted on 03/16/2021 5:51:53 PM PDT by rdl6989 ( )
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To: nickcarraway

.


4 posted on 03/16/2021 5:57:22 PM PDT by sauropod (Chance favors the prepared mind.)
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To: billorites

Well, except for Mecca. There is apparently nothing, nada, zilch from before the 8th century. So much for Islam’s mother of all cities.


5 posted on 03/16/2021 6:16:54 PM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: nickcarraway

Kinda puts stank on those young earthers and their 6000 year timeframe.


6 posted on 03/16/2021 6:36:34 PM PDT by Terry L Smith
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To: nickcarraway
I read where there were a lot of fragments left over from the first set of scrolls and the archaeologists discovered that since it was written on lamb skin, they ought to be able to get lamb DNA. At least they were able to group the pieces by each scroll.

In another segment, I read where they were using a computer program to digitally piece together broken pottery shards. In yet another aticle, it showed a guy looking at a screen full of pieces, selecting a piece, drag and drop it near the scan of a partially constructed pot and watch while the computer rotated the piece until it made a perfect fit, or not. Saved a lot of the mind-numbing manual method.

Clever use of Technology.

7 posted on 03/16/2021 6:58:31 PM PDT by Oatka
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To: nickcarraway

Thanks for posting. I hadn’t heard this.

One belief about the earliest Dead Sea Scroll findings was that the Arabs who found the jars first used some of the scrolls to burn for heat in a campfire. Lost forever.


8 posted on 03/16/2021 7:12:59 PM PDT by frank ballenger (End vote fraud, harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: nickcarraway

People in photo are hurrying so as to get out of the way of the new Starbucks being built on the site.

If someone finds new scroll pieces they can wrap them around cardboard coffee cups.


9 posted on 03/16/2021 7:17:28 PM PDT by frank ballenger (End vote fraud, harvesting,non-citizen voting & leftist media news censorship or we are finished.)
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To: nickcarraway

“Slight Differences,
That are Important!”
.
Somewhat contradictory.


10 posted on 03/16/2021 7:31:03 PM PDT by Big Red Badger (Be Still and Know that I Am God. Rev 19)
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To: Terry L Smith

It had to have been a typo. As I recall, the caves themselves were created to hide the scrolls.


11 posted on 03/16/2021 7:38:49 PM PDT by Dogbert41 (Proud member of the Poor Boy Gang. )
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To: nickcarraway
Send this to every Congressman who validated the election, and former VP Pence. There is a judgment coming.

Zechariah 8:16-17

"These are the things that you shall do: Speak the truth to one another; render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace; do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord ."

Nahum 1:5-6

"The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it. Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him.

12 posted on 03/16/2021 7:52:53 PM PDT by Salvavida
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To: Salvavida

“Send this to every Congressman who validated the election, and former VP Pence. “
_________________________________

Posted it to Public on my FB page.

Haven’t been in FB Jail, yet.

Of course, they could be Shadow Boxing me.


13 posted on 03/16/2021 8:06:42 PM PDT by Notthereyet (We're so angry we can spit pea pellets at a tree and drill the dang tree. )
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To: Salvavida

Thanks for posting the scripture verses.


14 posted on 03/16/2021 8:14:46 PM PDT by Perseverando (Antifa, BLM, RINO's, Islamonazis, Statists, Communists, DemoKKKrats: It's a Godlessness disorder!)
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To: frank ballenger

The Dead Sea Scrolls are like poison to those who hate God.

Confirmatory evidence of the reliability of the Bible.

Too late for them, whatever was lost doesn’t matter. We have the evidence.


15 posted on 03/16/2021 8:56:24 PM PDT by reasonisfaith (What are the implications if the Resurrection of Christ is a true event in history?)
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To: Rurudyne

Tom Holland research indicating that Muhammad was a fictional character created in the 8th century makes a lot of sense.


16 posted on 03/16/2021 9:33:52 PM PDT by Cronos
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To: Big Red Badger
“Slight Differences, That are Important!”

Somewhat contradictory.

Not at all. When dealing with passage of the Bible, even a slight variance - the omission or addition of even only a single word, sometimes - could significantly change the meaning.

This is, after all, the Bible we are talking about here!

Regards,

17 posted on 03/17/2021 12:40:56 AM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Cronos

Maybe.

Another option is that the original “Mecca” was actually Petra. Early prayer walls in mosques point towards Petra (not Jerusalem) and that city better matches the descriptions given for “Mecca”.


18 posted on 03/17/2021 7:15:07 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: rdl6989; nickcarraway
Thanks rdl6989.

19 posted on 03/17/2021 7:54:14 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary menagerie.)
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To: Rurudyne

Have you read that theory by Tom Holland? To me it sounds highly plausible that Mohammad never existed.

that word is a title not a name - a title meaning “praise worthy one”

And there is no mention of Mo or Islam during the Ummayyad Caliphate.


20 posted on 03/17/2021 8:24:26 AM PDT by Cronos
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