UNROLLING HISTORY THE TEXTS FROM QUMRAN & THEIR SIGNIFICANCE
Archaeologists have called the Dead Sea Scrolls the greatest discovery of the twentieth century. Of course, there are other claimants to this title, but the scrolls found near the Qumran ruin certainly are extremely important. We're talking about thousands of parchment scraps, belonging to some 950 scrolls. Tocompare: the text of Herodotus’ Histories can be written on nine scrolls.
Publication of so much material took until 2009. One of the consequences of the delay was that all sorts of conspiracy theories started to circulate. There were Chinese living in Qumran! The Vatican, that obvious culprit in every conspiracy theory, was hiding evidence about the life of Jesus! Actually, there was nothing suspicious, just 950 mixed jigsaw puzzles with thousands of pieces.
However, it is not just the sheer quantity that makes the discovery important, it is also the subject matter. The Dead Sea Scrolls document the world in which Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism originated. Somewhat more precisely, they show religious life in Judaea between roughly 200 BC and AD 70. What makes the discovery even more special is that, close to the caves in which these texts were
