A Qumran cave

The letter “Q” is currently getting a lot of bad publicity in the daily mainstream news feeds. I’d like to change that by reminding everyone that the most famous “Q” in the world represents Qumran, home to the the Essenes and the Dead Sea scrolls.

Discovered in 1946/47–1956, the Dead Sea Scrolls (also known as the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish religious manuscripts that were found in the Qumran Caves in the Judaean Desert, near the Dead Sea in the West Bank.

Believed by most scholars to date from the last three centuries BCE, the texts have great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the second-oldest known surviving manuscripts of works later included in the Hebrew Bible.

Fragment of the Damascus Document

Like to learn more? Visit our friends at the Lanier Theological Library in Houston to see in person their original dead sea scroll fragment (not a facsimile), as well as an original Qumran Scrolls Jar on display.

 

NOTES AND CREDITS

Photo Credit: Photos of the Caves at Qumran and the Damascus Document Scroll fragment are in public domain and used with kind permission via this Creative Commons License.