25 New 'Dead Sea Scrolls' Revealed

There is a chance these are forgeries, if not it is very interesting, including those in private ownership.

I'm not well educated on the dead sea scrolls other than common knowledge, so i will leave it all up to you to discus.


SOURCE

More than 25 previously unpublished "Dead Sea Scroll" fragments, dating back 2,000 years and holding text from the Hebrew Bible, have been brought to light, their contents detailed in two new books.

The various scroll fragments record parts of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Samuel, Ruth, Kings, Micah, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Joshua, Judges, Proverbs, Numbers, Psalms, Ezekiel and Jonah.

The Qumran caves ― where the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered ― had yet to yield any fragments from the Book of Nehemiah; if this newly revealed fragment is authenticated it would be the first.

Scholars have expressed concerns that some of the fragments are forgeries.

originally posted by: Mianeye
There is a chance these are forgeries, if not it is very interesting, including those in private ownership.

I'm not well educated on the dead sea scrolls other than common knowledge, so i will leave it all up to you to discus.


SOURCE

More than 25 previously unpublished "Dead Sea Scroll" fragments, dating back 2,000 years and holding text from the Hebrew Bible, have been brought to light, their contents detailed in two new books.

The various scroll fragments record parts of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Samuel, Ruth, Kings, Micah, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Joshua, Judges, Proverbs, Numbers, Psalms, Ezekiel and Jonah.

The Qumran caves ― where the Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered ― had yet to yield any fragments from the Book of Nehemiah; if this newly revealed fragment is authenticated it would be the first.

Scholars have expressed concerns that some of the fragments are forgeries.

Will have to read up on this...yet another cool bit of news from you today...

If authentic, it will be interesting to see if they reveal anything new.

a reply to: Mianeye

Scholars have expressed concerns that some of the fragments are forgeries.

Which males the Hebrew Bible suspect as well.

(Oh, Snap)

Have we ever wondered how the "Bible" is reinforced this way? Discoveries of ancient texts that 'agree' with the modern ones?

I heard once that the dead sea scrolls on display in Jerusalem are replicas, the real ones are kept under lock and key in the basement.

a reply to: intrptr

I assumed forgeries meant they were not authentic 2,500 year old documents, but fakes. Not that they were forgeries someone made 2,500 years ago. Can anyone confirm?

originally posted by: intrptr


I heard once that the dead sea scrolls on display in Jerusalem are replicas, the real ones are kept under lock and key in the basement.

This link is supposed to be pictures of the scrolls already held,
www.deadseascrolls.org.il...

What looks* different is that the writing in these new fragments is consistently below the line, whereas the ones already found have the writing consistanly to the line.
*I only remark on that from a visual point of view, I know nothing about the content, or if these fragments have been tested and dated.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
a reply to: intrptr

I assumed forgeries meant they were not authentic 2,500 year old documents, but fakes. Not that they were forgeries someone made 2,500 years ago. Can anyone confirm?

Correct, forgeries made now, not forgeries made back then. Scribes were rare.

(portion redacted)

a reply to: Mianeye

They were probably printed up last week.

a reply to: intrptr

An authentic scroll that did not match the current Bible would be pretty big news. Granted with all the translations that have occurred it's usually not a black & white matter.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
a reply to: intrptr

An authentic scroll that did not match the current Bible would be pretty big news. Granted with all the translations that have occurred it's usually not a black & white matter.

The selections for the books of the Bible were chosen by the Kings men in the dark ages from a room filled with texts. Thats why it was called "King James Version".

We do have the lost books of the Bible, Josepheus, other oracles, all discounted by organized religion because theres only one god and one truth, blah, blah.

a reply to: smurfy

I don't know what the forensics were to conclude they are fake. I presume they are, history is always jaded, written by the victors. Ever wonder why most of the books of the first testament are all the same story? A story that precedes the bible as other cultures from antiquity have similar tales of floods and saviors?

originally posted by: jjkenobi
a reply to: intrptr

An authentic scroll that did not match the current Bible would be pretty big news. Granted with all the translations that have occurred it's usually not a black & white matter.

Answering twice. Where people stood and died isn't as important as what they said. I agree, historical records are diluted.

Sort of like the search today for the record of Hillarys emails. The important thing seems to be who hacked and who leaked the emails, instead of what they say. The truth getting buried under a ton of distraction.

The cool thing about figuring out what the message form the past is that each of us has a conduit to the truth through our soul. The trick is to find how these guys knew what to write down about how to behave towards each other, that kind of thing.

We all have an antenna to heaven as it were, to access the wisdom of the ages.

a reply to: jjkenobi
An authentic scroll that didn't match the Bible would not be released. It would be accidentally destroyed in a fire or flood, of course "before" it could be translated.
As for fakes, the world gets regular announcements of artifacts "corroborating" the bible as the biblical scholars like to try and prove it's genuine. There are quite a few that scour the supposed biblical area for evidence yet as far as I know they have NOT found any concrete evidence to prove anything.
So to use the Dead Sea scrolls as evidence is like using the bible as evidence it's just writing.
How many novels have you read that used actual place names? But this does not make the novels story true. Or, a prime example, where is Bethlehem? There has NEVER been a town with a sign saying Bethlehem. So how do they come to the conclusion that this town is Bethlehem? Because it fits the archaeologists narrative, it fits their idea of where Bethlehem should be. Doesn't mean that it's correct. Just that they use the line of "we are the archaeologists, you are just an ordinary person, we know what we are talking about, you don't".

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: jjkenobi
a reply to: intrptr

An authentic scroll that did not match the current Bible would be pretty big news. Granted with all the translations that have occurred it's usually not a black & white matter.

The selections for the books of the Bible were chosen by the Kings men in the dark ages from a room filled with texts. Thats why it was called "King James Version".

We do have the lost books of the Bible, Josepheus, other oracles, all discounted by organized religion because theres only one god and one truth, blah, blah.

Not to be that guy, but biblical canon was established primarily at the Council of Laodicea in the late 4th Century, 363-364 CE. The King James Version is "special" because it was, while not the first bible translated into English,it is the one in use for the longest period of time after Henry VIII decided to create his own church, competing with that of Rome while most of Europe was still using an exclusively Latin text for their bibles. The KJV is actually the 3rd English translation and was done to address earlier errors and flaws perceived by the Puritans in the 1st one commissioned by Henry VIII(1535) and the 2nd one, the "Bishops Bible" Commissioned in 1568. The KJV was commissioned in 1604, completed 1611 and in use for 405 years straight.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
a reply to: intrptr

An authentic scroll that did not match the current Bible would be pretty big news. Granted with all the translations that have occurred it's usually not a black & white matter.

Not really. There are lots of scrolls of the Gnostic faith and other exocanonical material out there that have been published. And there are a number of scrolls of Bible chapters and books that differ from the standard version read in modern churches. They've always been available to scholars (and everyone else if you knew where to look - the problem is that you have to be able to read ancient Hebrew and Aramaic)- if you check Wikipedia on the books of the Bible, you'll see them frequently mentioned.

originally posted by: crayzeed
a reply to: jjkenobi
Or, a prime example, where is Bethlehem? There has NEVER been a town with a sign saying Bethlehem. So how do they come to the conclusion that this town is Bethlehem? Because it fits the archaeologists narrative, it fits their idea of where Bethlehem should be. Doesn't mean that it's correct. Just that they use the line of "we are the archaeologists, you are just an ordinary person, we know what we are talking about, you don't".

How about the one that was called Bethlehem in 1400 BC and has been continuously inhabited from that time until now? The one that's been a constant site of pilgrimages since 300 AD or so? It's been sacked a number of times but was continuously inhabited.

a reply to: Byrd
Dang it Byrd you beat me to,
The Bethlehem that is mentioned in the Amarna letters.

But , Bryd , about 25 years ago I read a book about the scrolls , can't remember who the author was , a historian of some sort. He might have been attached to the Getty museum.
Anyhoo, he had access to scrolls, who's text have never been made public. One of the things he said was, there are stories in the scrolls that show that the Jesus of the new testament is a composite character composed of 3 or 4 different messianic individuals who lived at different times from 200 bc to Jesus' life time.

originally posted by: punkinworks10
a reply to: Byrd
Dang it Byrd you beat me to,
The Bethlehem that is mentioned in the Amarna letters.

But , Bryd , about 25 years ago I read a book about the scrolls , can't remember who the author was , a historian of some sort. He might have been attached to the Getty museum.
Anyhoo, he had access to scrolls, who's text have never been made public. One of the things he said was, there are stories in the scrolls that show that the Jesus of the new testament is a composite character composed of 3 or 4 different messianic individuals who lived at different times from 200 bc to Jesus' life time.

I think the reason that the texts had not been made public was that they were still being translated. I remember reading quite some time ago about the gospels/material where Jesus had a wife and the ones where he's quite the uncivil little brat as a child.

The thing is, the presence of these documents won't really change religion. We've known for some time that the Bible is not inerrant and yet Christianity hasn't crumbled simply because religion is not the same thing as science. In science, the Bible would have been discarded (much like Budge for Egyptology) and used only as a historical reference of "they believed this back then." Religion does not operate that way.

I think you could find a thousand rock solid proofs (and time machine travel) to show Jesus was a wandering itinerant preacher who was fully human and Christianity would simply embrace that and tweak things slightly...but in the end it would remain relatively unchanged.

originally posted by: Byrd


I think the reason that the texts had not been made public was that they were still being translated. I remember reading quite some time ago about the gospels/material where Jesus had a wife and the ones where he's quite the uncivil little brat as a child.

This is exactly what happened. In the 50's the longer scrolls with the most complete/intact text was translated and published first simply because of the ease of translating them. There was a huge uproar in the late 80's over the remaining unpublished text and its lack of availability to other scholars until the Israeli govt.and the IAA got involved and created the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation which finally published all currently available(in 1991) translations by the end of '91. That didn't stop people like Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who also were co-authors on the DaVinci Code's inspiration, 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' from publishing a religious conspiracy book about the Dead Sea scrolls and "why they really weren't publishing them". It's pretty moot at this point as everything has been translated and published as of 2009

originally posted by: peter vlar

originally posted by: Byrd


I think the reason that the texts had not been made public was that they were still being translated. I remember reading quite some time ago about the gospels/material where Jesus had a wife and the ones where he's quite the uncivil little brat as a child.

This is exactly what happened. In the 50's the longer scrolls with the most complete/intact text was translated and published first simply because of the ease of translating them. There was a huge uproar in the late 80's over the remaining unpublished text and its lack of availability to other scholars until the Israeli govt.and the IAA got involved and created the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation which finally published all currently available(in 1991) translations by the end of '91. That didn't stop people like Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who also were co-authors on the DaVinci Code's inspiration, 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' from publishing a religious conspiracy book about the Dead Sea scrolls and "why they really weren't publishing them". It's pretty moot at this point as everything has been translated and published as of 2009

Thanks for the clarification, Peter! I only vaguely remember those events since I wasn't involved in anthropology or Egyptology at the time. I remember reading some of those texts, though they didn't hold my interest for long.