The find of a cave containing jars filled with manuscripts caused sensation throughout the world. It was spring 1947 when a group of Bedouin goat herders were searching the coast of the Dead Sea searching for a goat. Even to this day it continues to cause a fascination within the scholarly community.
The Scholars first learned of the scrolls in 1948 when seven of the scrolls were sold by a Bedouin to a cobbler a Kando an antiques dealer. Eleazer L. Sukenik later bought three scrolls of Kando, Eleazer came from the Hebrew University. Mar Athanasius Yeshu Samuel from the Syrian Orthodox monastery of St. Mark, obtained four scrolls later taking them to the American school of Oriental Research. The scrolls stole the attentions of the American and European Scholars.
The site was finally identified in 1949 as the Qumran Cave. From here massive excavating and exploration projects took place in the Khirbet Qumran area leading to more and more research.
Qumran cave (cave 1) uncovered much wood, cloth and even pottery as well as numerous amounts of manuscripts. From here between the years of 1949 and 1956 a respectful ten more caves were found located in the Qumran Hills. Within the caves were more scrolls and it was estimated that 800 manuscripts were uncovered dating right back to 200 B.C.E. The manuscripts were a treasure of information revealing early scripts of the biblical books in the form of hymns, Aramaic and even Hebrew. They also revealed that Jewish groups inhibited the Qumran area, finding scripts also written in that of pseudepigrapha or easily known to us a Jewish Writing.
The authors of these scripts were connected to and if not the priests. However it is still very unclear who the authors were. We do know however that these authors strongly disagreed with the Jerusalem priesthood. It was also expected for a confrontation set between the powers of good and evil.
These scripts have given us a power of information teaching us of the development of early Judaism and Christianity culture.
