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Qumran
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · Qumran Caves

Qumran

The Dead Sea Scrolls · West Bank

In 1947 a Bedouin shepherd threw a stone into a cave above the Dead Sea and heard pottery break. Inside were jars with scrolls hidden about 2,000 years ago, probably by a Jewish community that lived here. In the following years some 900 manuscripts were found in eleven caves, including parts of almost every book of the Hebrew Bible. Today you can walk through the excavated settlement and look up at the caves; the scrolls themselves are kept in the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.

Did you know?

The scrolls include the oldest known Bible manuscripts, about 1,000 years older than any copy known before.

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An inspiring story

A stone in a cave

What if the greatest find of your life happens by accident?

In the winter of 1946–47 a young Bedouin shepherd was looking for a lost goat in the cliffs by the Dead Sea. He threw a stone into a cave and heard something break. Inside were clay jars with ancient scrolls. One of them was the whole book of Isaiah, about a thousand years older than any Hebrew copy known until then. Why did it matter so much? Because when scholars compared it, the text was almost word for word the same: carefully copied for a thousand years.

A shepherd, a goat and a stone. Sometimes God's word turns up where nobody is looking.

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures for ever.Isaiah 40:8

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