The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

2 DISCOVERY AND CHALLENGE TO BIBLICAL STUDIES
knew about a cave that he found, but Jordanian soldiers shot at him and
drove him away. That date would have to be before 1966, and he never
went back. He even took me to the cave, and I found first-century pottery
shards on the surface. To my knowledge, it has never been fully excavated
by scholars. It is near Ain Feshka, where the Qumranites most likely kept
their flocks by its spring and freshwater pools, only a short distance south
of Qumran. Numerous Qumran specialists in Jerusalem are convinced that
this old suntanned Arab is Muhammed Ed-Dib. I wonder, did I meet him
in July 1997, or is the name Muhammed Ed-Dib simply a generic way
some Arabs refer to those who found scrolls in caves near Qumran? Such
thoughts leave us pondering the subjunctive in historiography and the accidental
behind the lucky acquisition of some realia and writings.
If we cannot reconstruct one event that happened merely fifty years
ago, in the lifetime of many of us, how can we expect again to construct
conceptually a whole world that existed two thousand years ago? It is difficult
and precarious to piece together leftover data in the attempt to
reconstruct pre-70 phenomena in the Holy Land. Yet, virtually all of us
agree that understanding our Scriptures presupposes comprehending
texts within contexts. Otherwise, the texts might remain meaningless.
A sacred text without the benefit of historiography may be re-created
subjectively according to the whims of a Davidian, of a member of the
group that wanted a gateway to heaven, or of a distinguished professor in
a celebrated institution of higher learning. No object—not even a scroll—
comes already interpreted. To understand the Qumran Scrolls demands
training in Qumranology: the philology, historiography, and theologies
represented by these hundreds of texts. The expertise of the scholar must
be in the historical area being considered. Erudition must be supplemented
with perspicacity. History finally begins to emerge for comprehension
when such focused research is enriched by informed historical imagination.
These caveats help set the focus of this introductory chapter. I do not
propose to present a putative consensus regarding “the Dead Sea Scrolls,”
which is the name that has become popular to describe the hundreds of
scrolls found to the west of the northwestern end of the Dead Sea in
eleven caves, beginning with Cave 1 in 1947. To declare that there might
be a consensus could be disastrous: First, it might not be judged accurate
and thus stir up a proverbial hornet’s nest among the esteemed colleagues
contributing to this collection. Second, if the assessment of a consensus
were precise and accurate, it might not be productive but merely encourage
some scholars to gain notoriety by seeking to disprove parts of it.
Is a consensus on Qumran issues impossible? In my judgment there is
more consensus and agreement on all the basic issues in the field of