The Qumran Complex

Within a short time after the original announcements of the discovery of the scrolls, worldwide scholarly interest in them began to grow. The first archaeological excavation of Cave 1 was carried out between February and March 1949 by G. Lankester Harding,

Some of the scrolls were discovered in jars like this one, which was found at Qumrun. (Photograph by David Hawkinson, courtesy the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Brigham Young University, Museum of Art)

Director of the Department of Antiquities of the Kingdom of Jordan, and Father Roland de Vaux, distinguished biblical scholar, archaeologist, and Director of the Ecole Biblique (a degree-granting French Dominican school in Jerusalem). Artifacts and fragments of seventy-two additional manuscripts were uncovered. These fragments have also been published, bringing to seventy-nine the total number of texts from Cave 1 that have been found and analyzed.9

Scholars working on the site initially thought that ruins about a half mile to the south of the cave were part of an old Roman fort that had no connection to the manuscripts. But in the early 1950s, scholarly debate grew more intense, prompting a decision by archaeologists to conduct a full-scale excavation of the area and rethink their conclusions.

Between 1951 and 1956, Khirbet Qumran was excavated and partially restored. Father de Vaux was able to discern that the Qumran complex had been built around 150 b.c. and was inhabited until a.d. 68. He believed that a thirty-one-year gap in occupation occurred immediately following the great Near Eastern earthquake of 31 b.c. The community was apparently attacked and destroyed about a.d. 68 by Roman soldiers who came to Palestine to put down the First Jewish Revolt (a.d. 66–74). Soldiers were garrisoned there well past the fall of Masada in a.d. 74.

The Qumran complex appears to have been the religious center for a communal society of Jews living in the area. Archaeological evidence indicates that the people actually lived outside the building complex in tents, huts, or, most likely, the more than two hundred caves and underground chambers in the hills west of the complex. The complex was built of stone and included a seventy-five-foot-long refectory, or dining hall, used for meals and assembly. Excavation of an adjoining pantry yielded over one thousand bowls, plates, beakers, and assorted other vessels.10

The most distinctive feature of the Qumran complex is its gravity-flow aqueduct system, which brought water from the nearby cliffs and was interconnected to a series of cisterns, ritual baths, and a decantation pool. This was an exceptional hydrological engineering feat, and such emphasis on fresh water was more than just a reaction to the desert environment. The members of the community had to purify themselves by bathing in fresh water before entering the "holy temple" (sacred area) of the refectory to partake of the communal meal.11

Also of special interest at Qumran are the remains of a chamber some scholars labeled the Scriptorium, or "writing room." According to the theory first proposed by de Vaux, here the community scribes copied many of the scrolls that were later found in the nearby caves. He reached his conclusion on the basis of inkwells found there as well as installations he thought were desks. An alternate theory that has gained adherents is championed by a Belgian team of archaeologists, Robert Donceel and his wife, Pauline Donceel-Voûte, hired by the Ecole Biblique to complete the unfinished final excavation report of de Vaux. Based on the conclusions of earlier scholars who disagreed with de Vaux regarding the existence of a Scriptorium, the Donceels interpret the evidence as pointing to the existence of a coenaculum or a triclinium—another dining room (de Vaux had already found the large refectory) to be used for a small number of guests who took their meals in typical Hellenistic fashion, reclining on couches. Others have even suggested more recently that Qumran was "but a customs post, entrepôt for goods and a resting stop for travelers crossing the Salt Sea."12

De Vaux’s idea that writing desks existed at Qumran has now been abandoned by some scholars because there is no evidence that ancient writers of the period used desks. De Vaux himself was aware of this, but the discovery of inkwells at Locus 30 (the site of de Vaux’s proposed Scriptorium) is problematic in any interpretation that attempts to posit a triclinium there. The former curator of the Shrine of the Book and expert on the Qumran site, Magen Broshi, says that in the final analysis, there is "a high probability the room was a Scriptorium."13 The assertion that Qumran was not a religious settlement that produced the documents found in nearby caves also becomes very tenuous when considered in light of evidence uncovered in 1992. Professor Shemaryahu Talmon of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem explains:

The connection of the caves with the ancient settlement was conclusively proven in the winter of 1992. Exceptionally heavy rainfalls eroded a sand wall on the site and laid bare a completely preserved, albeit empty, earthenware jar of exactly the same make as the intact jar found in Cave 1 which had served as the receptacle of the four scrolls.14 

After excavating the Qumran complex of buildings, archaeologists turned their attention to locating more caves and more scrolls. It was the Ta>amireh Bedouin, however, who proved to be more adept at making new discoveries. Between 1952 and 1956, ten more caves containing manuscripts were found at Qumran, making eleven caves in all that yielded texts. The Bedouin are credited with having discovered the richest repositories of documents—Caves 1, 2, 4, and 11, while professional archaeologists located Caves 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 10—none of which contained impressive numbers of manuscripts.15 To date, the total number of separate documents recovered from all eleven caves is 818.16

The Bedouin also discovered some manuscript fragments in caves in the remote Wadi Murabba<at region, about twelve miles south of Qumran, and in the Nahal Hever caves, which lie just past Ein Gedi. These fragments include a variety of papyrus and sheepskin documents dating from the second century a.d., as well as coins from the Second Jewish, or Bar Kokhba, Revolt (a.d. 132–35). There were also biblical manuscripts closely related to the Masoretic Text of the Old Testament (the text type from which our King James Version was translated in the early seventeenth century). The two most important documents found were a fragmentary copy of the Hebrew text of ten of the minor prophets (Joel through Zechariah), and a fragmentary copy of the Greek translation of six of the minor prophets.17 More significant from a historical point of view was the discovery of original letters from Simeon ben Kosiba (nicknamed Bar Kokhba), the actual leader of the Second Jewish Revolt. These letters lent a dramatic air to the finds.18 

The overall importance of the manuscripts and artifacts found in the region south of Qumran is twofold. First, they show that many refugees fled from Roman troops who occupied the area. Second, they bear witness to the "trilingualism that prevailed at this time in Judea, showing that Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew were all being used by the people who took refuge in these caves from the Romans."19

The greatest treasure trove of documents in the entire Dead Sea region came from Qumran Cave 4, a bell-shaped underground dwelling artificially enlarged by community dwellers that was situated closest to the Qumran buildings. Of the fragments of 584 manuscripts recovered from Cave 4 (literally 40,000 separate scraps or pieces20 ), 127 appear to be biblical texts. Every book of the Old Testament except Esther is represented. In addition, two other categories of documents were found: those that are called apocryphal or pseudepigraphical texts, and those that may be termed "indigenous" documents (sometimes called sectarian documents), which are scripturelike texts used primarily or exclusively at Qumran.

The indigenous documents are of special importance because, when put with the documents from Cave 1, they show the nature of the Qumran covenanters’ conceptual universe and the socioreligious structure of their community. These documents (what Professor Shemaryahu Talmon calls the "Foundation Documents"21 ) help define the unique nature and outlook of the Qumran community. On the other hand, the apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books found at Qumran are interesting, but are not as helpful for understanding what is different about the people of Qumran because they have been found in other places. They bear such titles as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Tobit, Jubilees, and 1 Enoch, and were known in normative or Pharisaic Judaism of the first centuries b.c. and a.d., though generally they were not highly regarded. Some early Christians, however, used Greek and Ethiopic versions of these and other apocryphal books and included them in their biblical canon.

And I will consecrate my Temple by my glory, [the Temple] on which I will settle my glory, until the day of the blessing [or, the day of creation] on which I will create my Temple and establish it for myself for all times, according to the Covenant which I have made with Jacob at Bethel.22 

While Latter-day Saints might remember that President Marion G. Romney called the events at Bethel "Jacob’s endowment experience,"23 we have no indication that the Qumran community regarded this ideal future temple as anything more than an Aaronic priesthood structure, associated with the rites and rituals of the Mosaic Law in a pure and uncorrupted form. The Qumran community believed that the Jerusalem Temple was full of corruption.24 

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