The Dead Sea Scrolls

In 1947, Bedouin shepherds discovered ancient manuscripts hidden in caves near the Dead Sea. Among them were copies of books from the Hebrew Bible written roughly a thousand years earlier than the oldest complete Hebrew biblical manuscripts previously available to modern scholars.

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What the story covers

1. In 1947, Bedouin shepherds discovered ancient manuscripts hidden in caves near the Dead Sea.
2. THEY HAD BEEN SITTING THERE FOR NEARLY 2,000 YEARS
3. THEY CONTAINED BOOKS FROM THE BIBLE
4. THEN SCHOLARS COMPARED THEM TO LATER BIBLES
5. MUCH OF THE TEXT WAS REMARKABLY SIMILAR
6. BUT THE BIBLE WASN’T LITERALLY “NEVER CHANGED”
7. THAT’S WHAT MAKES THE DISCOVERY SO IMPORTANT
8. What they do provide is something extraordinary: physical manuscripts allowing us to compare biblical texts separated by roughly 1,000 years and see both how much was preserved and exactly where variations occurred.
9. WHY THE SCROLLS UNSETTLED EVERYONE

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