The Encyclopedia of World Religions

death and religion S 113

old Arab boy named Muhammad adh-Dhib acci dentally made one of the greatest discoveries in modern archaeology. Accounts of what happened vary. According to one account, he was taking shel ter from a thunderstorm. According to another, he was looking for a lost goat. In any case, he entered a cave in the Wadi Qumran, northwest of the Dead Sea. There he found jars containing scrolls from about the time of J ESUS . During the next 20 years scholars and Bedouin found ancient manuscripts hidden in 11 different caves at Qumran. These manuscripts are what many scholars mean by the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were written between the third century B . C . E . and 68 C . E . Originally, they belonged to the library of a monastic-type community located below the caves. Some people take a more inclusive view of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They use the term to designate ancient manuscripts discovered not only at Qum ran but also in the entire Dead Sea region. Accord ing to this view, the Dead Sea Scrolls were written over a longer period of time. The oldest scrolls in the entire region were hidden by S AMARITANS when Alexander the Great conquered the region around 331 B . C . E . The most recent manuscripts in the entire region date from the time of the revolt of Bar Kokhba against Roman rule (132–135 C . E .) The Dead Sea Scrolls are extremely important. They provide at least fragments of almost every book of the Hebrew B IBLE (Old Testament). These fragments—sometimes complete books—are cen turies older than any other surviving copies. They allow us to see what the books of the Bible were like 2,000 years ago and how they grew into their present forms. For example, some scholars have identified what they see as ancestors of three dif ferent versions of the Bible, all equally ancient. The three are the version used by the Samaritans; the Greek version, known as the Septuagint, that the earliest Christians used; and the “Masoretic text,” that is, the Hebrew Bible that we know today. The Dead Sea Scrolls are important for another reason, too. They provide new insight into the reli gious world of ancient Palestine between the Has monean revolt (167–164 B . C . E .) and the so-called Jewish Wars (66–74 C . E .). This was the time when

J UDAISM as we know it, rabbinical Judaism, was just beginning. It is also the time when Jesus lived. The scrolls tell us much about the community at Qumran. Many scholars think it was a commu nity of E SSENES . One scroll contains the rules for the community. Its members followed a rigid dis cipline designed to ensure purity. Another scroll, called “The War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness,” describes a great battle at the end of time. Apparently, the community expected that the final battle between G OD and the forces of evil would take place in the very near future. It was also waiting for two messiahs: a son of D AVID to rule politically, and a son of A ARON to take charge of religious RITUALS . Neither rabbinical Judaism nor C HRISTIANITY came directly from the Qumran community. Nev ertheless, the scrolls allow us to see some of the variety of religious beliefs and practices that were current when both of them began. Further reading: James H. Charlesworth, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1992); Robert Eisenman, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians (Boston: Element Books, 1996); Florintino Martinez and Julio Barrera, The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 1995); Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York: Penguin, 2004). death and religion Religious concepts and practices in relation to death and dying. It would be hard to imagine a religion truly indifferent to death, the end of an individual human life as we knew it in this world. That is because religion tries to look at life from the largest possible perspective, in the light of that which is ultimate. It is death that forces people to look at their own lives in that way. Knowing that one has only so much time in this world means one must make choices and must choose the values on which to base those choices. Knowing that many religions say there is more to life than just the present short span on Earth, one wants to know what the rest of it is and how it relates to here and now.