981. Muhammed ed Dib was tending goats in the spring of 1947, while the British still controlled Palestine. In the arid hills that surround the northern Dead Sea shore, the young goatherder dropped a stone into a cave and heard it hit something. Investigating further, he found clay pots filled with scrolls and scraps of old leather covered in mysterious writing. His accidental find was the beginning of one of the most momentous and controversial discoveries in history-the "Dead Sea Scrolls."
982. Muhammed's find launched a wider search of the surrounding area, called Qumran, approximately ten miles south of Jericho, on a plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. Over the years many more scrolls and remnants of scrolls were uncovered. It was soon clear that these ancient scrolls included some of the oldest known texts of the Hebrew Bible ever found.
983. More than two hundred Biblical documents have been found, some almost complete, written in both Hebrew and Aramaic-a Syrian language closely related to Hebrew, and the language spoken by Jesus. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain at least a portion of every book of the Hebrew Bible, except the Book of Esther.
984. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls is a complete "Book" of Isaiah, composed of seventeen separate pieces of leather stitched together to form a roll nearly twenty-five feet long. Sophisticated dating techniques have proved that some of these scrolls were written nearly three hundred years before Jesus was born. Others came From Jesus' own lifetime.
985. Copper scrolls were also discovered in the Dead Sea caves at Qumran, describing a treasure-twenty-six tons of gold and sixty-five tons of silver-hidden at sixty-four locations throughout Israel. Most scholars believe the treasure is a hoax or myth, although others hold that the treasure was indeed taken from the Temple and hidden before the Roman legions arrived in A.D. 70. It is very rare to find a Hebrew text on thinly beaten sheets of copper such as these.
