Friday, February 27, 2009

The Dead Sea scrolls

By Dana Evron

People all over the world find this lake to be fascinating. It is the lowest point in the world and it is minus 395 meters below sea level. The Dead Sea has no outlet and therefore evaporation leads to the high content of the salt.

Many tourists that hear about the Dead Sea wonder what it is all about. The Dead Sea is extremely deep, it is about 1000 feet.

The dead sea scrolls are very famous due to the fact that they were written in several languages and they were also discovers in eleven caves back in 1947.

There are several museums that display parts of the Dead Sea scrolls like the Jewish museum in New York City, and the royal Ontario museum of Toronto. The Dead Sea scrolls can be divided into two categories: biblical and non biblical. The scrolls are also the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts that were ever found.

Since the scrolls are mainly written in Hebrew they have greatly enhanced our knowledge about that language. The scrolls contain never heard stories about biblical figures like Enoch, Abraham, and Noah. They were mainly made from animals skin and written from right to left.

Many believe that the Dead Sea scrolls are a link between Christianity and Judaism. The discovering of the Dead Sea scrolls has truly revolutionized our understanding on how the bible was translated.

Ever since the scrolls were discovered somewhere between the year 1947 and 1956 many books have been published about the scrolls. Some of them also offer a translation of the famous scrolls.

Jewish history contains a long list of documents that are important to the Jewish tradition. Among those documents are the Dead Sea Scrolls that were discovered somewhere between 1947 and 1956. - 15995

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