Dead Sea Scrolls

Introduction

It was in a cave to the west of the Dead Sea, near certain ruins known as Khirbet Qumran, that the Bedouin discovered the first manuscripts in 1947. They were scrolls, more or less complete, carefully wrapped in linen and preserved in jars. They comprised biblical texts in Hebrew -- two scrolls of Isaias, one complete, the other incomplete; writings hitherto unknown, which were quickly labeled "Sectarian" -- a Commentary or "Mid- rash" on the first two chapters of Habacuc, the "War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness," a collection of thirty-five hymns or "Thanksgiving ...