zam@athena.mit.edu (Nor Aazizam Mohd Aasif) (05/17/91)
I am interested in knowing more about the dead sea scroll. I
know that some people do not believe that such a thing exist, but I
would still like to know whether there are indeed serious efforts to
find this stuff by certain religious minded people. If so, some
information on such an effort is highly appreciated.
Please reply via e-mail. Thanks in advance.
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[I think you're confusing this with something else. I've never heard
of anyone denying that the Dead Sea scrolls exist. A number of
scholars are studying them, and many of the contents have been
published. There are some debates about the exact nature of the
community that wrote them, i.e. whether they are really Essenes or
something slightly different. The primary significance of the scrolls
is in helping us understand the nature of Judaism around the time of
Jesus. I don't know of anyone who is proposing to revive the religion
described there, so I'm not sure that they would have any direct
religious significance. The other major 20th Cent. find, the Nag
Hammadi documents, are slightly more relevant from a religious point
of view, since there are 20th Cent. people whose views are related to
Gnostism, and some might consider at least some of those documents to
be religiously interesting. However again their primary use is in
helping historians understand the religious surrounding in which the
early Church grew up. I'm not an expert in the Dead Sea scrolls, so
probably another or our readers can suggest something for you to read.
There are a number of books containing extracts from them. Any
reasonable library should have some. --clh]