Unveiling the Qumran Caves: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Secrets

Join Katy and L in this Wildly Curious episode as they dive into the Qumran Caves, home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the most significant finds in biblical archaeology. Discover the ancient Jewish sects, including the Essenes, who may have lived in these caves, and the remarkable manuscripts they left behind. From the Isaiah Scroll to the mysterious Copper Scroll—a treasure map etched in metal—the episode explores the religious, cultural, and historical significance of these 2,000-year-old artifacts. Whether you’re fascinated by ancient history, archaeological treasures, or the mysteries of the past, this episode is packed with insights into the rich legacy of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Transcript

Laura: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Wildly Curious, a podcast where we tell you everything you need to know about nature and probably more than you wanted to know. I'm Laura.

Katy: And I'm Katy, and we are back with another Cave Chronicles. This is the third one that we've done. So the first week we talked about a methane cave, and then the cave of hell. Again, Laura and I both were like, who the heck? Again, who opened that hole? It is neat, but still, who opened that hole and was like, let's explore this?

No, no way. Um, and then the week after that, we did, uh, I talked about the Siberian unicorn, um,

Laura: a thing until now.

Katy: Yeah, I'm so happy that I, I found that one. So, Laura,

Laura: week, we're going biblical,

Katy: Ooh, okay.

Laura: alright, because I'm gonna talk about the Qumran caves, which is the Dead Sea Scrolls,

Katy: yes. Oh, this is a good one.

Laura: cause actually, like, doing the research on this, I was like, you know what, Lara? You don't actually know anything about the Dead Sea [00:01:00] Scrolls. Christian or not, Catholic or not, you don't really know anything about them

Katy: Yeah, you're like, I don't know

Laura: I notice it has something to do with the Bible. Like, it's way more than that. And

Katy: Yeah, oh yeah, oh

Laura: UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Katy: Here we go. You like those heritage

Laura: I do. Well, I mean, I guess if the world decides they're important, then I should know something about them.

Katy: Fair, fair.

Laura: It's like my, I'm trying to work my way through like 50 books to read before you die, like, literature. Okay, anyway. Um, so the Qumran caves are found in Palestine on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. Um, it was, this area was mostly occupied during the Greco Roman period of 150 BC to 68 AD. Um, so about a period of 200 years, of course.

occupation. There's still some debate of who occupied it, but majority of people think it was the, um, the Essenes, um, or Essenes, I'm not sure. Pardon my [00:02:00] pronunciation. Um, but this was a Jewish, uh, Jewish sect, like a monastic community of Jewish sect. And it was destroyed in 19, in 18, it was destroyed in 68 AD by the Romans. So the reason why this place got put on the map much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much later in 1947, the scrolls were discovered by a Palestinian shepherd named Muhammad al Feeb. Um, and they, these scrolls became known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. So here's a timeline for you because I thought this was kind of interesting.

So 1947, you know, we're just at the end of World War II. Israel didn't even become a nation until 1948. So this is pre Israel. that the scrolls are found.

Katy: Mm hmm.

Laura: And then it was excavated in 1949. So this whole area of the world is in some serious turmoil when this

Katy: Yeah, right?

Laura: Um, but

Katy: And then there's this poor shepherd dude who's like, I found something!

Laura: some papers.

Katy: Yeah.[00:03:00] 

Laura: Uh, and it was excavated in 1949 by an archaeologist, archaeologists from Jordan, the country, Palestine, and France. Um, so kind of like an interesting

Katy: Yeah, that's a weird combination.

Laura: And that, they, they excavated what they called Cave 1, which was the first one found, and there are 11 other caves that they explored over the next decade.

Um, There are also other caves in this area that also contained more scrolls. So the Dead Sea Scrolls are actually just a huge amalgam of things that are found in these caves in the area. I am only talking about the Qumran caves, which is where the first ones and the majority of them were found. But there are some other caves around the area that things were found at.

Um, so, what did they find? Scrolls, but actually before we go into that, the caves themselves, like, um, you know, a lot of us think about caves as being like deep down, like what I first talked about with

Katy: Mm hmm.

Laura: but the Qumran caves are not deep down. They're like [00:04:00] on, like, they're, they're above ground.

Well, they're on, they're on, like, cliffy ground. things, and they're dug into those. Um, but we're not

Katy: the, uh, like, yeah, if, if, for anybody who's listening to us, yeah, if, I was gonna say, for anybody who's listening to us in the United States, um, what is it, Mesa, Mesa Verde in Colorado? Yeah, where it's like the, it's like into the hillside

Laura: the rocks, but not necessarily underground where it's dark. Cause they wanted to, you know, this was a, this was a community. Um, so like I said, it's 11 caves that make up the Qumran caves. And the first one, so the scrolls that they found in there were made of multiple things. Leather, papyrus, and copper.

In the first cave, they found the Isaiah scroll, which is the rules of the community. Um, and it

Katy: Always good to have.

Laura: right? Might as well find the one with all the rules. Um, a scroll of thanksgiving hymns, um, a one called the war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness, or the war scroll, [00:05:00] and a commentary on Habakkuk.

Um, cave two contained only fragments. Cave 3 had the Copper Scroll, which is, and uh, which is a list of temple treasures and their hiding places. really convenient!

Katy: Yeah. Did they hunt that down?

Laura: A straight up treasure map. I mean, I assume. A treasure map.

Katy: All right, we're gonna have to go down that rabbit hole.

Laura: Cave 4 sheltered the main deposit of what many believed to have been an Essene library, which contained approximately 400 manuscripts.

I mean, most of them were in really bad condition.

Katy: hope this shepherd was compensated for his discovery.

Laura: I know the poor guy probably still herding sheep even after this. Um, they were mostly sectarian writings, which means, like, stuff that was very specific to this sect of Judaism.

Katy: Mm

Laura: Um, but it also contained 100 biblical texts covering the entire Hebrew Bible except for Esther.

So this

Katy: Dang. Yeah, this

Laura: [00:06:00] discovery that, like, put it on the map, at least for Christianity, not just Judaism. Um, and then Cave 11, Uh, also had some big ones. It had a large scroll with canonical, apocryphal, and unknown psalms. It had a copy of Leviticus dated to the 3rd century BCE, and it had a temple scroll which detailed the construction of the ideal temple of Jerusalem.

It, so again, importance. So why does any of this matter? This was the earliest manuscripts of our known Bible today, of the Hebrew Bible. So, this

Katy: Sorry, I'm still stuck on the treasure map, like

Laura: Yeah, I know, and I'm glad that

Katy: treasure map.

Laura: on copper so that it wouldn't just go away. Like, they were like, you know what, no, we need the treasures to be able to be found for a long time.

Katy: Yeah,

Laura: and I assume they're treasure within these caves. It was just

Katy: I don't know. I'm going down, I'm going down that rabbit hole.

Laura: who couldn't remember where they put [00:07:00] the things. So they just put it onto copper. They're like, I can't remember where I put the geese.

Katy: Yeah.

Laura: Um, so it had the earliest manuscripts of the Bible and it had tons of other historical documents.

And now also in my naive brain, I was thinking, you know, like they found scrolls and yes, they did find some intact scrolls, but that was certainly not. The majority. The majority of scrolls, like, if you look it up, it's just fragments. Like, they have been putting these pieces of the puzzle together for decades, because it is literally, like, little tiny scraps of paper that they're just trying to find the right fit for, which sounds

Katy: take it into nurse, right?

Laura: do not like building puzzles.

Katy: that's what I was gonna say. Just take it around to all the best nursing homes in the world. And just have them, yeah.

Laura: thankfully, we can, like, do stuff with computer analysis and things like that. My gosh.

Katy: to, to like line up the threads in the, in the paper and everything.

Laura: this cave is considered one of the major archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. Oh [00:08:00] dear. Are you frozen? Are you good?

Katy: No.

Laura: Okay, good.

Katy: You're, you're lagging a bit though. So I was just letting you talk, cause you're kinda, you're lagging a bit.

Laura: okay, as long as I wasn't cutting in and out. Okay. It was considered one of the major archaeological discoveries of the 20th century because it contains a history of Palestine, like the area itself, with all of these writings. It is extremely important to Judaism because, um, shows that Judaism was divided into numerous religious sects and political parties at the time.

It was not just one united religion. There was many off branches, and this one in particular, like, it outlines the whole thing. So it gives a lot of history on Judaism and how, um, like modern Judaism today is not necessarily what it looked like back then. Um, one of them kind of took over from my understanding, like, or one of the, one of, one of the ways of doing things kind of became the

Katy: Yeah.[00:09:00] 

Laura: agreed upon way.

Um, and then of course, of course to early Christianity, this is showing not, it's the earliest Hebrew Bible. So that does not mean that any of these are. Christian texts as far as New Testament. None of, no, no, no, no, no, no. But it is showing you the Jewish roots of Christianity and how similar early Christian customs were.

Because of course, anyone who's Christian knows that everything came from Jesus was Jewish. So all of, you know, and as soon as, as soon as Christianity started becoming a thing, there was all these arguments of like, should people become Jewish first and then become Christian? What are we keeping here? And what are we like, no, that's not good, important anymore.

They were trying to figure out like, what do we not do anymore? So this is showing like, like the baptisms, of early Christianity and Judaism for this sect, very similar. Like, you can really see where we, where things came from. And then, not even just for the caves, but like, as from like a natural point of [00:10:00] view, the area has some amazing architecture.

Um, That, uh, these people made. Like, there is, um, like, well systems and sewer systems. I mean, like, it is a really well planned community built into the rock. Um, so, like, a cultural cool discovery, too. And that is the Qumran Cave. So, extremely important, um, archaeological discovery that, Gives a lot of meaning to a lot of different peoples.

Katy: Okay, a quick search though says that they have not found the treasure. That is, Laura, here we go. We need Josh Gates and yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna dig more into this. But the little bit that I have found is that they, and, and honestly, there's more people studying it and being like, Oh, look at the language.

Look at the style. Look how it's written. And I'm like, did they freaking find it?

Laura: there's a whole study of just the dead, like these [00:11:00] texts.

Katy: Oh, heck yeah, I believe it. But did anybody find the treasure? Yeah.

Laura: Priorities here, people.

Katy: Right? Okay, hang on, wait, has anybody found it the answer? Yeah, the last question is no, nobody's found it.

Laura: That is crazy. I mean, maybe somebody must have, somebody must have looted this place. But I mean, from 68 AD, you know, it

Katy: Yeah, they could have looted it and been like, ah, papers, like,

Laura: Yeah, I don't want any of this. I'll take the treasure. I don't even need the text to tell me. I just want it.

Katy: so they, it's, it did say though that based upon what was described on it, um, The treasure described in the Copper Scroll consists of vast quantities of gold and silver, as well as many coins and vessels, whatever that is. It is difficult to assess the value of what is described since there is not weights, um, like, there's not weights listed. However, based upon, like, the sizes and everything that they were kind of describing, in [00:12:00] 1960, they were saying it was, it would be well above, uh, a million U.

S. dollars.

Laura: man.

Katy: Yeah, so they said the, the vocabulary in the scroll is very technical. Some of the geographical locations are unknown after so many years. Um, and some are just too specific, like, to refer to places. I imagine it's like up north how you're like, you know, turn right at the bees nest and and kind of

Laura: Well, and think of how much the geography has changed in 2, 000 years. I mean,

Katy: Dang. All right. Josh Gates, if you're listening, that's another one. You got to go hunt down. That would be cool, though. All right, guys, make sure you give us a check on Patreon. We're gonna be posting pictures and things from these episodes up on there because there is a lot of cool pictures and things to see until then.

So next week, then we'll be going back to a long episode. And then in two weeks, we'll be back with Cave Chronicles, when I'm also going to be talking about a. people [00:13:00] found place

Laura: found. All right, see you

Katy: dwelled all right. Bye.