You’ve probably heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls. If not, it’s something you should know about as a follower of Christ.
The way they were discovered is a remarkable story that goes all the way back to 1946. A shepherd was looking for one of his lost goats at the Qumran caves, located near the Dead Sea. He threw a rock into the cave and heard something break. A fellow shepherd explored the cave and found a broken clay pot, exposing leather and papyrus manuscripts. He collected them.
These shepherds hung the scrolls on tent poles while trying to decide what to do with them. They eventually decided to try selling a few of them.
The first prospective buyer told them they were worthless. But they eventually found an antique dealer willing to buy them for $28 (that would be over $400 dollars in today’s money). These scrolls then passed through different hands.
To make a long story short, true experts finally found some of these manuscripts and realized how old and valuable they were. The place where the initial discovery was made was eventually located and excavated along with other nearby caves. To date they have found over 900 manuscripts, what we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, it turns out, are about 2,000 years old.
There are different types of manuscripts, but they include the oldest known copies of Old Testament scriptures–more than 1,000 years older than anything had been found before.
There’s one document called the Isaiah scroll. It measures about 23 feet long and dates to 100-150 A.D. It is the oldest copy of Isaiah known to man.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are strong evidence that the Old Testament we have has been preserved for centuries. In other words, what they found matches incredibly closely to the Old Testament you and I read and study today. The Dead Sea Scrolls are testaments that God’s word has been preserved all this time.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered the greatest archeological find of the 20th century. They are historical and biblical treasures. They are absolutely priceless.
But remember, what were they found in? Simple clay pots. Ancient, but simple.
This makes me think of the way Paul described himself to the Corinthians:
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
-2 Corinthians 4:7
Paul didn’t describe himself as a beautiful or exquisite vessel. Such vessels were made of ivory, marble, gold, or some other valuable material. Instead, he called himself a jar of clay. The ancient readers would have pictured the most common, ordinary container. Jars of clay were inexpensive, easy to make, fragile, and easy to replace.
Paul understood that his value was not in anything external. Instead, true value is based on what’s inside the container: treasure. What did he mean by this? He was referring to the treasure of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I’m thankful that God uses the most humble and ordinary vessels, people like you and me, to be carriers of the most important message in the history of the universe.
Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons.
