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DESCENDING                                                                                QUMRAN
An Independent Source of News & Views
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Photography on this page by Charleston C. K. Wang, Shirley Wang, or Arthur Wang
Copyright 2010-2013 All Rights Reserved Charleston C. K. Wang, Esq., Publisher
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To view
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GOING DOWN TO THE DEAD SEA
Students of the St. Georges Course on "The Bible and its
Setting" descended down to the Dead Sea on Sunday, April
18, 2010.  We visited this geological marvel after spending a
night out in the Judean Wilderness albeit in a Bedouin tent,
and in the morning, celebrating Eucharist among the animals
of the oasis.  The Dead Sea lies at 1237 feet below sea level,
and thus, is the lowest salt water lake in the world.  Naturally,
it is also referred to as the Salt Lake  (Hebrew: יָם הַ‏‏מֶּ‏‏לַ‏ח‎‎, Yām
Ha-Melaḥ, "Sea of Salt,   "Arabic: الميتالبحر ‎  al-Bahr al-Mayyit).  
With salt concentration at around 30-35%, the Dead Sea is
about eight and a half times more salty than the Oceans.  At
this salinity, life forms such as fish and aquatic plants cannot
survive.  However, very small amounts of bacteria and
microbial fungi call the Dead Sea their home. The Dead Sea
water (and mud)  is also fabled for its medicinal and cosmetic
properties.  

The salt increases the water specific gravity to about 1.24
more dense than pure water.  The Dead Sea presents a rare
floating experience for even the neophyte swimmer-one has
only to lie on one's back, relax, and enjoy the experience of
floating.  The key is to enter the Dead Sea totally calm and
relaxed.   I who regularly swim a mile once a week outdoors
in summer and in a heated indoor pool in winter found my
attempts to swim even 50 yards thwarted by the density and
the simply horrible,  burning taste of the water (hard on eyes
too). I did  get an opportunity to walk around the beach
wearing my competition Speedo and some thought I had
committed an illegal act.

Surprisingly, there are maybe fewer than a handful of
references to the Salt Sea in  the Hebrew Scriptures and  
none in the Christian Bible. Somewhere, probably on its
southeast end, would be located the  doomed cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18) and three other "Cities of
the Plain"- Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar (Deuteronomy 29:23).  
See also Quran 7:80-81, 84; 29:34-35. The settlement of Zoar
was spared destruction when Abraham's nephew Lot fled to
Zoar from Sodom (Genesis 19:21-22). Before the blight, the
Dead Sea may have been a valley of natural flammable
bitumen pits (which may explain the fiery destruction of
settlements), which was called the Vale of Siddim (Genesis
14:3, 8, 10). Much later, King David was said to have hidden
from Saul at Ein Gedi which is somewhere close-by while
Saul hunted him among the rocky crags accessible only to
goats. In Ezekiel 47:8-9 there is a specific prophecy that "the
sea of stagnant waters...will become fresh," being restored
to water that will give life. A parallel vision is Zechariah 14:8.
RISING UP TO QUMRAN
All hope for the pilgrim is not lost, for in the hills next to the
Dead Sea, is Qumran, generally held to be one time home of
Essenes and depository of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls.  The
Essenes are members of a reclusive Jewish Sect who were
flourishing during the time of Jesus (actually for a while from
2nd century BCE to 1st century CE).  Essenes were far fewer
in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the two
sects well documented in the Christian Scriptures.  They
gathered for study and community living under strict rules of
asceticism, voluntary poverty, daily bathing, and abstinence
from secular pleasures, including marriage.  Essenes
disappeared during the Jewish-Roman Wars and speculation
is some of them may have combined holiness with zealous
nationalist fervor and as a consequence, being associated
with Zealots, they were marked for destruction by  the
Romans - Qumran was overrun in 68 CE.  The existence of
Essenes is corroborated by Flavius Josephus, Pliny  the
Elder, and Philo.  Josephus mentions Essenes in his two main
works,
Wars of the Jews and Antiquities of the Jews, and he
named the Essenes as one of the three major Jewish sects of
that period.  
 Pliny's Latin text Natural History speaks of
Esseni.  Josephus and Philo have detailed reports of the
communal meals and religious rites of the Essenes.

The community at Qumran contained an extensive library of
Hebrew texts.  This invaluable collection of 972 texts (so far
counted) was first "discovered" during the winter of 1946-47
by a Bedouin shepherd named Muhammad Ahmed al-Hamed.  

Since then, scholars have confirmed the existence
of multiple copies of the Hebrew Bible and other non-
canonical writings, some scrolls being dated to 300 BCE.  
These scrolls survived because they were hidden in caves
one half mile inland and were not kept in the buildings that
made up the Qumran community.  Modern scholars have
classified the Dead Sea Scrolls into three groups: "Biblical"
manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which
comprise roughly 40% of the identified documents;
"Apocryphal" or "Pseudo- epigraphical" writings (known
manuscripts from the post-exilic Second Temple Period like
Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc.,
that were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible), which
comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and
"Sectarian" manuscripts (previously unknown documents  
that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or
groups within greater Judaism) like the Community Rule, War
Scroll, Pesher on Habakkuk (Hebrew pesher  פשר or
"Commentary"), and the Rule of the Blessing, which comprise
roughly 30% of the identified scrolls.  The attribution of these
Sectarian writings to the Essenes is disputed among the
experts.  For example, one school of thinking advances the
argument that the scrolls were the product of Jewish scribes
in the Jerusalem  temple (perhaps by Zadokite priests who
took sectarian issue with the Hasmonean remnant) and  they
were secreted to the Qumran caves to save  them from
destruction after Jewish nationalists seized the Temple in
Jerusalem and before the city was beseiged and finally
stormed by Romans under Titus in 70 CE.  Yet others see
Qumran as ruins of a Hasmonean fort and barracks, dating to
a long time before the Roman occupation. The Herodians
seem of have preferred to place their security in the nearby
fortress Masada.

Regardless as to who caused these scrolls to be hidden away
in jars in the Qumran caves, the primary conclusion even for
the textual critics is the accuracy of the transcription by hand
of the Hebrew Bible over time (before the ages of printing
presses, photocopying machines, and digital optical
scanners). Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the
oldest extant Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were
Masoretic Hebrew texts dating to 10th century CE (e.g.the
Codex of Aleppo). The biblical manuscripts found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls push that date back a thousand years to the
2nd century BCE. Before this discovery, the earliest extant
manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in
manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 and
Codex Sinaiticus.

Is there a connection between Qumran and Christianity?  
Most scholars say "no," although the Qumran rules of living
and Christian monastic rules bear a striking similarity.   It is
further speculated largely without scholastic favor, that at
least one Essene survived the Roman wrath to seed the
Kabbalistic traditions.  In addition to Qumran, another popular
site nearby in the hills next to the Dead Sea is Masada.  The
mysteries of Qumran and the Scrolls will be much debated for
quite some time to come, including great philological
arguments over slight discrepancies in the transcription.
 
Charleston C. K. Wang, 5/15/2011, revised 1/15/2013.

PHOTO NOTES:  Photographs on the Left Column depict
scenes from the Dead Sea.  The pink panther drawing
is found on the back window of our tour bus and has helped
many a wandering pilgrim get back onto the  correct
transport.  The Right Column depicts scenes from Qumran.  
The three beach photos below have their own notations.
THIS IS THE REAL AND FAMOUS FORTRESS MASADA BY THE DEAD SEA-
THE AREA HAS A NUMBER OF LOOK-ALIKES THAT HAVE FOOLED NEOPHYTE TOURISTS
THE HILLS OF QUMRAN
On the Descending Road
to the Dead Sea
THIS PHOTO SHOWS ISRAELI HOLIDAY-MAKERS OUT CELEBRATING ISRAEL
INDEPENDENCE DAY (APRIL 19, 2010 - A "SECULAR" HOLIDAY?) - VIEWERS
ARE CAUTIONED THAT THE LOCATION IS A BEACH ON THE
SEA OF GALILEE
(NOT THE DEAD SEA, BUT A FRESH WATER LAKE).  THE BEST BEACH SCENES,
HOWEVER, ARE SAID TO BE FOUND ON THE MEDITERRANEAN OCEAN-FRONT
SANDS OF THE METROPOLIS OF TEL AVIV, WHICH WE DID NOT VISIT
To view "The Call
for Simon Peter,
Fisherman," click

here.
DOUBLE CLICK FOR EXTRA LARGE IMAGE
& READ THE WORDS ON THE BOARD
DOUBLE CLICK FOR EXTRA LARGE IMAGE
& READ THE WORDS ON THE BOARD
To view "In Search
of the Messianic
Secret - Caesarea
Phillipi," click
here.
VIEW OF THE DEAD SEA FROM QUMRAN HILLS - JORDAN IS SEEN ON THE FAR SIDE
QUMRAN LIES SLIGHTLY TO THE SOUTHEAST OFJERUSALEM & LIES AT THE NORTHWEST END OF THE DEAD SEA.  TO THE NWW IS ANOTHER RENOWNED PLACE - JERICHO, GATEWAY TO THE HOLY CITY FROM THE EAST
THE CAVES OF QUMRAN
THE AFTERNOON  WAS OVERCAST AND NOT PERFECT FOR MYSELF TO TOP OFF
MY SUN TAN & SHARPEN THAT TAN-LINE (IT ACTUALLY RAINED THE NEXT DAY).
BUT I DID GET TO LEAVE MY FOOTPRINTS ON SANDS OF THE DEAD SEA.
DOUBLE CLICK ON PHOTO FOR EXTRA LARGE IMAGE
To read "Jury
for Jericho,"  
click
here.
Photography on this page by Charleston C. K. Wang, Shirley Wang, or Arthur Wang
Copyright 2010-2012 All Rights Reserved Charleston C. K. Wang, Esq., Publisher
TO  
   THE
DEAD
       SEA
ASCENDING
AND
TO
LOOKING FOR DEAD SEA SCROLLS IN THE QUMRAN HILLS
AN EXCAVATION OF THE QUMRAN SETTLEMENTS
"SAFE DEAD SEA BATHING"
THE CAVES OF QUMRAN -  ARE THERE MORE SCROLLS IN JARS IN THE CAVES?
CLICK ON ANY PHOTO FOR LARGER VIEW
To read "The
Road to
Emmaus,"  
click
here.
Floating
Stepping into the famous Dead Sea Mud Bath
The Swimming Zone
Some People Prefer to Stay Dry
Samples of Qumran Jars
Samples of Qumran Pottery
A field lecture by Dean Stephen Need
of St. George's College, Jerusalem
Some thought I had committed a criminal act by walking around in my competition speedos.