"JERUSALEM – Parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls are up for sale -- in tiny pieces.
Nearly 70 years after the discovery of the world's oldest biblical manuscripts, the Palestinian family who originally sold them to scholars and institutions is now quietly marketing the leftovers -- fragments the family says it has kept in a Swiss safe deposit box all these years. ..."The Dead Sea Scrolls have a fascinating history with politics, money, intrigue, corruption and many other factors adding to the story. I'm not sure how useful all these tiny fragments will be to the understanding a how Scripture has been transmitted through the years, but there seem to be some significant pieces among all the fragments. There is a fragment of the story of Joseph written in a style of Hebrew characters that were superseded in the 5th century B.C. by the characters still in use today.
The modern state of Israel claims ownership of all Dead Sea Scroll fragments in private hands, as does the Palestinians. The scrolls were found on what is now the West Bank, but was Jordanian territory in 1947 -- So Jordan has a claim on them as well.
This controversy is going to persist for years to come. In the meantime the study of these documents and publication of the findings goes on in spite of what is swirling around the researchers.
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1 comment:
Great rreading
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