Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are here in Singapore! This is quite rare, in fact, apparaently, the first time it is displayed in Asia. They are usually housed in Jerusalem.


See  http://www.livinglegacy2009.com/eng/index.html  for more details ;)

However, the Dead Sea Scrolls are more than very old copies of (something to do with the Bible).

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We did not always have the Dead Sea Scrolls with us. In fact, it was a chance discovery sometime in 1947 to 1956 in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea (hence the name).

Prior to their discover, the oldest surviving copies of the Old Testament we have was the Masoretic Text (don't worry about the name, its just a name derived from a group of people), which dated to the 9th Century (ie: about 1000). We know that Jesus lived in the 1st Century, which means that there as almost a 900 year gap between the oldest copy of the Old Testament and the life of Christ. In fact, the New Testament had copies much older than the Old Testament.

Which laid us quite open to criticisms. The chief among them was the charge that the prophecies about Christ in the Old Testament must had been written after Christ so as to fit into His life. And it is quite difficult to prove them wrong if the oldest copy of the prophecies we have is 900 years too late.

But the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls totally changed this. You see, these scrolls are dated to as late as 150 BC. In other words, they are up to 150 years before Christ was even born. Which totally shatters the theory that the prophecies were written after Christ's life. Afterall, there are already copies in existence before He was born.

The prophecies are authentic prophecies.

There is another significance.

There is always this idea that multiple copying would introduce error into the manuscripts. Who knows if the manuscripts we have contain the same words or even the same idea as whatever the original author intended. Furthermore, it was done before the era of Printing presses...

Which sounds like a sound objection

Until you realise that the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Texts agree with each other to an astonishing extent.

In the process of copying, the scribe are so careful about the accuracy, that even 1000 years was unable to change the texts.

In other words, we can be quite confident that whatever we have is really what the original authors wrote...

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So, to whoever is going to see the exhibits (Secell I think), this is the reason it is called a Biblical treasure ;)

Have fun :)