Dead Sea Scrolls Alive for 2,000 fascinating years


~*****~

THE SCROLLS
say little if anything
about Herod.

No doubt
most of their writers disliked him
as much as they disliked
the Hasmonaeans.

But they
disliked anyone
who was not of their own
beliefs.

Towards
the Romans
the attitude of the scrolls
varies.

In the
Habbakkuk commentary {1QpHab}
they are feared,
but seen as agents of divine punishments
on a wicked Jewish
nation.

IN
the War Scroll {1QM},
they are the main element
of the Final Enemy,
the "Kittim"
{a word applied in the Bible mostly to the Greeks,
but in Daniel
to the Romans}.

While
some Jews
no doubt admired the Romans
{as did Josephus},
most of the preserved Jewish literature
from Palestine
criticizes them,
longing for salvation
for the holy people,
pondering the mystery
of the course of history
to reach its expected end
with the destruction of this last
human empire.

=


WITH
the death of Herod,
direct Roman administration took over,
and relations between Jews and Romans
steadily deteriorated
during the 1st century CE until,
for a variety of reasons,
the Jews finally took to war,
a war which lost them their Temple
and ruined Jerusalem,
a city already run
by warring extremist
religious
groups.

During this war,
according to the archaeological evidence,
the Romans also attacked
the settlement at Qumran
and occupied the site
for a number
of years.

=

IT
WAS
IN THAT REGION
of the Judaean desert, in fact,
that the resistance to ROMA
lingered!

The
last
defiant band of fighters
retreated to Masada
and was overcome finally
in 74 CE.

The connection
between THIS group,
the scrolls and the occupants of Qumran
is tantalizing.

-

ONE
text
known from the caves
was found at Masada
{the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice}
and there may have been other 'Qumran' scrolls too,
encouraging some scholars to think
that the inhabitants of Qumran participated
in this final
stand.

-

WHETHER or not
this was the case,
the final episode
of the 'war of the children of light
against the children of darkness'
staged in Herod's Idumaean fortress
could be said to have ended here,
and NOT as foreseen in the
Qumran War
Scroll.

-

BY
THIS TIME
the scrolls were already in the caves,
perhaps hidden to protect them
from the ravages of the Romans
OR in the hope of later
retrieval.

-

BUT
in the wake of this war,
and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple,
new religious sytems were to emerge,
including rabbinic Judaism and Christianity,
and the heritage preserved in the Qumran scrolls
was to be submerged
for 2,000
years!

=

THE
STORY
of the Jewish struggle against the Romans
~ and indeed of the occupation of Qumran ~
was not quite over,
however.

-

IN
132 CE
another revolt occurred,
led by Shimon Bar Kosiba,
who took the nickname Bar Kokhba {son of the star}.
HE TOO issued coins, and traces of his occupation exist
in the Judaean
wilderness.

-

WE
even
have letters
written by him or on his behalf.
But after three years of fighting he too was defeated,
and Jerusalem rebuilt as a ROMAN city,
and all Jews expelled
from IT.

~#####~

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13 feb 2005 - bewerkt op 20 feb 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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