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Feb. 8, 2008
Jewish history comes alive
Israeli historian discusses Dead Sea Scrolls at Beth Israel.
DENA DAWSON
More than 200 people filled Beth Israel Synagogue on the evening of Jan. 31 to hear Dr. Adolfo Roitman, curator of the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, present a lecture/slide show on Jewish Identity through the Lens of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Roitman, who is originally from Buenos Aires, earned his PhD in ancient Jewish thought at the Hebrew University. As well as being a member of the World Union of Jewish Studies and the Society of Biblical Literature, Roitman has lectured widely on the history and significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among his books are The Bible in the Shrine of the Book: From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Aleppo Codex (2006) and A Day at Qumran: The Dead Sea Sect and Its Scrolls (1997).
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient manuscripts that were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves near Qumran, on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea. They are approximately 2,000 years old, dating from the third century BCE to the first century AD. Most of the scrolls were written in Hebrew and on parchment (animal skin specially prepared as a surface for writing). The vast majority of the scrolls survived as fragments; nevertheless, many scholars have managed to reconstruct from the tens of thousands of fragments, hundreds of documents of various lengths. Thanks to these finds, knowledge of Jewish society in the land of Israel during the Hellenistic and Roman periods, as well as of the origins of rabbinical Judaism, has been greatly enriched. Noted American archeologist and biblical scholar William Albright – who verified the authenticity of the scrolls – said, "This is the greatest archeological discovery of the century."
In his presentation, Roitman pointed out that the great civilizations in the neighborhood of ancient Israel left behind palaces, temples and pyramids, while nothing monumental in Israel survived the many conquests. As he explained, we have no pyramids, amphitheatres or Parthenon, so tourists today have to be satisfied with guides pointing out that you should imagine where various significant edifices once stood.
Granted, there are Masada, the Western Wall and the mosaics of the sixth-century Beth Alpha Synagogue, but the scroll materials that the dry Judean Desert has preserved – parchment, being organic, survives quite well in "dry storage" – are of great significance in the century-long search for Jewish roots in the land of Israel. The scrolls are now on display in the Shrine of the Book, opened in 1965 for their preservation and exhibition; the shape of the roof of the shrine echoes the tops of the jars in which the scrolls were sealed 2,000 years ago.
Biblical scholars are also very interested in the fact that among the scrolls are portions of the oldest Hebrew text of the Tanach extant. Until the scrolls were deciphered, we could only go back 1,000 years to the Masoretic text, upon which, ultimately, modern Jewish sacred texts are based. In fact, all of Jewish literature, Jewish mysticism and Jewish faith go back to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Roitman alleged. "It is crucial to come to the ancient sources for all these topics," he said.
One particularly intriguing find from the desert caves is the Copper Scroll – an early Hebrew script incised on thin copper sheets that details 64 buried gold and silver treasures in the area. "This reminds me of Indiana Jones," Roitman joked. "You have Bedouins, Jews, treasures and ancient manuscripts!" No treasure, however, has yet been found.
The real treasure of the collection is the Isaiah Scroll, a copy of all 66 chapters of that text, which is seven metres long. Usually only a small fragment of Isaiah is on display at the museum but, this year, in honor of Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations, the largest single piece of the scroll – Roitman called it the "Mona Lisa of Israel" – will be on display in the Shrine of the Book, in an installation to be called Isaiah and the Message of Universal Peace.
On Nov. 19, 1947, the partition of Palestine, which led to the formation of the modern state of Israel, was presented in the United Nations. That same day, archeologist Eliezer Sukenik noted in his diary that he went to see the jars and scroll fragments that had just been brought into Jerusalem. Scrolls, which had been hidden away for preservation during the destruction of the nation of Israel by the Romans 2,000 years ago, were being examined by an Israeli archeologist for the first time on the very day of the establishment of the modern nation of Israel. Roitman characterized this conjunction of events as a "magical coincidence."
Speaking of the symbolic discovery in the Qumran caves and the simultaneous establishment of the state of Israel, Roitman closed his presentation by giving the last word to Yigael Yadin, an archeologist and professor and Sukenik's son: "An Israeli and a Jew can find nothing more deeply moving than the study of manuscripts written by the people of the book in the land of the book."
Roitman's visit was jointly sponsored by Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University, the Canada-Israel Committee (Western Region), the Jewish National Fund of Canada and Beth Israel.
Dena Dawson is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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