FINAL WARNING: Setting the Stage for Destruction
is there, just south of Jericho, and twenty miles east of Jerusalem, that
one of the most important archaeological discoveries in religious
history was made.Early in 1947, three Bedouin shepherds from the Ta’amireh tribe had
their flock in the area, and while Jum’a Muhammad was looking for a
stray goat, he discovered a cave in the cliffs. He threw a rock into the
hole, and heard the sound of breaking pottery. Two days later, his
cousin, Muhammed Ahmed el-Hamed, returned and crawled into the
small cave, which measured 6 feet by 20 feet. The cave contained
many earthenware jars, about 2 feet high and 10 inches wide. Though
many were broken, 9 were believed to be intact. Inside one of the jars,
he discovered three leather rolls wrapped in linen. In a subsequent
visit, four more leather rolls were discovered. These rolls turned out to
be ancient scrolls, which have been referred to as the ‘Dead Sea
Scrolls.’A Christian shopkeeper, Khalil Iskander Shahin (known as “Kando”),
and George Ishaya (Isaiah) Shamoun, members of the Syrian Jacobite
Church in Jerusalem, heard about the discovery and went to Qumran
to verify the Bedouin’s claims, finding some scroll fragments. They
later met with the three shepherds to examine their findings.One of the Bedouins sold 3 of the scrolls to the Muslim sheik of
Bethlehem, and Kando purchased the other 4, which consisted of a 22-
foot long scroll containing the entire text of the Book of Isaiah, the
Genesis Apocryphon, the Habakkuk Commentary, and the Manual of
Discipline (also known as the Community Rule), which had split into
two. These 4 were in turn sold to the Syrian Metropolitan (Archbishop)
Athanasius Yeshua Samuel, head of the Syrian Jacobite Church.
Samuel later sent George Isaiah back to Qumran to carry out secret
extensive excavations. It is believed that other scrolls were
discovered, the contents of which have not been revealed.In September, 1947, Samuel took the four scrolls to Homs (north of
Damascus), Syria, where he met with the Patriarch of the Church.
During his return trip, he again sent a team to Qumran.Samuel got in touch with Professor Eleazar Sukenik of the Hebrew
University’s Department of Archaeology in order to have the age of the