June 26–Our Faith Confirmed
I saw a post yesterday that said “Life is full of great times and awful times and those are held together by the ordinary and boring times. Enjoy the great, hang on through the bad and recharge during the ordinary.” At the turn of the 20th century, Biblical archeologists and historians despaired that any early manuscripts of scripture would ever be found. There was no way to know for sure that the scripture hadn’t been diluted or altered in some way but they were resigned to the fact that it was the word of God.
Then came the great time! In 1947 a group of bedouins found an old clay pot in a cave at Qumran. Inside the pot were papyrus scrolls, so they knew they were really old. They took a piece to an antiquities dealer and he realized this was scripture. The Dead Sea scrolls were the greatest find of the century. In all, there were 12 caves that contained the work of the Essenes, a very strict, conservative Jewish sect that did not like the mainstream Jewish leadership’s obsession with money and power. They moved to the desert and built their town and worked on scripture.
In the remains of their town that was active from about 1 BC to 4 AD, you can see the writing room where the benches and pots of ink were found. Even through they were in the middle of the desert, they had ritual baths for daily cleansing. They were so precise with their work on the scrolls that if one small mistake was made, they there the whole thing away. (I would never have made it to the end of one!) at some point, they knew trouble was headed their way and they hid their most precious possession in the cabes along the cliffs.
The contents of the caves revealed 15,000 pieces of the Old Testament. In fact, every book except Ester was there and there were no significant differences in anything. Nothing. The entire scroll of Isaiah.
“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!””
Isaiah 40:8-9 NIV
The Shrine of the Book museum houses most of the scrolls now. Even the clay pots that contained the scrolls are there with other antiquities found in Qumran or the caves. As I stood looking at the caves and later at those scrolls, i was simply in awe. These, the very words of God preserved for us in such a miraculous way. The written scripture from more than 2,000 years ago, still stands. “Here is our God!”
Lord God Almighty, thank you for your Word that still stands. We praise you for you miraculous preservation of scripture and for the Scrolls that validates our belief. What a wonder you are! We sing hallelujah to the Lamb who is and was and is to come. Amen and amen.
Love you dear one,
Pam
Pictures of Qumran and the museum are on Facebook.
Comments
Post a Comment