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December 13, 2005 |
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 PROFESSOR
JAMES D. TABORDepartment of Religious Studies, UNC Charlotte DEAD SEA SCROLLS By George MacBain Today, we had the unique opportunity to hear about 2 historic events in our fair city. First, Powell Majors celebrated the first day of his 100th year today….receiving a standing ovation "Happy Birthday to You" from our club…..what a remarkable guy! Secondly, we learned about a once in a lifetime opportunity for all of us to view ancient history here in Charlotte from February 17 To May 29, 2006 at the Discovery Place Museum. Author and Department Head of Religious Studies at UNC Charlotte, James Tabors' enthusiastic verbal description of the Scrolls easily sold 1000 tickets for the show with his remarks! The Dead Sea Scrolls were essentially a library belonging to, whom many believe, the Essences, a Jewish sect located 13 miles east of Jerusalem on the upper northwest shore of the Dead Sea. The caves were found near the ancient ruins of Qumran and many believe they were connected. It is broadly assumed that during the time of the Jewish-Roman War (68 A D) the Romans triumphed over the Essence sect. The sect must have hidden the scrolls in 11 caves for safety. This sect had been inhabited since 150 BC giving the life of some of these scrolls 2200 years old! James went on to let us know the Essence people likely lived a celibate, holy lifestyle and truly lived what they believed. They moved out of the city into the wilderness to live a pure and simple life. Jesus and John the Baptist may have visited these people and some religious historians believe John the Baptist could have been a member of the Essence sect. The caves were found in the early 1950's when a shepherd threw a rock into one of these limestone caves on the side of a hill/mountain and heard the sound of clay shattering. He thought he may have discovered a fortune…..indeed he did. To date, the scrolls represent about 800 volumes/scrolls, many of which are represented by fragments. For example cave #4 contained 520 texts in 15,000 fragments. The library contained copies of Scripture (Isaiah Scroll), copies of other books known as Enoch's, and holy writings which the group itself produced. There was a Copper scroll found in Cave 3 which contained a list of 64 places where gold, silver, sacred objects and other scrolls were hidden. During the late 1950's, the bulk of the scrolls were under Jordanian control and were given to Christian scholars to translate. The team was left in tact during the Six Day War in 1967 by the Israelis and later expanded to include Jewish scholars in the 1980's, allowing a more open approach to sharing material. In the late 1980's pressure was put on the process to translate all of the scrolls and today over 99% have been completely translated. Our local Discovery Place and James Tabor worked very hard to win the approval of the Israeli's to select Charlotte over the Triangle for this historic showing of some never before seen Dead Sea Scrolls. Hats off to James and his committee for making this a reality in Charlotte. Tickets are available at Discovery Place (704-372-6261, or www.discoveryplace.org). James was kind enough to answer several questions following his insightful comments. Head Table: Roger Sarow, Duke Ison, Herb Harriss, Worth Williamson, Ed Kizer, Edgar Love Visitors & Guests: Invocation: Pam Daigle; Visitors & Guests: Jeff Triplette
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Happy Birthday
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Revised: January 24, 2008.