Ancient lead books in a cave
Chamari Senanayake
Sixty years ago, a shepherd in the Northwest shore of the Dead Sea
accidentally discovered one of the greatest finds in Archeology known as
dead seas scrolls in a cave. The scrolls include the oldest known
surviving copies of Biblical and extra-biblical documents consist of
30,000 separate fragments making up 900 manuscripts of biblical texts
and religious writings from the time of Jesus. They are written in
Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek mostly on parchment and a few on papyrus. The
scrolls include the earliest known copy of the Ten Commandments, an
almost complete Book of Isaiah and many of the Psalms.
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Lead books on Jesus |
Now an astonishing hoard of 70 lead books has been found each with
between five and 15 cast lead pages bound by lead rings. Historians
believe they could be the earliest writings on Christianity. They are
slightly smaller than a credit card, and lay undiscovered in a cave in a
remote village in Jordan overlooking the Sea of Galilee.
Historians believe followers of Jesus made the collection in the few
decades immediately after his crucifixion. Philip Davies, Emeritus
Professor of Old Testament Studies at Sheffield University, says the
most powerful evidence for a Christian origin lies in plates cast into a
picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem. “There is a cross in the
foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb of Jesus, a small
building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city. There
are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost
certainly refer to Jerusalem.”
The discoveries were supposedly made between 2005 and 2007, when a
flash flood exposed two nooks inside the cave, containing the booklets,
metal plates and scrolls. Bible historians are trying to determine
whether this is the first ever portrait of Jesus Christ. The books
contain cryptic messages in ancient Hebrew and Greek.
Most people believe Bible is the oldest book on Christianity. The
Bible is a compilation of various texts or ‘books” of different ages.
Such as of Gospel of Matthew that has the earliest surviving fragments
dated between 150-200 AD. And the ‘book of Jeremiah’ currently dated to
late 6th century.
The dates of many of the texts of the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament)
are difficult to establish. Some places the earliest date of the books
within the 2nd millennium BC with Moses and the Exodus. The oldest
surviving Hebrew Bible manuscripts date to about the 2nd century BC, and
the oldest record of the complete text survives in Greek Translation,
dating to the 4th century.
Manuscripts can be dated from their archaeological context (ex:
pottery, weapons and other datable objects found with them), their
script (handwriting changes over time and styles can be dated fairly
accurately), and other means. However, the oldest manuscripts of the
Hebrew bible/Old Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, have been dated to the
two centuries before the time of Christ. |
