Читать книгу The Origins of Christianity and the New Testament - Rebecca I. Denova - Страница 35

Studying the historical context of the “Judaism of Jesus’ day” was enhanced through a major discovery. In 1947, an Arab shepherd boy discovered a jar of scrolls in one of the caves near the ruined site of an ancient community at Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea. Known as the “Dead Sea Scrolls,” the manuscripts comprised the library of a sect of Jews understood to be the Essenes.

These Jews were an apocalyptic group who left Jerusalem c. 150 bce to await God’s final intervention. Initially, the hope was that the scrolls would mention Jesus. They do not, but they provide a window on an apocalyptic group in the first century. The library also contained other contemporary literature that did not make it into either canon (such as the books of Enoch). The Scrolls provide scholars with an overall view of ideas that were “in the air” at the time of Jesus.