What is an overview of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran community that preserved them?
God promised to preserve His word in Isaiah 59:21; 40:8; Psalm 119:89, and 1 Peter 1:23-25. However, since there were few Old Testament manuscripts earlier than 950 A.D., someone might be curious just how precisely the Old Testament was transmitted before then. However, in 1947 a Bedouin boy, Muhammad Adh-Dhib, threw a stone into a cave at Qumran and heard the crash of pottery. That uncovered a stored library of 500-867 manuscripts from Jesus time, 1/4 to 1/3 of them from the Bible. Only about 200-300 people lived there at any one time. Qumran was like a monastery, for of the 1,200 graves in the cemetery, only 6 were of women and 4 of children. There were about 200-300 caves, and people lived in 30 of them. Most of the people lived in huts or tents, though. Coins at Qumran show people lived there from about 135 B.C. to the abrupt destruction in 68 A.D. The Romans captured Qumran and killed or enslaved all who did not escape. Beliefs of the Children of Light Jewish Sect: Modern scholars
