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| The Copper Scroll |
I previously advised you about
the awkward fact that Chinese characters are found in some of the Dead Sea
Scrolls [See "Chinese
Comments in the Dead Sea Scrolls”]. Archeologists, historians,
scholars, etc. generally avoid the issue because there is no credible
explanation for it. Well, there’s another problematic issue with one of the
scrolls that archeologists and scholars find even more uncomfortable to discuss
or explain. First, some background about the Scrolls:
It
has been commonly accepted that the DSS (a collection of almost 1,000 documents
and fragments of documents -- mostly in Hebrew, but also in Aramaic and Greek)
were written during the period around 150 BCE-70 CE, concealed in
at least 12 caves in the Qumran area near the Dead Sea
no later than 70 CE, and eventually were discovered by Bedouins and archeologists
between 1946-1956. Archeologists and historians have determined the
dates of origin through carbon dating, linguistic analysis of the writing, and
other scientific means. Their year of concealment is based on physical evidence
at the caves, and by confirmed historical accounts tied to the destruction of
the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman
Empire and its laying waste to the countryside as a result of the
widespread Jewish rebellion at that time. Jerusalem fell in 70 CE, and
that is how that date of concealment was determined so precisely. There is no
evidence that a Jewish group in the Qumran area was creating any sacred documents
after 70 CE, and the Romans certainly would not have allowed it.
In 1952,
a team of organizations from the United States, Jordan, and France -- led by
French archaeologist Henri de Contenson -- discovered a scroll that was
unlike any of the 1,000 other documents and document fragments among the DDS.
The bottom line: The scroll is made of Copper and it’s a list of hidden
treasures!
The
CS is a list of 64 locations of buried treasure – each entry is very precise,
and the total amount of treasure, mostly gold and silver, is estimated to be many
tons each. The preciseness of the directions is actually more of a problem than
an aid. For instance, one entry reads: “In the ruin that is in the valley
of Acor, under the steps, with the entrance at the East,
a distance of forty cubits: a strongbox of silver and its vessels with a weight
of seventeen talents.” Over 2,000 years ago, a person might be
expected to know which “ruin” and steps are being referred to, but in present
times, it is rather vague. This single trove refers to about 1,275 pounds
(580 kg) of silver, which is worth over $362k.
Another clue reads: “In the salt pit that is under the steps: forty-one talents of silver. In the cave of the old washer's chamber, on the third terrace: sixty-five ingots of gold.” After 2,000+ years, it might be difficult to locate that particular salt pit under some steps. This trove contains 4,875 pounds (2,216 kg) of silver (worth $1.38 million today), and at least hundreds or even thousands of pounds of gold.
I anticipate your next question, and the answer is: No, since the CS was discovered, no one has yet found any of the treasure, although there have been a few expeditions to do so. The CS actually mentions that a duplicate scroll had been created, but that one has never been found (or it had been found and utilized, but not reported). There are a few theories about what happened to the hoards:
♦ The Romans recovered the treasures soon after
winning the war.
♦ The Jews remaining in the area eventually used
the duplicate scroll to recover the treasures and spent the funds in rebuilding
Jerusalem and other areas.
♦ Someone else, or a few different groups found
the treasures through various means over the past 2,000 years, and did not
publicize the finds for obvious reasons.
As
mentioned above, the CS is unlike any of the other hundreds of DSS writings.
Because of the differences, its probable dates of creation and placement in
Qumran, are anomalies that confound scholars:
Even though the CS was found in a cave along with other “regular” scrolls, there is overwhelming evidence (see above) that it was created significantly later than the rest of the DSS -- experts estimate that it could be as late as 200 CE. So, how could an object created decades later than the DSS end up among the DSS, which apparently hadn’t been touched since their placement in 70 CE?
There
have been many theories put forward regarding the origin of the CS, and the
treasure itself. Since the CS had been found among the DSS, it was assumed that
the treasures were actually an inventory of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. It
was surmised that when it had become clear that the Romans were about to
capture Jerusalem and the Temple, the religious leaders packed all of the
Temple’s valuables and hid them throughout the province, in the same manner
that the religious texts were stored and hidden in the Qumran caves.
However, this theory began to fall apart when the CS was further studied and was determined to have been created much later than the fall of Jerusalem and the storage of the DSS. So, if the CS had been created a generation or more after the fall of Jerusalem, where did all this treasure come from?
There
is a common misperception that after the Romans defeated the Jews in the early
70s CE, there was never again an autonomous or independent Jewish political
entity in the Middle East until the establishment of the State of Israel
in 1948. This is not true. In 132 CE, a Jewish leader who came to
be known as Simon bar Kokhba headed yet another revolt against Roman
rule, and after a year or so of fighting, Bar Kokhba became Nasi
(“Prince”) of an independent Jewish nation in some of the territory of the
former Kingdom of Judea. This entity lasted a couple of years before
Roman legions returned in force, killing Bar Kokhba and devasting the
countryside and its inhabitants in 135 CE. I will ignore the temptation
to post a whole blog entry on Bar Kokhba, and will instead return to the matter
at hand: Where did the buried treasure come from?
Independent Israel Under Bar Kokhba
The
Temple in Jerusalem had been financially supported by taxes from the local general
public and from tithes from all Jews throughout the Roman Empire. After the
Temple’s destruction, taxes went instead to the Roman governing structures.
However, it is believed that the religious tithes had continued to be gathered,
with the goal of building a Third Temple once the Romans were driven away. This
possibility gained strength once Bar Kokhba reestablished local Jewish rule.
However, once the Romans returned and were about to reverse all of Bar Kokhba’s gains, perhaps the tithes gathered over the previous six decades were hidden, and the Copper Scroll created as the inventory? Perhaps there were still “guardians” of the scrolls that knew about the Qumran caves and placed the CS there for safe-keeping, without disturbing the DSS already there? The date in the 130s CE fits most of the requisites established by the CS anomalies. That’s my theory, anyway, and a number of scholars have opted for this explanation. I’m still not certain how/why the Chinese characters appeared on some scrolls, but let’s not lose focus here.
So, if you now want to read the full transcription of the CS and decide to search for the hidden treasure yourself, don’t forget that I claim a finder’s fee for alerting you to this enterprise.
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| The Sliced-Open Copper Scroll Fragments, and Modern Reproduction on Display |
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