LYNCHBURG (WSLS 10) - Liberty University professors and students just made history!
During the month of January, Dr. Randall Price (School of Divinity), Dr. David Graves (School of Divinity online professor), Dr. Eva Palmer (Associate Professor of Studio and Digital Arts), Christy Connell (grad student in History), and Casey Olson (Biblical Studies student), joined in the excavation of a cave at the site of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. Dr. Price co-directed the excavation with Dr. Oren Gutfeld of the Hebrew University and the team of 20 (including Dr. Price's wife Beverlee) discovered the first scroll cave in over 60 years! The news was officially released to the press on February 8 by the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology and has since spread to the international news media.
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The Dead Sea Scrolls have been called the greatest discovery of the 20th century because they contain the oldest copies of the Hebrew Bible (some written over 200 years before the birth of Christ) and writings of a Jewish sect that lived in Israel during the days of Jesus and the formation of the early church. Biblical and historical studies have never been the same since the scrolls discovery, and every translation of the Bible since 1950 has depended on these documents. The new discovery by Dr. Price and his team has been called by one scroll expert one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century!
Today, universities have entire departments dedicated to the study of the scrolls. However, since 1956, no scroll cave has been found and only fragments of the scrolls have been recovered from the antiquities black market or in the hands of private collectors. Even these came largely from Bedouins, who live in this desert region, raiding the caves and looting the scroll contents inside the jars stored there. These scrolls were sold to antiquity dealers and their original location lost as the Bedouin would rarely reveal where they did their work. It was to prevent further loss of these valuable documents that the Israel Antiquities Authority launched Operation Scroll to locate new caves before the Bedouin can pillage them.
Dr. Price first discovered the cave in 2006 and worked for 10 years to acquire permission to excavate. Partnering with Dr. Oren Gutfeld and his assistant Ahiad Ovadi, both of the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, the excavation was the first of the Operation Scroll project. During the excavation, the lower part of the cave revealed niches cut into the walls that contained scroll jars as did a 50-foot tunnel in the back of the cave. Some 6-8 scroll jars were recovered, all having been previously broken and looted in the 1950's. This was confirmed by the finding the heads of two rusty picks hidden in the inner recesses of the cave. Apparently, the Bedouins intended to come back and continue searching for more treasure.
From 1948-1956 eleven caves were identified as scroll caves and numbered according to the order of their discovery. None were found by archaeologist with intact scroll jars containing scrolls. The archaeologist usually came on the heels of the Bedouin and recovered scroll scraps and pottery sherds left behind. The only exception to this was Cave 3 which had a single unique scroll, known as the Copper Scroll, and Cave 4, which did not have jars, but fragments of scrolls were found hidden beneath the floor of the cave. As a result of the excavation by Dr. Price and the Israeli archaeologists confirming another scroll cave, it has now been Cave 12.
According to Price, "this is only the beginning of our search for more scrolls. Undoubtedly they are out there and we know of some 300 caves in the area. Our team is planning to return to excavate other caves in the near future." History has been made by Dr. Price and his team and even greater secrets lay ahead to be uncovered.