Dead Sea Scrolls stolen by Israel: PA

[IndianaGreen]

Saturday, 11 April 2009

Dead sea Scrolls stolen by Israel: PA

PA demands Canada cancels scroll exhibition
OTTAWA (AlArabiya.net, AFP)

The Palestinian Authority demanded this week the cancellation of an exhibition of Dead Sea Scrolls, which it said were stolen by Israel from Palestinian territories, Canadian media reported.

Top Palestinian officials wrote to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking him to step in to cancel the exhibition, which is set to open in June at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), according to the Toronto Star newspaper.

"The exhibition would entail exhibiting or displaying artifacts removed from the Palestinian territories," said Hamdan Taha, director-general of the archaeological department in the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, according to the Star.

<snip>

The Dead Sea Scrolls, written mostly on parchment and partly on papyrus, were discovered in 11 caves on the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea where they had moldered undisturbed for roughly 20 centuries until a young Bedouin shepherd discovered them in 1947.

Initially, housed in the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, under Jordanian control, the scrolls were absorbed by Israel after the 1967 Six Day War, an act considered illegal by international law. The scrolls were then removed from East Jerusalem and taken them to the western city, where they remain today.

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/04/11/70420.html

[rockymountaindem]

1. So the fact that they were written by Jews means nothing?

That seems strange.

[robinlynne]

3. and that the palestinian territories were, at the time, Israel...

[IndianaGreen]

4. They were under Jordanian control in East Jerusalem

and they should be returned.

Modern Israelis bear no relationship to the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The authors were certainly not mainstream Jews.

[delad]

8. you f&*%ing numpty

[rockymountaindem]

10. Are using the term "numpty" according to the positive or negative definition?

Urban dictionary has more than one. I've never heard that word before.

[delad]

22. negative

[On the Road]

15. Strictly Speaking, Saying the State of Israel Has a Right to the DSS

makes as much sense as saying Italy has a right to get Hadrian's Wall back from the UK.

Because of what the scrolls are, it does seem more appropriate for them to in Jewish hands. But it raises the entire question of the legitimacy of anything seized during that war. Developed countries gave up seizing booty quite awhile ago.

What actually disturbs me more is that the DSS were for so long closely held by a tight circle of Roman Catholic scholars. It set back the study of the scrolls by fifty years, and introduced so many misconceptions that they may never all be rooted out.

[peacetalksforall]

16. Do you mean Israelis? By saying Jews, do you mean Jews who are

from Brazil, the Bronx, Sydney? It doesn't make sense to say Jews in this circumstance. I don't know enough of the geography or history to say who they belong to - but saying Jews doesn't make sense. I'm willing to be educated.

[robinlynne]

2. excuse me, but there were no palestinian territories when the dead sea scrolls were

written....

[IndianaGreen]

7. And the State of Israel and the Kingdom of Israel are not the same

or even the same people.

Since the Kingdom of Israel was under Roman control, one can also argue that the scrolls belong to Rome.

[robinlynne]

12. belonged to Rome temporarily.

[aquart]

5. Jesus H. Christ.

Now they're insisting they own the bible? And the Old Testament at that?

Muslim fanatics controlling artifacts of another religion. No reason to worry. Ask the Buddhists.

[IndianaGreen]

6. The old conflict between Issac's sons, Esau and Jacob.

The scrolls were found on Arab land by a Bedouin, and were on display in East Jerusalem. They should be returned to East Jerusalem, the future capital of Palestine.

As to the old conflict between Isaac's sons, Esau and Jacob, the Book of Genesis shows the I/P conflict seminal event in which a mamma's boy, Jacob, used subterfuge and cunning to cheat his older brother Esau of his rightful birthright and inheritance.

[rockymountaindem]

9. So wait, the Palestinians are the real "children of Israel"? Is that what you're saying?

Let's figure this out... an Arab found some Jewish artifacts on what was then British-controlled territory. The Arabs had the scrolls for awhile, until such time as they were captured by a bunch of Jews. Now the Arabs, who had the good fortune of having an Arab child find them on *British controlled* territory, think they own the Dead Sea Scrolls which, to reiterate, were written by Jews.

That's such a laugh. Hey, I think the Royal Museum needs someone to come up with a new PR campaign for why they should get to keep the Elgin Marbles. Maybe you should send them your resume.

[IndianaGreen]

11. Esau and Jacob were sons of Isaac

It boggles the mind to think that the descendants of siblings have carried out this feud for so long. That's the religious side of this conflict.

The legal side is that Israel must return the Dead Sea Scrolls to Palestine.

[sabbat hunter]

37. Actually I believe that

Abraham's son by his wife's handmaiden Hagar is the mother of Ishmael who is the supposed ancestor of Mohammed.

Esau had an entirely different role.

[robinlynne]

13. Thank-you.

[azurnoir]

21. Yes written by Jews called the Essenes

who's modern day descendants, well there's a bit of a problem with that

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes

[IndianaGreen]

25. Other than the unsubstantiated claims by Josephus and Philo

There is no other evidence that the Essenes even existed.

Scholar Claims Dead Sea Scrolls 'Authors' Never Existed

By Tim McGirk / Jerusalem Monday, Mar. 16, 2009

Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D. in the scorching desert canyons near the Dead Sea. Now a prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, disputes that the Essenes ever existed at all — a claim that has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship.

Elior, who teaches Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, claims that the Essenes were a fabrication by the 1st century A.D. Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus and that his faulty reporting was passed on as fact throughout the centuries. As Elior explains, the Essenes make no mention of themselves in the 900 scrolls found by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 in the caves of Qumran, near the Dead Sea. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls," Elior tells TIME. "But they didn't exist. This is legend on a legend."

Elior contends that Josephus, a former Jewish priest who wrote his history while being held captive in Rome, "wanted to explain to the Romans that the Jews weren't all losers and traitors, that there were many exceptional Jews of religious devotion and heroism. You might say it was the first rebuttal to anti-Semitic literature." She adds, "He was probably inspired by the Spartans. For the Romans, the Spartans were the highest ideal of human behavior, and Josephus wanted to portray Jews who were like the Spartans in their ideals and high virtue."

Early descriptions of the Essenes by Greek and Roman historians has them numbering in the thousands, living communally ("The first kibbutz," jokes Elior) and forsaking sex — which goes against the Judaic exhortation to "go forth and multiply." Says Elior: "It doesn't make sense that you have thousands of people living against the Jewish law and there's no mention of them in any of the Jewish texts and sources of that period."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885421,00.html?xid=newsletter-weekly

[cali]

26. what is it with people who want to deny certain peoples

their cultural heritage?

[IndianaGreen]

28. Cultural heritage like the Saudi man that married the 9-year girl?

All religions, with their gods, their demigods, and their prophets, their messiahs and their saints, were created by the credulous fancy of men who had not attained the full development and full possession of their faculties. Consequently, the religious heaven is nothing but a mirage in which man, exalted by ignorance and faith, discovers his own image, but enlarged and reversed - that is, divinized. The history of religion, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind. As fast as they discovered, in the course of their historically progressive advance, either in themselves or in external nature, a power, a quality, or even any great defect whatever, they attributed them to their gods, after having exaggerated and enlarged them beyond measure, after the manner of children, by an act of their religious fancy. Thanks to this modesty and pious generosity of believing and credulous men, heaven has grown rich with the spoils of the earth, and, by a necessary consequence, the richer heaven became, the more wretched became humanity and the earth. God once installed, he was naturally proclaimed the cause, reason, arbiter and absolute disposer of all things: the world thenceforth was nothing, God was all; and man, his real creator, after having unknowingly extracted him from the void, bowed down before him, worshipped him, and avowed himself his creature and his slave.

God and the State (1871)
Mikhail Bakunin

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/godstate/ch02.htm

[azurnoir]

30. Oh noes she said "cultural" not religious

that makes all the difference don't you see?:P

[azurnoir]

29. Well then I guess every country that holds

any biblical artifact better return it to Israel isn't that right or is Israel only allowed to keep them if certain countries or more like peoples hold them?

Edited to add the dead sea scrolls are credited to a long extinct obscure sect who's practices hardly resemble Judaism then or now

[cali]

32. not at all, dear.

I'm not talking about artifacts or actual tangible things. What a shame you couldn't grasp that.

:hi:

[azurnoir]

33. Seeing as the thread and comment are about very tangable things

what lofty things were you talking about? I mean you are an expert at Jewish cultural heritage that you claim I am trying to rob right?

[cali]

20. you really want it every which way, don't you?

you can't run around railing and screaming about how the religion is based on entirely made up stories, and then whine about how Jacob was a "mamma's boy", as if you were a next door neighbor.

Truly pathetic.

[IndianaGreen]

23. According to the Book of Genesis, which was written long after Exodus

Genesis 25 (King James Version)

27 - And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.
28 - And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob.

[cali]

24. lol.

so what? it's still not history. duh.

[IndianaGreen]

27. No, it is still myth, but it is the basis for the mamma's boy I posted

and myths do have powerful influences on people, with unfortunate consequences most of the time.

[Meshuga]

35. What influence does Isaac and Esau myths specifically have on people?

I fail to see your point.

So, what if Isaac was a mamma's boy in the story? Why does it matter?

[madrchsod]

14. since everyone in the world is related to noah...

what the hell is the problem?


kinda` like the kids fighting over the possessions of their deceased parents...

[IndianaGreen]

17. There was no such thing as Noah's flood

Let's not allow ancient myths dictate our actions of today.

[madrchsod]

18. i`m watching history channel "banned from the bible"

i was being sarcastic.....what`s up with that enoch (spelling) guy....

[IndianaGreen]

19. My humble opinion is that the real Christians that followed Jesus were the Gnostics

and that Jesus rejected the Temple worship as corrupt, as the Zealots subsequently did, and that he never claimed to be divine.

I saw that documentary a while back. I also like The Naked Archaeologist, who filmed a documentary with Titanic's James Cameron on Jesus Tomb.

[henank]

31. The scrolls were purchased by Jews, not stolen by anyone

How some people love a conspiracy theory!

See here for example

The Dead Sea Scrolls went up for sale eventually, in an advertisement in the June 1, 1954 Wall Street Journal.

On July 1, the scrolls, after delicate negotiations and accompanied by three people including the Metropolitan, arrived at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. They were purchased for US$250,000. Less than half of the proceeds actually went to Mar Samuel. Due to a mix-up in paperwork, the US government got most of it, in taxes.

And the philanthropist Samuel Gottesman was apparently the person who made the purchase.

[azurnoir]

34. That is interesting

the excavations were not completed until 1956 however possetion is 9/10 of the law right?

[Bragi]

36. First do no harm

I have no discomfort whatsoever that the scrolls are currently controlled by Israel. If I trusted Israel in nothing else, I would trust them to not harm globally important cultural or religious artifacts, or to allow another party to do so.

I cannot express the same confidence towards fundamentalist Islamacists, since some of them -- in particular Wahhabist muslims in Asia, Persia, and Arabia -- have already, in well-documented and publicized demolitions, blown up or destroyed monumentally important global artifacts.

Having said that, I am not surprised or bothered in the least that the ownership of the DSS continues to be controversial. I think the world shows its better side by engaging in respectful controversy over these scrolls, over what they mean, etc. Bring it on.

On the ownership matter, I presume some international instrument or agreement will settle this eventually, as part of or following the bigger settlement, and that there will eventually be some international form of guardianship, maybe. Until then, I'm fine with the Israelis safeguarding these artifacts of humanity's shared heritage.

And I hope we can avoid the showing of the scrolls around the world becoming so laden with political controversy and security considerations that public exhibition of the scrolls becomes a problem. All in all, given how things are playing out in other theaters, it's hard to be optimistic that this won't happen.

- B