TEL AVIV, KOMPAS.com – Israel on Tuesday (16/3/2021) found pieces of rolls Bible dating back 2,000 years.
Launch AFP on Tuesday (16/3/2021), invention it is described as one of the most significant after the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“For the first time in 60 years, archaeological excavations have found fragments of biblical scrolls,” said the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA).
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Invention it was discovered after years of excavation in caves and cliffs in the Judean desert.
Apart from bible scrolls, they also found deposits of rare coins, the skeleton of a 6,000 year old child, and a basket described as the oldest in the world, some more than 10,000 years old.
The find is the result of a survey of about 80 kilometers of cliffs in a desert area that stretches south of Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Using drones, mountaineering gear, and rappelling, Israeli archaeologists search for caves they say were used by Jews who rebelled against Rome during the failed second century Bar Kochba rebellion.
The scroll fragments include portions written in Greek from the Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets, part of Bible Hebrew, says the IAA.
One passage of the book of Zechariah reads, “These are the things you must do: Speak the truth to one another, give true and perfect justice at your gates.”
Although most of the text is in Greek, the name God appears in ancient Hebrew characters, according to the IAA.
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Israeli archaeological excavations in the occupied territories Palestine has sparked controversy, but the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities did not respond to a request for comment.
The IAA is collaborating on the project with the military branch in charge of civilian affairs in the Palestinian territories (COGAT).
Spokesman Yoli Shwartz said it was one of the most important discoveries of the biblical text since the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The scrolls include some 900 manuscripts discovered between 1947 and 1956 in the Qumran cave above the Dead Sea in the West Bank.
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They are some of the earliest biblical texts ever discovered.
Israel’s IAA director Hasson said the survey had started in response to looters sneaking into the cave.
In a statement, he called the findings a “wake-up call”, as it devotes more resources to continuing the project, which only surveyed about half of all the cliffs in the desert.
“We have to make sure that we recover all the data that has not been found in the cave, before the robbers do,” said Hasson.
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