Secrets of the Copper Scroll

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The mysteries of the Copper Scroll, found in one of the Dead Sea caves, have never really been solved. The Copper Scroll seems to contain a list of treasure—and is the kind of find that Indiana Jones could have used to track down vast amounts of gold and silver ingots. Its very substance—fine copper—indicates that the people who hid this text were wealthy. But not a single piece of treasure from the Copper Scroll has ever been located. Scholars ask many questions: Was this treasure ever hidden, or is it a kind of fantasy? If treasure was hidden, when […]

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Footnotes

1. See Jeremy D. Smoak, “Words Unseen: The Power of Hidden Writing,” BAR, 44:01.

2. Manfred R. Lehmann, “Where the Temple Tax Was Buried: The Key to Understanding the Copper Scroll,” BAR, 19:06.

3. See Roi Porat and Hanan Eshel, “Fleeing the Romans: Judean Refugees Hide in Caves,” BAR, 32:02.

4. See Joan E. Taylor, “Parting in Palestine,” in Hershel Shanks, ed., Partings: How Judaism and Christianity Became Two (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013), pp. 87-104.

5. Joan Taylor, “The Nea Church: Were the Temple Treasures Hidden Here?” BAR, 34:01.

Endnotes

1.
Roland De Vaux, “Exploration de la Région de Qumran,” Revue Biblique 60 (1953), pp. 540-561; Maurice Baillet, Józef T. Milik, and Roland de Vaux, Les “Petites Grottes” de Qumrân, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 3 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), pp. 7-8, 201; William L. Reed, “The Qumran Caves Expedition of March, 1952,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 135 (October 1954), pp. 8-13.

2.
John Allegro, The Treasure of the Copper Scroll (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1960).

3. Although many scholars associate the scroll with the Essene community, some doubt it was a real treasure, e.g., Jozef T. Milik, “The Copper Document from Cave III, Qumran,” The Biblical Archaeologist 19.3 (1956), pp. 60-64. For further, see Stephen Goranson, “Sectarianism, Geography and the Copper Scroll,” Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992), pp. 282-287; Al Wolters, “Literary Analysis and the Copper Scroll,” in Z.J. Kapera, ed., Intertestamental Essays in Honour of Jozef Tadeusz Milik (Krakόw: Enigma Press, 1992), pp. 239-252; Bargil Pixner, “Unravelling the Copper Scroll Case: A Study on the Topography of 3Q15,” Revue de Qumran 11 (1983), pp. 323-366; Émile Puech, The Copper Scroll Revisited (Leiden: Brill, 2015), pp. 1-17.

4.
Ernest-Marie Laperrousaz, “Remarques sur l’origine des rouleaux de cuivre decouverts dans la grotte 3 de Qumran,” Revue de l’histoire des religions 159 (1961), pp. 157-172; Ben-Zion Luria, The Copper Scroll from the Desert of Judah (Jerusalem: Kiryath Sepher, 1963; Hebrew); Manfred R. Lehmann, “Identification of the Copper Scroll Based on Its Technical Terms,” Revue de Qumrân 5 (1964), pp. 97-105.

5.
Joseph Patrich, “Khirbet Qumran in Light of New Archaeological Explorations in the Qumran Caves,” in Michael O. Wise, Norman Golb, John J. Collins, and Dennis G. Pardee, eds., Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), pp. 73-95.

6.
De Vaux, “Exploration,” p. 555.