The War of the Scrolls

By Kevin D. Miller

Everything about the Dead Sea Scrolls suggests mystery. Collected by a radical Jewish sect, perhaps Es­senes, who lived monastically in the arid and almost lifeless Judaean wilderness, the scrolls include over 800 Jewish manu­scripts—many biblical—dating from as early as 250 B.C. The scrolls were hidden in the caves of Qumran, on the northwest comer of the Dead Sea, so that the Roman armies would not destroy them on their wav to conquer Jerusalem. The Essenes, of whom we know little, expected to liberate the scrolls when their community was liberated by the Messiah. The Romans prevailed, however, and so the scrolls stayed hidden for almost 1,900 years. But the mysteries don’t end with the scrolls’ discovery 50 years ago, which many label the archaeological event of the century. Since then, the scrolls have been a pawn of Mideast politics and the cause of an unusual number of academic scandals.

Which makes Trinity Western University in verdant British Columbia in Canada an unlikely port into this cryptic world. A half a globe away from the caves of Qumran, the campus’s spiral­ing western cedars and low-hanging utility lines have nothing in common with the stark terrain of the Judaean desert. And when it comes to history, the school boasts only its Seal Kap House, where the sealable cap for milk bottles was invented . . .

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