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Hmmm, did the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls imagine even in their most extravagant dreams that their precious documents would lie undiscovered in 11 remote caves for 2,000 years? Would they have hid them there if they had known?

Did they perhaps plan to return and retrieve them at a more opportune time that never materialized?

Did they pass on the secret of their existence to their children as a sacred trust only to have it lost in the dust of relentless time and the vagaries of memory?

And could they have known that they would finally emerge from their timeless vault into a world adrift in its own myopia and craving a unifying force?

The 930 Dead Sea Scrolls inspire these soul searching questions and many more like them. I saw them in the awestruck eyes of the curious and the humbled who navigated their way through the winding course of the ROM exhibit. I sensed them in the hushed voices and the solemn expressions. I felt them in the aura of reverence that hung protectively over us all.

It seems improbable, and yet almost inevitable, that the first of the scrolls was discovered by a Bedouin shepherd in1947. I choose to believe it was the hand of the Almighty who guided the shepherd to that cave of wonders.

I’ll confess to a moment of disappointment, after working my way through the collection of related artifacts, to find only fragments of the ancient scrolls. Such a human reaction, I realize now.

That even these fragments survived through not one but two millennium is a wonder – perhaps even a miracle. After all, some of these scrolls are almost 1,000 years older than the next-oldest-known copy of the Hebrew bible.

No doubt thousands of hours of painstaking and loving work went into piecing together and interpreting them. What must it have been like to actually lay hands on them? To feel the shiver run down your spine as the mystery of the ages unfolds before you. To be that close to majesty. Imagination cannot rise to the challenge.

Neither does metaphor do justice to a wonder of this magnitude. And yet the Dead Sea Scrolls are perhaps the epitome of metaphor. Gathering into their fragile forms 2,000 years of faith immemorial in a realm and an existence fathoms beyond human frailty.

The Dead Sea Scrolls surpass the reach of time, the eye of science and all that the hand of man creates. Sacred icons of humanity, of Christ on earth, of the too oft unspoken link between the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faiths.

The Dead Sea Scrolls. Long forgotten but never lost. May we learn from them what we once knew but allowed to slip from our grasp. Amen.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel”. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.

~ Follow Michael’s Metaphors of Life Journal aka Things That Make Me Go Hmmm regularly at this site. Categories: Shifting Winds, Sudden Light, Deep Dive, Songs of Nature, Random Acts of Metaphor. Originating at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog2.

Tags:   Christian · Dead Sea Scrolls · faith · God · Islamic · Jewish · metaphor · Michael Robert Dyet · ROM · Royal Ontario Museum1 Comment