Religion: Out of the Desert

(2 of 10)

The New Cave. Since "The Wolf" found Cave 1, scrolls and fragments from ten more caves near Qumran have been recovered. Most notable are the contents of Cave 4, in which the remains of more than 400 manuscripts have been found in tens of thousands of tiny fragments; presumably this was the main library of the Qumran Community. The Suez crisis raised serious roadblocks to the scholars' work. Many were called home, and the manuscripts themselves were packed away in 36 cases and locked up in the Ottoman Bank at Amman, Jordan, from which they were returned to Jerusalem for study only last month—some of them slightly moldy and spotted from the damp vault. (Complete photographs of the manuscript material exist, but direct examination is necessary to the delicate process of matching and fitting fragments.)

The scholars carried on as best they could. This week came news that an important new find has been made in an eleventh cave. Because of the political situation and payment difficulties, the Jordan government has so far kept its contents under lock and key, but scholars have been permitted a preliminary peek. On the basis of this examination, they tentatively identified the Cave II scrolls as the Biblical 'Psalms and Leviticus, an apocalyptic description of the New Jerusalem, and a targum (i.e., a translation of a Hebrew text into Aramaic, the colloquial language of Christ's time) of the Book of Job. In all probability this is the targum that disappeared when it was suppressed (for still-obscure theological reasons) by Rabbi Gamaliel I, teacher of Saul the Pharisee, who later rode down the road to Damascus to become Paul the Apostle.

Meanwhile, the search for new caves, new scrolls and fragments continues, carried on by an extraordinary crew of amateur archaeologists—the Bedouins.

To the Scrollery. Today the scholars for the most part leave the search to the tribesmen, who have become highly skilled in the work. The Bedouins sift with timeless patience through four-foot layers of dust and bat dung, spoonful by spoonful, to find the tiny fragments of black and crumbly leather—often smaller than a postage stamp—that they know will make them rich. The Jordan government has given the Ta'amireh Bedouins a cave-hunting monopoly—making the Qumran area a military zone, and policing it to keep other tribes from muscling in on the scroll rush.

With their finds carefully wrapped up or tucked away in cardboard cigarette boxes, the Bedouins go to Bethlehem. About 100 yards from the Church of the Nativity, where Jesus is supposed to have been born, they disappear into a cobbler's shop. There in his single tiny room, surrounded by wooden lasts and shoemaker's tools (including a Singer sewing machine), sits Khalil Iskander Shahin, a seam-faced

Syrian in a red tarboosh. Kando, as he is called, is the trusted link between finders and keepers; he is technically a "fence," for all scroll finds are officially the property of the Jordanian government, but Eastern pragmatism finds no difficulty in blessing his undercover role.