The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8
In 1947, a shepherd boy by the name of Mohammed Ab Dib, from the Ta-Amir Bedouin tribe, was allegedly searching for lost sheep when he tossed a rock into the mouth of a cave near the Dead Sea. That evening as he sat around the campfire with his older brothers, Mohammed told how he had heard an evil spirit which he thought had been disturbed by the rock he had thrown into the cave as he searched for a lost goat.
His brothers laughed at the idea of an evil spirit’s making noise and decided to go with him the next day to discover what had caused the noise. Climbing into the cave, they discovered that the noise which he mistook for an “evil spirit” had, in reality, been the tinkling of pottery, a vessel about 30 inches in height containing a very old manuscript sealed with pitch and tar. Thinking that this might be really worth something, the young men returned to their families and, for several months, the Isaiah scroll was carried by the tribe until they went to Bethlehem. There, they traded the manuscript for staples such as milk and cheese, not understanding how valuable it really was.
At this point the drama quickens. Kando, the Bethlehem merchant, realizing this ancient scroll in his possession was in violation of Jordanian law, for a period of time actually buried the scroll in his backyard; then, through the underground, he made contact with Professor Eleazar Sukenik of Hebrew University, who immediately recognized the document as being none other than a very old copy of the book of Isaiah. As the words of the text came leaping to life from the page of the ancient scroll, about 35 feet in length, he could hardly contain himself. He knew that if he got too excited, the price would go up high, perhaps too high. If he let the manuscript get away, it might forever be lost to posterity or damaged by unskilled hands who could easily ruin the ancient scroll that had been so tightly sealed for almost 2000 years.
For many years after this, Kando, the Bethlehem merchant who bought the scroll and buried it in his backyard, operated a curio shop outside the St. George Hotel in Old Jerusalem, and on occasion, properly encouraged, would pose for a picture, but he was always reluctant to relate the true story which I’ve just shared with you.
Eventually though, after many cups of Turkish coffee and countless hours of negotiation, the manuscript was purchased by Hebrew University. Professor William Albright of the University of Chicago, one of the world’s leading authorities on ancient manuscripts, considered this to be the most important manuscript find of all times.
He dated this scroll at 100 B.C. Until the Isaiah manuscript was found at Qumran, the oldest existing manuscript of the book of Isaiah was dated 895 A.D., which meant this manuscript reached back more than 1000 years, bringing us closer by a millennium to the day when Isaiah penned those words, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given … ” (Isaiah 9:6a KJV).
Between 1947, when the first scroll was found, and 1954, at least 800 scrolls were found at Qumran, of which 127 or more contained writings of the Old Testament Scripture.
That these scrolls should lie there unmolested, only to be unearthed when science has really come into its own, causing many to question the validity of Scripture, has to be nothing short of an act of God. It’s almost like God saying again what Isaiah wrote long ago, “ … the grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God shall stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8).
Resource reading: Isaiah 40:1-8
