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Challenging History: The Dead Sea Scrolls By: Neil Altman, For The Bulletin 09/24/2007 Editor's Note: According to an exhibit at the United States Library of Congress, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat in the Judean Desert in 1947, entered a long-untouched cave and found scrolls in a jar and under debris on the floor. That initial discovery by the Bedouins began a search that lasted nearly a decade, eventually producing thousands of scroll fragments from 11 caves. During those same years, archaeologists tried to identify the people who deposited the scrolls. They found the Qumran ruin, a...

<p>Editor's Note: According to an exhibit at the United States Library of Congress, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat in the Judean Desert in 1947, entered a long-untouched cave and found scrolls in a jar and under debris on the floor. That initial discovery by the Bedouins began a search that lasted nearly a decade, eventually producing thousands of scroll fragments from 11 caves.</p>

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been guarded for 60 years like crown jewels, the possessions of a scholarly elite who were challenged only in the past decade to bring the scrolls to the public. Now, there is accumulating and compelling evidence that these supposedly ancient texts are medieval at best and have a connection with China. That connection is raising questions about the manuscripts' true dating, origin and possible authenticity. ........ In 1991, I wrote articles for the Washington Post and Boston Herald about the idea that a number of previously undeciphered markings in the margins of two Dead Sea...