Mysteries Unveiled Through The Origins Of The Dead Sea Scrolls

Online, September 1, 2011 (Newswire.com) - - The September/October 2011 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR) has just been published and is now available on newsstands everywhere. This exciting issue features exclusive and educational articles about excavations in the Biblical world, including a new perspective on the ever-popular Dead Sea Scrolls.

For nearly 2,000 years, the Qumran caves protected the secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Might the same caves also help solve the long-standing mystery of who left the scrolls there in the first place? In "A View from the Caves," Sidnie White Crawford explains that the evidence from the caves points not to refugees who had fled the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, but rather to the sectarian Essene community that lived in and around the site of Khirbet Qumran.

This new issue of BAR clarifies another mystery. The Pool of Bethesda is mentioned in the Gospel of John as the site where Jesus cured a crippled man. Yet the seemingly odd Biblical description of five porticoes baffled scholars, and the exact location and nature of this pool has long confused experts. Was it a reservoir or a mikveh, a Jewish ritual bath? A new study clarifies the pool puzzle, as Urban C. von Wahlde reveals in "The Puzzling Pool of Bethesda."

What do the following sites have in common? One of the seven cities in Revelation; the possible site of Zechariah's tomb; the Avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor; and a Coptic monastery in the Egyptian desert. Ancient churches have recently been excavated at each of them, and each sheds light on the history of early Christianity. In "Crossing the Holy Land," Dorothy D. Resig takes a look at some of these wonderful new discoveries, Each with its own story to tell.

After declining to publish it nearly a decade ago, BAR now takes a second look at an intriguing stone oil lamp, presenting it to our readers for the first time in "Tainted Stone Oil Lamp Authenticated." As in the case of the controversial James Ossuary, the authenticity of this remarkable lamp has the support of some of the most highly respected scholars in the field. Is it possible that this first-century lamp was used in rituals at the Jerusalem Temple before its destruction in 70 C.E.?

Also in the new issue of BAR, Bible scholar Richard Elliott Friedman considers how old methods of study can translate to new approaches to the Bible in the Biblical Views column. And in Archaeological Views, Aaron A. Burke describes the detective work needed to solve an archaeological "cold case."