In 1946-47, Bedouins found the first Dead Sea Scrolls in a cave near the site of Qumran, by the shore of the Dead Sea.  Eventually remains of over 900 scrolls were discovered in 11 caves surrounding Qumran.  The scrolls, which date to about the time of Jesus, were deposited in the caves by members of a Jewish sect – apparently the  Essenes – who lived at Qumran.  In this slide-illustrated lecture, we explore the ancient remains at Qumran and discuss the contents and significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Jodi Magness holds a senior endowed chair in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism. From 1992-2002, she was Associate/ Assistant Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology in the Departments of Classics and Art History at Tufts University, Medford, MA. She received her B.A. in Archaeology and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1977), and her Ph.D. in Classical Archaeology from the University of Pennsylvania (1989). From 1990-92, Magness was Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Syro- Palestinian Archaeology at the Center for Old World Archaeology and Art at Brown University.

Magness’ book The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002) won the 2003 Biblical Archaeology Society’s Award for Best Popular Book in Archaeology in 2001-2002 and was selected as an “Outstanding Academic Book for 2003” by Choice Magazine. Magness’ book The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003) was awarded the 2006 Irene Levi-Sala Book Prize in the category of non-fiction on the archaeology of Israel.

Snack reception at 4:30, talk begins at 5.

Staff support provided by the Institute for Humanities Research