On the Insignificance and the Abuse of the Copper Scroll

The Bible and Interpretation (julho de 2009): On the Insignificance and the Abuse of the Copper Scroll: The Copper Scroll has perplexed scholars and fueled the minds of fringe theorists for decades. It is not that the scroll is “mysterious;” we know what it says and what it purports to be: a list of buried treasure. Rather, the Copper Scroll is so anomalous among the Dead Sea Scrolls that scholars have relegated it to realm of triviality bordering on insignificance. This 30 cm tall document etched on thin sheets of copper, rolled up, and oxidized by centuries of exposure to the environs of the Dead Sea was discovered in Cave 3 near Qumran in the West Bank. But while it was discovered along with hundreds of other documents that have collectively come to be known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Copper Scroll remains the mother of all anomalies.