The Bedouin Shepherd Who Threw a Stone Into a Cave Above the Dead Sea in Spring 1947 and Heard Pottery Break
A young Bedouin shepherd named Muhammed edh-Dhib threw a stone into a cliffside cave above the western shore of the Dead Sea in spring 1947 looking for a lost goat. He heard pottery break. The cave contained seven 2,000-year-old leather scrolls. The discovery of approximately 25,000 fragments from 11 caves over the next decade fundamentally changed the modern reconstruction of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity.
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