Hebrew University Archaeologists Find 12th Dead Sea Scrolls Cave
new.huji.ac.il
new.huji.ac.il
The Dead Sea Scrolls are dated to ~200BC-AD100, which appears to be roughly contemporaneous with the oldest extant Chinese manuscript fragments.
Note that this is assuming that you're counting the dates of the manuscripts themselves, not the dates of texts being composed. There's a lot of texts in Greek and Latin known to be older, but they are known only from fourth- or fifth-hand copies in manuscripts dating back usually to later than AD600.
C'mon now. Sumerian tablets are documents, we're not talking about ticket stubs.
Here's some long form examples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gudea_cylinders
>The Gudea cylinders are a pair of terracotta cylinders dating to circa 2125 BC, on which is written in cuneiform a Sumerian myth called the Building of Ningursu's temple.[1] The cylinders were made by Gudea, the ruler of Lagash, and were found in 1877 during excavations at Telloh (ancient Girsu), Iraq and are now displayed in the Louvre in Paris, France. They are the largest cuneiform cylinders yet discovered and contain the longest known text written in the Sumerian language.
Oh, I know. I was just making reference to the fact that something like the Epic of Gilgamesh might be on several tablets.
But even if you classify stone and clay carvings as documents, the statement is nonetheless true: the DSS are "some of the oldest surviving documents on earth." There are some fragments that are older (e.g. a clay fragment found in Jerusalem [0] dating to 1400 BC), yet the DSS remain as some of the oldest surviving documents in existence, and they comprise more than a mere fragment. For example, the DSS contains almost all the books of Psalms (the longest book of the Bible) and several copies of Isaiah.
This is an interesting find because it suggests there are more caves than previously believed, which may produce additional ancient witnesses to the historic texts of the Bible and other Jewish religious documents.
[0]: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Oldest-written-document-ever-fou...
So it's by no means the earliest essentially-complete collection of manuscripts found. That said, it is still in sparse company. As far as I can tell, the next major complete manuscript are a few copies of the Bible dating to mid-4th century. Complete versions of things like the Odyssey and the Iliad date only to around 1000.
This is what the article claimed: the DSS are "some of the oldest surviving documents on earth."
Again, the article stated a simple truth: the DSS are "some of the oldest surviving documents on earth."
That is a factually true statement.
The parent commenter objected to this statement. I corrected him.
Now you are trying to correct me by saying there is a some surviving literature from before the Bible was written. I've made no claim otherwise.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script
> Between half a million[3] and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000[4] – 100,000 have been read or published.
The fact that so few have been translated thus far is pretty amazing.
“the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen.”
“The material, when published, will provide important new evidence for scholars of the archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea caves.”
“The discovery towards the end of the excavation of a pair of iron pickaxe heads from the 1950s (stored within the tunnel for later use) proves the cave was looted.”
Well, at least they are sure of themselves.
Norman Golb's book Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls details the findings.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Who_Wrote_The_D...
Which loosely translates to: "Will anyone really believe this stuff?"
It's unclear what it was referring to.
For anyone curious, this is actually part of Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
>All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
>> "Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we ‘only’ found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen." -Dr. Gutfield
"Finest in the district sir!"
"Explain the logic underlying that conclusion, please."
"Well, it's so clean, sir!"
"It's certainly uncontaminated by scrolls."
"You haven't asked me about missing fragments of Mandean gnostic texts, sir."
"Would it be worth it?"
"Could be."
"Were any Mandean gnostic scrolls found?"
"No."