Word: qumran
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Have archaeologists discovered the skeleton of John the Baptist? Don't send for your color slides yet, but it's possible. Last year scholars combing a graveyard at the Qumran site in the West Bank, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, turned up an elaborate burial mound and some bones, which they theorized belonged to the Teacher of Righteousness--the leader of the Essene sect thought to have assembled the scrolls. The Teacher has long been felt by some scholars to be John the Baptist, since John's Messianic Judaism and stress on immersion were strikingly similar to Essene...
...orientation in the grave may indicate high importance. Balancing on the leg bones, says expedition leader Richard Freund of the University of Hartford, was a pot in the style of the 1st century A.D., which places the find in the right era. "There are 1,212 burials at Qumran, but there's only one like this," says Freund. He thinks the bones belong to the Teacher and, therefore, perhaps are the Baptist's. Others are skeptical, pointing out that the skeleton has a head, while John's was famously removed. Expedition archaeologist Magen Broshi fumes that the identification amounts...
...Israeli researchers' downplaying of the importance of mysterious bones found at Qumran near the Dead Sea [SCIENCE, Aug. 6] is reminiscent of the Vatican's dismissive reaction to the discovery of the Nag Hammadi codices, a set of significant scrolls found before the Dead Sea Scrolls. By rejecting the idea that the bones might be those of Jesus, the Israeli experts may be seeking to protect prevailing religious doctrines. Indeed, your article closes with the sentence "To keep on the right side of the rabbis, the Israeli archaeologists say they have already reburied the bones." I would add that their...
Dubay and Walker believe their find is important because, alone among the 1,200 simple graves at Qumran, the tomb was inside a purpose-built structure. That may mean that the bones belonged to an important person, perhaps even the "Teacher of Righteousness" mentioned in the scrolls. Other researchers have speculated that the teacher may have been one of the Maccabean kings of Judea, the apostle James, John the Baptist, perhaps even Jesus...
...experts, however, say the bones aren't important. Yossi Nagal, the Israel Antiquity Authority's head of anthropology, examined the find, and says it's the remains of two Bedouin women buried about 200 years ago. The Cal State team "got overexcited," says Hanan Eshel, a leader of the Qumran dig and an archaeologist at Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University. More important than the bones, says Eshel, is a zinc coffin also found nearby by Dubay and Walker. Zinc has never before been found in burial artifacts from the Essenes' time. That signals an important, probably wealthy person...