Enjoy! I'll quote Facts #1 and 25. You'll need to read the article to appreciate the rest. :)

"1.The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in eleven caves along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea between the years 1947 and 1956. The area is 13 miles east of Jerusalem and is 1300 feet below sea level. The mostly 25.fragmented texts, are numbered according to the cave that they came out of. They have been called the greatest manuscript discovery of modern times. See a Dead Sea Scroll Jar....

25. The Dead Sea Scrolls enhance our knowledge of both Judaism and Christianity. They represent a non-rabbinic form of Judaism and provide a wealth of comparative material for New Testament scholars, including many important parallels to the Jesus movement. They show Christianity to be rooted in Judaism and have been called the evolutionary link between the two."



http://www.centuryone.com/25dssfacts.html

Why were these not "written" on metal plates?

Actually, one of them is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Scroll

Very cool and delightsome. ;)

Thanks!

Holy shit the church is true. This is my last post here...

“Christianity rooted in Judaism”. Two comments. One, I don’t think this was ever a disputed or unknown connection. Two, the Dead Sea Scrolls don’t say anything about Christianity or Jesus even though they were written at the time of Jesus. That tells me a lot. We can learn what this community believed from the scrolls. Perhaps John the Baptist came from this movement.

One thing that's undisputed about them: they are actual archaeological finds dating back centuries, and are not based on a pseudo history like Joe cooked up when he plagiarized many other works to make the BoM.

They are real, in other words, and written by real people as part of a historical record of the Jews.

I find it fascinating, if purely from an archaeological standpoint.

They are also the writings of yet another doomsday cult. When will people get wise to this "last days" mentality?

The Dead Sea Scrolls aren't doomsday.

The NT chronicles are. The Dead Sea Scrolls are Old Testament, and parts of the Torah as well as other books of the OT.

Jews do not believe in doomsday, unlike Christians do.

They don't preach it.

amyjo Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Dead Sea Scrolls aren't doomsday.
>
>

Isn't 'doomsday' basically the same thing as apocalyptic? And if the two words/beliefs are related, what does one of the Fascinating Facts (and they truly are!) say:

13. The Dead Sea Scrolls were most likely written by the Essenes during the period from about 200 B.C. to 68 C.E./A.D. The Essenes are mentioned by Josephus and in a few other sources, but not in the New testament. The Essenes were a strict Torah observant, Messianic, APOCALYPTIC, baptist, wilderness, new covenant Jewish sect.

Why would the article say this if the writer(s) didn't believe it? After all, ghawd had 'apocalypted' the whole world with The Flood and had 'apocalypted' whole cities and peoples! It's not much of a stretch to suppose that the authors of the scrolls also held this belief, that there would be an End Time. just as FF #13 says...

The dead scroll scroll group, Qumran group, Essenes, whatever you want to call them (scholars still debate if the scrolls were authored by the Essenes) are all about the end of days. There is a strong apocalyptic strain in Judaism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_eschatology

They prove the Book of Mormon is true!

I don't know how, but they just do.

Because...God.

Why? Because Joe said it, of course!

LOL. (At least they aren't plagiarized. Just translated.)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2015 06:27PM by amyjo.

Fascinating Fact #7 does support the BofM! We say that when Nephi left Jerusalem Isaiah had not yet written his book. But look at this:

"7. The Isaiah Scroll, found relatively intact, is 1000 years older than any previously known copy of Isaiah. In fact, the scrolls are the oldest group of Old Testament manuscripts ever found."


Expect to read this on FairMormon later today...

The earliest dating for this scroll is around 300 BC. Still off by a few hundred years. It was likely written between 200 and 100 BC. It's just that the next oldest complete copy, the Leningrad Codex, is only about 1000 years old.

Very good article. You know FAIR is all about that copper scroll right?

Absence of evidence is proof of Mormonism.

I actually heard a Mormon once say that the Dead Sea Scrolls, the "Nag-had-hammy" documents verified everything Joseph Smith said. That's why the Jews were suppressing them (this was in the seventies).

The apocalyptic stance is a fav of religious extremists because it helps them detach people from their real lives. It's that simple.

In the Darwinian view, any movement/idea that persists is serving a useful purpose, even if it is not the one they espouse publicly.



Kathleen

anagrammy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> The apocalyptic stance is a fav of religious
> extremists because it helps them detach people
> from their real lives. It's that simple.
>




Real life can be pretty challenging though.
I've been having some challenges and it seems that the mind, or whatever, wants to kick in and have all the bad wiped out so the person becomes rescued and/or vindicated.
Last week I visited a 90 year old lady and asked if she had any tips on getting through a long life cause it's kinda hard right now.

She is a sweet woman and said, oh yes, life is full of one challenge after the next, but you have to stay close to Heavenly Father. She said that people need to have something to hold on to or they might not make it through. She clutched my hand with her frail hand. Her compassion and empathy was visible.

At that moment I could get her meaning. The mind may need to grasp onto something and it seems a better alternative to insanity or the psyche ward.

I like the idea of Truth, but I've given up believing that Truth can be known in this world.

I need a little detachment right now and will take suggestions. perhaps that's another thread.

Queen, it's probably true that having "something to hold onto" can help get through rough times.

Personally, I don't find making up something to hold onto (gods, angels, aliens, etc.) very useful. That's a mind-trick, not REALLY something to hold onto.

I prefer actual things. Myself and my own goals, for instance. A good, non-judgmental friend. Science, and the knowledge we get by using it. Lots of other REAL things.

Some people like the idea of a "god" or something similar. It helps them. That's fine for them. It's not for me. I just can't convince myself that something I make up, and that there's no evidence for, is going to do anyone any good.

Hi Queen,

I just caught your post now, (home from the doc's.)

Your 90-year old friend is wise for her years.

Studies show that those who have faith in something to believe in are emotionally healthier and happier than those who don't. Perhaps that does help stave off the psyche wards and clinically depressed for many who'd be lost without their beliefs in a higher power.

I don't have too many suggestions, just thanks for stopping by.

:)

What we knew all along....
It was bull$hit from getgo.

I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't more textual treasure stashed around the Judean desert.

When I visited Qumran and Masada back in 1981 I remember the way that the Romans had wantonly razed the Essene communities to the ground.

Other than the invasion ramp, the Romans left Masada essentially intact. They probably enjoyed the lavish accommodations as a trophy of war.

The Essenes knew that Rome was out to erase their existence. As guardians of their own writing plus the earlier texts they couldn't possibly have written, they hid every shred of heritage away from the ruthless Romans.

Thanks Shummy, for sharing that.

Sediment shifts, layers after layers, over many years.

One *little* example is my backyard, where I laid a circle of decorative bricks (1999,) and put a bird bath in its center. Over a period of a couple of years the foundation of the little stone bird bath cracked in two. So I removed it to the garage, and let the grass grow back where it had been.

The years passed, and I'd forgotten all about the brick circle.

Two summers ago I went to dig in the yard to plant a Blue Spruce. Hitting rock, I wondered what was there. Under several feet of earth the circle of bricks were buried from the shifting sediment of time.

In slightly over a decade those bricks were buried several feet under the earth, still in their perfectly formed circle. I pulled out as many as I could, and recycled them.

After thousands of years, I imagine the sands of the Judean desert are hiding many artifacts of ancient times. That's another fascinating field of study.

You might like this article of ancient artifacts dug up and possibly lost forever, from the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/Jewish-historys-greatest-archaeological-crime-419231

Well ya know if the idiots who run the middle east could put down their arms and turn their radar technology into ground penetrating radar they might be surprised what wisdom of their forefathers may lie buried beneath the perennial battlefields of the Levant.

Doing a little searching on CenturyOne (or Century One--their name on their California non-profit paperwork), I find that they still have an active online donations page. They claim that donations are tax deductible. However, checking the California Attorney General's page for charities, I see that (according to CO's Franchise Tax Number) that they are delinquent, meaning they haven't been filing necessary paperwork with the state. The last renewal due date given on their paperwork is in 2004--11 years past.

I would be hesitant to accept information from such a source, but I have a suspicious mind. (This is leaving aside that the address on their domain registration returns to a fan manufacturer, that their "mother" company--M2 Communications--is based in Pasadena, but CO is based in Azusa, while their tech address appears to be either a truck stop or an empty field (depending on the side of the road) in Maryland.) The latter three bits of info may be incorrect, Google Street View lagging as it does behind the times. Your mileage may vary.

This website is for Century One Foundation Inc.

From what I could find is they are current with their IRS filings through 2013. If they're still registered as a California entity and paying taxes, it's as legitimate as most.

Registered in 1997, Pasadena, CA, as a social science Anthropology Research Institution.

Not a fly-by-night. Based on its own reports, it is functioning as it's disclosed.

Organizations may not stay around forever, just like their founders. They have a lifespan. http://www.guidestar.org/organizations/95-4609216/century-one-foundation.aspx

the dead sea scrolls pretty much refute christinsanity which is why you don't get to see them.

Eveything in them must be true - cause it is written down!!??!
Is that the consensus?

I wanted to get all "snarky" and throw a fit; but this was one of the biggest reasons that started my faith crisis.

Many of you are too young... but there was a movement and teaching going on in the church in the late 70's early 80's before GBH (I think it was kinda pushed down by Benson, but not has much as by Hinkley. S.Kimball though seemed a huge proponent on "New Scriptures". He knew he wasn't receiving revelation, so he gave his blessing to Hugh Nibley and the like to translate and present surviving scriptures and the apocrypha books. So Nibley did a year long presentation in the Ensign on things like The Book of Enoch, https://www.lds.org/ensign/1975/10/a-strange-thing-in-the-land-the-return-of-the-book-of-enoch-part-1?lang=eng

I mean Joseph Smith himself invited members to read the Apocrypha and to glean out of it that which was good and pray over the things that they can find out what is true and what wasn't. http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no89.htm


Then we were going to interpet and introduce the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library. http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

I recall some GA quoting from the Book of Thomas, and also mentioning the Book of Mary and the Book of Truth.

Even though I was still a teen, almost ready to go on my mission, I was still getting ready for them to announce that new scriptures would be added to our canonized group. We were just waiting for translations to be done... The BYU team that was working on them, had found many, many Mormon teachings and temple practices in them. So of course God was providing more testaments for those in the Latter-days!!!!

Then nothing. No announcements, no explanations, no telling the members they were wrong or they weren't getting any scriptures or copies of the gnostic gospels. It was immediately brushed under the rug; just like the BOA papyrus and the Mark Hofman papers... All just brushed away. Yet we know the scrolls exist, we know that many copies of "other" gospels and teachings exist. So LDS inc doesn't have revelation or direct communication from God any more, at least they could of provided new translations or provided copies of the new books; but no, this too was to become another thing to keep the members ignorant in. The funny things is that no members made any inquiries or complaints or even questioned, "What ever happened to the discoveries of God's words and commandments?"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2015 03:57AM by dydimus.

From your first shared link, this passage struck me as funny sweet:

"As the History of the Church records:

“It may be well to observe here, that the Lord greatly encouraged and strengthened the faith of His little flock, which had embraced the fulness of the everlasting Gospel, as revealed to them in the Book of Mormon, by giving some more extended information upon the Scriptures, a translation of which had already commenced. Much conjecture and conversation frequently occurred among the Saints, concerning the books mentioned, and referred to, in various places in the Old and New Testaments, which were now nowhere to be found. The common remark was, ‘They are lost books;’ but it seems that Apostolic Church had some of these writings, as Jude mentions or quotes the Prophecy of Enoch, the seventh from Adam. To the joy of the little flock, which in all … numbered about seventy members, did the Lord reveal the following doings of olden times, from the prophecy of Enoch.” 6

The book of Enoch was given to the Saints as a bonus for their willingness to accept the Book of Mormon and as a reward for their sustained and lively interest in all scriptures, including the lost books; they were searchers, engaging in eager speculation and discretion, ever seeking like Adam and Abraham, for “greater [light and] knowledge.” (Abr. 1:2.) And we have been told that if we stop seeking we shall not only find no more but lose the treasures we already have. That is why it is not only advisable but urgent that we begin at last to pay attention to that astonishing outpouring of ancient writings which is the peculiar blessing of our generation...." (Peculiar blessing alright that we now have enough information to know up from down!)

In 1975 I hadn't started to question the veracity of Mormonism yet. But I was checking out other faiths at the same time. Maybe a precursor of what was to come later? ;-)

Insofar as Joseph could continue to trick his sheeple into being his followers, he would have them read just about anything that would support his new founded religion. They didn't have the background to question.

I wonder why it was suddenly brushed under the carpet? Maybe someone with a grain of understanding figured it would challenge the faith of the righteous to have the other gnostic gospels introduced, and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Mormon teachings are a stark departure from any gospels of Christianity or biblical teachings.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2015 11:15AM by amyjo.

When I was young many, many years ago I remember hearing how the Dead Sea Scrolls were going to prove Mormonism. Some people thought that writings in the 1st century surely contained the pure original form of Christianity and it would look exactly like Mormonism.

Fact 26: "The Great Isaiah Scroll, written down around 150-100
B.C.E., contains every Isaiah quotation in the Book of Mormon
that differs with the King James Version."

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Sorry, I'm feeling a bit silly today

Fact 27:

"The copper scroll makes reference to an otherwise unknown Hebrew term which modern day scholars have translated into English as Liahona."

RLDS still uses a translated King James Version of Joseph's Smith's version of the holy bible.

You read through it, and his added scriptures to books like Isaiah, and others, are found sprinkled throughout the entire biblical work.

It makes it drag on, detracts from the already existing "Spoken Word." And is otherwise cumbersome.

We never made it to the section where we're warned not to "Add to these scriptures, or take away from them." Kinda begs the question, just a little.