The Copper Scroll: A List of Hidden Treasure

At the back of a cave near Qumran, on March 14, 1952, an archaeologist found the last of fifteen scrolls from that cave. This one was made of metal.

Scripture: He carried out from there all the treasures of Yahweh’s house, and the treasures of the king’s house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold, which Solomon king of Israel had made in Yahweh’s temple, as Yahweh had said.

Our passage is a siege. Babylon's servants besiege Jerusalem, King Jehoiachin goes out to the king of Babylon, and the treasures of the temple and the palace are taken away.

The Copper Scroll is no literary work. It is a list of sixty-four places where gold and silver were said to be buried or hidden.

It is copper with about one percent tin, corroded into brittle oxide, so it could not be unrolled by conventional means. In 1955 and 1956, in Manchester, England, it was cut into twenty-three strips so it could be read.

When was it written? Scholars differ. Cross proposed 25 to 75 of the Common Era, Albright 70 to 135, and Milik about 100. His date would mean it did not come from the Qumran community.

How does it relate to the passage? The sources don't connect them. Scholars date the scroll differently, and Lehmann argued the treasure was principally money gathered between two Jewish revolts, while the temple lay in ruins.

The sources don't say it mentions the Babylonian removal of treasure. At most, it is a list of supposed hiding places. Whether any treasure was ever hidden is unknown, since none has been found, and scholars differ on whether it was real.

Today the scroll is on display at the Jordan Museum in Amman, since 2013, after years at the Jordan Archaeological Museum on Citadel Hill. Conservation work in the 1990s included x-rays and cleaning.

A list of supposedly hidden treasure, and scholars still disagree about what it means. May the Lord Jesus Christ be with you today. Follow along for the next find.