Posts tagged Copper Scroll

By Shelley Neese

The discovery of the first Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 marked the beginning of a new era in Biblical scholarship.  The scrolls predated the oldest known copies of the Hebrew Bible by a thousand years.  They outlined the messianic hopes, prophetic interpretations, apocalyptic beliefs, and strict communal practices of a Jewish community unlike either the Pharisees or Sadducees, the two most well-known sects of the Second Temple period.  After a half century more of archeological excavation and scroll study one glaring question remains unanswered: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Almost immediately, the scrolls were associated with Qumran, an area of ruins near the Dead Sea.  Out of 11 caves, six are within a quarter mile of Qumran.  The cave which stored the largest cache of scrolls is just 500 yards from the ruins.  In addition, Jodi Magness, a University of North Carolina professor, identifies another connection between Qumran and the scrolls; the same peculiar type of pottery jars that contained the scrolls was excavated at Qumran.  Excavations also revealed several ink wells—a rare find at comparable sites from this period and potential evidence that at least some occupants were scribes.  According to this logic, the Dead Sea Scrolls must have made up a permanent library for the inhabitants of Qumran.  But who were Qumran’s residents?

From the outset, academics believed Qumran was a branch of the Essene movement, a sect of Jews who separated themselves from the leadership of the Second Temple and practiced a stricter form of Judaism than their religious contemporaries.  The first-century Jewish historian Josephus claims to have spent time with the Essenes personally.  In his writings, Josephus goes into great detail about the Essenes’ initiation processes, purity rituals, finances, and even toilet habits.  The communal practices Josephus describes, like the pooling of personal property, seem to match the requirements laid out in the Community Rule, one of the most popular manuscripts in the Dead Sea collection.  The Damascus Document, another common manuscript at Qumran, depicts a strict interpretation of religious law that matches what we know to be true of the Essenes, as opposed to the Pharisees or Sadducees. 

Pliny the Elder, an ancient Roman geographer, mentions the location of the Essenes in his book Natural History (77 A.D.).  He describes the Essenes living at a necessary distance “to the west of the Dead Sea,” above the town of Ein Gedi.  Pliny’s description seems to correspond with Qumran’s location.

Aspects of Qumran’s architecture also seemed to fit what an ascetic group focused on community and cleanliness would need.  In the ruins, there are at least eight stepped pools, identified as mikvahs, a necessity for the Essenes’ ritual purity laws.  In the excavations, a pantry was discovered with tall stacks of plates and bowls, pointing to the existence of communal meals, an important observance for Essenes according to Josephus.  Twelve hundred ancient graves lie near Qumran; a small portion of these were unearthed in the 1950s.  All the corpses received a strict religious burial, and most were male, aligning with the thought that the Essenes of Qumran were a celibate all-male community.

For three decades, the question of who wrote the scrolls seemed to be settled.  Biblical scholars widely accepted that Essenes occupied Qumran, and that these occupants owned the scrolls.  This theory fell in line with the conclusions of Pere Roland de Vaux, a French archeologist who in 1951-1956 was the first to excavate Qumran professionally. 

By the late 1980s, however, cracks in the Essene theory began to emerge.  De Vaux had died before he completed a final report from his Qumran excavations.  Scholars, tasked with cataloguing and publishing de Vaux’s material, returned to the archeological record on Qumran to take a second look at the findings. What they determined, rightly or wrongly, is that the original excavations failed to establish a concrete link between Qumran and the scrolls.  For example, no scrolls or pieces of scrolls were found at Qumran.  Out of 900 scrolls and scroll fragments, nowhere mentioned is the term “Essene” or the name of any other known Jewish sect.  As for Josephus, he says the Essenes lived in towns all over Israel but never specifically mentions Qumran as an Essene center.  Further, excavations revealed an insufficient number of private dwellings at Qumran for a place assumed to house a religious community. 

Professor Norman Golb of the University of Chicago is the most ardent dissenter from the Essene theory.  Golb thinks too many Jewish viewpoints and textual traditions are represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls to say this is the work of just one group.  He also notes that a small sectarian community would not have possessed such a large library.  The community would have unlikely contained the number of scribes sufficient to produce so many manuscripts.  Golb thinks many different groups wrote the scrolls, which he supposes were removed from Jerusalem libraries during the Roman war.  Jews fleeing the Roman forces between 66 and 73 A.D. went to Qumran a day’s walk and hid the scrolls in caves for safekeeping.  The problem with Golb’s theory lies in the opinions of the sectarian scrolls’ authors, who write about a deep hostility toward the groups controlling the Temple and who do not express the views of mainstream Judaism at the time.

Two established Israeli archaeologists, Yuval Peleg and Yitzhak Magen the most recent to excavate Qumran propose the site was just a pottery factory that had nothing to do with the Essenes.  They say the scrolls came from the sectarian libraries of Jewish refugees under Roman threat.  Peleg and Magen recognize the pottery link between Qumran and the caves but theorize that the refugees hastily took jars from Qumran which by that time might have been vacated to hide their scroll deposits before fleeing the region.

A new book recently added to the debate stirs up even more controversy.  Professor Rachel Elior of Hebrew University claims in Memory and Oblivion that the scrolls came from Jerusalem and were written by the Sadducees—ousted Temple priests.  Elior goes one step further, claiming Josephus invented the Essenes and they never really existed. 

The argument over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls brings normally collected scholars close to physical blows.  Not all theories mentioned here were presented passively by academics looking to foster constructive debate.  Among the scroll scholars exists an Essene camp and an anti-Essene camp.  Golb has claimed for years that the pro-Essene scholars have tried to silence him, frequently calling them fanatics.  Magen, called the proponents of the Qumran Sect theory “a guild with money and conferences.”

This past March, the academic feud reached a new low—lower than the Dead Sea itself.  Golb’s 49-year-old son, Raphael, was arrested for an Internet plot to promote his father’s theories.  He used at least 80 fake online aliases to post inflammatory comments on blogs defending the credibility of his father’s theories.  According to the Manhattan District Attorney, Raphael was “creating multiple aliases to engage in a campaign of impersonation and harassment relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls and scholars of opposing viewpoints.”  In at least one case Raphael opened an e-mail account under the name of New York University professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, who opposed Golb’s opinions.  Sending e-mails in Schiffman’s name, Raphael fabricated a confession from the NYU professor that he had plagiarized parts of Golb’s work. 

Despite the best efforts of Raphael and the depth of emotion surrounding the debate on the origins of the scrolls, no new consensus has yet replaced the Essene hypothesis or categorically disproved it.  In the intriguing world of scroll scholarship, academics who think the Essenes wrote the manuscripts are still in the clear majority.  In the last 25 years, the landscape of scroll scholarship has changed as a growing group of dissenters has succeeded in adding a degree of doubt to a theory once accepted unanimously.  The case is never closed.  In the fickle field of archeology and scroll study, we are always one discovery away from changing the entire question.

Shelley Neese is managing editor for the The Jerusalem Connection Report.

By Shelley Neese

Driving down Israel’s Highway 90 in a nine passenger rental van, a group of explorers stare silently at the Judean desert outside.  They’ve come from Oklahoma and North Texas and their stories leading them here are as varied as their silhouettes against the van windows.  They are united in this, they each know that somewhere out there, hidden under thousands of years of dust and rock, lies the priestly vestments, the urn of the red heifer, and the gold and silver contained in the ancient temple of Israel.  Maybe more is waiting, maybe the Ark of the Covenant itself.  They’re convinced they know where to look, and in a matter of hours shovels will finally break ground.

The team’s boss is Jim Barfield.  A retired fire marshal, Barfield has a deep tan and thick white hair that falls below his shoulder blades, making him look more Native American than he can actually account for.  Two years ago, he applied his arson investigation skills to the Copper Scroll, a treasure map found hidden in a cave with other Dead Sea Scrolls.  He believes he’s “cracked the code” to the treasure locations that have eluded scholars for fifty years.  Barfield has no university degree but he retired young so he could have more time for study and research, which usually takes place at a local Starbucks in Lawton, Oklahoma. 

As for the rest of the team, each is as unlikely as the next to be included in something like this.  Mac—a successful cattle rancher who’d been gored by a bull the day before leaving for Israel—had never been on an airplane before.  His seven foot frame made for an interesting contortion in economy class.  The last time Larry was in an international city was Saigon during Vietnam.  Ken invented a remote control robot on wheels mounted with an infrared camera to use at some of the harder to reach sites.  Shawn, the project’s videographer, is Barfield’s son.  Laid-back with his director’s goatee and vintage clothing, he’s documented every important moment leading up to the dig.  Linda is a surgical nurse and Messianic who made sure that on the weekends the team had proper Shabbats.  Chris is an online tractor dealer who some consider Barfield’s armor-bearer. Barfield’s right hand man from the beginning, he’s never missed an exploratory trip to Israel, speaking engagement, or planning meeting. 

April 21 is the first scheduled dig day for The Copper Scroll Project and the group has to drive from Arad—where they have been loaned a free house to stay—to the Dead Sea area.  Highway 90, the only way to get there, is a roller-coaster of a road where the driver has no option but to ride the breaks all the way down the winding decline.  Reaching the lowest place on Earth isn’t easy.

As the team piles out from the van, the archeologist, Oren, from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is already waiting.  Soft-spoken by Israeli standards, Oren has a large frame, wears a black pair of Oakley sunglasses, and ties a white shirt to the top of his bald head for sun protection.  He hadn’t been warned that such a large group was coming with Barfield, but he politely shakes hands and introduces everyone to his three Palestinian diggers, his work companions for the last seventeen years. 

Within thirty minutes black tarps with large holes are loosely tied to metal poles stuck in the ground.  The digging is about to commence.  For all the technological advances of the modern world, the archeological process is still surprisingly primitive:  picks, shovels, and buckets. 

Barfield is allowed to select the place where he wants to start the dig.  He chooses the last place listed in the Copper Scroll, but the most important because it promises another scroll that clarifies all the hiding spots. 

Item 64:  “In the tunnel which is in Sechab, to the North of Kochlit, which opens towards the North and has graves in its entrance: a copy of this text and its explanation and its measurements and the inventory of everything, item by item.” 

No one from the team is allowed to help with the digging but they are too excited to sit passively and watch.  Each person finds their own non-intrusive perch, out from the tarp and away from Oren and Barfield, but close enough that they won’t miss a thing.  After thirty minutes, before the diggers break a sweat, a strange lip forms in a part of the rock indicating an empty cavity.  The diggers follow with their picks where the lip curves under.  Ken gives the group a hopeful wink and Chris sneaks a thumbs up.  Shawn adjusts his camera for a better angle while whispering to his dad, “Maybe after this we can go search for Atlantis.” Barfield stays quiet and never takes his eyes off the shovels.  Linda prays aloud, anointing the caves contents.  Oren moves the diggers aside to get a better look. 

The Palestinians pull out thirty buckets of dirt and one scorpion before they hit solid rock behind the lip.  Oren brushes the area off for a final examination and reports without emotion, “It’s nothing.”  The giddy chatter turns into a deflated silence.  If they’re looking for a cave entry, solid rock equals dead end.  Barfield sends a few team members back to the van to get chairs and ice chests.  Shawn turns one camera off; he’s thinking about conserving battery now. 

The lip is just a small portion of the potential cave site and the diggers go for five more hours, wrapping around the rock heap to a depth of about three feet.  When the tarps no longer protect them from the midday sun, the work pace slows and water breaks increase.  The team is hot and starting to admit to each other that at this pace it will be a longer process than anyone first thought.  They creep under the tarp, figuring if they keep quiet then they can enjoy the shade without bothering Oren and the diggers.

At that moment, Oren says he wants to stop digging at the cave and move on to test another site.  “There is no sign of humans being here—no pottery, no nothing.  It’s just natural dirt.”  Barfield, who has not sat down all day, stands there in his battle dress uniform—a white V-neck shirt, camoflauge pants, and a leather explorer hat which could easily land him a role in an Indiana Jones sequel.  Barfield’s confidence in his theory isn’t shaken but he knows that for the cave to be fully tested they will have to dig another six feet down and ten feet back.  Not wanting to get the dig bogged down but also wanting to leave the door open to return at some point to the rock, Barfield negotiates.  “That’s fine.”  He says.  “All I ask is that the dirt not be filled back in.”  Oren agrees.

Item 9: “And in the gutter which is in it: ten talents.”

On day two of the dig Oren suggests testing the gutter, the ninth site listed in the scroll.  A year earlier on a scouting trip, Barfield and Chris casually peaked into this gutter’s opening, spotting a jewel seven inches long lying in the dirt.  What they thought was the biggest diamond they’d ever seen was actually a 13-sided prism used in New Age ceremonies for Earth healing (similar ones on Ebay go for a thousand dollars).  Since that day, Barfield has hoped that if a prism could be on the dirt’s surface then greater things could lie underneath.

Without knowing exactly where the items in the gutter are buried, the entire length of the shaft needs to be excavated, about twenty feet.  Ken’s robot camera sits in the van on standby.  Only two diggers can work at a time and each shovel of dirt is examined for artifacts.  Since over two-thousand years at least a foot of dirt has blown into the gutter, getting past cigarette butts and grocery bags to a first century level takes two hours.  The diggers have trouble getting at the correct angle to properly excavate the shaft. 

After finding no more than pottery shards, Oren decides it’s time to test a third site.  Barfield shows no hint of dejection but does speak up.  “The depths the Scroll mentions are around six feet below virgin soil.”  He says.  “We haven’t gotten close to that.”  Oren advises that it’s best to return later to the gutter with a metal detector. 

Item 44 and 45: In the cistern which is to the North of the mouth of narrow pass of Beth-Tamer, in the rocky ground of Ger Pela, everything which is there is a sacred offering.  In the dovecote of the fortress of Nabata […]

Barfield wants to avoid repeating the same problems as the first two dig sites and believes its time to visit one of the most pinpointed of the sixty total locations.  Oren chooses a different site along a broken wall, which the team fears has all the same problems as the other two.  It will require a further depth than Oren may be willing to check.  Normally very talkative, Barfield nods, avoiding any conflict with his archeologist. 

“I wish I could get in there and do the digging myself,” Mac says aloud to anyone who’ll listen.  Larry paces the dirt and formulates conspiracies to explain who in the Israeli government is stopping these items from being found.  Shawn has the look of a concerned son.  He has his own ambitions to make a career-defining documentary, but he sets the camera down and watches his father, looking for any sign of disappointment.  He sees only a determined father who doesn’t give up easy, but he leans over to me saying, “What will Paw tell everyone back home at Starbucks if we have to quit already?”

To properly excavate around the wall, the Palestinian diggers will need to go at least eight feet deep and stretch the entire breadth of the wall.  They look confused when Oren gives these directions as their excavation routine never goes past virgin soil.  The Arabic banter increases and their mood becomes testy, but they ultimately exhume a hole four feet deep and three feet wide. Mac stands in the hole and it stops around his chest. 

None of the three sites are filled back in because Oren wants to use a metal detector over them before making a conclusion.  The morning they meet to metal detect also happens to be Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers of war.  Oren is active in the reserves and is scheduled to be part of the day’s ceremonies.  “We have just one hour to do this.”  He tells Barfield.  “I have to be back for the ceremonies at nine.”  Barfield knows one hour is a desperate attempt at best.  “Okay,” he mutters back, “glad we’re on time.  Let’s see what we can do.”  Oren pulls a White’s metal detector out of his truck, a good brand but it will not detect metal more than three feet deep.  Oren makes an unusual request: no videotaping while he is detecting.  He rushes off with Barfield and Chris to go over the sites.  The only time the detector beeps is when it touches Oren’s steel-toed shoe or picks up the occasional gum wrapper. 

As the group walks back to the car frustrated from the course of the short day, Oren senses the disappointment.  “Archeology requires patience.”  He offers to the group.  “And I have a lot of it.”

Nervous silence engulfs the van now on its way back to Arad.  All eyes are on Barfield, and he knows the next words spoken must be his own.  “This operation has been like having a huge bowl of your favorite ice cream placed in front of you,” he says, “and only getting one lick.”  He stops at the next gas station and sponsors ice cream bars for all. 

When Jim Barfield first cracked the code on the Copper Scroll he was in his home office in Oklahoma and had no idea what to do with the information.  Just two years later, he was beaming at the site of the first shovels breaking ground.  “I still can’t get over that we are here and the dig is actually happening.”  He says.  “I have to be thankful it has come this far.”  Nothing in Barfield’s research has been proven, but nothing has been disproven either.  For now the project goes on even as the group returns home to the U.S.  They remain as loyal and confident as ever, if not a little battle-hardened.  All they need is a fresh dose of patience, and the next dig schedule.   

Shelley Neese is managing editor for the The Jerusalem Connection Report.

By  Shelley  Neese

The Ark of the Covenant has not been seen since the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar.  2600 years, however, has not been long enough to kill the curiosity or exhaust the imagination of the many who ponder the Ark’s fate.  The burning question is how something so holy and central to Jewish worship could disappear without explanation.  The Babylonian’s detailed list of stolen Temple items makes no mention of the Ark; the Bible offers no resolution on whether the Ark was stolen, lost, or destroyed.  The Copper Scroll is the first archeological discovery that sheds light on the issue and could even lead to the Ark’s recovery. 

The Copper Scroll is an anomaly in the Dead Sea Scroll Collection.  Found in 1952, like the other scrolls, the Copper Scroll was found in a cave near the ruins of Qumran and was thus attributed to the Essenes.  As its nickname implies it is a scroll written on thin copper sheets.  Unlike the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Copper Scroll has no literary or religious content; it is an inventory of sixty-four obscure locations where gold, silver, and other treasures are said to be hidden. 

Most scholars would deny any direct connection between the Copper Scroll and the Ark.  Admittedly, the Ark is not directly mentioned in the Scroll.  However, there is a common scholarly assumption that the contents that are listed in the Scroll came from the Jewish Temple.  The Copper Scroll describes a hoard of precious metals and coins estimated to be worth around two billion dollars today.  The only place in ancient Israel that would have had access to so much wealth was the Temple treasury.  Jews in the land and in the Diaspora had brought substantial wealth to the Jewish temple through regular free-will offerings.

In addition to temple tithes, the Scroll refers to other movable temple items like ‘dedicated vessels,’ ‘consecrated’ items, and priestly garments.  Temple vessels are referred to in at least three sections of the Scroll and priestly ephods are named once.  According to Copper Scroll expert B. Pixner, the fourth section of the Scroll references the Breastplate of the High Priest.  In the twenty-sixth section of the Scroll, the scribe uses the same Hebrew word for “pitcher” that is almost exclusively used for the Qalal, the urn which held the ashes of the Red Heifer.  Albert Wolters, a  professor of Religion and Theology in Ontario who focuses on the Dead Sea Scrolls, makes an argument that the proper translation for the last hiding place of the Copper Scroll reads “the Cavern of the Shekinah.”  Shekinah when used in the Bible designates the Divine Presence as it inhabits the Tabernacle (Exod. 40:35) and the Temple in Jerusalem.

There seems to also be a more cryptic reference in the Scroll to the Ark.  According to the translation of John Allegro, the first person allowed to study the Copper Scroll, the text opens with: “In the desolations of the Valley of Achor, under the hill that must be climbed, hidden under the east side, forty stones deep, is a silver chest, and with it, the vestments of the High Priest, all the gold and silver with the Great Tabernacle [Mishkhan] and all its Treasures.”  Mishkan is the Hebrew word used for the Wilderness Tabernacle, the Tabernacle that the Israelis carried during the forty years of wandering and the contents of which were later transferred to the Ark. 

The prevailing opinion in Copper Scroll studies is that, like the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Copper Scroll dates between 150 BCE and 70 CE.  Logic would follow that the Scroll is referring to second Temple treasures secreted away before the Roman invasion.  If this theory stands, then the Copper Scroll likely has no connection to the Ark since the Ark was absent from the Second Temple. 
A less popular—but no less interesting—theory is that the Copper Scroll treasure is from the First Temple and was removed by Temple guardians before the Babylonian invasion.  The scroll would likely have been hid in a cave during the Babylonian exile.  The idea that the Copper Scroll could be a precursor to the Dead Sea Scrolls has some credibility given its unique Biblical language.  The Scroll’s script and word construction has eluded many paleographers (experts in ancient script) because it is unlike any of the other Dead Sea Scrolls or texts from the suspected period of production.  Some passages have paleographic dates around 70 CE, but other passages date back 700 years earlier. 
Vendyl Jones—an explorer who has devoted thirty years to studying the Copper Scroll—and Jim Barfield—a retired fire marshal who believes he has cracked the code on the Copper Scroll (see my Copper Scroll articles from the last two issues)—believe the Second book of Maccabees and two other extra-Biblical texts give the background to the Copper Scroll.

II Maccabees tells the story of the prophet Jeremiah receiving a divine warning about the Babylonian invasion to come.  Jeremiah took the sacred Temple treasures—including the Wilderness Tabernacle, the Ark and its contents, and the Qalal—and hid them in a hollow cave near Mount Nebo (Deut. 34:1).  After Jeremiah sealed the entrance his followers complained they could not find the site.   Jeremiah replied “the place shall be unknown until God gathers His people together again and shows His mercy.”
In 1922 an eighteenth century writing called Emeq HaMelekh written by Rav Hertz, an authority on oral Torah, was found in Amsterdam.  In Emeq HaMelekh, Hertz goes into detail describing the mission directed by the prophet Jeremiah to hide the Ark and other sacred things.   Hertz wrote that seven years before the destruction of Solomon’s Temple, five holy men “concealed the vessels of the Temple and the wealth of the treasures that were in Jerusalem.”  Once the guardians hid the objects they inscribed the inventory and secret locations on a Luach Nehoshet (copper plate).  Emeq HaMelekh warns that the Temple items will “not be discovered until the day of the coming of Moschiach, son of David.”

As his source, Hertz cited in his introduction a Tosefta Mishnayot (Rabbinic writing) which was unknown to modern Talmudists until twenty years ago.  In 1990 proof of the Tosephta Mishnayot surfaced in an 8th century genizah (document deposit) recovered from Cairo, Egypt.  Though the genizah document predated Emeq HaMelekh by a thousand years, it gave the same story as Rav Hertz about the Temple rescue operation, named the same five holy men, and referenced the copper plate. 
Could the Copper Scroll now sitting in a museum in Jordan be the Luach Nehoshet?  The possibility is tantalizing.  Excluding Jones and Barfield, however, few Copper Scroll experts have given the connection any merit—mostly because archeologist frown upon using ancient literary texts to aid in finding artifacts. 

Even still, outside of a Hollywood movie studio, never before has there been a treasure map that held this kind of promise and suspense.  The Copper Scroll may be our closest witness to the Ark’s fate.  Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark one too many times and you can not put down the sneaking suspicion that if the Ark is ever meant to be found it will be the Luach Nehoshet—not Prof. Indiana Jones—that leads us to it. 

Shelley Neese is managing editor for the The Jerusalem Connection Report.

By  Shelley Neese

Israel’s ancient mystery deciphered

Jim Barfield, a retired fire marshal from Oklahoma, believes he has cracked the code on The Copper Scroll.  Applying his arson investigation skills to the world’s most intriguing antiquities, he has achieved something that for four decades has eluded all other archeological and paleographical experts.  Barfield has shown his research to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and they have given him a permit to conduct an expedition this winter. 

I met Barfield—or Jimmy B as his friends call him—at a pro-Israel conference in Dallas.  Amazed by the possibility of his locating the sites of ancient temple tithes, I have been following his story for three months and have had the chance to conduct several interviews with him and his family.  Whether or not Barfield has solved this ancient mystery is yet to be proven, but after hearing his story you can’t help but think the same God who chose a young shepherd-boy to be King of Israel and an exiled Jewish girl to be Queen of Persia, would also hand-pick an Oakie fireman to restore to Israel the sacred temple treasures.

NEESE: What exactly is the Copper Scroll?

BARFIELD: The Copper Scroll, found near the Dead Sea in Israel in 1952, is literally a copper metal document approximately seven feet long listing about sixt locations of very large amounts of gold, silver, and gems from the time of Moses and from the time of King Solomon.  I don’t like to call it a treasure map because these items are holy but essentially it’s a map listing buried treasure. 

How did you get interested in the Copper Scroll?

I have been working on a biblical timeline since 1993 and that’s how I got started studying the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The first time I read the Copper Scroll I was totally bored by it.  In the Dead Sea Scrolls there are a lot of fascinating things but the Copper Scroll seemed like just a list of kosher metals. 

I was introduced to Vendyl Jones in 2006 and spent a weekend at his house in Texas.  We had a wonderful time discussing the Copper Scroll and hearing about his fifty years of research.  I woke up one morning soon after and decided to take another look at the Copper Scroll.  Glad I did.

How did you get access to the Copper Scroll?

It wasn’t very difficult.  It’s called the internet.  Anyone can go online and get a facsimile of the Copper Scroll.

There are several different translations of The Copper Scroll.  Which translation did you use for your research?

I used the Martinez translation as a guideline but then I did my own word for word rendering of the text using a Strong’s Concordance.  Not too fancy but this allowed me to simply read the text for what it was: a verbal map.  I know probably people could debate my qualifications for doing this and they are more than justified.  But if the sites prove to be right then no one is going to care about how I translated it. 

Do you believe the Copper Scroll is pointing to first or second temple items?

I believe the scroll is from the first Temple period.  These things were hidden when the Babylonians were knocking at the door of Jerusalem.  The Second Book of Maccabees and a seventeenth century book called Emeq HaMelekh (“Valley of the King”) tell the story of the prophet Jeremiah who with the help of five Temple guardians carefully hid the holy objects of the Temple to protect them from the Babylonians.  One was named Shimur Halevi and two of the others you’ve probably heard of: the prophet Zechariah and Haggai.  Emeq HaMelekh says after the items were hid the locations were written on a copper plate.  It is very easy to detect four different handwritings in the scroll.  The first guy hid fourteen items.  The second guy hid twenty three; he worked his bottom off.  The third hid eighteen.  The fourth guy hid only five items but he did something so cool to direct you to the last site that is just over the top.  

The places mentioned in the Copper Scroll seem to be very specific, speaking of people and locations that are unknown to us today.   How do you know where these random wells, pools, and cisterns are located?

It was far simpler than that.  That’s the reason why others have not been able to locate these items.  They apply too much knowledge and try to make the Copper Scroll fit their preconceived theories.  I simply took what the scroll said and began to narrow things down by a process of elimination.  Just like in an arson investigation, I try to eliminate all the fringe factors by trying to prove whether or not someone is innocent.  In the case of the Copper Scroll I took the descriptions of the sites and matched them up with the data on the ground.  I matched up the fingerprints.

The Copper Scroll is a detailed list of at least sixty locations.  Have you identified all sixty of those locations?

Fifty-six of the sites I am almost positive on and four of them I am a bit shaky on. 

There are several people who have spent their lives trying to understand the Copper Scroll.  In locating the sites was there anyone whose previous research laid the groundwork for you?

Vendyl  Jones has done wonderful research on the history of the scroll and I agree with him completely on the history.  On the translation and locations though we don’t quite see eye to eye.   

How many times have you been to Israel?

I have been there four times in the last two years.  I had never been before my Copper Scroll research.  After I identified the first twenty sites in the scroll, my wife and I got on a plane and went to Israel by ourselves to check the sites and make sure that I wasn’t just going crazy.  When I got there I checked all the measurements, came back with the data, and figured out the rest of the locations within six months.  By June 22, 2007 I had completed my report and went back to Israel.  I met with the right people and things went fantastic after that. 

The last time I went to Israel was in September.  We met with the Israeli archeologist who will be leading the dig and actually went out to the sites.  He asked me where I wanted to start and I said I want to start at the buried cave, the last place mentioned in the scroll and the most important.  There is another scroll inside of that cave—“the Silver Scroll”—that will complement the directions in the Copper Scroll.  When we find that one we’ll get another fireman to come and figure out the Silver Scroll!

How did you get a meeting with the Israeli Antiquities Authority to show them your research? 

I was teaching a class at Comanche College and met a sweet lady named Juanita.  She just so happened to have sponsored in the 1970s an Israeli named Shuka Dorfman who was doing some training at Fort Sill.  They kept in touch and he became the director of the IAA.  She called him up and said “Shuka, I have someone you need to meet.”  I went to Israel in December 2007 and met with him at the Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem.  At first he thought I was a nut but I hadn’t shown him the first five locations before he was on the phone with his top archeologist saying “you’ve got to see this.”  He set up the meeting for me to meet with the archeologists at the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.

Was it difficult getting the permit? 

The archeologist from the IAA who has agreed to do the dig is the guy who grants permits.  There is normally a stack of paperwork you have to do to even apply for a permit but I did zero.

Did the Israeli experts question your credentials? 

I’m sure they did at first.  But once the experts see the research they just thump their heads and move me to the head of the class.

Who else is working on the Copper Scroll Project with you?

My buddy Chris Knight is my number two man in command.  I had to have someone I trusted and Chris is that guy.  Chris is dedicated to our Father in heaven and has a heart for Israel. 

My wife Laurie could give this interview for me.  She’s heard it all so many times.

Has anyone dug where you are pointing to before?

Not exactly.  None of the locations have actually been dug to the level that would require a discovery.  They have come awful close though.  It would be silly for me to say though that in the last 2,000 plus years these things haven’t been looted. 

Is there a finder’s fee if these things are located?

I’m not a treasure hunter and I have no thoughts for wealth.  I just want to do what God wants us to do.  If this is right then God gave this to a guy that just doesn’t give a darn about wealth.  My grandchildren love God and I want it to stay that way.  What matters most to me is what my children and grandchildren will say about me when they are gathered around… 

Have you been hard to live with since you first cracked the code?  I imagine it’s taken a lot of patience to wait out the expedition date.

In the beginning I stayed awake at night thinking about everything.  There were times that my wife just wanted to give me a shovel and tell me to go dig.  But now that we are getting closer I have been sleeping soundly.  A lot of prayer and fasting though.

How long do you expect the first expedition to take?

I’m thinking for the first site, if we dig slow, would only take a couple of days.  This won’t be a normal expedition.  We are not talking about brushing off broken pottery shards with paint brushes.  These are holy vessels and billions of dollars worth of gold and silver. 

What do you think could happen if the contents of the scroll are found?

I better be wearing depends that day! 

But seriously if these things are found it could change the world.  I just want to be there when the sites are opened.  What Israel does with the items after that is up to them.

Shelley Neese is managing editor for the The Jerusalem Connection Report.

By  Shelley Neese

“Shelley, I want you to meet the guy who has cracked the code on the Copper Scroll.” 

With that intriguing introduction, I shook hands with Jim Barfield.  We stood among the kiosks of Israeli goods during a lunch break at a Christian Zionist conference in Forth Worth, Texas.  

 “Congratulations,” I replied, “but what’s the Copper Scroll?” 

“A treasure map from the prophet Jeremiah,” Barfield answered.  I gave Barfield and his companion a quick once over, trying to determine whether they were the well-intentioned kind of crazy or scary crazy.  A small-town Oklahoma man with impressive posture, Barfield sported long (really long) grey hair and a full goatee.  His partner in “The Copper Scroll Project” is Chris Knight.  Knight, another long-haired fellow, speaks softly and possesses a gentle demeanor, but has the same look of confidence and conviction that Barfield exudes as they brief me on the Scroll. 

I took in the story with a bit of skepticism at first, but the longer we talked the more I thought that these guys may actually be onto something.  The first thing I did after the conference was jump on my laptop and Wikipedia “Copper Scroll.”  I also watched a documentary from the History Channel on the mysteries that enshroud the Scroll.  I confess there was a gaping hole in my knowledge base since I had never heard of the world’s most intriguing archaeological find.  

The Copper Scroll was discovered in 1952 in one of the Qumran caves along the Dead Sea.  Though an anomaly among the more than nine-hundred ancient manuscripts, it is part of the official Dead Sea Scrolls Collection.  The Copper Scroll differs from the others in that it is written entirely on thin sheets of alloyed copper rather than papyrus or leather.  While most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found by Bedouins and sold on the black market to antiquities dealers, the Copper Scroll was found by an archaeological team exactly where it had been waiting to be discovered at the back of a cave for over two thousand years.  Unlike the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls Collection, the Copper Scroll is not religious in nature.  Instead, it is a detailed list of approximately sixty locations where vast amounts of gold, silver, coins, vessels, and other religious artifacts are hidden.
When the Scroll was found it was rolled in two parts and badly oxidized.  Fearing it would crumble, experts debated for five years the best way to open the brittle Scroll.  Finally it was sent to a lab in Manchester, England where they cut the Scroll into twenty-three strips with a high-speed saw.  Photographs of the strips were taken and eventually published.  The Scroll itself was sent to the Archaeological Museum in Jordan since it had been found during an expedition sponsored by the Jordan Department of Antiquities.

There are several theories as to where the treasure listed in the scroll came from and to whom it belonged. There are those who think it is just an ancient hoax.  It seems odd that the Essenes, not known for their sense of humor, would create a fake inventory on expensive copper and bury it in a cave for a joke.  The most popular theory is that the list details treasure from the Second Temple.  In this scenario the Temple items were hidden just before Titus and the Roman army surrounded the walls of Jerusalem.  The theory to which Barfield ascribes—and most Dead Sea scholars reject—is that the Scroll is from the First Temple period.  Barfield looks to the Second Book of Maccabees and a lesser known seventeenth century book called Emeq HaMelekh (“Valley of the King”).  Together these tell the story of the prophet Jeremiah who with the help of five Temple guardians, one named Shimur Halevi, carefully hid the holy objects of the Temple to protect them from the Babylonians and documented those locations on a scroll made from copper. 

The Copper Scroll is a very difficult text to understand, written in an uncommon style of Hebrew.  Many of the words used in the Scroll were unfamiliar to scholars because they do not appear in any other biblical or rabbinical texts.  Adding to the puzzle, next to seven of the locations listed on the Scroll, there are two or three random Greek letters.  Worst of all, most of the locations the Scroll lists are obscure references too narrow in their specificity to be known outside of that time period.  The list speaks of tombs, dry wells, caves, and pools belonging to unknown people and places.   For example, the Scroll writes “Sixty five bars of gold lie on the third terrace in the cave of the old Washers House” and “Seventy talents of silver are enclosed in a wooden vessel in the cistern of a burial chamber in Matia’s courtyard.”  I asked Barfield if somehow he had discovered the identity of the old Washer or if he found a secret code associated with the Greek letters.  He said cracking the code was more direct than that.  “Others have applied too much knowledge or too much significance to these details in their search for the locations and just get lost in it.” 

Barfield is the first to admit he lacks the Indiana Jones background one would expect.  He has no prior knowledge of the language, archaeology, or geography of the region.  Instead he is a retired Oklahoma criminal investigator.  Arson was his specialty and he was recognized as one of the Sooner State’s best.  His spiritual hobby was studying biblical chronology, which is why he got interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls. 

Barfield says he woke up one morning in December 2006, after having a conversation with Vendyl Jones—a man who has spent his lifetime in search of the Copper Scroll treasures and was rumored to be the inspiration for Spielberg’s Indiana Jones—and  decided to take a look at the translations of the Copper Scroll.  He had read it once before in his work with biblical chronology and said, “I was totally bored by it.  It was just a list of kosher metals.”  But that morning was different.  Barfield treated the Copper Scroll the same as he would an arson investigation.  He used a process of elimination.  When doing an investigation he tries to prove everyone innocent and thereby eliminates the fringe factors.  With the Copper Scroll, he eliminated the fringe and came to a realization.  After looking at the Scroll for five minutes he understood the first location and twenty minutes later he identified the next four locations.  He and his wife took their first trip to Israel to confirm whether the sites and places that he had identified actually existed.  “I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just imagining things,” Barfield said.  It took six months for Barfield to crack the code for the rest of the locations.

For his research on the Scroll he prepared an investigative report no different in style than anything he would have done for an arson case in Oklahoma, except, of course, for the ancient Hebrew and Israeli maps.  He got on a plane and took his report to the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) in Jerusalem.  Knowing the IAA must confront treasure hunters every day, I asked if they treated him skeptically at first, especially given his background and faith, but he said laughing, “Once they saw my report they just moved me to the head of the class.”  He says that all of the archaeologists, rabbis, and historians he has presented his research to have been convinced:  “It is so simple.  They just all thump their heads.”

He has been to Israel four times subsequently, meeting with a top level archaeologist from the IAA who has committed himself to the expedition.  Usually there is no shortage of red tape when it comes to conducting an expedition in the most religiously sensitive and politically fragile climate in the world.  However, Barfield got the permit and will be going to Israel this winter on an expedition to one of the Scroll’s priority locations.  The Copper Scroll Project says they are ninety-nine percent certain that they have found fifty-six of the sixty locations of the Copper Scroll; the other four they are just a bit shaky on.  They readily admit though that they can not be sure the sites have not already been found and looted over the last 2,600 years. 

The quantities of precious metals that potentially lurk under the Judean hills and Negev sands are conservatively estimated to be worth over one billion US dollars today.  Other estimates put the value at twice that, calculating between one hundred sixty and two hundred tons of gold and silver.  However, the worth of the archaeological discoveries would be far greater than any monetary value. 

Both Barfield and Knight describe themselves as “Torah observant Christians” with a sincere love for Israel and the Jewish people.  Their central desire in getting involved with the Copper Scroll was to return the treasure of the Scroll to its rightful owners: the nation of Israel.  In a phone interview with Barfield we discussed the magnitude of it all, how it could shake the faith of all unbelievers and potentially complete preparations for the refurnishing of the Third Temple.  I also noted that the finder’s fee for such an achievement would be significant.  “If God has selected me to do this,” Barfield replied, “He gave it to a guy that just doesn’t give a darn about wealth.  My children and grandchildren love God and I just want it to stay that way.  I want to return these items to Israel and what they do from that point is up to them.”

Whether or not Barfield has solved this ancient mystery is yet to be proven, but after hearing his story I can’t help but wish he is indeed “the guy who cracked the code on the Copper Scroll.” 

Shelley Neese is managing editor for the The Jerusalem Connection Report.