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THE Bible Examiner “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not ac cording to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Exciting Bible Presentations in April: Prophecy & Archaeology See back page for details! Bible Discovery Seminar Starting in May: See page 2 for details! The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Miracle of Israel t is most remarkable that the Dead Sea scroll known as the ‘Isaiah Manuscript 2’ was purchased by Eleazar L. Sukenik, professor of archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, on the very day in 1947 that the United Nations voted on the establishment of a Jewish state — an important event that led to the declaration of independence in 1948 and the establishment of the state of Israel. I Eleazar had purchased the scroll that morning from a Bethlehem antiquities dealer. Maybe there is some signifi - cance in the fact that the scrolls were purchased by Israel in the “beth,” or house, of “lechem,” bread. He returned to Jerusalem, and that evening, as his son Mati was listening to the debate and vote at the UN on the radio, Eleazar was engrossed in the scrolls. In New York previous to these events and the UN vote, Chaim Weizmann was preparing his address to the United Nations with painstaking care. Abba Eban, the now well known Israeli diplomat recalled the event in his diary: “Worked on draft for four steady hours. After each sentence was written in huge letters and agreed, he would go to lamp-stand and bring the text right to his eyes, endeavoring to learn it by heart. By the end of the session his eyes were watering as if in tears. Finally he said: “We'll make this do — but how about a posuk (biblical verse) for the ending?” We looked for a Bible and eventually found one supplied by the hotel in the bedside table. Spent a half-hour on Isaiah, looking for ‘Return to Zion’ passages. Finally his mind was caught by the prophecy of ‘an ensign for the nations.’ As I left he said: ‘Well, this is it. Over the top for the last time!’” So on October 16, 1947 in the lead-up to the vote, Chaim Weizmann concluded his speech with that verse from Isaiah: “The Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people. And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.” Eleazar Sukenik would purchase the “Isaiah 2” scroll on the day of the vote. His son Yigal Yadin, the late renowned lecturer in archaeology at Hebrew University, recognized in his book The Message of the Scrolls that there was some signifi cance to the timing of these events: “I cannot avoid the feeling that there is something symbolic in the discovery of the scrolls and their acquisition at the moment of the creation of the state of Israel. It is as if these Continued on page 6. The Qumran caves near the dead sea in Israel, where some of the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. God’s Kingdom on Earth T he earth, of all the planets in the solar system, is the one that is perfectly suited to all forms of life and the one that orbits at exactly the right distance from the sun to provide comfortable conditions for the human race. The Bible alone can explain why this should be. The reason is that the Creator – “formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:18) We think it is logical to assert that if there is a Great De- signer, and if He created a race of beings to inhabit this planet and no other, then there must have been an ultimate objective in His mind. Happily, we have not been left to guess what that goal might be. From the day that God put a human being on this earth, His one supreme purpose was that His creation should willingly respond to His own perfection: Continued on page 6. Page 1 Issue 1, SPring 2010 Isaiah 8:20 Bible Beginners An Introduction to the Bible . . . . . . . Page 3 Understanding Bible Prophecy Can Save Us . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 5 Free Offers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Page 6 Bible Living . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 7