What is the Copper Scroll?

The Copper Scroll (3Q15)

"Under the ruins in the Vale of Achor, forty cubits under the steps entering to the east:  are seventeen talents." So begins the most intriguing and baffling of the scrolls to be found among the collection known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, the metal document called the...Copper Scroll. Baffling because it has never before been understood and intriguing because of the vast amount of buried treasures listed in the incredible text.  The words of the Copper Scroll read like no other found in the ancient library of scrolls of the Dead Sea and potentially hold the key to finding the Alter of Incense, the Tabernacle of Moses, and the most sought after prize in archeology, the Ark of the Covenant.

Possibilities are high that the Copper Scroll could lead to a discovery that would make any other archeological find seem insignificant in scale. If the book of II Maccabbees is considered accurate, then the odds of such an unprecedented find tilt the scales of history even further to the side of a magnificent archeological discovery, a recognizable possibility that stirs the juices of the imagination well beyond the scope of wishful thinking into the realm of tangible possibility.  Imagine the affect.  History would find a benchmark like none other, focusing time on the most significant moments in moral development for the three major religions of the world. With that in mind consider the following information and begin to formulate your own opinion.

The metal document was found in 1952 in Cave 3 at Khirbet Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea, discovered in the place where it had lain for nearly 2,400 years. The text of the document had been pressed into the thin sheets of copper which were then joined together by a type of copper rivet. Unfortunately, the majority of the "Dead Sea Scrolls" were found by Bedouins and purchased by antiquities dealers. However, this scroll was actually one of the few discovered and protected by archaeologists. For some reason, when the scroll was found it was in two separate roles and heavily oxidized making the scroll far too brittle to simply unroll. Five years passed before scholars and experts decided to open the scroll by cutting the scroll into sections from the outside using a tiny circular saw. With great care the scholars cut the scroll into 23 strips, each one curved into the shape of a half-cylinder. Even before the scroll was cut open scholars thought the scroll was a verbal map directing its owner to a great amount of silver and gold, suggesting that the scroll was a list of buried treasure. The treasures exceeded even the most liberal expectations of the scholars!

It is the opinion of Jim Barfield that the treasures are from the time of the Exodus, and the talents of precious metals are the excess of the materials called for by Moses and Aaron to build the Tabernacle of Moses, housed at a specific location named on the scroll as the treasury or the house of Coz (Hakkoz). It is not clear if any of the gold and silver has been found but there is no indication that any of the hoards of precious metals have been located. But it would not be hard to imagine some unscrupulous person or persons taking the ancient artifacts and never telling a soul.  The only way to find out if the treasures still exist is to allow Jim Barfield to thoroughly test his findings at several specific locations.

The amount of treasures described in the Copper Scroll vary greatly from scholar to scholar and bare no real importance other than to help verifying if a specific location matches the description listed on the Copper Scroll.  Most of the locations consist of vast quantities of gold and silver.  However, some of the sites appear to be large quantities of gems and huge vessels full of coins. More significantly there are some locations that indicate that the sites contain vessels from the ritual services of the Temple of Solomon or from the Tabernacle of Moses. Again, it is nearly impossible to determine the value of what is described, since we are not sure what the weights in the scroll are actually equivalent to.  If in-fact a talent weighs 75 pounds, the total value of the precious metals alone could be worth as much as three billion dollars.  The talents of gems could dwarf that amount many times over.

The wording of the document is considered by some scholars to be very technical, yet it is Jim Barfield’s opinion that the scroll’s wording is straight forward and simple in its structure.  Because of the secrecy of Jim’s research it would not be advisable for him to release his findingsand of how to understand the Copper Scroll until he has been allowed to test his research at each of the locations.  Jim will say that the document is not at all the complicated mystical literary work that some would have you believe.  The history behind the document makes the story of the Copper Scroll vastly significant to historians and to theologians searching for prophetic insight.  Indeed, prophetically speaking the discovery of the items of the Copper Scroll could bring about a war of Biblical proportions due to the political climate even if Bible prophecy were nothing more than fables.

There are several documents that refer to the Copper Scroll bearing witness to the likelihood that the text has validity. One of which is the book Emek Ha Melek which was penned in the 17th Century by a certain rabbi.  It states specifically that at the time of Jeremiah five men hid great treasures from the Temple of Solomon and recorded their hiding places on a sheet of copper.  Not to mention the marble tablets found in the basement of a museum in Beirut, Lebanon in the same year that the Copper Scroll was found, 1952.  Vendyl Jones must be given credit for this information since he is in-fact the person that taught Jim Barfield about a lot of the history of the Copper Scroll.  Vendyl’s finding about the locations of the treasures vastly differs from Jim’s but he and Jim Barfield do agree about the history of the scroll.  Vendyl has a great website that would help a person doing a study on this topic.

There are those who have suggested that the treasure never actually existed, that the Copper Scroll is simply a work of fiction and even if the treasure did exist, we do not know where it came from or who it belonged to. Yet it will become clear in the coming months, if Jim Barfield is allow to excavate that there is a distinct history and solution to the mystery of the Copper Scroll.   He believes that the scrolls refer to Tabernacle treasure, hidden for safekeeping before the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple at the hands of the Babylonians in 425 BCE.

Then there are those that believe that the treasures belonged to the sect that lived at Qumran, a sect identified by Jim Barfield as the Essenes and directly connected with Yeshua (Jesus) and Yohanan the Immerser (John the Baptist). As a point of interest, Jim has also identified three prophecies (or simple notations) in the Dead Sea Scrolls that pinpoint the year of the birth, bar mitzvah, and the death of Yeshua (Jesus). If indeed the Dead Sea Scrolls were written and the dating of the handwriting indicates a date of 70 CE, then the scrolls could possibly be important notations of the dates of the events in Yeshua’s life. None the less, and as a matter of record, Jim believes that the Teacher of Righteousness referred to in the Dead Sea Scrolls is none other than Jeremiah the Prophet.v

With this great treasure list, you may ask, why isn't everyone out looking for the treasure and why hasn't a major producer made a movie out of it? The truth is, some people are looking for it, but it is not all that easy. To begin with, no one has know what all the words in the text meant until now. The words are in Hebrew, which is certainly a known language, but most ancient Hebrew texts that we have are religious in nature, and the Copper Scroll is anything but religious, yet that fact is not significant to understanding the scroll. Most of its vocabulary is simple and is found in the Bible but in a slightly variant spelling.

In conclusion, the Copper Scroll is nothing more than a set of directions from known points, all of which Jim Barfield has the keys to.  The Copper Scroll will prove to be the least of the eloquent text of the Dead Sea Scrolls but the most powerful in proving the connection of the Essenes, Yeshua, John the Baptist, and Jeremiah with the men of that community.  How Jim Barfield knows this is part of his secret and will be seen in the days to come.