Podcast Episode 43
Dead Sea Scrolls
with Dr. Bobby Duke & host Nick Walters
This episode of This Week in Christian History is produced by the Center for Christian History and hosted by Nick Walters, founder of the Center for Christian History at Mississippi College. Each week, the program brings together scholarly insight, historical depth, and timely reflection through interviews, expert conversations, and key moments from the long and complex history of Christianity.
The episode features a Deep Dive interview focused on one of the most important archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century: the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Found beginning in 1947 in the caves near Qumran along the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, the scrolls fundamentally reshaped modern understanding of Second Temple Judaism, the transmission of the Hebrew Bible, and the historical world in which Christianity emerged. The manuscripts include biblical texts, sectarian writings, legal documents, and liturgical materials dating from roughly the third century BC to the first century AD. Their discovery provided, for the first time, Hebrew biblical manuscripts more than a thousand years older than those previously known, allowing scholars to examine the remarkable consistency and development of the biblical text over time.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Deep Dive guest for this episode is Robert Duke, Chief Curatorial Officer and Director of the Scholars Initiative. Dr. Duke, widely known as Bobby Duke, holds a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California, Los Angeles. His academic training and professional experience are deeply rooted in the historical, linguistic, and archaeological study of the ancient Near East. He has spent multiple years living and studying in Jerusalem, including formal study at Jerusalem University College and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, supported in part by a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship. He also received a prestigious fellowship from the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, where he conducted dissertation research focused on Aramaic documents from Qumran itself.
Dr. Duke is a professor at Azusa Pacific University and has served in numerous academic leadership roles, including as Dean of the School of Theology from 2015 to 2021. His scholarship and teaching bridge biblical studies, ancient languages, and the historical contexts of Judaism and early Christianity. In this conversation, he explains how the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, why their contents matter, and how they continue to inform scholarship on Scripture, Jewish sectarian life, and the intellectual world of the first century. The discussion emphasizes why the scrolls remain essential for anyone seeking to understand the historical foundations of the Bible and the environment in which Christianity took shape.
In addition to the Deep Dive, this episode includes two historical highlights from this week in Christian history.
The first highlight remembers Betsie ten Boom, a Dutch Christian who, along with her sister Corrie ten Boom, helped hide Jews during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. Their Christian faith motivated their resistance, even at great personal risk. Arrested by the Gestapo, Betsie was ultimately sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she endured severe suffering before dying in February 1945. Betsie ten Boom is remembered for her unwavering faith, her emphasis on forgiveness, and her influence on Corrie ten Boom’s later Christian witness to reconciliation and grace.
The second highlight focuses on John Newton, the former slave trader turned Anglican minister and hymn writer best known for composing “Amazing Grace.” Newton’s dramatic conversion to Christianity in the eighteenth century transformed the course of his life and ministry. After leaving the slave trade, he became a pastor and eventually a prominent voice within the evangelical movement in Britain. His hymn has become one of the most enduring and widely sung expressions of Christian repentance, redemption, and hope, continuing to shape Christian worship and public memory across cultures and generations.
Together, the Deep Dive and historical highlights in Episode 43 underscore how faith, text, and lived experience intersect across centuries, from ancient manuscripts preserved in desert caves to modern acts of courage and songs of grace that continue to shape Christian history.
