The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the

Qumran Caves Qumran Caves are a series of caves, both natural and artificial, found around the archaeological site of Qumran in the Judaean Desert. It is in these caves that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. Israel Nature and Parks Authority took over t ...

in what was then

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...

, near

Ein Feshkha Ein Feshkha ( ar, عين فشخة, also Ain Al-Fashka) or Einot Tzukim ( he, עינות צוקים, lit=cliff springs) is a 2,500 ha nature reserve and archaeological site on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, about 3 km south of ...

in the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the

3rd century The 3rd century was the period from 201 ( CCI) to 300 ( CCC) Anno Domini (AD) or Common Era (CE) in the Julian calendar.. In this century, the Roman Empire saw a crisis, starting with the assassination of the Roman Emperor Severus Alexande ...

BCE Common Era (CE) and Before the Common Era (BCE) are year notations for the Gregorian calendar (and its predecessor, the Julian calendar), the world's most widely used calendar era. Common Era and Before the Common Era are alternatives to the or ...

to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered to be a keystone in the history of

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsca ...

with great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the

biblical canon A biblical canon is a set of texts (also called "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as part of the Bible. The English word ''canon'' comes from the Greek , meaning " rule" or " measuring stick". The us ...

s, along with

deuterocanonical The deuterocanonical books (from the Greek meaning "belonging to the second canon") are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East to be ...

and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late

Second Temple Judaism Second Temple Judaism refers to the Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The Second Temple ...

. At the same time they cast new light on the emergence of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

and of

Rabbinic Judaism Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonia ...

. Most of the scrolls are held by

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in the

Shrine of the Book The Shrine of the Book ( he, היכל הספר, ''Heikhal HaSefer'') is a wing of the Israel Museum in the Givat Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem that houses the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Aleppo Codex, among others. History The building was construc ...

at the Israel Museum, but their ownership is disputed by

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

due to the Qumran Caves' history: following the

End of the British Mandate for Palestine The end of the British Mandate for Palestine was formally made by way of the Palestine bill of 29 April 1948. A public statement prepared by the Colonial and Foreign offices confirmed termination of British responsibility for the administration o ...

in 1947, Jordan occupied the area in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and Israel captured both the area and several Scrolls from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. However, some of the scrolls are still in Jordan and are now displayed at

The Jordan Museum The Jordan Museum is located in Ras Al-Ein district of Amman, Jordan. Built in 2014, the museum is the largest museum in Jordan and hosts the country's most important archaeological findings. Its two main permanent exhibitions are the Dead Sea Sc ...

in Amman. Ownership of the scrolls is also contested by the State of Palestine. Many thousands of written fragments have been discovered in the Dead Sea area. They represent the remnants of larger manuscripts damaged by natural causes or through human interference, with the vast majority holding only small scraps of text. However, a small number of well-preserved, almost intact manuscripts have survived – fewer than a dozen among those from the Qumran Caves. Researchers have assembled a collection of 981 different manuscripts – discovered in 1946/47 and in 1956 – from 11 caves. The 11 Qumran Caves lie in the immediate vicinity of the Hellenistic-period Jewish settlement at

Khirbet Qumran Qumran ( he, קומראן; ar, خربة قمران ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli ...

in the eastern Judaean Desert, in the West Bank. The caves are located about west of the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, whence they derive their name. Archaeologists have long associated the scrolls with the ancient Jewish sect called the

Essenes The Essenes (; Hebrew: , ''Isiyim''; Greek: Ἐσσηνοί, Ἐσσαῖοι, or Ὀσσαῖοι, ''Essenoi, Essaioi, Ossaioi'') were a mystic Jewish sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st ce ...

, although some recent interpretations have challenged this connection and argue that priests in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, or Zadokites, or other unknown Jewish groups wrote the scrolls. Most of the texts are Hebrew, with some written in

Aramaic The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

(for example the Son of God Text; in different regional dialects, including

Nabataean The Nabataeans or Nabateans (; Nabataean Aramaic: , , vocalized as ; Arabic: , , singular , ; compare grc, Ναβαταῖος, translit=Nabataîos; la, Nabataeus) were an ancient Arab people who inhabited northern Arabia and the southern L ...

), and a few in

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

. Discoveries from the Judaean Desert add

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

(from

Masada Masada ( he, מְצָדָה ', "fortress") is an ancient fortification in the Southern District of Israel situated on top of an isolated rock plateau, akin to a mesa. It is located on the eastern edge of the Judaean Desert, overlooking the D ...

) and

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

(from Khirbet al-Mird) texts. Most of the texts are written on

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...

, some on

papyrus Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...

, and one on

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

. Scholarly consensus dates the scrolls from the last three centuries

and the first century CE, though manuscripts from associated

Judaean Desert The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert ( he, מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה, Midbar Yehuda}, both ''Desert of Judah'' or ''Judaean Desert''; ar, صحراء يهودا, Sahraa' Yahuda) is a desert in Palestine and Israel that lies east of Jerusa ...

sites are dated as early as the 8th century BCE and as late as the 11th century CE. Bronze coins found at the same sites form a series beginning with

John Hyrcanus John Hyrcanus (; ''Yōḥānān Hurqanōs''; grc, Ἰωάννης Ὑρκανός, Iōánnēs Hurkanós) was a Hasmonean ( Maccabean) leader and Jewish high priest of the 2nd century BCE (born 164 BCE, reigned from 134 BCE until his death in ...

(in office 135–104 BCE) and continuing until the period of the

First Jewish–Roman War The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), sometimes called the Great Jewish Revolt ( he, המרד הגדול '), or The Jewish War, was the first of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire, fought in Roman-controlled ...

(66–73 CE), supporting the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls. Owing to the poor condition of some of the scrolls, scholars have not identified all of their texts. The identified texts fall into three general groups: # About 40% are copies of texts from the

Hebrew Scriptures The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Second Temple period which ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, the

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis (Leptogenesis), is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), where it is ...

, the Book of Tobit, the

Wisdom of Sirach The Book of Sirach () or Ecclesiasticus (; abbreviated Ecclus.) is a Jewish work, originally in Hebrew, of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BC, written by the Judahite scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his fa ...

, Psalms 152–155, etc. # The remainder (roughly 30%) are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group (

sect A sect is a subgroup of a religious, political, or philosophical belief system, usually an offshoot of a larger group. Although the term was originally a classification for religious separated groups, it can now refer to any organization that ...

) or groups within greater

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

, like the

Community Rule The Community Rule ( he, סרך היחד, ''Serekh haYahad''), which is designated 1QS and was previously referred to as the Manual of Discipline, is one of the first scrolls to be discovered near ''khirbet'' (ruin of) Qumran, the scrolls found in ...

, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing.

Discovery

The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in a series of 12

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

s around the site originally known as the

Caves near the Dead Sea in the

(then part of

) between 1946 and 1956 by Bedouin shepherds and a team of

archeologists Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscape ...

. The practice of storing worn-out sacred manuscripts in earthenware vessels buried in the earth or within caves is related to the ancient Jewish custom of genizah.

Initial discovery (1946–1947)

The initial discovery by Bedouin shepherd Muhammed edh-Dhib, his cousin Jum'a Muhammed, and Khalil Musa took place between November 1946 and February 1947.Evans, Craig. ''Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls''. 2010. The shepherds discovered seven scrolls housed in jars in a cave near what is now known as the Qumran site. John C. Trever reconstructed the story of the scrolls from several interviews with the Bedouin. Edh-Dhib's cousin noticed the caves, but edh-Dhib himself was the first to actually fall into one (the cave now called Cave 1). He retrieved a handful of scrolls, which Trever identifies as the Isaiah Scroll,

Habakkuk Commentary The Habakkuk Commentary or Pesher Habakkuk, labelled 1QpHab ( Cave 1, Qumran, pesher, Habakkuk), was among the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 and published in 1951. Due to its early discovery and rapid publication, as well as i ...

, and the

, and took them back to the camp to show to his family. None of the scrolls were destroyed in this process.Trever, John C. ''The Dead Sea Scrolls''. Gorgias Press LLC, 2003. The Bedouin kept the scrolls hanging on a tent pole while they contemplated what they should do with them, periodically showing the scrolls to their people. At some point during this time, the Community Rule was split in two. The Bedouin first took the scrolls to a dealer named Ibrahim 'Ijha in

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...

. 'Ijha returned them, saying they were worthless, after being warned that they might have been stolen from a synagogue. Undaunted, the Bedouin went to a nearby market, where a Syrian Christian offered to buy them. A sheikh joined their conversation and suggested that they take the scrolls to Khalil Eskander Shahin, "Kando", a cobbler and part-time antiques dealer. The Bedouin and the dealers returned to the site, leaving one scroll with Kando and selling three others to a dealer for seven Jordanian pounds (approximately $28, or $ in dollars). The original scrolls continued to change hands after the Bedouin left them in the possession of a third party until a sale could be arranged. In 1947 the original seven scrolls caught the attention of John C. Trever of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), who compared the script in the scrolls to that of the Nash Papyrus, the oldest biblical manuscript then known, and found similarities between them. In March the 1948 Arab–Israeli War prompted the move of some of the scrolls to

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

for safekeeping. On 11 April 1948, Millar Burrows, head of the ASOR, announced the discovery of the scrolls in a general press release.

Search for the Qumran caves (1948–1949)

Early in September 1948, Metropolitan bishop

Mar Samuel Metropolitan Mor Athanasius Yeshue Samuel (19091995), more often referred to as Mor Samuel, was a The First Metropolitan and Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch in the United States and Canada, the Metropolitan of Jerusalem of t ...

brought some additional scroll fragments that he had acquired to professor

Ovid R. Sellers Ovid Rogers Sellers (August 12, 1884 – July 7, 1975) was an internationally known Old Testament scholar and archaeologist who played a role in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. He served as Professor of the Old Testament and Dean of McCormic ...

, the new director of ASOR. By the end of 1948, nearly two years after the discovery of the scrolls, scholars had yet to locate the original cave where the fragments had been found. With unrest in the country at that time, no large-scale search could be safely undertaken. Sellers tried to persuade the Syrians to assist in the search for the cave, but he was unable to pay their price. In early 1949, the government of Jordan granted permission to the

Arab Legion The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of independent Jordan, with a final Arabization of its command taking place in 1 ...

to search the area in which the original Qumran cave was believed to exist. Consequently, Cave 1 was rediscovered on 28 January 1949 by Belgian

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

observer An observer is one who engages in observation or in watching an experiment. Observer may also refer to: Computer science and information theory * In information theory, any system which receives information from an object * State observer in co ...

captain Phillipe Lippens and Arab Legion captain Akkash el-Zebn.

Qumran caves rediscovery and new scroll discoveries (1949–1951)

The rediscovery of what became known as Cave 1 at Qumran prompted the initial excavation of the site from 15 February to 5 March 1949 by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, led by

Gerald Lankester Harding Gerald Lankester Harding (8 December 1901 – 11 February 1979) was a British archaeologist who was the director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan from 1936 to 1956. His tenure spanned the period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were disco ...

and

Roland de Vaux Roland Guérin de Vaux (17 December 1903 – 10 September 1971) was a French Dominican priest who led the Catholic team that initially worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was the director of the Ecole Biblique, a French Catholic Theological S ...

. The Cave 1 site yielded discoveries of additional Dead Sea Scroll fragments, linen cloth, jars, and other artifacts.

Excavations of Qumran and new cave discoveries (1951–1956, 2017, 2021)

In November 1951, Roland de Vaux and his team from the ASOR began a full excavation of Qumran. By February 1952, the Bedouin had discovered 30 fragments in what was to be designated Cave 2. The discovery of a second cave eventually yielded 300 fragments from 33 manuscripts, including fragments of

Jubilees The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis (Leptogenesis), is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), where it is ...

and the

written in Hebrew. The following month, on 14 March 1952, the ASOR team discovered a third cave with fragments of Jubilees and the Copper Scroll. Between September and December 1952, the fragments and scrolls of Caves 4, 5, and 6 were discovered by the ASOR teams. With the monetary value of the scrolls rising as their historical significance was made more public, the Bedouins and the ASOR archaeologists accelerated their search for the scrolls separately in the same general area of Qumran, which was more than one kilometer in length. Between 1953 and 1956, de Vaux led four more archaeological expeditions in the area to uncover scrolls and artifacts. Cave 11 was discovered in 1956 and yielded the last fragments to be found in the vicinity of Qumran. Caves 4–10 are clustered in an area lying in relative proximity from Khirbet Qumran, while caves 1, 2, 3 and 11 are located 1 mile (1–2 kilometres) north, with Cave 3 the most remote. In February 2017, Hebrew University archaeologists announced the discovery of a new 12th cave. There was one blank parchment found in a jar, but broken and empty scroll jars and pickaxes suggest that the cave was looted in the 1950s. In March 2021, Israeli archaeologists announced the discovery of dozens of fragments bearing biblical text, written in Greek, from the books of Zechariah and

Nahum Nahum ( or ; he, נַחוּם ''Naḥūm'') was a minor prophet whose prophecy is recorded in the ''Tanakh'', also called the Hebrew Bible and The Old Testament. His book comes in chronological order between Micah and Habakkuk in the Bible. ...

. This group of findings is believed to have been hidden in a cave between 132 and 136 CE during the Bar Kokhba revolt. However, a 10,500-year-old basket hewn of woven reeds was also discovered in the Muraba'at caves in the Nahal Darga Reserve. Other discoveries included the remains of a child wrapped in cloth dated to around 6,000 years ago, and a cache of coins from the days of the Bar Kochba revolt. In 2021, more scrolls were discovered by Israeli authorities in a different cave near the Dead Sea called the

Cave of Horror Cave of Horror ( he, מערת האימה, , Me'arat Ha'Eima) is the nickname given to what archaeologists have catalogued as Nahal Hever Cave 8 (8Hev) of the Judaean Desert, Israel, where the remains of Jewish refugees from the Bar Kokhba revolt ...

Scrolls and fragments

The 972 manuscripts found at Qumran were found primarily in two separate formats: as scrolls and as fragments of previous scrolls and texts. In the fourth cave the fragments were torn into up to 15,000 pieces. These small fragments created somewhat of a problem for scholars. G.L. Harding, director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, began working on piecing the fragments together but did not finish this before his death in 1979.

Cave 1

The original seven scrolls from Cave 1 at Qumran are the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a), a second copy of Isaiah ( 1QIsa^b), the Community Rule Scroll (1QS), the Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab), the War Scroll (1QM), the

Thanksgiving Hymns The Thanksgiving Scroll was one of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 by the Bedouin. The scroll gets its name from the recurring use of the phrase "I thank you" in many of the poems. The Hebrew word ''Hodayot'' refers to "thanks" o ...

(1QH), and the

Genesis Apocryphon The Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20), also called the Tales of the Patriarchs or the Apocalypse of Lamech and labeled 1QapGen, is one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1946 by Bedouin shepherds in Cave 1 near Qumran, a city in the nor ...

(1QapGen). Vermes, Geza, '' The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English'', London: Penguin, 1998. .

Cave 2

Cave 3

Caves 4a and 4b

Cave 4 was discovered in August 1952, and was excavated on 22–29 September 1952 by

, and Józef Milik.VanderKam, James C., ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Today'', Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. pp. 10–11. Cave 4 is actually two hand-cut caves (4a and 4b), but since the fragments were mixed, they are labeled as 4Q. Cave 4 is important both because of its visibility from the Qumran plateau and its productivity. It is visible from the plateau to the south of the Qumran settlement. It is by far the most productive of all Qumran caves, producing ninety percent of the Dead Sea Scrolls and scroll fragments (approx. 15,000 fragments from 500 different texts), including 9–10 copies of Jubilees, along with 21 ''

tefillin Tefillin (; Israeli Hebrew: / ; Ashkenazic pronunciation: ), or phylacteries, are a set of small black leather boxes with leather straps containing scrolls of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah. Tefillin are worn by adult Jews durin ...

'' and 7 ''

mezuzot A ''mezuzah'' ( he, מְזוּזָה "doorpost"; plural: ''mezuzot'') is a piece of parchment, known as a ''klaf'', contained in a decorative case and inscribed with specific Hebrew verses from the Torah ( and ). These verses consist of the J ...

''.

Cave 5

Cave 5 was discovered alongside Cave 6 in 1952, shortly after the discovery of Cave 4. Cave 5 produced approximately 25 manuscripts.

Cave 6

Cave 6 was discovered alongside Cave 5 in 1952, shortly after the discovery of Cave 4. Cave 6 contained fragments of about 31 manuscripts. List of groups of fragments collected from Wadi Qumran Cave 6:Garcia Martinez, Florentino and Tigchelaar, Eibert. ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition''. Vol. 1. 1999.Fritzmyer, Joseph. ''A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature''. 2008.

Cave 7

Cave 7 yielded fewer than 20 fragments of Greek documents, including 7Q2 (the "

Letter of Jeremiah The Letter of Jeremiah, also known as the Epistle of Jeremiah, is a deuterocanonical book of the Old Testament; this letter is attributed to Jeremiah to the Jews who were about to be carried away as captives to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. It is inc ...

" = Baruch 6), 7Q5 (which became the subject of much speculation in later decades), and a Greek copy of a scroll of Enoch. Cave 7 also produced several inscribed potsherds and jars.Humbert and Chambon, ''Excavations of Khirbet Qumran and Ain Feshkha'', 67. Lists of groups of fragments collected from Wadi Qumran Cave 7:

Cave 8

Cave 8, along with caves 7 and 9, was one of the only caves that are accessible by passing through the settlement at Qumran. Carved into the southern end of the Qumran plateau, cave 8 was excavated by archaeologists in 1957. Cave 8 produced five fragments: Genesis (8QGen), Psalms (8QPs), a

fragment (8QPhyl), a

mezuzah A ''mezuzah'' ( he, מְזוּזָה "doorpost"; plural: ''mezuzot'') is a piece of parchment, known as a '' klaf'', contained in a decorative case and inscribed with specific Hebrew verses from the Torah ( and ). These verses consist of the ...

(8QMez), and a hymn (8QHymn). Cave 8 also produced several tefillin cases, a box of leather objects, tons of lamps, jars, and the sole of a leather shoe. List of groups of fragments collected from Wadi Qumran Cave 8:

Cave 9

Cave 9, along with caves 7 and 8, was one of the only caves that are accessible by passing through the settlement at Qumran. Carved into the southern end of the Qumran plateau, Cave 9 was excavated by archaeologists in 1957. There was only one fragment found in Cave 9.

Cave 10

In Cave 10 archaeologists found two

ostraca An ostracon ( Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of ...

with writing on them, along with an unknown symbol on a grey stone slab.

Cave 11

Cave 11 was discovered in 1956 and yielded 21 texts, some of which were quite long. The Temple Scroll, so called because more than half of it pertains to the construction of the

Temple of Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two now-destroyed religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusa ...

, was found in Cave 11, and is by far the longest scroll. It is now 26.7 feet (8.15 m) long. Its original length may have been over 28 feet (8.75 m). The Temple Scroll was regarded by

Yigael Yadin Yigael Yadin ( he, יִגָּאֵל יָדִין ) (20 March 1917 – 28 June 1984) was an Israeli archeologist, soldier and politician. He was the second Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces and Deputy Prime Minister from 1977 to 1981. B ...

as "The Torah According to the Essenes". On the other hand, Hartmut Stegemann, a contemporary and friend of Yadin, believed the scroll was not to be regarded as such, but was a document without exceptional significance. Stegemann notes that it is not mentioned or cited in any known Essene writing. Also in Cave 11, an

eschatological Eschatology (; ) concerns expectations of the end of the present age, human history, or of the world itself. The end of the world or end times is predicted by several world religions (both Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic), which teach that nega ...

fragment about the biblical figure

Melchizedek In the Bible, Melchizedek (, hbo, , malkī-ṣeḏeq, "king of righteousness" or "my king is righteousness"), also transliterated Melchisedech or Malki Tzedek, was the king of Salem and priest of (often translated as "most high God"). He is f ...

( 11Q13) was found. Cave 11 also produced a copy of Jubilees, and a proto-Masoteric text of the

Torah scroll A ( he, סֵפֶר תּוֹרָה; "Book of Torah"; plural: ) or Torah scroll is a handwritten copy of the Torah, meaning the five books of Moses (the first books of the Hebrew Bible). The Torah scroll is mainly used in the ritual of Tor ...

(only a fragment of the Book of Leviticus surviving), known as the

Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll, known also as 11QpaleoLev, is an ancient text preserved in one of the Qumran group of caves, and which provides a rare glimpse of the script used formerly by the nation of Israel in writing Torah scrolls during its ...

. According to former chief editor of the Dead Sea Scroll editorial team

John Strugnell John Strugnell (May 25, 1930, Barnet, Hertfordshire, England – November 30, 2007, Boston, Massachusetts) became, at 23, the youngest member of the team of scholars led by Roland de Vaux, formed in 1954 to edit the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jeru ...

, there are at least four privately owned scrolls from Cave 11, that have not yet been made available for scholars. Among them is a complete Aramaic manuscript of the Book of Enoch. List of groups of fragments collected from Wadi Qumran Cave 11:

Cave 12

Cave 12 was discovered in February 2017 on cliffs west of Qumran, near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. Archaeological examination found pickaxes and empty broken scroll jars, indicating that the cave had been discovered and looted in the 1950s. One of the joint Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Liberty University of Virginia project's lead researchers, Dr. Oren Gutfeld, stated, "Although at the end of the day no scroll was found, and instead we 'only' found a piece of parchment rolled up in a jug that was being processed for writing, the findings indicate beyond any doubt that the cave contained scrolls that were stolen."

Fragments with unknown provenance

Some fragments of scrolls have neither significant archaeological provenance nor records that reveal in which designated Qumran cave area they were found. They are believed to have come from Wadi Qumran caves, but are just as likely to have come from other archaeological sites in the Judaean Desert area.Grossman, Maxine. ''Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls''. pp. 66–67. 2010. These fragments have therefore been designated to the temporary "X" series.

Gallery

File:Dead Sea Scroll 175, complete, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 175, complete, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, complete, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, complete, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:The War Scroll - Dead Sea Scroll.jpg, The War Scroll, found in Qumran Cave 1. File:1QIsa b.jpg, A portion of the second discovered copy of the Isaiah Scroll, 1QIsa^b. File:Part of Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1. The Jordan Museum, Amman.jpg, Part of Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1. The Jordan Museum, Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll, Pesher Isaiah, from Qumran Cave 4. The Jordan Museum, Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll, Pesher Isaiah, from Qumran Cave 4. The Jordan Museum, Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll 175, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4. The Jordan Museum, Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 175, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4. The Jordan Museum, Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll 109, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes, from Qumran Cave 4. The Jordan Museum, Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 109, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes, from Qumran Cave 4. The Jordan Museum, Amman File:Dear Sea Scrolls at the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scrolls at the Jordan Museum in Amman File:The so-called Copper Dead Sea Scrolls at the Jordan Museum, from Qumran Cave 3, 1st century CE.jpg, Strips of the Copper Dead Sea Scroll at the Jordan Museum, from Qumran Cave 3, 1st century CE File:Strip 11, part of the Copper Dear Sea Scrolls, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum.jpg, Strip 11 of the Copper Dead Sea Scroll, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum File:Strip 15, part of the Copper Dear Sea Scrolls, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum.jpg, Strip 15 of the Copper Dead Sea Scroll, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum File:Strip 13, part of the Copper Dear Sea Scrolls, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum.jpg, Strip 13 of the Copper Dead Sea Scroll, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum File:Strips 1 and 2, parts of the Copper Dear Sea Scrolls, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum.jpg, Strips 1 and 2 of the Copper Dead Sea Scroll, from Qumran Cave 3, Jordan Museum File:Dead Sea Scroll 109, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 109, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll 109, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes, from Qumran Cave 4, at the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 109, Qohelet or Ecclesiastes, from Qumran Cave 4, at the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll, Pesher Isaiah, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll, Pesher Isaiah, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll 175, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 175, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Detail, Dead Sea Scroll 175, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Detail, Dead Sea Scroll 175, Testimonia, from Qumran Cave 4, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Part of Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Part of Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Part of Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, at the Jordan Museum in Amman.jpg, Part of Dead Sea Scroll 28a from Qumran Cave 1, at the Jordan Museum in Amman File:Psalm 23 Dead Sea Scrolls.jpg, Dead Sea Scroll fragment 5/6HEV PS found in the Cave of Letters at Nahal Hever

Origin

There has been much debate about the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The dominant theory remains that the scrolls were produced by the

, a sect of Jews living at nearby Qumran, but this theory has come to be challenged by several modern scholars.

Qumran–Essene theory

The view among scholars, almost universally held until the 1990s, is the "Qumran–Essene" hypothesis originally posited by Roland Guérin de Vaux and Józef Tadeusz Milik, though independently both Eliezer Sukenik and Butrus Sowmy of St Mark's Monastery connected scrolls with the Essenes well before any excavations at Qumran. The Qumran–Essene theory holds that the scrolls were written by the Essenes, or by another Jewish sectarian group, residing at

. They composed the scrolls and ultimately hid them in the nearby caves during the Jewish Revolt sometime between 66 and 68 CE. The site of Qumran was destroyed and the scrolls never recovered. A number of arguments are used to support this theory. * There are striking similarities between the description of an initiation ceremony of new members in the Community Rule and descriptions of the Essene initiation ceremony mentioned in the works of Flavius

Josephus Flavius Josephus (; grc-gre, Ἰώσηπος, ; 37 – 100) was a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, best known for '' The Jewish War'', who was born in Jerusalem—then part of Roman Judea—to a father of priestly ...

– a Jewish–Roman historian of the Second Temple period. * Josephus mentions the Essenes as sharing property among the members of the community, as does the Community Rule. * During the excavation of Khirbet Qumran, two inkwells and plastered elements thought to be tables were found, offering evidence that some form of writing was done there. More inkwells were discovered nearby. De Vaux called this area the "

scriptorium Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes. However, lay scribes an ...

" based upon this discovery. * Several Jewish ritual baths (Hebrew: ) were discovered at Qumran, offering evidence of an observant

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

ish presence at the site. *

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic ' ...

(a geographer writing after the fall of

in 70 CE) describes a group of Essenes living in a desert community on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea near the ruined town of '

Ein Gedi Ein Gedi ( he, עֵין גֶּדִי‎, ), also spelled En Gedi, meaning "spring of the goat, kid", is an oasis, an Archaeological site, archeological site and a nature reserve in Israel, located west of the Dead Sea, near Masada and the Qu ...

Qumran–Sectarian theory

Qumran–Sectarian theories are variations on the Qumran–Essene theory. The main point of departure from the Qumran–Essene theory is hesitation to link the Dead Sea Scrolls specifically with the Essenes. Most proponents of the Qumran–Sectarian theory understand a group of Jews living in or near Qumran to be responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls, but do not necessarily conclude that the sectarians are Essenes. A specific variation on the Qumran–Sectarian theory emerged in the 1990s that has gained much recent popularity is the work of

Lawrence H. Schiffman Lawrence Harvey Schiffman (born 1948) is a professor at New York University (as of 2014); he was formerly Vice-Provost of Undergraduate Education at Yeshiva University and Professor of Jewish Studies (from early 2011 to 2014). He had previously ...

, who proposes that the community was led by a group of Zadokite priests (

Sadducees The Sadducees (; he, צְדוּקִים, Ṣədūqīm) were a socio- religious sect of Jewish people who were active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE through the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. T ...

). The most important document in support of this view is the " Miqsat Ma'ase Ha-Torah" (4QMMT), which cites purity laws (such as the transfer of impurities) identical to those attributed in rabbinic writings to the Sadducees. 4QMMT also reproduces a festival calendar that follows

Sadducee The Sadducees (; he, צְדוּקִים, Ṣədūqīm) were a socio- religious sect of Jewish people who were active in Judea during the Second Temple period, from the second century BCE through the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Th ...

principles for the dating of certain festival days.

Christian origin theory

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Jesuit José O'Callaghan Martínez argued in the 1960s that one fragment (7Q5) preserves a portion of text from the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

Gospel of Mark 6:52–53. This theory was scrutinized in the year 2000 by paleographic analysis of the particular fragment. However, this faced some contention, and O'Callaghan's theory remains an area of great dispute. Later analyses in 2004 and 2018 lent credence to O'Callaghan's original assertion.

Robert Eisenman Robert Eisenman (born 1937) is an American biblical scholar, historian, archaeologist, and poet. He is currently professor of Middle East religions, archaeology, and Islamic law and director of the Institute for the Study of Judaeo-Christian Orig ...

has advanced the theory that some scrolls describe the early Christian community. Eisenman also argued that the careers of James the Just and Paul the Apostle correspond to events recorded in some of these documents.

Jerusalem origin theory

Some scholars have argued that the scrolls were the product of

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

living in Jerusalem, who hid the scrolls in the caves near Qumran while fleeing from the

Romans Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Karl Heinrich Rengstorf first proposed in the 1960s that the Dead Sea Scrolls originated at the library of the Jewish

Temple in Jerusalem The Temple in Jerusalem, or alternatively the Holy Temple (; , ), refers to the two now-destroyed religious structures that served as the central places of worship for Israelites and Jews on the modern-day Temple Mount in the Old City of Jeru ...

. Later,

Norman Golb Norman Golb (15 January 1928 – 29 December 2020) was the Ludwig Rosenberger Professor in Jewish History and Civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Golb was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on 15 January 1 ...

suggested that the scrolls were the product of multiple libraries in Jerusalem, and not necessarily the Jerusalem Temple library. Proponents of the Jerusalem origin theory point to the diversity of thought and handwriting among the scrolls as evidence against a Qumran origin of the scrolls. Several archaeologists have also accepted an origin of the scrolls other than Qumran, including Yizhar Hirschfeld and more recently Yizhak Magen and Yuval Peleg, who all understand the remains of Qumran to be those of a Hasmonean fort that was reused during later periods.

Physical characteristics

Radiocarbon dating

Parchment from a number of the Dead Sea Scrolls has been

carbon dated Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

. The initial test performed in 1950 was on a piece of linen from one of the caves. This test gave an indicative dating of 33 CE plus or minus 200 years, eliminating early hypotheses relating the scrolls to the medieval period. Since then two large series of tests have been performed on the scrolls themselves. The results were summarized by VanderKam and Flint, who said the tests give "strong reason for thinking that most of the Qumran manuscripts belong to the last two centuries BCE and the first century CE."

Paleographic dating

Analysis of letter forms, or

palaeography Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...

, was applied to the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls by a variety of scholars in the field. Major linguistic analysis by

Cross A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

and Avigad dates fragments from 225 BCE to 50 CE.Grossman, Maxine. "Rediscovering the Dead Sea Scrolls." pp. 48–51. 2010. These dates were determined by examining the size, variability, and style of the text. The same fragments were later analyzed using radiocarbon dating and were dated to an estimated range of 385 BCE to 82 CE with a 68% accuracy rate.

Ink and parchment

The scrolls were analyzed using a

cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Jan ...

at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

, where it was found that all black ink was

carbon black Carbon black (subtypes are acetylene black, channel black, furnace black, lamp black and thermal black) is a material produced by the incomplete combustion of coal and coal tar, vegetable matter, or petroleum products, including fuel oil, fluid ...

. The red ink on the scrolls was found to be made with

cinnabar Cinnabar (), or cinnabarite (), from the grc, κιννάβαρι (), is the bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS). It is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury and is the historic source for the bri ...

(HgS, mercury sulfide). There are only four uses of this red ink in the entire collection of Dead Sea Scroll fragments. The black inks found on the scrolls are mostly made of carbon soot from olive oil lamps. Honey, oil, vinegar, and water were often added to the mixture to thin the ink to a proper

consistency In classical deductive logic, a consistent theory is one that does not lead to a logical contradiction. The lack of contradiction can be defined in either semantic or syntactic terms. The semantic definition states that a theory is consistent ...

for writing. Galls were sometimes added to the ink to make it more resilient. In order to apply the ink to the scrolls, its writers used

reed pen A reed pen ( grc-gre, κάλαμοι '; singular ') is a writing implement made by cutting and shaping a single reed straw or length of bamboo. History and manufacture Reed pens with regular features such as a split nib have been found in Anci ...

s.Magness, Jodi. ''The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls''. p. 33. 2002. The Dead Sea Scrolls were written on

made of processed

animal hide A hide or skin is an animal skin treated for human use. The word "hide" is related to the German word "Haut" which means skin. The industry defines hides as "skins" of large animals ''e.g''. cow, buffalo; while skins refer to "skins" of smaller an ...

known as

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...

(approximately 85.5–90.5% of the scrolls),

(estimated at 8–13% of the scrolls), and sheets of bronze composed of about 99%

and 1%

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

(approximately 1.5% of the scrolls). For those scrolls written on animal hides, scholars with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, by use of DNA testing for assembly purposes, believe that there may be a hierarchy in the religious importance of the texts based on which type of animal was used to create the hide. Scrolls written on

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

and calf hides are considered by scholars to be more significant in nature, while those written on

gazelle A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, '' Eudorcas'' and '' Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third ...

ibex An ibex (plural ibex, ibexes or ibices) is any of several species of wild goat (genus ''Capra''), distinguished by the male's large recurved horns, which are transversely ridged in front. Ibex are found in Eurasia, North Africa and East Africa ...

are considered to be less religiously significant in nature. In addition, tests by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, have suggested that the origin of parchment of select Dead Sea Scroll fragments is from the Qumran area itself, by using

X-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

and

Particle-induced X-ray emission Particle-induced X-ray emission or proton-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) is a technique used for determining the elemental composition of a material or a sample. When a material is exposed to an ion beam, atomic interactions occur that give off EM ...

testing of the water used to make the parchment that were compared with the water from the area around the Qumran site.

Preservation

Two Dead Sea Scrolls Jars at the Jordan Museum, Amman

The Dead Sea Scrolls that were found were originally preserved by the dry, arid, and low humidity conditions present within the Qumran area adjoining the Dead Sea. In addition, the lack of the use of tanning materials on the parchment of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the very low airflow in the Qumran caves also contributed significantly to their preservation. Some of the scrolls were found stored in clay jars within the Qumran caves, further helping to preserve them from deterioration. The original handling of the scrolls by archaeologists and scholars was done inappropriately, and, along with their storage in an uncontrolled environment, they began a process of more rapid deterioration than they had experienced at Qumran. During the first few years in the late 1940s and early 1950s, adhesive tape used to join fragments and seal cracks caused significant damage to the documents. The government of Jordan had recognized the urgency of protecting the scrolls from deterioration and the presence of the deterioration among the scrolls.Burrows, Millar. ''More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls''. 1958. However, the government did not have adequate funds to purchase all the scrolls for their protection and agreed to have foreign institutions purchase the scrolls and have them held at their museum in Jerusalem until they could be "adequately studied". In early 1953, they were moved to the Palestine Archaeological Museum (commonly called the

Rockefeller Museum The Rockefeller Archeological Museum, formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum ("PAM"; 1938–1967), and which before then housed The Imperial Museum of Antiquities (''Müze-i Hümayun''; 1901–1917), is an archaeology museum located in East ...

) in East Jerusalem and through their transportation suffered more deterioration and damage. The museum was underfunded and had limited resources with which to examine the scrolls, and, as a result, conditions of the "scrollery" and storage area were left relatively uncontrolled by modern standards. The museum had left most of the fragments and scrolls lying between window glass, trapping the moisture in with them, causing an acceleration in the deterioration process. During a portion of the conflict during the 1956 war waged by Israel,

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

against

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

, the scrolls collection of the Palestine Archaeological Museum was stored in the

vault Vault may refer to: * Jumping, the act of propelling oneself upwards Architecture * Vault (architecture), an arched form above an enclosed space * Bank vault, a reinforced room or compartment where valuables are stored * Burial vault (enclosure ...

of the

Ottoman Bank The Ottoman Bank ( tr, Osmanlı Bankası), known from 1863 to 1925 as the Imperial Ottoman Bank (french: Banque Impériale Ottomane, ota, بانق عثمانی شاهانه) and correspondingly referred to by its French acronym BIO, was a bank ...

in Amman, Jordan.Fitzmyer, Joseph A. ''Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls''. 1992. Damp conditions from temporary storage of the scrolls in the Ottoman Bank vault from 1956 to the Spring of 1957 led to a more rapid rate of deterioration of the scrolls. The conditions caused

mildew Mildew is a form of fungus. It is distinguished from its closely related counterpart, mould, largely by its colour: moulds appear in shades of black, blue, red, and green, whereas mildew is white. It appears as a thin, superficial growth consi ...

to develop on the scrolls and fragments, and some fragments were partially destroyed or made illegible by the glue and paper of the manila envelopes in which they were stored while in the vault. By 1958 it was noted that up to 5% of some of the scrolls had completely deteriorated. Many of the texts had become illegible and many of the parchments had darkened considerably. Until the 1970s, the scrolls continued to deteriorate because of poor storage arrangements, exposure to different adhesives, and being trapped in moist environments. Fragments written on parchment (rather than papyrus or bronze) in the hands of private collectors and scholars suffered an even worse fate than those in the hands of the museum, with large portions of fragments being reported to have disappeared by 1966. In the late 1960s, the deterioration was becoming a major concern with scholars and museum officials alike. Scholars John Allegro and Sir Francis Frank were among the first to strongly advocate for better preservation techniques. Early attempts made by both the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

and Israel Museums to remove the adhesive tape ended up exposing the parchment to an array of chemicals, including " British Leather Dressing," and darkening some of them significantly. In the 1970s and 1980s, other preservation attempts were made that included removing the glass plates and replacing them with cardboard and removing pressure against the plates that held the scrolls in storage; however, the fragments and scrolls continued to rapidly deteriorate during this time. In 1991, the Israeli Antiquities Authority established a temperature-controlled laboratory for the storage and preservation of the scrolls. The actions and preservation methods of Rockefeller Museum staff were concentrated on the removal of tape, oils, metals, salt, and other contaminants. The fragments and scrolls are preserved using acid-free cardboard and stored in

solander box A Solander box ("S" may also be in lowercase), or clamshell case (mainly in American English), is a book-form case used for storing manuscripts, maps, prints, documents, old and precious books, etc. It is commonly used in archives, print rooms and ...

es in the climate-controlled storage area. Nine tiny phylactery slips were rediscovered by the

Israel Antiquities Authority The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA, he, רשות העתיקות ; ar, داﺌرة الآثار, before 1990, the Israel Department of Antiquities) is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of ...

(IAA) in 2014, after they had been stored unopened for six decades following their excavation in 1952. The IAA is preparing to unroll the phylacteries or ''tefillin'' once a safe procedure has been decided upon.

Photography and assembly

Since the Dead Sea Scrolls were initially held by different parties during and after the excavation process, they were not all photographed by the same organization.

First photographs by the American Schools of Oriental Research (1948)

The first individual person to photograph a portion of the collection was John C. Trever (1916–2006), a biblical scholar and archaeologist, who was a resident for the American Schools of Oriental Research. He photographed three of the scrolls discovered in Cave 1 on 21 February 1948, both on black-and-white and standard color film. Although an amateur photographer, the quality of his photographs often exceeded the visibility of the scrolls themselves as, over the years, the ink of the texts quickly deteriorated after they were removed from their linen wrappings.

Infrared photography and plate assembly by the Palestine Archaeological Museum (1952–1967)

A majority of the collection from the Qumran caves was acquired by the Palestine Archaeological Museum. The museum had the scrolls photographed by Najib Albina, a local Arab photographer trained by Lewis Larsson of the American Colony in Jerusalem, Between 1952 and 1967, Albina documented the five-stage process of the sorting and assembly of the scrolls, done by the curator and staff of the Palestine Archaeological Museum, using

infrared photography ''Top:'' tree photographed in the near infrared range. ''Bottom:'' same tree in the Visible spectrum, visible part of the spectrum. In infrared photography, the photographic film, film or image sensor used is sensitive to infrared light ...

. Using a process known today as broadband fluorescence infrared photography, or NIR photography, Najib and the team at the museum produced over 1,750 photographic plates of the scrolls and fragments. The photographs were taken with the scrolls laid out on animal skin, using large format film, which caused the text to stand out, making the plates especially useful for assembling fragments. These are the earliest photographs of the museum's collection, which was the most complete in the world at the time, and they recorded the fragments and scrolls before their further decay in storage, so they are often considered the best recorded copies of the scrolls.

Israel Antiquities Authority and NASA digital infrared imaging (1993–2012)

Beginning in 1993, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration used digital infrared imaging technology to produce photographs of Dead Sea Scrolls fragments. In partnership with the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center and West Semitic Research, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory successfully worked to expand on the use of infrared photography previously used to evaluate ancient manuscripts by expanding the range of spectra at which images are photographed. NASA used this multi-spectral imaging technique, adapted from its remote sensing and planetary probes, in order to reveal previously illegible text on fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The process uses a

liquid crystal tunable filter A liquid crystal tunable filter (LCTF) is an optical filter that uses electronically controlled liquid crystal (LC) elements to transmit a selectable wavelength of light and exclude others. Often, the basic working principle is based on the Lyot f ...

in order to photograph the scrolls at specific wavelengths of light and, as a result, image distortion is significantly diminished. This method was used with select fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls to reveal text and details that cameras that take photographs using a larger light spectrum could not reveal. The camera and digital imaging assembly was developed specifically for the purpose of photographing illegible ancient texts. On 18 December 2012 the first output of this project was launched together with Google on the dedicated site ''Deadseascrolls.org.il.'' The site contains both digitizations of old images taken in the 1950s and about 1000 new images taken with the new NASA technology.

Israel Antiquities Authority and DNA scroll assembly (2006–2020)

Scientists with the Israeli Antiquities Authority have used DNA from the parchment on which the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments were written, in concert with infrared digital photography, to assist in the reassembly of the scrolls. For scrolls written on parchment made from animal hide and papyrus, scientists with the museum are using DNA code to associate fragments with different scrolls and to help scholars determine which scrolls may hold greater significance based on the type of material that was used. In a paper published in 2020 in the journal ''Cell'', researchers from

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

have shown that ancient DNA extracted from the ancient scrolls can be used to sort different scroll fragments not only based on the animal species but also based on variations in the nuclear genome of individual fragments. This effort enabled the researchers to match different fragments to each other based on their genetics and separate fragments which were falsely connected in the past.

Israel Museum of Jerusalem and Google digitization project (2011–2016)

In partnership with Google, the Museum of Jerusalem is working to photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls and make them available to the public digitally, although not placing the images in the public domain. The lead photographer of the project, Ardon Bar-Hama, and his team are utilizing the Alpa 12 MAX camera accompanied with a

Leaf A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ste ...

Aptus-II back in order to produce ultra-high resolution digital images of the scrolls and fragments. With photos taken at 1,200

megapixels In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...

, the results are digital images that can be used to distinguish details that are invisible to the naked eye. In order to minimize damage to the scrolls and fragments, photographers are using a 1/4000th of a second exposure time and UV-protected flash tubes. The digital photography project was estimated in 2011 to cost approximately 3.5 million U.S. dollars.

Scholarly examination

After most of the scrolls and fragments were moved to the Palestine Archaeological Museum in 1953, scholars began to assemble them and log them for translation and study in a room that became known as the "scrollery". The text of the Dead Sea Scrolls is written in four different languages:

, and

Publication

Physical publication and controversy

Some of the fragments and scrolls were published early. Most of the longer, more complete scrolls were published soon after their discovery. All the writings in Cave 1 appeared in print between 1950 and 1956; those from eight other caves were released in 1963; and 1965 saw the publication of the Psalms Scroll from Cave 11. Their translations into English soon followed.

Controversy

Publication of the scrolls has taken many decades, and delays have been a source of academic controversy. The scrolls were controlled by a small group of scholars headed by John Strugnell, while a majority of scholars had access neither to the scrolls nor even to photographs of the text. Scholars such as Norman Golb, publishers and writers such as

Hershel Shanks Hershel Shanks (March 8, 1930 – February 5, 2021) was an American lawyer and amateur biblical archaeologist. He was the founder and long-time editor of the ''Biblical Archaeology Review''. Life and career Shanks was born in Sharon, Pennsylvani ...

, and many others argued for decades for publishing the texts, so that they become available to researchers. This controversy only ended in 1991, when the Biblical Archaeology Society was able to publish the "Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls", after an intervention of the Israeli government and the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA). In 1991

Emanuel Tov Emanuel Tov, ( he, עמנואל טוב; born September 15, 1941, Amsterdam, Netherlands as Menno Toff) is a Dutch Israeli, emeritus J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible Studies in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has ...

was appointed as the chairman of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, and publication of the scrolls followed in the same year.

Physical description

The majority of the scrolls consist of tiny, brittle fragments, which were published at a pace considered by many to be excessively slow. During early assembly and translation work by scholars through the Rockefeller Museum from the 1950s through the 1960s, access to the unpublished documents was limited to the editorial committee.

''Discoveries in the Judaean Desert'' (1955–2009)

The content of the scrolls was published in a 40-volume series by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

between 1955 and 2009 known as '' Discoveries in the Judaean Desert''. In 1952 the Jordanian Department of Antiquities assembled a team of scholars to begin examining, assembling, and translating the scrolls with the intent of publishing them. The initial publication, assembled by

Dominique Barthélemy Jean-Dominique Barthélemy OP (16 May 1921, Pallet — 10 February 2002, Freiburg), was a emeritus French professor, Dominican priest and biblical scholar. After a series of other publications in the late 1980s and early 1990s and with the appointment of the respected Dutch-Israeli textual scholar Emanuel Tov as editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project in 1990 publication of the scrolls accelerated. Tov's team had published five volumes covering the Cave 4 documents by 1995. Between 1990 and 2009, Tov helped the team produce 32 volumes. The final volume, Volume XL, was published in 2009.

''A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls'' (1991)

In 1991, researchers at Hebrew Union College in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wi ...

, Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin Abegg, announced the creation of a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

that used previously published scrolls to reconstruct the unpublished texts. Officials at the

Huntington Library The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington (1850–1927) and Arabella Huntington (c.1851–1924) in San Ma ...

San Marino, California San Marino is a residential city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It was incorporated on April 25, 1913. At the 2010 census the population was 13,147. The city is one of the wealthiest places in the nation in terms of househo ...

, led by Head Librarian William Andrew Moffett, announced that they would allow researchers unrestricted access to the library's complete set of photographs of the scrolls. In the fall of that year, Wacholder published 17 documents that had been reconstructed in 1988 from a concordance and had come into the hands of scholars outside of the International Team; in the same month, there occurred the discovery and publication of a complete set of facsimiles of the Cave 4 materials at the Huntington Library. Thereafter, the officials of the Israel Antiquities Authority agreed to lift their long-standing restrictions on the use of the scrolls.

''A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' (1991)

After further delays, attorney William John Cox undertook representation of an "undisclosed client", who had provided a complete set of the unpublished photographs, and contracted for their publication. Professors Robert Eisenman and James Robinson indexed the photographs and wrote an introduction to '' A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls'', which was published by the

Biblical Archaeology Society The Biblical Archaeology Society was established in 1974 by American lawyer Hershel Shanks, as a non-sectarian organisation that supports and promotes biblical archaeology. Its current publications include the ''Biblical Archaeology Review'', whil ...

in 1991. Following the publication of the ''Facsimile Edition'', Professor Elisha Qimron sued Hershel Shanks, Eisenman, Robinson and the Biblical Archaeology Society for copyright infringement for publishing, without authorization or attribution, his decipherment of one of the scrolls, MMT. The District Court of Jerusalem found in favor of Qimron in September 1993. The Court issued a restraining order, which prohibited the publication of the deciphered text, and ordered defendants to pay Qimron NIS 100,000 for infringing his copyright and the right of attribution. Defendants appealed the Supreme Court of Israel, which approved the District Court's decision, in August 2000. The Supreme Court further ordered that the defendants hand over to Qimron all the infringing copies. The decision met Israeli and international criticism from copyright law scholars.

The Facsimile Edition by Facsimile Editions Ltd, London, England (2007–2008)

In November 2007 the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation commissioned the London publisher,

Facsimile Editions Limited A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, Old master print, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from ...

, to produce a facsimile edition of The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIs^a), The Order of the Community (1QS), and The Pesher to Habakkuk (1QpHab). The facsimile was produced from 1948 photographs, and so more faithfully represents the condition of the Isaiah Scroll at the time of its discovery than does the current condition of the real Isaiah Scroll. Of the first three facsimile sets, one was exhibited at the ''Early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls'' exhibition in Seoul, South Korea, and a second set was purchased by the British Library in London. A further 46 sets including facsimiles of three fragments from Cave 4 (now in the collection of the National Archaeological Museum in Amman, Jordan) Testimonia (4Q175), Pesher Isaiah^b (4Q162) and Qohelet (4Q109) were announced in May 2009. The edition is strictly limited to 49 numbered sets of these reproductions on either specially prepared parchment paper or real parchment. The complete facsimile set (three scrolls including the Isaiah Scroll and the three Jordanian fragments) can be purchased for $60,000. The facsimiles have since been exhibited in ''Qumrân. Le secret des manuscrits de la mer Morte'' at the

Bibliothèque Nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

, Paris, France (2010) and ''Verbum Domini'' at the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

, Rome, Italy (2012).

Digital publication

Olive Tree Bible Software (2000–2011)

The text of nearly all of the non-biblical scrolls has been recorded and tagged for

morphology Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to: Disciplines * Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts * Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies ...

by Dr. Martin Abegg, Jr., the Ben Zion Wacholder Professor of Dead Sea Scroll Studies at

Trinity Western University , mottoeng = A Mighty Fortress Is Our God , established = Trinity Junior College (1962–1972), Trinity Western College (1972–1985), Trinity Western University (1986–present) , type = Privat ...

located in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. It is available on handheld devices through Olive Tree Bible Software - BibleReader, on Macs and Windows via emulator through

Accordance Accordance is a Bible study program for Apple Macintosh and iPhone, and now Windows and Android, developed by OakTree Software, Inc.*Bible Atlas and Bible Lands Photo Guid{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120314035838/http://www. ...

with a comprehensive set of cross references, and on Windows through

Logos Bible Software Logos Bible Software is a digital library application developed by Faithlife Corporation.It is designed for electronic Bible study. In addition to basic eBook functionality, it includes extensive resource linking, note-taking functionality, and ...

and BibleWorks.

''The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader'' (2005)

The text of almost all of the non-biblical texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls was released on CD-ROM by publisher E.J. Brill in 2005."From Other Publishers: Dead Sea Scrolls Reader Released." http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/insights/?vol=25&num=2&id=423 The 2,400 page, 6-volume series, was assembled by an editorial team led by Donald W. Parry and Emanuel Tov. Unlike the text translations in the physical publication, ''Discoveries in the Judaean Desert,'' the texts are sorted by genres that include religious law, parabiblical texts, calendrical and sapiental texts, and poetic and liturgical works.

''The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library''

High-resolution images, including infrared photographs, of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls are now available online on two dedicated websites. On 19 October 2010, it was announced that Israeli Antiquities Authority would scan the documents using multi-spectral imaging technology developed by NASA to produce high-resolution images of the texts, and then, through a partnership with

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, make them available online free of charge, on a searchable database and complemented by translation and other scholarly tools.

Related findings

Two silver scroll-shaped amulets dated and containing portions of the

Priestly Blessing The Priestly Blessing or priestly benediction, ( he, ברכת כהנים; translit. ''birkat kohanim''), also known in rabbinic literature as raising of the hands (Hebrew ''nesiat kapayim'') or rising to the platform (Hebrew ''aliyah ledukhan'') ...

from the

Book of Numbers The book of Numbers (from Greek Ἀριθμοί, ''Arithmoi''; he, בְּמִדְבַּר, ''Bəmīḏbar'', "In the desert f) is the fourth book of the Hebrew Bible, and the fourth of five books of the Jewish Torah. The book has a long and c ...

were excavated in Jerusalem at

Ketef Hinnom Ketef Hinnom ( he, כֵּתֵף הִינוֹם ', "Shoulder of Hinnom") is an archaeological site discovered in the 1970s southwest of the Old City of Jerusalem. Archaeological excavations held in the site uncovered a series of Iron Age period ...

. On 25 September 2011 the Israel Museum Digital Dead Sea Scrolls site went online.http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/ Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Project at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem It gives users access to searchable, high-resolution images of the scrolls, as well as short explanatory videos and background information on the texts and their history. , five complete scrolls from the Israel Museum have been digitized for the project and are now accessible online: the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule Scroll, the Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, the Temple Scroll, and the War Scroll.

Biblical significance

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew-language manuscripts of the Bible were

Masoretic text The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; he, נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה, Nūssāḥ Hammāsōrā, lit. 'Text of the Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) in Rabbinic Judaism. ...

s dating to the 10th century CE, such as the Aleppo Codex. Today, the oldest known extant manuscripts of the Masoretic Text date from approximately the 9th century. The biblical manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls push that date back a full thousand years, to the 2nd century BCE. This was a significant discovery for Old Testament scholars who anticipated that the Dead Sea Scrolls would either affirm or repudiate the reliability of textual transmission from the original texts to the oldest Masoretic texts at hand. The discovery demonstrated the unusual accuracy of transmission over a thousand-year period, rendering it reasonable to believe that current Old Testament texts are reliable copies of the original works. According to ''The Dead Sea Scrolls'' by Hebrew scholar Millar Burrows

Of the 166 ''words'' in Isaiah 53, there are only seventeen ''letters'' in question. Ten of these letters are simply a matter of spelling, which does not affect the sense. Four more letters are minor stylistic changes, such as conjunctions. The remaining three letters comprise the word "light," which is added in verse 11, and does not affect the meaning greatly.

It is important to note that differences were found among fragments of texts. According to ''The Oxford Companion to Archaeology'':

Biblical books found

There are 225 biblical texts included in the Dead Sea Scroll documents, or around 22% of the total, and with

deuterocanonical books The deuterocanonical books (from the Greek meaning "belonging to the second canon") are books and passages considered by the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, and the Assyrian Church of the East to be ...

the number increases to 235. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain parts of all but one of the books of the

Tanakh The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
'' Old Testament

protocanon The protocanonical books are those books of the Old Testament that are also included in the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) and that came to be considered canonical during the formational period of orthodox Christianity. The Old Testament is entirely r ...

. They also include four of the deuterocanonical books included in

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or " canonical ...

Bibles: Tobit,

Sirach The Book of Sirach () or Ecclesiasticus (; abbreviated Ecclus.) is a Jewish work, originally in Hebrew, of ethical teachings, from approximately 200 to 175 BC, written by the Judahite scribe Ben Sira of Jerusalem, on the inspiration of his fa ...

, Baruch 6 (also known as the Letter or Epistle of Jeremiah), and

Psalm 151 Psalm 151 is a short psalm found in most copies of the Septuagint (LXX), but not in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible. The title given to this psalm in the Septuagint indicates that it is supernumerary, as no number is affixed to it. The psal ...

. The Book of Esther has not yet been found and scholars believe Esther is missing because, as a Jew, her marriage to a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

king may have been looked down upon by the inhabitants of Qumran, or because the book has the

Purim Purim (; , ; see Name below) is a Jewish holiday which commemorates the saving of the Jewish people from Haman, an official of the Achaemenid Empire who was planning to have all of Persia's Jewish subjects killed, as recounted in the Book ...

festival which is not included in the Qumran calendar. Listed below are the most represented books, along with the deuterocanonicals, of the Bible found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, including the number of translatable Dead Sea texts that represent a copy of scripture from each biblical book:

Non-biblical books

The majority of the texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls are non-biblical in nature and were thought to be insignificant for understanding the composition or canonization of the biblical books, but a consensus has emerged which sees many of these works as being collected by the Essene community instead of being composed by them. Scholars now recognize that some of these works were composed earlier than the Essene period, when some of the biblical books were still being written or redacted into their final form.

Museum exhibitions and displays

Small portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls collections have been put on temporary display in exhibitions at museums and public venues around the world. The majority of these exhibitions took place in 1965 in the United States and the United Kingdom and from 1993 to 2011 in locations around the world. Many of the exhibitions were co-sponsored by either the Jordanian government (pre-1967) or the Israeli government (post-1967). Exhibitions were discontinued after 1965 due to the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states (primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) from 5 to 10 Ju ...

conflicts and have slowed down in post-2011 as the Israeli Antiquities Authority works to digitize the scrolls and place them in permanent cold storage. The majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection was moved to Jerusalem's Shrine of the Book (a part of the Israel Museum) after the building's completion in April 1965. The museum falls under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority, an official agency of the Israeli government. The permanent Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the museum features a reproduction of the Great Isaiah Scroll, surrounded by reproductions of other fragments that include Community Rule, the War Scroll, and the Thanksgiving Psalms Scroll. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection held by the Jordanian government prior to 1967 were stored in Amman rather than at the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem. As a consequence, that part of the collection remained in Jordanian hands under their Department of Antiquities. Since 2013, the part of the collection held by Jordan has been on display at

in Amman. Among the display items are artifacts from the Qumran site and the Copper Scroll.

Ownership

Upon their discovery in 1947 in what was then

, the Dead Sea Scrolls were first moved to the Palestine Archaeological Museum. The museum was managed by

, along with all of East Jerusalem, from 1948 until 1967. After Israel's occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967, the Palestine Archeological Museum (soon renamed the Rockefeller Archeological Museum) fell under Israeli administration, and the Dead Sea Scrolls collection held there was moved to the "Shrine of the Book", in the Israel Museum in

West Jerusalem West Jerusalem or Western Jerusalem (, ; , ) refers to the section of Jerusalem that was controlled by Israel at the end of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. As the city was divided by the Green Line (Israel's erstwhile border, established by t ...

. The Israel Museum falls under the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority, an official agency of the Israeli government. The permanent Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition at the museum features a reproduction of the Great Isaiah Scroll, surrounded by reproductions of other fragments that include Community Rule, the War Scroll, and the Thanksgiving Psalms Scroll. Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection held by the Jordanian government prior to 1967 were stored in Amman rather than at the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem. As a consequence, that part of the collection remained in Jordanian hands, under their Department of Antiquities. Since 2013, the part of the collection held by Jordan has been on display at

in Amman. Among the display items are artifacts from the Qumran site and the Copper Scroll. Israel claims ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls collection currently housed at the Israel Museum. This claimed ownership is contested by both Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

Forgeries and claimed private ownership

Arrangements with the Bedouin left the scrolls in the hands of a third party until a profitable sale of them could be negotiated. That third party, George Isha'ya, was a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church, who soon contacted St Mark's Monastery in the hope of getting an appraisal of the nature of the texts. News of the find then reached Metropolitan Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, better known as Mar Samuel. After examining the scrolls and suspecting their antiquity, Mar Samuel expressed an interest in purchasing them. Four scrolls found their way into his hands: the Isaiah Scroll ( 1QIsa^a), the Community Rule, the Habakkuk Pesher (a commentary on the

book of Habakkuk The Book of Habakkuk is the eighth book of the 12 minor prophets of the Bible. It is attributed to the prophet Habakkuk, and was probably composed in the late 7th century BC. Of the three chapters in the book, the first two are a dialogue betwe ...

), and the Genesis Apocryphon. More scrolls soon surfaced in the antiquities market, and Professor Eleazer Sukenik and Professor Benjamin Mazar, archaeologists at Hebrew University, soon found themselves in possession of three, The War Scroll, Thanksgiving Hymns, and another, more fragmented, Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^b). Four of the Dead Sea Scrolls eventually went up for sale in an advertisement on 1 June 1954, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

.'' On 1 July 1954, the scrolls, after delicate negotiations and accompanied by three people including the Metropolitan, arrived at the

Waldorf-Astoria Hotel The Waldorf Astoria New York is a luxury hotel and condominium residence in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The structure, at 301 Park Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, is a 47-story Art Deco landmark designed by architects Schult ...

in New York. They were purchased by Professor Mazar and the son of Professor Sukenik, Yigael Yadin, for $250,000 (approximately $ in dollars), and brought to Jerusalem. Since 2002, many forgeries of Dead Sea Scrolls have appeared on black markets. In 2020, the

Museum of the Bible The Museum of the Bible is a museum in Washington D.C., owned by Museum of the Bible, Inc., a non-profit organization established in 2010 by the Green family. The museum documents the narrative, history, and impact of the Bible. It opened on No ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

(also known as

Green Collection The Green Collection, later known as the Museum Collection, is the one of the world's largest private collection of rare biblical texts and artifacts, made up of more than 40,000 biblical antiquities assembled by the Green family, founders of th ...

– Green Family) reported that all 16 purported "Dead Sea Scroll fragments" they had acquired between 2009 and 2014 were in fact modern forgeries. List of claimed private ownerships of Dead Sea Scroll fragments:

Ownership disputes

The official ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed among Jordan, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority. The debate over the Dead Sea Scrolls stems from a more general Israeli–Palestinian conflict over land and state recognition.

Copyright disputes

There are three types of documents relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls in which copyright status can be considered ambiguous; the documents themselves, images taken of the documents, and reproductions of the documents. This ambiguity arises from differences in

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

law across different countries and the variable interpretation of such law. In 1992 a copyright case ''

Qimron v. Shanks ''Qimron v. Shanks'' (2000) is a landmark ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court. The court ruled that an Israeli scholar had a copyright on his reconstruction of an important Dead Sea Scrolls, Dead Sea Scroll and that his right had been violated by an ...

'' was brought before the Israeli District court by scholar Elisha Qimron against Hershel Shanks of the Biblical Archaeology Society for violations of United States copyright law regarding his publishing of reconstructions of Dead Sea Scroll texts done by Qimron in ''A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' which were included without his permission. Qimron's suit against the Biblical Archaeology Society was done on the grounds that the research they had published was his intellectual property as he had reconstructed about 40% of the published text. In 1993, the district court Judge Dalia Dorner ruled for the plaintiff, Elisha Qimron, in context of both United States and Israeli copyright law and granted the highest compensation allowed by law for aggravation in compensation against Hershel Shanks and others. In an appeal in 2000 in front of Judge

Aharon Barak Aharon Barak ( he, אהרן ברק; born Erik Brick, 16 September 1936) is an Israeli lawyer and jurist who served as President of the Supreme Court of Israel from 1995 to 2006. Prior to this, Barak served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Is ...

, the verdict was upheld in

Israeli Supreme Court ar, المحكمة العليا , image = Emblem of Israel dark blue full.svg , imagesize = 100px , caption = Emblem of Israel , motto = , established = , location = Givat Ram, Jerusalem , coordina ...

in Qimron's favor. The court case established the two main principles from which facsimiles are examined under copyright law of the United States and Israel: authorship and originality. The court's ruling not only affirms that the "deciphered text" of the scrolls can fall under copyright of individuals or groups, but makes it clear that the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves do not fall under this copyright law and scholars have a degree of, in the words of U.S. copyright law professor

David Nimmer David Nimmer is an American lawyer, law professor, renowned as an expert in United States copyright law. He received an A.B. with distinction and honors in 1977 from Stanford University and his J.D. in 1980 from Yale Law School, where he served as ...

, "freedom" in access. Nimmer has shown how this freedom was in the theory of law applicable, but how it did not exist in reality as the Israeli Antiquities Authority tightly controlled access to the scrolls and photographs of the scrolls.

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

General and cited sources

Books

* Abegg, Jr., Martin, Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English'', San Francisco: Harper, 2002. , (contains the biblical portion of the scrolls) * Abegg, Jr. Martin,

James E. Bowley James E. Bowley is Chair and Professor of Religious Studies at Millsaps College. He received his Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (1992). Bowley is a noted editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls concordance ...

, Edward M. Cook, Emanuel Tov. ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Concordance, Vol 1.'' Brill Publishing 2003. . * Allegro, John Marco, ''The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth'' (), Westbridge Books, UK, 1979. * Berg, Simon. ''Insights into the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Beginner's Guide'', BookSurge Publishing, 2009. * Boccaccini, Gabriele. ''Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism'', Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. * Burrows, Millar (1955). ''The Dead Sea Scrolls.'' New York: Viking. . * Burrows, Millar (1958). ''More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls; New Scrolls and New Interpretations, with Translations of Important Recent Discoveries.'' New York: Viking. * Charlesworth, James H. "The Theologies of the Dead Sea Scrolls." pp. xv–xxi in The Faith of Qumran: Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Edited by H. Ringgren. New York: Crossroad, 1995. * Chernoivanenko, Vitaly.
The Jerusalem Theory of the Dead Sea Scrolls Authorship: Origins, Evolution, and Discussions
" in ''Ukrainian Orientalistics: Special Issue on Jewish Studies'', Кyiv: NaUKMA Omeljan Pritsak Center for Oriental Studies, 2011: 9–29. * Collins, John J., ''Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls'', New York: Routledge, 1997. * Collins, John J., and

Craig A. Evans Craig Alan Evans (born January 21, 1952) is an American biblical scholar. He is a prolific writer with 70 books and over 600 journal articles and reviews to his name. Career He earned his Bachelor of Arts, B.A in history and philosophy from Cla ...

. ''Christian Beginnings and the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006. * Cook, Edward M. (1994). ''Solving the Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Light on the Bible'', Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. * Cross, Frank Moore (1995). ''The Ancient Library of Qumran'', 3rd ed., Minneapolis: Fortress Press. * Davies, A. Powell (1956). ''The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls.'' Signet. * Davies, Philip R., George J. Brooke, and Phillip R. Callaway (2002). ''The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls'', London: Thames & Hudson. * de Vaux, Roland, ''Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls'' (Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1959). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973. * Dimant, Devorah, and Uriel Rappaport (eds.), ''The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research'', Leiden and Jerusalem: E.J. Brill, Magnes Press, Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, 1992. * Eisenman, Robert H., ''The Dead Sea Scrolls and the First Christians'', Shaftesbury: Element, 1996. * Eisenman, Robert H., and Michael O. Wise. ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered: The First Complete Translation and Interpretation of 50 Key Documents Withheld for Over 35 Years'', Shaftesbury: Element
1992
* Eisenman, Robert H. and James Robinson, ''A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' 2 vol., Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991. * Fitzmyer, Joseph A., ''Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Paulist Press 1992, * * Galor, Katharina, Jean-Baptiste Humbert, and Jürgen Zangenberg. ''Qumran: The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates: Proceedings of a Conference held at Brown University, 17–19 November 2002'', Edited by Florentino García Martínez, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 57. Leiden: Brill, 2006. * García-Martinez, Florentino, ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English,'' (Translated from Spanish into English by Wilfred G. E. Watson) (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994). * García Martínez Florentino, Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, Editors,
The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition
', Brill, 1999 * Gaster, Theodor H., ''The Dead Sea Scriptures'', Peter Smith Pub Inc., 1976. * Golb, Norman, ''Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The Search for the Secret of Qumran'', New York: Scribner, 1995. * Golb, Norman,
On the Jerusalem Origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls
'',

University of Chicago Oriental Institute The Oriental Institute (OI), established in 1919, is the University of Chicago's interdisciplinary research center for ancient Near Eastern ("Orient") studies and archaeology museum. It was founded for the university by professor James Henry Bre ...

, 5 June 2009. * Heline, Theodore, ''Dead Sea Scrolls'', New Age Bible & Philosophy Center, 1957, Reprint edition 1987, * Hirschfeld, Yizhar, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence, Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004. * Israeli, Raphael,
Routledge
Piracy in Qumran: The Battle over the Scrolls of the Pre-Christ Era]'', Transaction Publishers: 2008 * Khabbaz, C., "Les manuscrits de la mer Morte et le secret de leurs auteurs", Beirut, 2006. (Ce livre identifie les auteurs des fameux manuscrits de la mer Morte et dévoile leur secret). * Magen, Yizhak, and Yuval Peleg, ''The Qumran Excavations 1993–2004: Preliminary Report'', JSP 6 (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2007
Download
* Magen, Yizhak, and Yuval Peleg, "Back to Qumran: Ten years of Excavations and Research, 1993–2004," in The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 57), Brill, 2006 (pp. 55–116). * Magness, Jodi, ''The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. * Maier, Johann, ''The Temple Scroll,'' erman edition was 1978 (Sheffield:JSOT Press upplement 34 1985). * Milik, Józef Tadeusz, ''Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judea'', London: SCM, 1959. * Muro, E. A., "The Greek Fragments of Enoch from Qumran Cave 7 (7Q4, 7Q8, &7Q12 = 7QEn gr = Enoch 103:3–4, 7–8)." ''Revue de Qumran'' 18, no. 70 (1997): 307, 12, pl. 1. * O'Callaghan-Martínez, Josep, ''Cartas Cristianas Griegas del Siglo V'', Barcelona: E. Balmes, 1963. * Qimron, Elisha, ''The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Harvard Semitic Studies, 1986. (This is a ''serious'' discussion of the Hebrew language of the scrolls.) * Rengstorf, Karl Heinrich, ''Hirbet Qumran und die Bibliothek vom Toten Meer'', Translated by J. R. Wilkie. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1960. * Roitman, Adolfo, ed. A Day at Qumran: The Dead Sea Sect and Its Scrolls. Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1998. * Sanders, James A., ed. ''Dead Sea scrolls: The Psalms scroll of Qumrân Cave 11 (11QPsa)'', (1965) Oxford, Clarendon Press. * Schiffman, Lawrence H., ''Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity'', Anchor Bible Reference Library (Doubleday) 1995, , (Schiffman has suggested two plausible theories of origin and identity – a Sadducean splinter group, or perhaps an Essene group with Sadducean roots.) Excerpts of this book can be read a
COJS: Dead Sea Scrolls
* Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam, eds. ''Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls''. 2 vols. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. * Shanks, Hershel, ''The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls'', Vintage Press 1999, (recommended introduction to their discovery and history of their scholarship) * Stegemann, Hartmut. "The Qumran Essenes: Local Members of the Main Jewish Union in Late Second Temple Times." pp. 83–166 in ''The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March 1991'', Edited by J. Trebolle Barrera and L. Vegas Mountainer. Vol. 11 of Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah. Leiden: Brill, 1992. * Thiede, Carsten Peter, ''The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity'', Palgrave 2000, * Thiering, Barbara, ''Jesus the Man'', New York: Atria, 2006. * Thiering, Barbara, ''Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' (), New York: HarperCollins, 1992 * VanderKam, James C., ''The Dead Sea Scrolls Today'', Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. * Vermes, Geza, ''The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English'', London: Penguin, 1998. (7th ed. 2011 ) * Wise, Michael O., Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, ''The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation'', (1996), Harper San Francisco paperback 1999, , (contains the non-biblical portion of the scrolls, including fragments) * Yadin, Yigael. The Temple Scroll: ''The Hidden Law of the Dead Sea Sect'', New York: Random House, 1985.

Other sources

* ''Dead Sea Scrolls Study'' Vol 1: 1Q1 – 4Q273, Vol. 2: 4Q274 – 11Q31, (compact disc), Logos Research Systems, Inc., (contains the non-biblical portion of the scrolls with Hebrew and Aramaic transcriptions in parallel with English translations)
Comprehensive Cross Reference interactive module for Dead Sea Scrolls, Josephus, Philo, Nag Hammadi Library, Pseudepigrapha, Old Testament Apocrypha, New Testament Apocrypha, Plato, Pythagoras, Dhammapada, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Tacitus, Talmud, New and Old Testaments, Apostolic and Early Church Fathers

External links

Bible Places: Qumran Caves

The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library

Israel Museum, Jerusalem: Shrine of the Book – Dead Sea Scrolls

My Jewish Learning: Dead Sea Scrolls
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dead Sea Scrolls 1946 archaeological discoveries 1st-century BC biblical manuscripts 1st-century biblical manuscripts 2nd-century BC biblical manuscripts 3rd-century BC biblical manuscripts Ancient Hebrew texts Ancient Jewish history Archaeological corpora Archaeological discoveries in Israel Archaeological discoveries in the West Bank Archaeology of Palestine (region) Collections of the Israel Museum Essene texts Hebrew manuscripts History of the West Bank Israel Antiquities Authority Judaean Desert Judea

Discovery

Initial discovery (1946–1947)

Search for the Qumran caves (1948–1949)

Qumran caves rediscovery and new scroll discoveries (1949–1951)

Excavations of Qumran and new cave discoveries (1951–1956, 2017, 2021)

Scrolls and fragments

Cave 1

Cave 2

Cave 3

Caves 4a and 4b

Cave 5

Cave 6

Cave 7

Cave 8

Cave 9

Cave 10

Cave 11

Cave 12

Fragments with unknown provenance

Gallery

Origin

Qumran–Essene theory

Qumran–Sectarian theory

Christian origin theory

Jerusalem origin theory

Physical characteristics

Radiocarbon dating

Paleographic dating

Ink and parchment

Preservation

Photography and assembly

First photographs by the American Schools of Oriental Research (1948)

Infrared photography and plate assembly by the Palestine Archaeological Museum (1952–1967)

Israel Antiquities Authority and NASA digital infrared imaging (1993–2012)

Israel Antiquities Authority and DNA scroll assembly (2006–2020)

Israel Museum of Jerusalem and Google digitization project (2011–2016)

Scholarly examination

Publication

Physical publication and controversy

Controversy

Physical description

''Discoveries in the Judaean Desert'' (1955–2009)

''A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls'' (1991)

''A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' (1991)

The Facsimile Edition by Facsimile Editions Ltd, London, England (2007–2008)

Digital publication

Olive Tree Bible Software (2000–2011)

''The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader'' (2005)

''The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library''

Related findings

Biblical significance

Biblical books found

Non-biblical books

Museum exhibitions and displays

Ownership

Forgeries and claimed private ownership

Ownership disputes

Copyright disputes

See also

Explanatory notes

References

Citations

General and cited sources

Books

Other sources

Further reading

External links