Dead Sea scrolls

15 Stories

AI Finds What Humans Can't on Longest Dead Sea Scroll

Subtle character differences suggest it was written by 2 scribes, not one

(Newser) - Looking at the 24-foot-long Great Isaiah Scroll, the longest of 950 discovered Dead Sea scrolls, you'd assume it made someone's hand very, very tired. But the "near uniform" Hebrew script on the 2,000-year-old scroll discovered in 1946, which looks to the naked eye to have been...

New Dead Sea Scrolls Found in 60-Year First

IAA director says they are 'of immeasurable worth for mankind'

(Newser) - "The Cave of Horror" has given up a new wonder: the first fragments of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls found in 60 years. Israeli archeologists have been combing the caves and ravines of the Judean Desert since 2017 in the hope of beating looters to relics preserved in the...

Writing Discovered on 'Blank' Dead Sea Scroll Fragments

'They are like missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle you find under a sofa'

(Newser) - In the 1950s, Dead Sea Scroll fragments thought to be blank were given to a British leather expert so he could study their chemical composition. Almost 70 years later, a professor has discovered they had writing on them all along. King's College London professor Joan Taylor says she spotted...

More Embarrassment for DC Bible Museum
These Dead Sea Scrolls
Turn Out to Be Fakes
in case you missed it
Mar 21, 2020 10:30 AM CDT

These Dead Sea Scrolls Turn Out to Be Fakes

Experts say all of DC museum's fragments are 'deliberate forgeries'

(Newser) - It would be more accurate to call the "Dead Sea Scrolls" at a museum in Washington, DC, the "Old Sandal Fakes," researchers say. A team of art fraud experts spent six months analyzing the supposed scroll fragments at the Museum of the Bible and concluded that billionaire...

Bible Museum Makes Embarrassing Announcement

Some of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fakes

(Newser) - Less than a year after it opened, Washington's Museum of the Bible is admitting that at least some items in its centerpiece collection of Dead Sea Scrolls are fakes. The embarrassing announcement Monday is the culmination of a technical analysis by a team of German scholars. They concluded that...

One of Dead Sea Scrolls' Last Puzzles Is Cracked

Researchers decipher fragments of ancient coded text

(Newser) - Israeli researchers say they have deciphered one of the last remaining puzzles of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It turns out the ancient authors of this particular section were writing about the changing of the seasons and the calendar they used to mark and celebrate such occasions, reports the Catholic News...

Dead Sea Scrolls Cave Discovered, but Someone Got There First

Looters got there 70 years before researchers

(Newser) - Israeli researchers have discovered what they believe is the first new Dead Sea Scrolls cave uncovered in more than 60 years—but looters got there long before them. The site at the Qumran cliffs, an Israeli-controlled site in the West Bank, has yielded artifacts including pieces of pottery, broken scroll...

Scroll So Charred It Looks Like Charcoal Finally Read

1.5K-year-old scroll sat unreadable since being found in 1970

(Newser) - When a 1,500-year-old scroll was found in the ashes of an ancient synagogue on the shores of the Dead Sea just south of Jerusalem in 1970, it was so charred it resembled a piece of charcoal and was impossible to read or preserve. But now, thanks to the latest...

Oldest Copy of Ten Commandments Goes on Display

But only for 2 weeks, in Israel

(Newser) - A 2,000-year-old copy of the Ten Commandments believed to be the oldest in existence is going on display at a Jerusalem museum, reports the Jewish Press . This particular version showed up in one of the Dead Sea scrolls, and it's so fragile that it will be allowed to...

Chance Photo Leads to Alleged 'Cave of Skulls' Looters

Thieves sought ancient scrolls for local market, officials say

(Newser) - Trying to steal a comb is one thing—looting a 2,000-year-old comb from an ancient cave is quite another. Israel says it has apprehended a gang of thieves doing the latter from a Judean cave in the same region as the caves that once housed the Dead Sea Scrolls,...

Scholar Finds 9 More Dead Sea Scrolls
 Scholar Finds 9 More 
 Dead Sea Scrolls 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Mar 16, 2014 7:01 PM CDT

Scholar Finds 9 More Dead Sea Scrolls

Experts will unravel, analyze the tiny parchments

(Newser) - They may be small, but they're still Dead Sea Scrolls—and no one knows what they contain. An Israeli scholar has discovered nine tiny parchments amid the thousands of world-famous scrolls and scroll fragments that date back to the second century BCE, the Times of Israel reports. Dr. Yonatan...

Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments for Sale

Family who first sold them is now selling scraps, much to Israel's displeasure

(Newser) - Parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls are up for sale—in tiny pieces. Nearly 70 years after the discovery of the world's oldest biblical manuscripts, the Palestinian family who originally sold them to scholars and institutions is now quietly marketing the leftovers—fragments the family says it has kept...

Dead Sea Scrolls Go Online
 Dead Sea Scrolls Go Online 
Sep 27, 2011 11:45 AM CDT

Dead Sea Scrolls Go Online

Five of the important scrolls now available on the Internet

(Newser) - To see the Dead Sea Scrolls, you'll need a plane ticket to Jerusalem, multiple keys to a vault, a magnetic card, and a secret code. Or you can just click here . Five of the more significant scrolls have been put on online through a partnership between Israel's national...

Jordan Out to Take Back Ancient Christian Texts

Metal books could be extremely important—or forgeries

(Newser) - A team of archaeologists believes that a Bedouin farmer in Israel is in possession of some of the most important Christian texts ever discovered—and the government of Jordan is out to reclaim them. Farmer Hassan Saeda has in his possession about 70 books made of lead and copper that...

Dead Sea Scrolls Going Online, With Google's Help

21st-century technology meeting 1st-century texts

(Newser) - Google is teaming up with Israel's Antiquities Authority to make one of the world's most tightly guarded archeological treasures available to anybody with an Internet connection. The Dead Sea Scrolls will be made available in their entirety online in a project expected to take several years, CNN reports. The IAA...

15 Stories