The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of ancient Jewish writings from the Second Temple period, which lasted from around 300 BCE to 100 CE. These scrolls were discovered between 1946 and 1956 in caves near Ein Feshkha, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea in the West Bank. Most of the scrolls are now kept at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
The scrolls include some of the oldest known copies of books later included in Jewish and Christian religious texts. They also contain writings not found in these religious canons. These texts help scholars learn more about the development of Judaism and early Christianity and how these religions connected to older Jewish traditions. In a broader sense, the Dead Sea Scrolls also include similar writings found in other caves in the Judaean Desert, which are sometimes called the Judaean Desert Scrolls. Some of these scrolls were written in later centuries.
Thousands of written pieces have been found in the Dead Sea area. Most have been published in a 40-volume collection called Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. These pieces are often broken or damaged, with only small parts of text remaining. However, a few scrolls have survived nearly intact. Researchers have studied about 981 different scrolls found in 11 caves near Khirbet Qumran, a site in the eastern Judaean Desert. These caves are located about 1.5 kilometers west of the Dead Sea, which is why the scrolls are called the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Scholars believe the scrolls were written by the Essenes, an ancient Jewish group. However, some recent ideas suggest that priests from Jerusalem or other Jewish groups may have created them. Most of the texts are written in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic and Greek. Other writings from the area include Latin and Arabic. Most scrolls were written on parchment or papyrus, and one was written on copper. Coins found at the same sites help confirm the scrolls’ age, as they date from the time of John Hyrcanus (135–104 BCE) to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE).
Some scrolls are too damaged to identify fully. The texts that have been identified are divided into three general groups.
Discoveries
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 12 caves near a place called Ein Feshkha, close to the Dead Sea in the West Bank (then controlled by Jordan) between 1946 and 1956 by Bedouin shepherds and archaeologists. Storing old religious writings in clay jars and hiding them in caves was part of an ancient Jewish tradition called genizah.
In November 1946, Bedouin shepherds Muhammed edh-Dhib, his cousin Jum'a Muhammed, and Khalil Musa found seven scrolls in jars inside a cave near the Qumran site. John C. Trever learned about the discovery through interviews with the shepherds. Edh-Dhib was the first to enter the cave, now called Cave 1, and took some scrolls, including the Isaiah Scroll, Habakkuk Commentary, and the Community Rule, back to his camp. The scrolls were not damaged during this process. The shepherds displayed the scrolls on a tent pole and later showed them to others. At some point, the Community Rule scroll was split into two pieces. The shepherds first tried to sell the scrolls to a dealer in Bethlehem, but the dealer returned them, thinking they might have been stolen. Later, the shepherds sold three scrolls to another dealer for seven Jordanian pounds. The scrolls changed hands multiple times before being given to others for safekeeping.
In 1947, John C. Trever of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) studied the scrolls and noticed similarities to the Nash Papyrus, the oldest known biblical manuscript at the time. In March 1948, during the Arab–Israeli War, some scrolls were moved to Beirut, Lebanon, for safety. On April 11, 1948, Millar Burrows, head of ASOR, announced the discovery of the scrolls to the public.
In September 1948, Metropolitan bishop Mar Samuel gave some scroll fragments to Ovid R. Sellers, the new director of ASOR. By the end of 1948, scholars had not yet found the original cave where the scrolls were discovered. Due to unrest in the region, no large search was possible. Sellers tried to get help from Syrians but could not pay their price. In early 1949, Jordan allowed the Arab Legion to search the area where the original Qumran cave was believed to be. On January 28, 1949, Cave 1 was rediscovered by Belgian United Nations observer Captain Phillipe Lippens and Arab Legion captain Akkash el-Zebn.
The rediscovery of Cave 1 led to an excavation of the Qumran site by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities from February 15 to March 5, 1949, led by Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux. This excavation uncovered more scroll fragments, cloth, jars, and other items.
In November 1951, de Vaux and his team from ASOR began a full excavation of Qumran. By February 1952, the Bedouins found 30 fragments in what became Cave 2, which later contained 300 fragments from 33 manuscripts, including parts of Jubilees and the Wisdom of Sirach written in Hebrew. In March 1952, ASOR teams discovered Cave 3 with fragments of Jubilees and the Copper Scroll. Between September and December 1952, fragments from Caves 4, 5, and 6 were found.
As the value of the scrolls increased, the Bedouins and ASOR archaeologists worked separately to find more scrolls in the same area near Qumran. Between 1953 and 1956, de Vaux led four more expeditions. Cave 11 was discovered in 1956, containing the last fragments found near Qumran.
Caves 4–10 are near Khirbet Qumran, while Caves 1, 2, 3, and 11 are located about 1 mile north, with Cave 3 being the farthest. In February 2017, Hebrew University archaeologists found a 12th cave with one blank parchment and signs of looting from the 1950s.
In March 2021, Israeli archaeologists discovered Greek-written fragments of Zechariah and Nahum in a cave hidden during the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE). Other discoveries included a 10,500-year-old woven reed basket, a 6,000-year-old child wrapped in cloth, and coins from the Bar Kokhba revolt. In 2021, more scrolls were found in the Cave of Horrors near the Dead Sea.
In 2014, the Israel Antiquities Authority rediscovered nine tiny Tefillin strips that had been stored unopened for 60 years after being found in 1952.
Qumran caves and their contents
The 972 manuscripts found at Qumran were found mainly in two forms: as scrolls and as pieces of older scrolls and texts. In the fourth cave, the pieces were broken into as many as 15,000 parts. These small pieces created a challenge for scholars. G.L. Harding, who was the director of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, started working to piece the fragments together but did not finish this before his death in 1979.
Wadi Qumran Cave 1 was discovered for the first time in 1946. The original seven Dead Sea Scrolls from Cave 1 include the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa), a second copy of Isaiah (1QIsa), the Community Rule Scroll (1QS), the Pesher on Habakkuk (1QpHab), the War Scroll (1QM), the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH), and the Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen). One of the pottery jars holding the scrolls from Cave 1 is now in the British Museum.
Wadi Qumran Cave 2 was discovered in February 1952, when Bedouins found 30 fragments. The cave eventually produced 300 fragments from 33 manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, including pieces of Jubilees and the Wisdom of Sirach written in Hebrew.
Wadi Qumran Cave 3 was discovered on 14 March 1952 by the ASOR team. The cave initially produced fragments of Jubilees and the Copper Scroll.
Wadi Qumran Cave 4 was discovered in August 1952 and was excavated from 22 to 29 September 1952 by Harding, de Vaux, and Józef Milik. 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 the most famous of Qumran caves because it is visible from the Qumran plateau and because it produced many scrolls. It is located on the plateau to the south of the Qumran settlement. It produced 90% of the Dead Sea Scrolls and scroll fragments (about 15,000 fragments from 500 different texts), including 9–10 copies of Jubilees, along with 21 tefillin and 7 mezuzot.
Wadi Qumran Cave 5 was discovered in 1952, shortly after Cave 4 was found. Cave 5 produced about 25 manuscripts.
Wadi Qumran Cave 6 was discovered alongside Cave 5 in 1952, shortly after Cave 4 was found. Cave 6 contained fragments of about 31 manuscripts.
Wadi Qumran Cave 7 yielded fewer than 20 fragments of Greek documents, including 7Q2 (the "Letter of Jeremiah" = 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.
Wadi Qumran Cave 8, along with caves 7 and 9, is one of the only caves that can be reached 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 tefillin fragment (8QPhyl), a mezuzah (8QMez), and a hymn (8QHymn). Cave 8 also produced several tefillin cases, a box of leather objects, many lamps, jars, and the sole of a leather shoe.
Wadi Qumran Cave 9, along with caves 7 and 8, was one of the only caves that can be reached by passing through the settlement at Qumran. Carved into the southern end of the Qumran plateau, Cave 9 was excavated by archaeologists in 1957. Only one manuscript fragment was found in Cave 9.
In Qumran Cave 10, archaeologists found two ostraca with writing on them, along with an unknown symbol on a grey stone slab.
Wadi Qumran Cave 11 was discovered in 1956 and yielded 21 texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some of which were quite lengthy. The Temple Scroll, named because more than half of it discusses the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem, was found in Cave 11 and is the longest scroll. It is 26.7 feet (8.15 m) long; its original length may have been over 28 feet (8.75 m). Scholar Yigael Yadin called the scroll "The Torah According to the Essenes." However, Hartmut Stegemann, a contemporary and friend of Yadin, believed the scroll was not special and was not mentioned in any known Essene writing.
An eschatological fragment about the biblical figure Melchizedek (11Q13) was found in Cave 11. Cave 11 also produced a copy of Jubilees and a proto-Masoretic text of the Torah scroll (only a fragment of the Book of Leviticus surviving), known as the Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll. According to former chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls editorial team John Strugnell, 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.
Cave 12 was discovered in February 2017 on cliffs west of Qumran, near the north-western shore of the Dead Sea. Archaeological examination found pickaxes and empty broken scroll jars, showing that the cave had been discovered and looted in the 1950s. Oren Gutfeld, a lead researcher from a joint Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Liberty University project, said, "Although 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 clearly show that the cave once contained scrolls that were stolen."
Some scroll fragments have no clear information about where they were found or which Qumran cave they came from. They are believed to have come from Wadi Qumran caves but may also have come from other sites in the Judaean Desert. These fragments have been given the temporary label "X" series.
Origin
There has been much discussion about where the Dead Sea Scrolls came from. The most widely accepted idea is that the Essenes, a group of Jews living near Qumran, created the scrolls. However, some modern scholars now question this theory.
Before the 1990s, most scholars believed the "Qumran–Essene" theory, which was first suggested by Roland Guérin de Vaux and Józef Tadeusz Milik. Earlier, Eliezer Sukenik and Butrus Sowmy of St. Mark's Monastery also connected the scrolls to the Essenes before any Qumran excavations. This theory suggests the Essenes or another Jewish group at Khirbet Qumran wrote the scrolls and hid them in nearby caves during the Jewish Revolt between 66 and 68 CE. The Qumran site was later destroyed, and the scrolls were never found again. Evidence supporting this theory includes the location of the scrolls and the timing of their hiding.
The "Qumran–Sectarian" theory is similar but does not always link the scrolls directly to the Essenes. It suggests a group of Jews near Qumran created the scrolls but does not confirm they were Essenes.
In the 1990s, Lawrence H. Schiffman proposed a variation of this theory, arguing the scrolls were written by Zadokite priests (Sadducees). A key piece of evidence is the "Miqsat Ma'ase Ha-Torah" (4QMMT), which includes purity laws and a festival calendar matching Sadducee traditions.
In the 1960s, Spanish Jesuit José O'Callaghan Martínez claimed a scroll fragment (7Q5) contains text from the New Testament Gospel of Mark.
Robert Eisenman suggested some scrolls describe early Christian communities and linked events in the scrolls to the lives of James the Just and Paul the Apostle.
Some scholars believe the scrolls were created by Jews in Jerusalem who hid them in Qumran caves while fleeing Roman forces during the 70 CE destruction of Jerusalem. Karl Heinrich Rengstorf first proposed the scrolls originated from the Jerusalem Temple library. Later, Norman Golb argued the scrolls came from multiple Jerusalem libraries, not just the Temple. Supporters of this theory point to the variety of ideas and handwriting in the scrolls as evidence against a Qumran origin. Some archaeologists, including Yizhar Hirschfeld, Yizhak Magen, and Yuval Peleg, believe Qumran was a Hasmonean fort reused in later periods, not the site of the scrolls' creation.
Languages
The writings of the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in four languages: Hebrew , Aramaic , Greek , and Nabataean .
Dating process and results
Carbon dating has been used to determine the age of parchment from the Dead Sea Scrolls. The first test, done in 1950, examined a piece of linen from a cave. This test estimated the age as around 33 CE, with a possible range of 200 years earlier or later. This result disproved earlier ideas that the scrolls were from the Medieval period. Later, two major studies were conducted on the scrolls. These studies, summarized by VanderKam and Flint, concluded that most of the Qumran manuscripts likely date to the last two centuries BCE and the first century CE.
In 2025, scientists performed radiocarbon dating on samples from thirty scrolls. These samples came from 25 scrolls in the Qumran Caves, 1 from Masada, 2 from the Murabbaat caves, and 2 from the Nahal Hever caves. The study used an AI-based model named "Enoch," which analyzed handwriting styles from 24 dated samples to help estimate dates for 135 previously undated manuscripts. The findings showed that some scrolls are older than previously believed, with evidence of writing styles from the 2nd and 3rd centuries BCE. It also suggested that some scrolls may date to before the Hasmonean period.
Scholars have studied the Dead Sea Scrolls by examining letter forms, a method called palaeography. Cross and Avigad analyzed fragments and estimated their dates from 225 BCE to 50 CE based on the size, style, and variation of the writing. Later, these same fragments were tested using radiocarbon dating, which placed their dates between 385 BCE and 82 CE with 68% accuracy.
A 2025 study combined AI, radiocarbon dating, and updated handwriting analysis to redate some scrolls. This study introduced a new AI model called "Enoch," developed by researchers led by Mladen Popović from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. The study found that some scrolls are older than previously thought. For example, the fragmentary scroll 4Q114 from the Book of Daniel is now dated to between 230 and 160 BCE, which is about 60 years earlier than earlier estimates.
One finding from the study shows that Herodian-type manuscripts, which were once thought to be younger than Hasmonean-type manuscripts, may actually date back to the 2nd century BCE. This suggests that the date ranges for both types of manuscripts overlap, with Herodian manuscripts possibly spanning from the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE.
Materials
The scrolls were studied using a cyclotron at the University of California, Davis. Scientists discovered that all black ink was made from carbon black. The red ink was found to be made from cinnabar, a substance containing mercury and sulfur (HgS). Only four instances of this red ink were found in the entire collection of Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Most of the black ink on the scrolls was made from carbon soot collected from olive oil lamps. Honey, oil, vinegar, and water were often mixed with the ink to adjust its thickness for writing. Sometimes, galls were added to the ink to make it stronger. To apply the ink, writers used reed pens.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were written on materials including parchment made from processed animal hide, known as vellum (about 85.5–90.5% of the scrolls), papyrus (about 8–13% of the scrolls), and sheets of bronze (about 1.5% of the scrolls). Bronze sheets were made of approximately 99% copper and 1% tin. For scrolls written on animal hides, scientists from the Israeli Antiquities Authority used DNA testing to study the materials. They believe that the type of animal used for the hide might indicate the religious importance of the text. Scrolls written on goat or calf hides are considered more significant, while those written on gazelle or ibex hides are considered less significant in religious terms.
Tests conducted by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics in Sicily suggested that the parchment from some Dead Sea Scroll fragments came from the Qumran area. Scientists used X-ray and other tests to analyze the water used to make the parchment. These results were compared to water samples from the Qumran region to determine the origin of the materials.
Preservation
The Dead Sea Scrolls were originally preserved because the dry conditions in the Qumran area near the Dead Sea helped protect them. Also, the parchment used for the scrolls did not have materials used to make leather, and the caves where they were stored had very little air movement, which helped keep them safe. Some scrolls were stored in clay jars, which further helped prevent them from breaking down.
When archaeologists and scholars first handled the scrolls, they did not use proper methods. They stored the scrolls in places where the environment was not controlled, which caused them to begin breaking down faster than they had while in Qumran. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, adhesive tape used to fix broken parts of the scrolls caused damage. The government of Jordan recognized the need to protect the scrolls but did not have enough money to buy them all. Instead, they allowed foreign institutions to purchase the scrolls and keep them in a museum in Jerusalem until they could be studied properly.
In early 1953, the scrolls were moved to the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem. During the move, they suffered more damage. The museum had limited funds and resources to care for the scrolls. Many of the scrolls were left between window glass, which trapped moisture and caused them to break down faster.
During the Suez Crisis, the scrolls were stored in the vault of the Ottoman Bank in Amman, Jordan. The damp conditions in the vault from 1956 to 1957 caused mildew to grow on the scrolls. Some parts of the scrolls were damaged or became hard to read because of the glue and paper in the envelopes they were stored in.
By 1958, up to 5% of some scrolls had completely broken down. Many texts became hard to read, and many parchments turned dark. Poor storage, exposure to different adhesives, and being kept in wet places caused the scrolls to continue breaking down until the 1970s. Fragments that were kept by private collectors and scholars often had more damage than those in the museum, with many pieces reported missing by 1966. By the late 1960s, experts and museum staff were worried about the damage to the scrolls. Scholars John Allegro and Sir Francis Frank were among the first to call for better ways to protect the scrolls.
Early efforts by British and Israeli museums to remove adhesive tape from the scrolls exposed the parchment to chemicals like "British Leather Dressing," which darkened some parts of the scrolls. In the 1970s and 1980s, other attempts to preserve the scrolls included removing glass plates and replacing them with cardboard. However, the scrolls and fragments continued to break down during this time.
In 1991, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) created a temperature-controlled laboratory to store and preserve the scrolls. IAA staff, who first worked at the Rockefeller Museum, focused on removing tape, oils, and other harmful substances. Today, the scrolls are stored in acid-free cardboard and special boxes called solander boxes in a climate-controlled area.
Scholarly examination
After most of the scrolls and pieces were moved to the Palestine Archaeological Museum in 1953, scholars began to organize and record them for translation and study in a room called the "scrollery."
The Dead Sea Scrolls were first kept by different groups during and after their discovery, so not all of them were photographed by the same organization.
The first person to photograph part of the collection was Trever, who lived in Jerusalem for the American Schools of Oriental Research. He took pictures of three scrolls found in Cave 1 on February 21, 1948, using both black-and-white and color film. Although Trever was not a professional photographer, his images often showed more detail than the scrolls themselves, because the ink on the scrolls faded quickly after being removed from their linen wrappings.
Most of the scrolls from the Qumran caves were collected by the Palestine Archaeological Museum. The museum hired Najib Albina, a local photographer trained by Lewis Larsson of the American Colony in Jerusalem, to take pictures of the scrolls between 1952 and 1967. Using a special type of infrared photography, Albina and the museum team documented the five steps of sorting and assembling the scrolls. They created over 1,750 photographic plates of the scrolls and fragments. The scrolls were placed on animal skin and photographed with large film plates, which made the text easier to see. These photographs are the earliest images of the museum’s collection, which was the most complete collection of scrolls in the world at the time. They also helped preserve the scrolls before they began to decay further in storage.
Starting in 1993, the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) used digital infrared imaging to photograph fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. NASA worked with the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center and West Semitic Research to improve the use of infrared photography for studying ancient texts. They adapted a technique from remote sensing and planetary exploration to capture images using a special tool called a liquid crystal tunable filter. This tool allowed the camera to take pictures at specific light wavelengths, reducing image distortion. This method helped reveal text and details that were previously hard to see. The camera and imaging system were designed specifically to photograph ancient texts that were difficult to read.
On December 18, 2012, the first results of this project were shared with the public through a website called Deadseascrolls.org.il, in partnership with Google. The site includes digitized images from the 1950s and about 1,000 images taken using multispectral imaging.
Scientists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have used DNA from the parchment on which the scrolls were written, along with infrared photography, to help reassemble the scrolls. For scrolls made from animal hide or papyrus, scientists are using DNA information to match fragments to specific scrolls and to determine which scrolls might be more important based on the materials used. In a 2020 paper published in the journal Cell, researchers from Tel Aviv University showed that DNA from the scrolls can help sort fragments not only by the type of animal used for the parchment but also by differences in the genetic makeup of the fragments. This method allowed scientists to correctly match fragments that had been incorrectly connected in the past.
Publication
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 in 1965 the Psalms Scroll from Cave 11 was published. Their translations into English soon followed.
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, and many others argued for decades for publishing the texts, so that they may 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 IAA. In 1991, Emanuel Tov was appointed as the chairman of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation, and publication of the scrolls followed in the same year.
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.
The content of the scrolls was published in a 40-volume series by Oxford University Press 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 and Józef Milik, was published as Qumran Cave 1 in 1955. 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.
In 1991, researchers at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin Abegg, announced the creation of a computer program that used previously published scrolls to reconstruct the unpublished texts. Officials at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, 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 IAA agreed to lift their long-standing restrictions on the use of the scrolls.
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 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. 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 to the Supreme Court of Israel which approved the district court's decision. 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.
In November 2007 the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation commissioned the London publisher Facsimile Editions Limited to produce a facsimile edition of The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIs), 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 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 (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 facsimiles have since been exhibited in Qumrân. Le secret des manuscrits de la mer Morte at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France (2010) and Verbum Domini at the Vatican, Rome, Italy (2012).
The text of nearly all of the non-biblical scrolls has been recorded and tagged for morphology by Martin Abegg, Jr., the Ben Zion Wacholder Professor of Dead Sea Scroll Studies at Trinity Western University located in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. It is available on handheld devices through Olive Tree Bible Software and Logos Bible Software.
The text of almost all of the non-biblical texts was released on CD-ROM by publisher E.J. Brill in 2005. The 2,400 page, six-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.
On 25 September 2011 the Israel Museum Digital Dead Sea Scrolls site went online. It
Digitization project (2011–2016)
The Israel Museum worked with Google to photograph many of the Dead Sea Scrolls and share them online, but not in the public domain. The main photographer, Ardon Bar-Hama, and his team used a special camera called the Alpa 12 MAX with a Leaf Aptus-II back to create very high-resolution digital images of the scrolls and fragments. Each photo was taken at 1,200 megapixels, allowing people to see details that are too small to see with the eyes. To protect the scrolls, photographers used a 1/4000th of a second exposure time and flashes that protect against ultraviolet light. The digital photography project was estimated to cost 3.5 million U.S. dollars in 2011.
Biblical significance
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew-language manuscripts of the Bible were Masoretic texts from the 10th century CE, such as the Aleppo Codex. Today, the oldest known surviving Masoretic Text manuscripts date to about the 9th century. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain biblical manuscripts that are more than 1,000 years older, dating to the 2nd century BCE. This discovery was important for scholars who wanted to know whether the Dead Sea Scrolls would support or challenge the accuracy of copying the Bible over many centuries. The scrolls showed that the text remained very accurate for over 1,000 years, which makes it reasonable to believe that modern Old Testament texts are reliable copies of the original writings.
According to The Dead Sea Scrolls by Hebrew scholar Millar Burrows:
Of the 166 words in Isaiah 53, only 17 letters are different. Ten of these letters are simple spelling differences that do not change the meaning. Four more letters are small changes in how sentences are written, such as adding or removing conjunctions. The remaining three letters form the word "light," which appears in verse 11 but does not greatly affect the overall meaning.
Differences were found in some fragments of the texts. According to The Oxford Companion to Archaeology:
Some Dead Sea Scrolls are nearly identical to the Masoretic, or traditional, Hebrew text of the Old Testament. However, some manuscripts from Exodus and Samuel found in Cave Four show major differences in both language and content. These variations have led scholars to rethink old ideas about how the modern biblical text developed from three main manuscript families: the Masoretic Text, the Hebrew version of the Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch. It is now clear that the Old Testament text changed a great deal before it was officially accepted as complete around A.D. 100.
Most of the texts found are not from the Bible and were once thought to be unimportant for understanding how the Bible was written or accepted. However, scholars now believe these texts were gathered by the Essene community rather than written by them. Some of these works were created before the Essene period, when parts of the Bible were still being written or revised.
The Dead Sea Scrolls include 235 biblical texts, including 10 deuterocanonical books, which is about 22% of all the texts found. The scrolls contain parts of all but one book from the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) and the Old Testament protocanon. They also include four deuterocanonical books found in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles: Tobit, Sirach, Baruch 6 (also called the Letter of Jeremiah), and Psalm 151. The Book of Esther has not been found, and scholars think it may be missing because its story about a Jewish woman marrying a Persian king may have been viewed negatively by the people of Qumran, or because the Purim festival described in Esther is not part of the Qumran calendar.
The following list shows the most common biblical books, including the deuterocanonicals, found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with the number of texts that represent copies of each book:
Museum exhibitions and displays
Small parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been shown in temporary exhibitions at museums and public places worldwide. Most of these exhibitions happened in 1965 in the United States and the United Kingdom, and from 1993 to 2011 in many places around the world. Many exhibitions were helped fund by the Jordanian government before 1967 or the Israeli government after 1967. Exhibitions stopped after 1965 because of the Six-Day War. After 2011, exhibitions became less frequent as the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) worked to create digital copies of the scrolls and store them in cold storage permanently.
Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were kept at the Rockefeller Museum, were moved to Jerusalem’s Shrine of the Book (a part of the Israel Museum) after it opened in April 1965. The museum is managed by the IAA. The permanent display at the museum shows a copy of the Great Isaiah Scroll, along with other pieces. Some of these are copies, and others are original fragments that are rotated every few months to protect them from light damage. These include the Community Rule, War Scroll, and Thanksgiving Psalms Scroll.
Some scrolls held by the Jordanian government before 1967 were stored in Amman instead of the Palestine Archaeological Museum in East Jerusalem. This meant that part of the collection stayed in Jordan, under the care of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities. Since 2013, the Jordanian-held scrolls have been displayed at The Jordan Museum in Amman. Items on display include artifacts from the Qumran site and the Copper Scroll.
Ownership, forgeries, and copyright
In 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in what was then called Mandatory Palestine. They were first moved to the Palestine Archaeological Museum, which was managed by an international group, until the museum was taken over by Jordan’s King Hussein in November 1966. After Jordan took control of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, following the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the museum was placed under Jordan’s management.
After the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, Jordan lost control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel. The Palestine Archaeological Museum, later renamed the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum, was then managed by Israel. The Dead Sea Scrolls collection there was moved to the Shrine of the Book. Israel claims ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls currently displayed at the Israel Museum. This claim is disputed by both Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.
When the scrolls were first found, arrangements with the Bedouins allowed a third party, George Isha'ya, a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church, to hold the scrolls until a sale could be made. George contacted St. Mark’s Monastery for an appraisal. Metropolitan Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, known as Mar Samuel, examined the scrolls and suspected they were ancient. He purchased four scrolls: the Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa), the Community Rule, the Habakkuk Pesher (a commentary on the book of Habakkuk), and the Genesis Apocryphon. More scrolls later appeared in the antiquities market, and archaeologists from Hebrew University, Professor Eleazer Sukenik and Professor Benjamin Mazar, acquired three: the War Scroll, Thanksgiving Hymns, and a fragmented Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa).
In 1954, four scrolls were advertised for sale in The Wall Street Journal. On July 1, 1954, after negotiations, the scrolls arrived in New York at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. They were purchased by Professor Mazar and Yigael Yadin, the son of Professor Sukenik, for $250,000 (about $3,000,000 in 2025 dollars) and brought to Jerusalem.
Since 2002, many fake Dead Sea Scrolls have appeared on black markets. In 2020, the Museum of the Bible in the United States (also known as the Green Collection) reported that all 16 “Dead Sea Scroll fragments” it had acquired between 2009 and 2014 were modern forgeries.
There are three types of documents related to the Dead Sea Scrolls where copyright status is unclear. This uncertainty comes from differences in copyright laws across countries and how these laws are interpreted.
In 1992, a copyright case, Qimron v. Shanks, was brought to the Israeli District Court. Scholar Elisha Qimron sued Hershel Shanks of the Biblical Archaeology Society for publishing reconstructions of Dead Sea Scroll texts without permission. Qimron claimed he reconstructed about 40% of the published text, making it his intellectual property. In 1993, Judge Dalia Dorner ruled in Qimron’s favor under both U.S. and Israeli copyright laws, awarding the maximum compensation allowed. In 2000, the Israeli Supreme Court upheld the ruling, supporting Qimron’s claim. The case established two key principles: authorship and originality, which are used to examine facsimiles under U.S. and Israeli copyright laws.
The court’s decision confirmed that the “deciphered text” of the scrolls can be copyrighted by individuals or groups. However, the scrolls themselves are not protected by copyright law. Scholars have some freedom to access the scrolls, as stated by U.S. copyright law professor David Nimmer. However, in practice, access to the scrolls and their photographs was tightly controlled by the Israel Antiquities Authority.