Jul 8
By: Jonathan Laden
The 25,000 fragments that make up the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered by many to be the archaeological discovery of the 20th century. They were […]
Jun 25
By: Megan Sauter
What do the Dead Sea Scrolls say about Jesus? What do they say about the world in which Jesus lived? In BAR, James C. VanderKam examines the overlap between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament.
May 26
By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff
Josephus’s commentaries on the laws and characteristics of the Essene community have been invaluable to scholars studying ancient Jewish laws and customs.
Apr 28
By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff
A recent study has sought to determine by sophisticated methods whether Khirbet Qumran was home to a community of sectarian Jews, the Essenes.
Apr 27
By: BAS Staff
A recent computer analysis of handwriting from the Great Isaiah Scroll—one of the longest and best preserved of the Dead Sea Scrolls—found the 54-column text was produced by two different scribes who apparently worked in shifts to complete the task.
Apr 8
By: Biblical Archaeology Society Staff
Do insights from the Dead Sea Scrolls add to the Masoretic text, and if so, should the original Hebrew Bible text be modified based this information? Scholars from both sides of the divide weigh in on this issue.
Mar 18
By: Jonathan Klawans
Followers of this blog may have heard that the 19th-century Shapira Affair[1] has resurfaced again. In just the past week, a biblical scholar at the […]
Mar 17
By: Glenn Corbett
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced this week that recent explorations in the Judean desert south of Jerusalem have revealed scores of new scroll fragments […]
Dec 30
By: Jonathan Laden
The owner of the lid thought that it was contaminated by hardened bat dung. However, the residue was from papyrus. A jar probably fell, dislodging the lid; the papyrus Dead Sea Scrolls then decomposed over the intervening centuries before modern discovery.
Nov 26
By: Jonathan Laden
Archaeology has been likened to solving a puzzle which is missing some–or occasionally most–of its pieces. The scholars who dedicate their lives to this pursuit […]
