Dead Sea Scrolls

By: Nathan Steinmeyer and Megan Sauter

The Dead Sea Scrolls are considered by many to be the most significant archaeological find of the 20th century. From 1947 to 1956, thousands of […]

By: Nathan Steinmeyer

Although the Dead Sea Scrolls have been continuously studied since their discovery in 1947, many mysteries persist. Indeed, one of these mysteries first appeared more […]

By: BAS Staff

A recent study has sought to determine by sophisticated methods whether Khirbet Qumran was home to a community of sectarian Jews, the Essenes.

By: Megan Sauter

In 1952, archaeologists found the Copper Scroll in a cave at the site of Qumran near the Dead Sea. Made of copper, the scroll stood […]

By: BAS 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.

By: Robin Ngo

Researchers recently deciphered one of the last two remaining Dead Sea Scrolls. Written in code, the scroll describes a 364-day calendar used by the Qumran community that lived in the Judean Desert.

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.

By: BAS Staff

Josephus’s commentaries on the laws and characteristics of the Essene community have been invaluable to scholars studying ancient Jewish laws and customs.

By: Jonathan Klawans

Followers of this blog may have heard that the 19th-century Shapira Affair[1] has resurfaced again. In March, 2021, a biblical scholar at the University of […]

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.