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The Dead Sea Scrolls may have been written, at least in part, by a sectarian group called the Essenes, according to nearly 200 textiles discovered in caves at Qumran, in the West Bank, where the religious texts had been stored. Scholars are divided about who authored the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the texts got to Qumran, and so the new finding could help clear up this long-standing mystery. The research reveals that all the textiles were made of linen, rather than wool, which was the preferred textile used in ancient Israel. Also they lack decoration, some actually being bleached...

Jerusalem (CNN) – In a perfect blending of 21st-century advances with the cutting-edge technology of an earlier age, starting this week internet users can, for the first time, use Google search and scanning technology to examine five manuscripts from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Google and the Israel Museum unveiled the project Monday in Jerusalem with the launch of a museum website that allows users to interact with the ancient texts in a way impossible just a few years ago."You have the capability with high-resolution definition to look at the scrolls in a comfortable setting - to enlarge them, to magnify...

JERUSALEM — Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls went online for the first time on Monday in a project launched by Israel's national museum and web giant Google. The appearance of five of the most important Dead Sea scrolls on the Internet is part of a broader attempt by the custodians of the celebrated manuscripts — who were once criticized for allowing them to be monopolized by small circles of scholars — to make them available to anyone with a computer. See msnbc.com's...

An intact, sealed, jar has been discovered at Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in nearby caves. A multinational team of scientists have been analyzing the jar and their findings are set to be published in the journal Archaeometry. If you have a subscription (or access to a library with one) you can already see the article on the publication's website... Altogether nine scientists are credited in the paper. Kaare Lund Rasmussen, of the University of Southern Denmark, is listed at the lead author. The jar itself was excavated in 2004. It was found about 50...

...Using sophisticated computer programs, Cargill built what he described as "a fully reconstructed, three-dimensional, real time, interactive model of Khirbet Qumran." Taking the building's excavated remains as a blueprint, the model "visualized" that the structure was originally designed as a fortress, then abandoned, and later expanded and repurposed by a group... According to the model, the new inhabitants built an elaborate water system, as well as a scriptorium, where the scrolls were written. The building was destroyed in 70 C.E., or shortly thereafter, by the conquering Roman legions, a view now widely accepted... In early 2007, Cargill was nearing completion...

(Reuters) - Scholars and anyone with an Internet connection will be able to take a new look into the Biblical past through an online archive of high-resolution images of the 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the custodian of the scrolls that shed light on the life of Jews and early Christians at the time of Jesus, said on Tuesday it was collaborating with Google's research and development center in Israel to upload digitized images of the entire collection. Advanced imaging technology will be installed in the IAA's laboratories early next year and high-resolution images of each of...

Over the last six or nine months I have been growing ever more concerned over Glenn Beck and his Evangelical and Conservative followers. I have not been alone, there have been countless other Christian Laymen and Pastors have expressed the same concern when Mr. Beck started talking about God, Jesus and Faith. My question is should we as Christians who believe in Salvation by Grace Alone, through Faith Alone in the Person and Work of Christ Alone, for God’s Glory Alone have anything to do with Beck in the areas of Faith and Religion? Mr. Beck is a confessing Mormon,...

The recent decoding of a cryptic cup, the excavation of ancient Jerusalem tunnels, and other archaeological detective work may help solve one of the great biblical mysteries: Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The new clues hint that the scrolls, which include some of the oldest known biblical documents, may have been the textual treasures of several groups, hidden away during wartime—and may even be "the great treasure from the Jerusalem Temple," which held the Ark of the Covenant, according to the Bible. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered more than 60 years ago in seaside caves near an ancient...

...The analyses, which were conducted by INFN physicists in collaboration with researchers from IBAM-CNR, have revealed that one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, in particular, the Temple Scroll (which is not part of the biblical narration and instead describes the construction and life of a temple and dictates how laws are to be communicated to the people), may have been made near the Dead Sea, in the area of Qumran, where the scrolls were found. In other words, the scrolls may have been created locally... At the LANDIS laboratory (one of the INFN laboratories in Catania), non-destructive analyses were performed...

An eighth-century religious manuscript described as " more important than the Dead Sea Scrolls" has finally been put on display at the National Museum of Ireland. The 1,200 year old religious manuscript was found in a bog with the Latin words of Psalm 83 open. It had lain undisturbed for 1,200 years. The psalm closes with the words: “Let them know that you, whose name is the LORD—that you alone are the Most High over all the earth." The National Museum rated the work as of "staggering importance" and says the book of psalms or psalter is among the top...

In some cases the traditional text is clearly superior, but in others the version in the scrolls is better. Thanks to the scrolls, more and more textual problems in the Hebrew Bible are being resolved. The notes in newer Bible translations list variant readings from the scrolls, and in some cases, the translations incorporate these readings in the text as the preferred reading. No one has ever seriously suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain anything like an eleventh commandment; but the scrolls do help clarify numerous difficult phrases in the Hebrew Bible, and for textual scholars that is more...

After a decade of intense laboratory tests, a Danish archaeochemist has found a way to enable scientists to precisely date the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ownership of which is currently a bone of contention between Israel and Jordan, according to videnskab.dk. The Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient documents were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in caves near the Qumran Wadi northwest of the Dead Sea. Treatment of the rolls has included them being spread out using plant oil, which in turn made precise carbon dating of the scrolls almost impossible. A Danish archaeochemist and an international team of researchers,...

The London-based Globe and Mail reports that Jordan has asked Canada to seize Israel's 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls that are currently on display in Toronto. The scrolls are on display until until Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum. Jordan claims that the scrolls were found in "disputed territory" that Israel captured from Jordanian control in 1967, and asks Canada to hold them until the question of their ownership is settled. Jordan's control of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley - which it called the "West Bank" - from 1948 until 1967, was recognized internationally by only two countries: Great Britain...

For his part, Peleg believes Qumran went through several distinct stages. As the morning heat mounts, he leads me up a steep ridge above the site, where a channel hewn into the rock brought water into the settlement. From our high perch, he points out the foundations of a massive tower that once commanded a fine view of the sea to the east toward today's Jordan. "Qumran was a military post around 100 B.C.," he says. "We are one day from Jerusalem, and it fortified the northeast shore of the Dead Sea." Other forts from this era are scattered among...

Israeli archeologist and professor Dan Bahat... a lecturer in the Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology department at Bar-Ilan University and the former district archeologist for Jerusalem, addressed hundreds who gathered at Beth Tikvah Synagogue on June 3... "When I speak about the caves in the Judean desert where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, actually, all the scrolls we're talking about come from 11 caves only," Bahat said. He said the discovery of the first scrolls in 1947 was made on Nov. 29 -- the day the United Nations adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine... all that was yielded...

Palestinian PM wants Harper to scrap show, claims violation of international law JERUSALEM–A planned Toronto exhibit of ancient Middle Eastern manuscripts is threatening to plunge Canada, along with the Royal Ontario Museum, into the thick of the long-running conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Beginning in June, the ROM will host a six-month exhibit of the famed Dead Sea Scrolls, organized in co-operation with the Israel Antiquities Authority. But top Palestinian officials this week declared the exhibit a violation of international law and called on Canada to cancel the show. In letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and top executives at...

M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E The Abraham Story: An IntroductionBy E. Douglas ClarkHe has been called the most pivotal and strategic man in history. Jews, Christians, and Muslims — half the planet’s population — revere him not only as forefather but as an exemplary pattern of righteousness. Jewish tradition tells that his life was a pattern also of things to come, foreshadowing what would befall his posterity through the generations. But his significance is nothing short of universal, for pursuant to the covenant God made with him, through him...

Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon. Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's...

Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon. Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's...

 Melchizedek Priesthood of LDS and Dead Sea Scrolls PerspectivesResearch by Kerry A. ShirtsIt is claimed by opponents of Mormonism that the Melchizedek Priesthood in the church cannot be accurate because at Hebrews 7:24 the Greek term "aparabaton" means "intransmissible", hence Christ is the only one with the Melchizedek Priesthood. But lets look a little closer and see how the opponents misstate the case. In the Liddell-Scott Lexicon of the Greek Language we note something interesting when we look up this Greek word "Aparabatos":apara-ba^tos, on, unalterable, heirmos aitiôn Stoic.2.266; epiplokê, of causation, Chrysipp.IBID=au=Stoic. 2.293=lr; taxis Plu.2.410f; hê tês kinêseôs idea Ocell.1.15;...

        Ensign » 1972 » December The Old Testament Speaks Today By W. Cleon SkousenProfessor of Ancient ScriptureBrigham Young University  W. Cleon Skousen, “The Old Testament Speaks Today,” Ensign, Dec 1972, 79For centuries some scholars have looked upon the Old Testament as an archaic, pre-Christian (and therefore inferior) scripture. But with the discovery and translation of the Dead Sea scrolls, a number of modern scholars have been shocked into believing that Christianity actually may have originated during the Old Testament period. The scrolls refer to concepts, doctrines, and practices that had been considered nonexistent before the ministry of Christ. In fact,...

<p>JERUSALEM — Scientists using American space technology have started a huge project to digitally photograph the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known version of the Hebrew Bible, and post it on the Internet for all to see, Israeli authorities said Wednesday.</p>

JERUSALEM — In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on an historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet. Equipped with highly powerful cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither heat nor ultraviolet rays, the scientists and technicians are uncovering previously illegible sections...

The death and resurrection of Christ has been called into question by a radical new interpretation of a tablet found on the eastern bank of the Dead Sea. The three-foot stone tablet appears to refer to a Messiah who rises from the grave three days after his death - even though it was written decades before the birth of Jesus. The ink is badly faded on much of the tablet, known as Gabriel’s Vision of Revelation, which was written rather than engraved in the 1st century BC. This has led some experts to claim that the inscription has been overinterpreted....

When people hear the name Salome, they immediately think of the infamous dancing girl of the Gospels... At her mother's urging, Salome asked for the head of Herod's most famous prisoner on a platter. Fearful of breaking his word before his guests, Herod granted Salome's request and ordered John the Baptist beheaded. In antiquity there was a considerably more famous Salome, however, who was revered for centuries. She was so admired that generations of mothers, Herodias apparently among them, named their daughters Salome in her honor. This Salome was the only woman ever to govern Judea as its sole ruler....

Challenging History: The Dead Sea Scrolls By: Neil Altman, For The Bulletin 09/24/2007 Editor's Note: According to an exhibit at the United States Library of Congress, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat in the Judean Desert in 1947, entered a long-untouched cave and found scrolls in a jar and under debris on the floor. That initial discovery by the Bedouins began a search that lasted nearly a decade, eventually producing thousands of scroll fragments from 11 caves. During those same years, archaeologists tried to identify the people who deposited the scrolls. They found the Qumran ruin, a...

Click Video- Learn how DNA was able to sort out and match the DDS fragments

When the San Diego Natural History Museum applied to Stephen Spielberg's foundation for a $100,000 grant to help bring the Dead Sea Scrolls to San Diego and produce a film on the famous Khirbet Qumran site, the foundation was happy to oblige. Did Spielberg know (1) that the museum's scrolls exhibit would be plagued by allegations of bias due to the curator's decision to exclude a major group of Jewish scrolls scholars from the museum's lecture series; (2) that the money would go to a graduate student who is also a minister trained at Pepperdine University, affiliated with the Churches...

CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO Latter-day Saints love ancient religious records. We have already received the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Pearl of Great Price, and we look forward with anticipation to receiving the "words of the lost tribes of Israel" (2 Nephi 29:13), to the unsealing of a large portion of the golden plates, and to the restoration of other ancient texts authored by Adam, Enoch, Joseph, and others. It was no wonder, then, that since the 1947 discovery of ancient scrolls hidden in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea, many Latter-day Saints have been fascinated by the...

Why on earth did it cost six million dollars to bring the Dead Sea Scrolls to San Diego, and why has this exhibit become submerged in controversy? Hoping to shed some light on these matters, I decided to take a closer look at the parties involved. What I found was surprising evidence that members of several Christian fundamentalist organizations played a major role in creating the exhibit and choosing its content, a fact carefully covered up in the media campaign surrounding the exhibit's opening. For details, see my linked article.

An American academic leading visitors around an exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Natural History Museum in San Diego will challenge the consensus on the identity of the scrolls' authors, the Chicago Jewish News said on Friday. Professor Norman Golb, of the Jewish History and Civilization department at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, does not believe that the scrolls were authored by the ancient Jewish Essene sect, a pacifist group, as most experts believe, arguing instead that the scrolls were authored by a variety of Jewish residents of Judea who fled the Roman Army in 70 C.E....

The Los Angeles Times carried an interesting report last week, by Mike Boehm, on the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit taking place at the San Diego Natural History Museum.  They asked the curator, Dr. Risa Levitt Kohn, why the museum has carefully excluded all scholars who oppose the old, and increasingly contested, theory of Scroll origins from the lecture series accompanying the exhibit, and she came up with a good reply--"You don't want to confuse people with so many competing theories, so they walk away, saying, 'Well, nobody really knows anything!'" I for one find that extremely convincing.  The last thing in the world...

The first commandment for showing the Dead Sea Scrolls is: "Let there not be too much light." It has been handed down by the Israel Antiquities Authority, custodian of most of the 2,000-year-old parchments and papyri. The scrolls, many of them pieced together like puzzles from fragments and tatters, contain the oldest known biblical writings — among them a text of the Ten Commandments that will be part of the six-month Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition that opens Friday at the San Diego Natural History Museum. It's billed as the largest and most comprehensive ever. Museum-goers accustomed to prolonged gazing will...

QUMRAN, West Bank -- Researchers say their discovery of a 2,000-year-old toilet at one of the world's most important archaeological sites sheds new light on whether the ancient community was home to the authors of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a new study, three researchers say they have discovered the outdoor latrine used by the ancient residents of Qumran, on the barren banks of the Dead Sea. They say the find proves the people living here two millennia ago were Essenes, an ascetic Jewish sect that left Jerusalem to seek proximity to God in the desert. Qumran and...

The hidden latrines of the Essenes By Ran Shapira In one of his detailed accounts of the Essenes, Flavius Josephus (Yosef Ben Matityahu), described one of the many laws that shaped the Jewish sect's way of life during the Second Temple period. While the Essenes sat in a circle, Josephus wrote, it was forbidden for them to spit into its center. Like many other laws outlined by Josephus, the details of this law appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls found in caves along the northern end of the Dead Sea. These scrolls are attributed to the Essenes. The resemblance between...

Archaeologists, it seems, will dig anything, even latrines. Sometimes this uncovers the stuff of scholarly evidence. Over a hill, a discreet distance from and out of sight of the ruins of Qumran, near the Dead Sea, a broad patch of soil appeared to be discolored. Two archaeological sleuths had reasons to suspect this may have been Qumran’s toilet. Soil samples yielded the desiccated eggs of human intestinal parasites. The researchers say this could well be evidence supporting the controversial view that Qumran was occupied by an ascetic Jewish sect, the Essenes, and that they probably wrote the Dead Sea scrolls...

Toilet evidence links Dead Sea Scrolls to sect By Thomas H. Maugh II Los Angeles Times Following directions found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeologists have discovered the latrines used by the sect that produced the scrolls, discovering that efforts to achieve ritual purity inadvertently exposed members to intestinal parasites that shortened their lifespan. The discovery of the unique toilet area provides further evidence linking the scrolls to Qumran — an association that recently has been called into question by a small but vociferous group of archaeologists who have argued that the settlement was a pottery factory, a country villa...

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been guarded for 60 years like crown jewels, the possessions of a scholarly elite who were challenged only in the past decade to bring the scrolls to the public. Now, there is accumulating and compelling evidence that these supposedly ancient texts are medieval at best and have a connection with China. That connection is raising questions about the manuscripts' true dating, origin and possible authenticity. ........ In 1991, I wrote articles for the Washington Post and Boston Herald about the idea that a number of previously undeciphered markings in the margins of two Dead Sea...

Because some of the scrolls were written on animal hide, Seidl explained, experts since the mid-1990s have been able to establish a specific "genetic fingerprint" that can identify the species and even an individual animal to further aid in matching scroll fragments. Geology played a critical if indirect role in protecting the scrolls over the millennia. The Dead Sea is the lowest point on the planet's surface. It's also one the saltiest places on Earth, which isn't so great for living things but helps keep other things in the area -- such as papyrus or skin documents -- from deteriorating......

VIDEOBrother Ludlow discuses the Dead Sea Scrolls. Victor L. Ludlow, Professor of Ancient Scripture of BYU BYU Education Week 2006

Jürgen Zangenberg Slide CollectionThe Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near the Qumran ruins. New archaeological evidence is raising more questions about the conventional interpretation linking the desolate ruins of an ancient settlement known as Qumran with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in nearby caves in one of the sensational discoveries of the last century. After early excavations at the site, on a promontory above the western shore of the Dead Sea, scholars concluded that members of a strict Jewish sect, the Essenes, had lived there in a monastery and presumably wrote the scrolls in the...

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — John C. Trever, the American scholar who photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem in 1948, has died, his family reported. He was 90. Trever died Saturday at his home in Lake Forest in Orange County, said his son, Albuquerque Journal political cartoonist John Trever. The younger Trever said it was by chance that his father happened to be in Jerusalem doing unrelated research when Father Boutros Sowmy brought several scrolls to the American School of Oriental Research in February 1948 that were said to have been found in a cave the year before by a...

John C. Trever, the American scholar who photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem in 1948, has died, his family reported. He was 90. Trever died Saturday at his home in Lake Forest in Orange County, said his son, Albuquerque Journal political cartoonist John Trever. The younger Trever said it was by chance that his father happened to be in Jerusalem doing unrelated research when Father Boutros Sowmy brought several scrolls to the American School of Oriental Research in February 1948 that were said to have been found in a cave the year before by a Bedouin shepherd. Although he...

Associated Press November 16, 2001 Last of Dead Sea Scrolls About Ready to Publish NEW YORK -- Half a century after the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls was found in desert caves, archeologists celebrated the near completion of the publication of the ancient texts. "It's a very happy moment that we can say today that all this is completed," Emmanuel Tov, the project's editor in chief, said Thursday at the New York Public Library. "After 54 years of excitement, expectation, tribulation, much criticism and a little praise, with the help of much inspiration and even more perspiration, the ...

By Associated Press November 15, 2001, 10:56 AM EST NEW YORK -- The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating between 250 B.C. and A.D. 70, have nearly all been published 54 years after their discovery in caves on the western shore of the Dead Sea.The announcement of their publication was scheduled for Thursday at the New York Public Library by Emmanuel Tov, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the project's editor in chief.The 900 scrolls and commentaries in 37 volumes, primarily written in Hebrew and Aramaic on more than 15,000 leather and papyrus documents, were found between 1947 and ...

An encounter with a Bedouin robber in a desert valley has led to what one Israeli archaeologist described as one of the most important biblical finds from the region in half a century. Professor Chanan Eshel, an archaeologist from Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, said yesterday that the discovery of two fragments of nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll from the Dead Sea area gave hope to biblical and archaeological scholars, frustrated by a dearth of material unearthed in the region in recent years, that the Judean desert could yet yield further artefacts. "No more scrolls have been found in the...

JERUSALEM -- A secretive encounter with a Bedouin in a desert valley led to the discovery of two fragments from a nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll - the first such finding in decades, an Israeli archaeologist said Friday. The finding has given rise to hope that the Judean Desert may yield more treasures, said Professor Chanan Eshel, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University. The two small pieces of brown animal skin, inscribed in Hebrew with verses from the Book of Leviticus, are from "refugee" caves in Nachal Arugot, a canyon near the Dead Sea where Jews hid from the...

Langley, B.C.— Deemed the greatest manuscript find of the 20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls embody mystery, drama and intrigue that continue to pique public interest. Now endearingly referred to as “Mr. Dead Sea Scrolls,” Dr. Peter Flint—world-renowned author, professor, and award-winning researcher—will give his inaugural lecture as the Canadian Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies at Trinity Western University on Thursday, February 3, 2005. Beginning at 7:30 p.m., the event is open to the public free of charge. Announced in late 2004, the $1.4 million government award will further Scrolls research in Canada. Flint, a religious studies professor...

HIGH POINT A new exhibit of ancient manuscripts and early printed Bibles gives Triad residents a chance to see a range of ancient material that usually appears only in the major museums of large cities. "The Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America" opened yesterday at Providence Place in High Point. It will be on view until Feb. 27. Though a few Dead Sea Scroll fragments are given top billing, the exhibit ranges from 5,000-year-old Mesopotamian clay tablets to hand-painted pages from the medi-eval era to dozens of rare early Bibles. The variety of the exhibit is one...

UHa professor shares ‘Secrets of the Cave of Letters' Oct 29, 2004 - Dr. Richard Freund has spent years exploring sites throughout Israel and the Middle East, seeking ancient Jewish artifacts. In 1999, Freund, director of the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Hartford, led an expedition to the Cave of the Letters, a site near the Dead Sea Scrolls that had been excavated in 1960 by famed Israel archeologist Yigael Yadin. At that time, Yadin found letters from Bar Kochba, a leader of the Jewish rebellion against the Romans during the second century CE. But...