Frequently Asked Questions

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient manuscripts that were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran, on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea.

How old are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The Dead Sea Scrolls date from the third century BCE to the first century CE. Their chronology is anchored in historical, paleographic, and linguistic evidence, corroborated firmly by carbon 14 datings.

What material have the Dead Sea Scrolls been written on?
The majority of the scrolls are written on parchment, but there are also some texts written on papyrus.

Which scroll is the longest one?
The Temple Scroll. Its present total length is 8.148 m. The overall length of the scroll must have been at least 8.75 m. The vast majority of the scrolls survived as fragments, from which scholars managed to reconstruct approximately eight hundred and fifty different manuscripts of various lengths.

In what languages have the Dead Sea Scrolls been written?
The majority of the scrolls are written in Hebrew, but there are also texts in Aramaic and in Greek.

Who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?
Most scholars believe that the scrolls formed the library of the sect (the Essenes?) that lived at Qumran. However, it appears that the members of this sect wrote only part of the scrolls themselves, the remainder having been composed or copied elsewhere.

What kind of texts are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
The manuscripts fall into three major categories: biblical, apocryphal, and sectarian. The biblical manuscripts comprise some two hundred copies of biblical books, representing the earliest evidence for the biblical text in the world. Among the apocryphal manuscripts (works that were not included in the biblical canon) are works that had previously been known only in translation, or that had not been known at all. The sectarian manuscripts reflect a wide variety of literary genres: biblical commentary, religious legal writings, liturgical texts, and apocalyptic compositions.

Does any Qumran text mention the name of Jesus or John the Baptist?
None of the scrolls contain any explicit mention of Jesus or any other New Testament personality.

Where are the Dead Sea Scrolls now?
The majority of the scrolls are housed in Israel (eight manuscripts at the Shrine of the Book and all others at the Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem). There are also some texts in Jordan and Europe.

What Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed at the Shrine of the Book?
Check the Scrolls on Display page.

Where can I find the Dead Sea Scrolls bibliography?
You are welcome to visit our Bibliography and Translations page.