JERUSALEM — The Israel Museum in Jerusalem launched its Dead Sea Scrolls Project on Monday, placing five of the ancient texts online for the general public to study, the museum announced.
The website — .il — was developed in partnership with Google, and it displays searchable, high-resolution images of the texts, as well as short explanatory videos and background information.
The five scrolls that have been digitized so far include the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule Scroll, the Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, the Temple Scroll and the War Scroll.
The Great Isaiah Scroll, inscribed with the Book of Isaiah and dating from about 125 B.C., is the only complete ancient copy of any biblical book in existence.
The scrolls, said museum director James Snyder, “are of paramount importance among the touchstones of monotheistic world heritage, and they represent unique highlights of our museum’s encyclopedic holdings.”
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves at Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, following a chance discovery by a Bedouin shepherd boy.
Written between about 200 B.C. and A.D. 70, they include the oldest biblical texts ever discovered, and many historians regard them as one of the most important finds of the 20th century.
Most of the manuscripts were written around the time of Christ’s birth, in what Israeli historians label as the period of the Second Jewish Biblical Temple, which was destroyed by Romans in A.D. 70 — a formative time for Judaism and Christianity.
