Category Archives: Dead Sea Scrolls

New Photograph of Leviticus Scroll and News Updates

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While the news of the recently acquired scroll fragments of the book of Leviticus has spread to most news services, almost all of them are still reproducing the Associated Press article by Danielle Haas (e.g., The Jerusalem Post, among others). Agence France-Presse (AFP) has also now released a story on the scroll, though it has less details than the AP one. The AFP story did, however, come with a new photgraph of Israeli professor Hanan Eshel holding pictures of the scroll fragments (see picture to the right).

Bibliobloggers have also commented on the scrolls, focusing primarily on questions surrounding its discovery. Ed Cook at Ralph the Sacred River has some random thoughts on the scrolls, while Joe Weaks at the Macintosh Biblioblog cautions us to not get too excited as it very well may be a forgery. Jim Davila at Paleojudaica has responded to both blog entries here.

UPDATES: See here for more up-to-date blog entries on the Leviticus scroll fragments.

Leviticus Scroll Fragment Update and Analysis

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News Updates

There are now numerous news sources covering the two new scroll fragments containing portions of Leviticus 23 and 24. Most of them rehash the original Associated Press story by Danielle Haas available here. Here are some excerpts:

Archaeologist and Bible scholar Steven Pfann said he had not seen the fragments. If authenticated, they would “in general not be doing more than confirming the character of the material that we have from the southern part of the Judean wilderness up until today.” But “what’s interesting and exciting is that this is a new discovery,” Pfann added. “This is the first time we’ve seen anything from the south since the 1960s.”
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The finding constitutes the 15th scroll fragments found in the area from the same period of the Jewish “Bar Kochba” revolt against the Romans, and the first to be discovered with verses from Leviticus, Eshel said.

Anaylsis of the Fragments

Most of the reports noted that the fragments contained part of the book of Leviticus with a few narrowing it down to chapter 23. My own analysis of the fragments confirms that identification with the addition of a bit of chapter 24 included.

Fragment 1


The large fragment (pictured above) contains parts of Leviticus 23:43-44 (right column) and 24:16-18 (left column). While I didn’t produce a graphic reconstruction of this larger fragment for this blog entry (needed sleep!), the verses from the right column read as follows (extant words are bolded):

41You shall keep it as a festival to the Lord seven days in the year; you shall keep it in the seventh month as a statute forever throughout your generations. 42 You shall live in booths for seven days; all that are citizens in Israel shall live in booths, 43 so that your generations may know that I made the people of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God. 44 Thus Moses declared to the people of Israel the appointed festivals of the Lord.

The second column contains a few words from Lev 24:16-18 as follows:

16One who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death; the whole congregation shall stone the blasphemer. Aliens as well as citizens, when they blaspheme the Name, shall be put to death. 17 Anyone who kills a human being shall be put to death. 18 Anyone who kills an animal shall make restitution for it, life for life.

This reconstruction produces column widths ranging from ca. 20-25 letterspaces and a column height of ca. 30 lines. It appears to follow the Masoretic text with the exception of the plene spelling of בסכת at the end of verse 42 (line 5).

Fragment 2

The second smaller fragment (the colour picture above) contains a number of words from Leviticus 23:38 and 39. More specifically, the fragment can be reconstructed as follows:

Line 1: …]ד כל נדריכ×?[… “apart from all your votive offerings”
Line 2: …] תנו ליהוה[… “you give to the LORD”
Line 3: …]שביעי [… “seventh”

The verses read:

…38 apart from the sabbaths of the Lord, and apart from your gifts, and apart from all your votive offerings, and apart from all your freewill offerings, which you give to the Lord. 39 Now, the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the produce of the land, you shall keep the festival of the Lord, lasting seven days; a complete rest on the first day, and a complete rest on the eighth day.

The above reconstruction of this fragment yields column widths of ca. 22-27 letterspaces, which is consonant with the first fragment (It is not possible to estimate the column height based on this fragment alone). The extant words in this fragment are identitical with the Masoretic text as represented in BHS.

Final Thoughts
While this scroll does not contain any variant readings in these verses of Leviticus, it does contribute to our understanding of the significance of the MT and the book of Leviticus for second-Temple Judaism. Let’s hope that the Dead Sea area will uncover even more such finds!

In regards to the speculation in the news story whether this scroll is a forgery, I would be quite surprised if it is for a number of reasons. First, it doesn’t look like a fake; the script and the wear on the fragments is consistent with other scrolls from this period (at least as much as can be discerned from the images). So, if it is a fake, it is a good fake! Second, if it is a fake, then, why? Why would someone forge such a small fragment of such a mundane passage of Scripture? I would bet my shekels that the tests will prove its authenticity. Until then, we’ll have to wait and see.

UPDATES: See here for more up-to-date blog entries on the Leviticus scroll fragments.

Pictures of Newly Uncovered Leviticus Scroll

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Here are some pictures of the fragments of the Leviticus scroll from Associated Press:


From my own quick analysis, this fragment appears to contain parts of Leviticus 23:43-44 (right column) and 24:16-18 (left column). The column widths range from 20-25 letterspaces, with a column height of ca. 30 lines. It appears to follow the MT text.

Here is the accompanying text from AP:

This photo made available by Israeli archeologist Chanan Eshel on Friday, July 15, 2005, shows a fragment of an ancient Torah scroll containing verses from the Book of Leviticus, said to have been found last year in a ‘refugee’ cave in Nachal Arugot, a canyon near the Dead Sea. Eshel, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv’s Bar Ilan University said Friday, July 15, 2005, 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 treasure. (AP Photo, Ho)

UPDATES: See here for more up-to-date blog entries on the Leviticus scroll fragments.

New “Dead Sea Scroll” Fragments of Leviticus Surfaces

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A post to the Biblical Studies email list by Yitzhak Sapir reports on the discovery of two small fragments of a scroll containing portions of Leviticus 23. Here is the post:

Walla News, apparently reporting an article from Yediot Ahronot, reports that in the past year a small piece of scroll found at Nahal Arugot, near Ein Gedi, was purchased for $3000 by Prof. Hanan Eshel of Bar Ilan. Originally, Prof. Eshel refused to appraise the scroll when he was first asked to do so in August 2004, although he did photograph it at this time. When he came upon it again, it was near crumbling state, and he purchased it and turned it over to Amir Ganor of the Antiquities Authority, who are trying to locate the thieves. It consists of two pieces of deer-hide scroll, about 35 square cms, containing portions of verses from Leviticus 23, dealing with the Feast of Tabernacles, and differing from the MT only in that the scroll misses a single holam. It is dated to the Bar Kokhba revolt days. Prof. Eshel is calling for searching again for more scrolls which may still lay hidden among the caves in the area.

I have not been able to find out anything more on this scroll, but as soon as I have more information I will post an update.

UPDATE: Jim West on Biblical Theology blog also noted this discovery here, and in an update links to the following English-language article from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Online: “Bedouin wanders across Biblical manuscript.” Here are some excerpts from the article:

Fragments of a Biblical manuscript dating back to the last Jewish revolt against Roman rule in 135 AD Judaea, have been uncovered near the Dead Sea. After four decades with a dearth of new finds, archaeologists had resigned themselves to believing the desert caves in the modern-day West Bank had already yielded all their secrets from the Roman era. “It’s simply sensational, a dream come true,” archaeology professor Hanan Eshel, a Biblical specialist at Israel’s Bar Ilan University, said. For the past 20 years, he has scoured the Judaean desert around the Dead Sea, overturning stone after stone in search of Biblical parchments. He has been trumped by Bedouin, who stumbled across the miniature fragments last August. Only a few centimetres long, the pieces contain extracts in Hebrew from the Biblical Book of Leviticus. Damaged by bat droppings and lying under a film of dirt in a cave near the Ein Gedi oasis, the Bedouin pocketed the manuscripts and began an arduous bidding process with Professor Eshel. “Thanks to this find, we now know a little more about the troubled period that gave rise to the Jewish revolt against the Romans,” the Professor said.
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The fragments have been further damaged by the Bedouin, who glued them together and stowed the whole thing in aluminium foil. It was in this state that Professor Esher found and bought them for $US3,000, beating down the Bedouins’ original asking price of $US20,000. “Despite all this, we can identify the Hebrew letters,” he said. He points out words from Leviticus that relate to the escape of the Israelites from Egypt and the building of temporary shanty houses in the desert.

UPDATES: See here for more up-to-date blog entries on the Leviticus scroll fragments.

Latest Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Volume Available

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Mohr Siebeck/Westminster John Knox Press have announced the publication of the latest volume in the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls series:

James H. Charlesworth, ed., with Henry W.M. Rietz along with J.M. Baumgarten. Damascus Document Fragments, Some Works of the Torah, and Related Documents. The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts With English Translations 3. Westminster/John Knox, 2005.

The official North American release date is 30 July, but readers may pre-order this volume from Amazon.ca or Amazon.com.

More information on this series, as well as other official editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls may be found on my Critical Editions of the Dead Sea Scrolls page.