There are a number of great computer and internet resources for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. For some of the best computer software relating to biblical studies, please see my Software for Biblical Studies page.
A fundamental tool for any serious textual study of the Scrolls is the morphologically tagged text produced by Martin Abegg:
- , Qumran Sectarian Manuscripts. This fully searchable module includes all the Hebrew and Aramaic non-biblical texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran. Compiled and tagged with lemmas and grammatical information by Martin Abegg or the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University, Langley, B.C. It is available for Accordance Bible Software (MacOS) or Logos Bible Software (Windows). For more information about these software packages, please see my Software for Biblical Studies page.
There are also a number of software packages that provide significant access to photographs and texts as well as other multimedia:
, ed., Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library CD-Rom, 3 (Brill, 2006). The new and comprehensive electronic reference work on The Dead Sea Scrolls, prepared by the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, under the editorship of Emanuel Tov. This third volume of the DSS CD-Rom gives a more complete coverage of all of the published DSS materials, including scrolls identified in 2004 and 2005. Windows: Requires Windows OS 2000/XP on Pentium 3 with 256MB RAM. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com- , Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library CD-Rom, 2 (Brill, 1999). A comprehensive, fully indexed, and cross-linked collection of non-biblical DSS texts, both in Hebrew and English translation, as well as a selection of high-resolution digitized images. In addition, the CD-Rom contains relevant reference material for scholarly work on The Dead Sea Scrolls and related literature. Windows: Requires Windows OS 3.1/98/Me/NT/2000/XP on 166MHz Pentium with 32MB RAM. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com
, Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Reference Library CD-Rom, 1 (Brill, 1997). A digital equivalent to the Microfiche edition of the DSS, this 3 CD-Rom package includes over 3,500 black and white computer images of the Scrolls with detailed support information. Windows: Requires Windows OS 3.1/98/Me/NT/2000 on 486MHz with 32MB RAM (a patch is available from Brill for Windows XP). Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com - Dead Sea Scrolls Revealed (Logos Research Systems, 1994, 2000). This multimedia CD-Rom includes many photographs, interesting video interviews with some of the original Scroll researchers, a 3-D fly-through of Khirbet Qumran, among other things. It is a bit dated — in both content and technologically (you may not be able to get it to run on newer machines), though it is still worth a look. Dr. Bob Kraft has put together an index of all the contents of the CD-Rom, which makes it possible to use the videos and pictures in other applications (for instance, I have integrated a number of the videos in my PowerPoint lectures for my DSS course). The index is available from Kraft’s gopher site. Windows: Requires Windows OS 3.1/98 on 486MHz with 32MB RAM. Macintosh: Requires MacOS 7 and above. Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com
While the web is ever growing and changing, the following links provide a wealth of resources for the study of the Scrolls and Qumran:
- Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls [This is the major online resource for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The site includes many different types of resources including a comprehensive (since 1995), searchable bibliography, introductions on the Scrolls, online papers, as well as information on discussion groups, and seminars, among other things]
- Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit [This is a version of the web pages associated with the “Scrolls From the Dead Sea: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship Exhibit” at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. From the iBiblio website]
- The Israel Museum in Jerusalem [Includes the site for the Shrine of the Book, the home of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other rare ancient manuscripts.]