Dead Sea Fun

Parts of Dead Sea Scrolls are for Sale - in Tiny Pieces

Nearly 70 years after the discovery of the world's oldest biblical manuscripts, the Palestinian family who originally sold them to scholars and institutions is now quietly marketing the leftovers - fragments the family says it has kept in a Swiss safe deposit box all these years.

Most of these scraps are barely postage-stamp-sized, and some are blank. But in the last few years, evangelical Christian collectors and institutions in the U.S. have forked out millions of dollars for a chunk of this archaeological treasure. This angers Israel's government antiquities authority, which holds most of the scrolls, claims that every last scrap should be recognized as Israeli cultural property, and threatens to seize any more pieces that hit the market.

Read the full article at FoxNews.com

Geza Vermes, Translator of Dead Sea Scrolls and Renowned Scholar of Jesus, Dies at 88

Geza Vermes was a translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and renowned for books exploring the Jewish background of Jesus.

Vermes had an early interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls, a cache of documents written between 200 B.C. and A.D. 200 which were discovered in caves at Qumran, near Jericho, between 1947 and 1956. Vermes published the first English translation of the scrolls in 1962.

The scrolls gave an insight to Jewish practices and thought at the time Jesus was preaching, and they informed a series of books by Vermes on the historical Jesus.

Read the full article at WashingtonPost.com

Gabriel Stone on Display at the Israel Museum

An ancient limestone tablet covered with a mysterious Hebrew text that features the archangel Gabriel is at the center of a new exhibit in Jerusalem, even as scholars continue to argue about what it means.

The so-called Gabriel Stone, a meter (three-foot)-tall tablet said to have been found 13 years ago on the banks of the Dead Sea, features 87 lines of an unknown prophetic text dated as early as the first century BC, at the time of the Second Jewish Temple.

Read the full article at Fox News

Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit Coming to Salt Lake City

The Dead Sea Scrolls will be on display starting November, 2013 at The Leonardo Museum in Salt Lake City. The exhibit will include 20 scrolls and about 600 artifacts from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

Leonardo Museum Spokeswoman Lisa Davis said this is one of the biggest exhibitions they’ve had at the museum. “Whether you’re religious or not, whether you’re an academic or not, whether you’re a historian, these documents… They are the foundations of many of our cultural and literary and political happenings and they provide such a rich background and context for who we are today,” she said.

Read the full article at Fox News

Dead Sea Scrolls: Life in Ancient Times Exhibit Comes to Boston

Thanks to a Bedouin goat herder, you will soon be able to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Boston Museum of Science exhibit, "Dead Sea Scrolls: Life in Ancient Times." The archaeological gem will be at the museum May 19 - October 14 presented in partnership with the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Read the full article at Boston.com

Dead Sea Scrolls Go to Court

DeadSeaFun.com brings you a gripping tale…intrigue, identity theft, plagiarism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls…all in a New York courtroom. Two renowned professors duke it out in front of the judge and jury - which professor's theory about the origin of the Scrolls is TRUTH and which professor's is NOT. Fasten your seat belt and read on!

Update 31 January: Court Upholds Conviction in Dead Sea Scrolls E-Mail Impersonation Case Wired.com

Get the scoop at TabletMag.com

Dead Sea Scrolls Online Library Launched

On the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google announced the launch of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library website.

The public is invited to experience, view, examine, and explore this collection of over 5000 images of Dead Sea Scrolls, in a quality never seen before.

The library was assembled over the course of two years, in collaboration with Google, using advanced technology first developed by NASA. It includes some 1000 new images of scroll fragments; 3500 scans of negatives from the 1950s; a database documenting about 900 manuscripts, two thousand years old, comprising thousands of scroll fragments; and interactive content pages.

Scribe Links Qumran and Masada

Recently Ada Yardeni, the foremost paleographer working in Israel today, made a startling claim: More than 50 Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts were copied by the same scribe.

The 54 manuscripts came from six different caves: Qumran Caves 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 11. Even more surprising, Yardeni identified the same scribal hand in a manuscript of the Joshua Apocryphon found 30 miles south of Qumran at the famous desert fortress of Masada, the last holdout in the Jewish revolt against Rome.

Read the full article at Biblical Archaeology Society

Archaeologists Explore Two Mysterious Caves Near the Dead Sea

Hidden within desert desolation near the Dead Sea region of Ein Gedi, Israel, are two caves that at least one archaeologist suggests may possibly contain what remains of the lost archive of the Jewish Second Temple. The famous temple became one of King Herod's greatest architectural achievements and was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. at the time of the First Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire.

Read the full article at Popular-Archaeology.com

Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit Opens at the Cincinnati Museum Center - November 12, 2012

What Do You Know About the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The Dead Sea Scrolls - Life and Faith in Ancient Times opens at the Cincinnati Museum Center on November 16, 2012. The exhibition was created by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) from the collections of the Israel National Treasures and produced by Discovery Times Square and The Franklin Institute.

Read the full article at Cincymuseum.org

The Turkish Naval Base at the Dead Sea During World War I

View pictures of a World War I Turkish naval base and abandoned Turkish defense lines at the Dead Sea. As evidenced in these American Colony-Library of Congress album pictures, the Dead Sea was a major supply route for the Turkish army between eastern and western Palestine, particularly after Britain and its allies blockaded Mediterranean ports.

Read the full article at IsraelDailyPicture.com

Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit Coming to the Cincinnati Museum Center

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times exhibit is coming to the Cincinnati Museum Center on November 16, 2012.

The exhibit features the most comprehensive collection of ancient artifacts from Israel ever organized, including one of the largest collections of the priceless 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls. The exhibition was created by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) from the collections of the Israel National Treasures and produced by Discovery Times Square and The Franklin Institute.

Read the full article at CincyMuseum.org

Largest Ever Dead Sea Scroll Collection to Be Unveiled at Texas Seminary

Visitors at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's exhibition, "Dead Sea Scrolls & the Bible: Ancient Artifacts, Timeless Treasures" in Forth Worth, Texas, will be able to view the largest Dead Scroll fragments to ever be placed on public display starting July 12.

"The chance to view portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls usually requires an overseas trip to a Near East nation, such as Israel or Jordan," said Bruce McCoy, the exhibition director.

Read the full article at ChristianPost.com

Historical Photos of the Dead Sea Potash Works

In 1930, a major industry was launched on the barren shores of the Dead Sea, the Palestine Potash Company. Established by Moshe Novomeysky, the company was responsible for approximately half the worth of all of the exports of the Jews of Palestine by 1940. During World War II, the company provided Britain with half of its potash.

See photos from the 1930's at IsraelDailyPicture.com

Computer Science Professor to Become Visiting Research Scientist at Google Cultural Institute

Brent Seales, director of the University of Kentucky Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments and Gill Professor in UK's Computer Science department will temporarily leave UK to accept a position as a visiting research scientist at the Google Cultural Institute. Specifically, Seales will be helping read the un-openable Dead Sea Scrolls through visualization.

The scrolls in question are too fragile to be unrolled, so Seales will use a similar method to what he used to read Pompeii scrolls.

Read the full article at University of Kentucky News

Perfectly Preserved German Bunker Uncovered by IDF at Dead Sea

The IDF's [Israel Defense Forces] Combat Engineering Corps will soon uncover another layer of the 'ancient German bunker' which was concealed in the northern Dead Sea region.

The Dead Sea's receding waterline led to the exposure of a massive weapons' reservoir with thousands of artillery shells, bullets, rifles, guns, mines, explosives and even ancient walkie-talkies which were preserved in near perfect condition thanks to the high salt content in the water.

Read the full article at YNetNews.com

Update July 4, 2012 - see more pictures IsraelDailyPicture.com

Quake Reveals Day of Jesus' Crucifixion, Researchers Believe

Geologists say Jesus, as described in the New Testament, was most likely crucified on Friday, April 3, in the year 33.

The latest investigation, reported in International Geology Review, focused on earthquake activity at the Dead Sea, located 13 miles from Jerusalem. The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 27, mentions that an earthquake coincided with the crucifixion.

Read the full article at msnbc.com

Book of Nehemiah Found Among the Dead Sea Scrolls

Norwegian scroll scholar Torleif Elgvin of Evangelical Lutheran University College in Oslo, Norway, announced that he and colleague Esther Eshel of Bar-Ilan University will be publishing a collection of more than two dozen previously unknown scroll fragments, including the first known fragment of Nehemiah.

Read the full article at BiblicalArchaeology.org

Dead Sea Scrolls Come to Philadelphia's Franklin Institute

The Franklin Institute opened the doors on a remarkable exhibition, "Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Ancient Times."

The collection consists of more than 600 figurines, altars, coins, pottery, menorahs, bone boxes, and incense burners, and a giant stone from the Western Wall of the great temple of Jerusalem. The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, the Discovery Museum, and the Franklin Institute. It will be open seven days a week through mid-October.

Read the full article at Philly.com

Fifty Years of Dead Sea Scroll Translation

In 1962 a youngish scholar named Geza Vermes published the first English translation of the then-available Dead Sea Scrolls - a slim 255-page volume from Penguin Books simply titled The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. This insightful but accessible translation quickly attracted both general readers and scholars.

As the field of Dead Sea Scrolls study burgeoned, so did Vermes's work. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the book (now in its seventh edition) has grown into a 720-page tome. An estimated 500,000 copies have been sold.

Read the full article at Biblical Archaeology Review

Exploring the Jordan River

Other rivers have more beauty. Many are longer. Most are cleaner. But none has garnered as much affection as the Jordan River.

Even the Nile River Valley - although it flows deeper, wider, and longer without tributary or raindrop to feed it - fails to match the depth of the Jordan Rift Valley. The Jordan Valley cuts the deepest ditch on the planet, ultimately draining into the Dead Sea, the lowest spot on earth. The ancient Egyptians worshiped the Nile as a god, but the Jordan surpasses it in spiritual influence and sanctity. Just looking at it, though, you'd never have imagined why.

Read the full article at JerusalemPost.com

Tour of the Dead Sea Scroll Exhibit

Join Yeshiva University Vice-Provost and world renown Dead Sea Scrolls expert, Dr. Lawrence Schiffman as he explores the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit.

Dead Sea Scrolls Coming to the Netherlands

After three years of negotiations, the Drents Museum in Assen has reached an agreement with Israel which has paved the way for the Dead Sea Scrolls to be brought to the Netherlands. In 2013, the ancient texts will be on display at the museum.

Watch the video at RadioNetherlandsWorldwide

Free E-Book - Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery and Meaning

The Biblical Archaeology Society has just released a newly updated edition of its free eBook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery and Meaning. This eBook explores the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and what they tell us about the Bible, Christianity and Judaism. And new to this edition, they spotlight three of the most famous of the scrolls - the War Scroll, the Temple Scroll and the Book of Enoch - focusing on the significance of each.

Download the ebook at BiblicalArchaeology.org

Dead Sea Scrolls' 10 Commandments Reaches New York

The Ten Commandments parchment of the Dead Sea Scrolls is on display in New York City's Times Square for 10 days for the first time ever. It is only the third time that Israel has allowed the scrolls to leave the country.

The leather parchment will return to Israel after the "Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times" display at Discovery Times Square, which began last Thursday. Most of the exhibition continues until March, but the parchment of the Ten Commandments will make its way back to Israel January 2.

Read the full article at IsraelNationalNews.com

Cores Reveal When Dead Sea 'Died'

Sediments drilled from beneath the Dead Sea reveal that this most remarkable of water bodies all but disappeared 120,000 years ago.

It is a discovery of high concern say scientists because it demonstrates just how dry the Middle East can become during Earth's warm phases.

A consortium of investigators from Israel, the US, Germany, Japan, Switzerland and Norway drilled two cores into the Dead Sea's bed in late 2010. One of them was centred close to the very deepest part of the lake.

At 235m down, the consortium hit a layer of small, rounded pebbles - what the team believes are the deposits of an ancient beach. Given the location of the core, this would suggest the Dead Sea had a complete, or near, dry-down at some point in the past.

Read the full article at BBC News

More information at NationalGeographic.com

Possible Dead Sea Scroll Authors

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 white, even though fabrics from the period often have vivid colours. Altogether, researchers say these finds suggest that the Essenes, an ancient Jewish sect, "penned" some of the scrolls.

Read the full article at LiveScience.com

More about the fabrics at Haaretz.com

Dead Sea drying up? That's So 120,000 Years Ago

The Dead Sea may be drying up, but research by Israeli scientists and colleagues abroad shows that the water has risen and fallen by hundreds of meters over the past 200,000 years.

The goal is to study the region's climactic history and forecast possible changes in the future. The project should also provide rich information on the region's seismic history and conditions in the area that influenced human development.

At the center of the sea, the researches drilled 460 meters below the seafloor and extracted salt and other materials that had settled there as much as 200,000 years ago. Plastic tubes containing centuries of climactic history are now in Germany for testing.

In laboratories in Potsdam near Berlin, Israeli and German scientists are examining the stuff in the tubes.

Read the full article at Haaretz.com

Grisly Theory for Holy Land Mystery

RUJM AL-HIRI, Golan Heights (AP) — A newly proposed solution to an ancient enigma is reviving debate about the nature of a mysterious prehistoric site that some call the Holy Land's answer to Stonehenge.

Some scholars believe the structure of concentric stone circles known as Rujm al-Hiri was an astrological temple or observatory, others a burial complex. The new theory proposed by archaeologist Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska links the structure to an ancient method of disposing of the dead.

[Archaeologist Rami] Arav found a clue in a trove of Chalcolithic artifacts discovered to the south, near the Dead Sea: a small copper cylinder with a square opening like a miniature gate and, crucially, figures of birds perched on the edge.

Read the full article at Yahoo.com

The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive - "A Promise to Masada"

A film has been uploaded to the virtual cinema site of the Spielberg Archive depicting the agricultural development of the first settlements along the Dead Sea...rarely seen historical footage of the area!

The Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, located at Jerusalem's Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, was founded in the late 1960s by Professor Moshe Davis and other historians at the university.

Computers Piece Together Scattered Medieval Scrolls

It's like something out of "The Da Vinci Code": Hundreds of thousands of fragments from medieval religious scrolls are scattered across the globe. How will scholars put them back together?

The answer, according to scientists at Tel Aviv University, is to use computer software based on facial recognition technology. But instead of recognizing faces, this software recognizes fragments thought to be part of the same work. Then, the program virtually "glues" the pieces back together.

Read the full article at LiveScience.com

Dead Sea Scrolls Online - Your Mouse Pointer Instantly Translates into English

The Dead Sea Scrolls, the world's oldest known biblical documents, are now available to read online - and simply scrolling over phrases from one of the 2000-year-old scrolls instantly translates them into English.

Check out the excellent photos in this article MailOnline.com

Google's Dead Sea Scrolls is Latest Crowdsourcing Project

For the religious scholar, seeing the fragile animal skin written on between the third and first centuries BCE now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, would have required a trip to Jerusalem until the scrolls went online last month as a project between Google and the Israel Museum.

While Google touts these projects as part of its mission to make all the world's information available online, the scrolls' existence in digital form serves a secondary purpose: allowing amateur detectives to seek clues that elude scholarly academics.

Read the full article at WashingtonPost.com

Dead Sea Scrolls on View in Manhattan

A new exhibition of more than 500 ancient artifacts from Israel - including 20 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, four of which have never been made available for public viewing - is set to make its world premiere on Oct. 28 at Discovery Times Square in Manhattan, the producers announced.

Ten scrolls at a time will be displayed in "Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times," which has been assembled by the Israel Antiquities Authority. The producers describe the show as one of the most comprehensive of its kind ever mounted; it will also include an in-scale re-creation of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, with a three-ton block of stone from the wall itself.

Archaeologist Thomas Levy Explores the Dead Sea Area

For professor Thomas Levy, the comparisons to Indiana Jones are almost unavoidable.

The UC San Diego archaeologist, whose work will be honored by the international Explorers Club in October, has spent his career combing the deserts of the Middle East for clues about ancient civilizations.

Levy uses high-precision radiocarbon dating and cutting-edge digital imaging tools for recording data in three dimensions so he can see much of what he finds south of the Dead Sea on the computer in his La Jolla office.

Levy's interests are focused on how the development of metallurgy affected social change. Since 1997, he has worked closely with officials in southern Jordan to advance understanding of mining and metalwork over 9,000 years in one of the world's best-preserved ancient copper mining districts.

Read the full article towards the bottom of the page at SignonSanDiego.com

Ein Gedi: One of the Most Beautiful Places in the World

Ein Gedi is located in the center of the Dead Sea and at the foot of the cliffs of the Judean desert. One of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, Ein Gedi has many advantages: pollution-free air, filtered sunlight, and a high concentration of oxygen saturated with bromine.

The ancient synagogue at Ein Gedi tells the story of the Jewish settlement near the Dead Sea during the period of the Mishna. The synagogue, which was used by the residents of the local community at Ein Gedi, was discovered by chance by a farmer from Kibbutz Ein Gedi named Sefi Porat..

Read the full article at IsraelNationalNews.com

Adopt A Dead Sea Scroll

The Israel Antiquities Authority, the preeminent organization in the field of Biblical and Israeli archaeology, is custodian of more than one million archaeological objects, among them nearly 15,000 Dead Sea Scroll fragments, the largest and most comprehensive collection of Dead Sea Scrolls in the world.

A number of 2,000 year-old Scroll fragments are available for "adoption" through the sponsorship of their preservation and conservation. Among these are the Genesis Scroll, several large Psalm Scrolls, the long and beautiful Leviticus Scroll and others.

Read the full article at The Friends of the Israel Antiquities Authority Website.

Dead Sea Scroll Tract was Precursor to Jewish Calendar

An obscure Babylonian document from the world famous Dead Sea Scroll collection was almost certainly a precursor to the Jewish calendar according to University of Manchester research.

Dr Helen Jacobus, a part-time doctoral student who graduated this month, investigated one of the 972 texts found in Khirbet Qumran on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea in Jordan between 1947 and 1956. The Babylonian text known as Qumran scroll '4Q318'and kept at the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem, is thought to have been written around 2000 years ago.

Shown by Dr Jacobus to be a calendar - it contains predictions based on the moon's position in the zodiac when the sound of thunder occurs.

Read the full article at The University of Manchester Website

Unlocking the Dead Sea Scrolls

A project in Israel will make it possible for amateur sleuths to put together the ultimate puzzle. The Israel Antiquities Authority is in the process of digitizing all of the Dead Sea Scrolls...every fragment! Together with Google and other technology vendors, the scrolls will be uploaded to the Internet and made available to everyone. View the researchers talking about this incredible undertaking!

The Dead Sea in the Bible

The Primordial Sea, the Plains Sea, the Salt Sea – these are but a few of the names of the Dead Sea, which features in narratives throughout religious history. Below is an overview of the sources where the Dead Sea and the Jordan Valley are mentioned and the historical events that took place there.

The Dead Sea has served as the backdrop to some unforgettable events on the world's stage of history: the patriarch Abraham fought a war there, David hid there from King Saul, the prophet Ezekiel had visions there, the story of Masada happened nearby, and Jesus was baptized there by John the Baptist.

Read the full article at votedeadsea.com

Analyzing The Dead Sea Scrolls' Provenance

An X-ray fluorescence analytical technique may help scholars settle a decades-long archaeological debate: Were the multitude of Dead Sea Scroll texts written near the Dead Sea or just stored in caves nearby? This technique could provide an answer without harming the valuable Hebrew documents that have been degrading rapidly since their discovery in the 1940s and 50s, its developers say.

Read the full article at Chemical and Engineering News

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The Dead Sea scrolls, also known as the Qumran Scrolls or the Hidden Scrolls, are one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made. Since their discovery, the Dead Sea scrolls have been a source of dispute among researchers, as well as a window into a long-lost world.

As is often the case, the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered by chance. A Bedouin shepherd, looking for a lost goat, threw a stone into a cave in order to draw her out. The stone hit a clay vessel, in which three scrolls were found. This discovery marked the beginning of an archaeological journey that lasted from 1947 to 1956, during which about 15,000 hidden scrolls were unearthed in the Qumran caves and in other nearby locations in the Judean desert.

What is written in scrolls?

Read the full article at votedeadsea.com

Beneath the Dead Sea, Drilling for History

EIN GEDI, Israel - Five miles out, nearly to the center of the Dead Sea, an international team of scientists has been drilling beneath the seabed to extract a record of climate change and earthquake history stretching back half a million years.

The preliminary evidence and clues found halfway through the 40-day project are more than the team could have hoped for. The scientists did not expect to pull up a wood fragment that was roughly 400,000 years old. Nor did they expect to come across a layer of gravel from a mere 50,000 to 100,000 years ago. That finding would seem to indicate that what is now the middle of the Dead Sea - which is really a big salt lake - was once a shore, and that the water level had managed to recover naturally.

Read the full article at the New York Times Website

NASA Scientists Help Digitize DS Scrolls

NASA Scientists are helping Israel digitize and publish the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Scientists in Israel are taking digital photographs of thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls with the aim of making the 2,000-year-old documents available to the public and researchers on the Internet. Israel's Antiquities Authority, the custodian of the scrolls that shed light on the life of Jews and early Christians at the time of Jesus, said it will take more than two years to complete the project coinciding with the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the ancient writings. Bedouin shepherds first came upon the scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea in 1947.

Google Puts Dead Sea Scrolls Online

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is partnering with the Google R&D Center in Israel as part of its 20th anniversary celebrations. The unique collaboration will enable the imaging and digitization of the entire collection of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Entitled The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, the project will use the most advanced and innovative technologies available to image the entire collection of 900 manuscripts comprising about 30,000 Dead Sea Scrolls fragments.

Read the full article at BiblicalArchaeology.org