Dead Sea Scrolls Are Being Digitized and Made Available Online

Posted on September 29, 2011

They were written two thousand years ago and discovered decades ago. Now the Dead Sea Scrolls are being digitized and made available online. The scrolls were written between the third and first centuries BCE. The scrolls were found hidden in 11 caves in 1947 in the Judean desert and are the oldest known biblical manuscripts.

The project is a collaboration between Google and The Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The five Dead Sea Scrolls that have been digitized and are now available are: the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule Scroll, the Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, the Temple Scroll, and the War Scroll. The project is expected to be completed in 2016.

You can see the website for the scrolls here. You can zoom in on parts of the scroll, which was photographed at extremely high resolution. The high-res camera allows users to see things in the scrolls not visible to the human eye, which is pretty amazing. The AP reports: