Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1947 and 1956. They consist of roughly 981 different texts, including the oldest known Biblical manuscripts. The scrolls are written primarily on parchment made of animal skin, with some written on papyrus and one on copper. Most texts are written in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic and a few in Greek. The scrolls contain Biblical texts, religious commentaries, legal documents, and community rules. The manuscripts vary in size, with some scrolls reaching several meters in length while others exist only as fragments.