Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls - Biblical Archaeology Encyclopedia

Overview

From 1947 to 1956 about 930 manuscripts, most surviving only as fragments, were recovered from eleven caves near the ruin of Khirbet Qumran on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea (the IAA's Leon Levy Digital Library images about 930). They include copies of every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther, other Jewish writings (Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Ben Sira), and texts of a particular community such as the Community Rule, the Damascus Document, the War Scroll and the pesharim (running commentaries).

The best-known single scroll is the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ) from Cave 1: complete except for small damaged spots, 7.34 m long, 17 sheets sewn together, 54 columns. The Israel Museum put the whole scroll on display on 24 February 2026 for the first time since 1968. The exhibition closed after four days because of the war, and the scroll went back into a protected vault (Haaretz, 6 April 2026).

Next to the caves, Roland de Vaux excavated Khirbet Qumran itself in 1951–1956. Who lived there, and how the site relates to the scrolls, remains disputed (see questions).

What the evidence shows

Cave 1 yielded seven large scrolls in 1947, including 1QIsaᵃ. Caves 4 and 11 yielded thousands of fragments.
1QIsaᵃ contains Isaiah 1–66 in one scroll written by two scribes, one for each half. Enoch's writing-style model dates both halves to 180–100 BCE and shows no time gap between them (Popović et al. 2025, Fig. 2).
Radiocarbon (Bonani et al. 1992; Jull et al. 1995) gave dates for 14 and then 18 texts that fall in the last centuries BCE and 1st century CE.
Popović et al. (2025): 4Q114 (Daniel 8–11) has a 2σ radiocarbon range of 230–160 BCE. Enoch dates 4Q109 (Ecclesiastes) to the 3rd century BCE.
The same study found that manuscripts in 'Herodian' script carry radiocarbon dates spread from the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE, wider than the palaeographic scheme allowed.
A twelfth cave identified in 2017 held scroll jars and a scrap of blank parchment but no written scroll.

Open questions

Who owned the scrolls and lived at Qumran? Magness (The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Eerdmans 2002; 2nd ed. 2021) reads the site as a sectarian settlement tied to the scrolls. Her evidence is the site's layout, its many miqva'ot, communal dining debris and its connection to the caves, and she rejects the villa or manor readings. Hirschfeld (Qumran in Context, Hendrickson 2004) reads Qumran as a Hasmonean fort and later a prosperous estate on the Dead Sea trade route, unconnected to a sect. He places it among contemporary Judean desert estates and Ein Feshkha.
How far can script-dating be trusted? Popović et al. (2025) show several manuscripts are older than their palaeographic dates, with only two younger. Some Hasmonaean and Herodian script types overlap in time rather than following one another. Their AI dates are predictions from 24 radiocarbon-dated training samples with a mean error of about 28–31 years, and experts judged 79% of the 135 predictions for undated scrolls 'realistic'.
Was Daniel written in the 160s BCE? Popović et al. note that the 2σ radiocarbon range for 4Q114 (230–160 BCE) overlaps the 160s date usually assigned to Daniel 8–11 on literary-historical grounds. The earliest part of that range is older than the 160s. The radiocarbon result does not by itself decide the question.

Since 2024

2025-06Popović et al. publish 27 new radiocarbon dates and the 'Enoch' AI writing-style model. 4Q114 (Daniel) dates to 230–160 BCE, both halves of 1QIsaᵃ to 180–100 BCE, and Herodian-type hands span the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE. [1]
2026-02The Israel Museum shows the entire Great Isaiah Scroll for the first time since 1968; the display closes after four days because of the war and the scroll goes to a protected vault. [7]

Sources

M. Popović, M. A. Dhali, … M. Perla Colombini, E. Tigchelaar et al., 'Dating ancient manuscripts using radiocarbon and AI-based writing style analysis', PLOS ONE 20(6): e0323185 (4 June 2025) link study
A. J. T. Jull, D. J. Donahue, M. Broshi, E. Tov, 'Radiocarbon Dating of Scrolls and Linen Fragments from the Judean Desert', Radiocarbon 37 (1995) 11–19 link study
G. Bonani, S. Ivy, W. Wölfli, M. Broshi et al., 'Radiocarbon Dating of Fourteen Dead Sea Scrolls', Radiocarbon 34 (1992) 843–849 link study
Israel Antiquities Authority, The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library link museum record
J. Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2021; 1st ed. 2002) link study
Y. Hirschfeld, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004) link study
M. Gilad, 'Comfort My People: The Isaiah Scroll Was Removed From View Due to the War', Haaretz, 6 April 2026; and 'Ancient words unrolled: Israel Museum displays Great Isaiah Scroll', JNS, 27 Feb 2026 link study

Corrected from the earlier edition of this page

Old dimensions 'up to 1 meter length' are wrong. 1QIsaᵃ alone is 7.34 m long.
Old claim 'biblical texts virtually identical to later manuscripts' needs qualifying. 1QIsaᵃ agrees with the later Hebrew text in substance but has many spelling and word-level differences, so 'virtually identical' overstates the match.
Old 'Israel Museum' as the home of the scrolls is only partly right. The Shrine of the Book holds the Cave 1 scrolls; most fragments are in IAA custody, and the Copper Scroll is in Amman.
Old date range '250 BCE – 70 CE' is out of date. Popović et al. (2025) push several manuscripts earlier (4Q114 to 230–160 BCE; 4Q109 predicted 3rd century BCE) and show Herodian-script manuscripts running from the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE.
The old entry's claim that the scrolls show 'the Jewish community that inhabited the Qumran region' treats a disputed identification (Magness vs Hirschfeld) as settled.
Old biblical link to Psalm 119 as an 'Acrostic prayer' gives no reason why this text matters for the scrolls. No specific Qumran copy is confirmed in the sources cited here, so the link is dropped rather than repeated.

Checked against new publications through 2026-09.