| a number of leather, papyrus, and copper scrolls dating from c100 b.c. to a.d. 135, containing partial texts of some of the books of the Old Testament and some non-Biblical scrolls, in Hebrew and Aramaic, and including apocryphal writings, commentaries, hymns, and psalms: found in caves near the NW coast of the Dead Sea beginning in 1947. |
| Dead Sea Scrolls pl.n. The papyrus scrolls and scroll fragments discovered between 1947 and 1960 at sites along the Dead Sea, mostly dating from the last two centuries B.C., containing passages from books of the Hebrew Scriptures and from apocryphal biblical books, as well as sectarian writings. They are of great importance for reconstructing the compilation of the Hebrew Scriptures and for understanding Jewish culture in the era immediately preceding the birth of Jesus. |
A large collection of written scrolls, containing nearly all of the Old Testament, found in a cave near the Dead Sea in the late 1940s. The scrolls were part of a library collected by the Essenes, a religious community of Jews that flourished for a few centuries around the time of Jesus. The scrolls are highly valued for the information they give about the Bible and about Judaism in the period.