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Category Archives: Dead Sea Scrolls
7Q5 and Appeals to Authority, Part 2: Herbert Hunger
I have written before about 7Q5, a small fragment of papyrus found in Cave 7Q at Qumran. It contains an unidentified text in Greek. It became (in)famous in the early 1970s when José O’Callaghan (1922-2001) argued that it preserved a bit … Continue reading
Posted in 7Q5, Dead Sea Scrolls, Herbert Hunger, Palaeography
Tagged 7Q5, Herbert Hunger, Palaeography
7 Comments
New Radiocarbon Analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls
An important new study of the Dead Sea Scrolls has just been published (open access!) in the journal PLOS One: Mladen Popović et al., “Dating ancient manuscripts using radiocarbon and AI-based writing style analysis,” PLOS One 2025. In some ways, … Continue reading
Posted in Dead Sea Scrolls, Frank Moore Cross, Palaeography, Radiocarbon analysis
Tagged archaeology, books, Dead Sea Scrolls, history, qumran, Radiocarbon analysis
8 Comments
7Q5 and Appeals to Authority, Part 1: Orsolina Montevecchi
I am fascinated by the Wikipedia entry for 7Q5, which seems to continuously bounce back and forth between being useful and informative to being goofy and borderline incoherent. 7Q5 is a tiny fragment of papyrus found in Cave 7Q at … Continue reading
Posted in 7Q5, Dead Sea Scrolls, Orsolina Montevecchi
Tagged 7Q5, ancient-judaism, Bible, christianity, Dead Sea Scrolls, early-christian-manuscripts, history
16 Comments
The Lying Pen of Scribes Project: An Appreciation
Over the last few years, I have had a number of occasions to mention The Lying Pen of Scribes, a project on the Dead Sea Scrolls funded by the Research Council of Norway. In fact, it may not be quite … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities Market, Archaeological context, Dead Sea Scrolls, Fakes and Forgeries
Tagged archaeology, Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, history, qumran
2 Comments
Roberta Mazza’s Stolen Fragments
I’ve just finished reading Roberta Mazza’s excellent new book, Stolen Fragments: Black Markets, Bad Faith, and the Illicit Trade in Ancient Artefacts (Stanford: Redwood Press, 2024). This is a well organized and highly readable book. It tells a story–equal parts … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities Dealers and Collectors, Antiquities Market, Bruce Ferrini, Dead Sea Scrolls, Dirk Obbink, Fakes and Forgeries, Green Collection, Lee Biondi, P.Sapph. Obbink, Scott Carroll
Tagged Antiquities Market, archaeology, Bible, books, egypt, history, museum-of-the-bible, papyri, papyrology, roberta-mazza, sappho
6 Comments
Photos from the 1950 Duke Exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Thanks to Alexander Schick for pointing out the digitization of photos in the Duke University Archives related to the exhibition at Duke of the Dead Sea Scrolls that were in the possession of Mar Samuel in 1950. There are some … Continue reading
The Earliest Photo of the Man Who Discovered the First Dead Sea Scrolls?
When I was looking into the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls that are said to have been found in Cave 1Q a few years ago, I became interested in the early surviving videos and photographs of the scrolls and … Continue reading
Posted in Dead Sea Scrolls
Tagged archaeology, Dead Sea Scrolls, history, israel, qumran, qumran-cave-1q
3 Comments
Variant Readings 