Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls are now available online.
Thanks to a partnership between Google and Israel's national museum, the five scrolls went online this morning (Monday). The scrolls include the biblical Book of Isaiah. Google's technology allows surfers to search the scrolls for specific passages and translate them into English.
Seven Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in Qumran, Israel in 1947.
I had a chance to see the Dead Sea Scrolls some years ago in Jerusalem. At that time, I found it almost impossible to distinguish the hand-written letters from the darkened parchment upon which they were written. I am surprised at how much better the computer-enhanced images are when compared to the originals. The digital images must be easier for scholars to read than the original scrolls.
You can read more and look at images of the scrolls at
http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/.
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