Israel to Begin 3-Year Search for More Dead Sea Scrolls

 JERUSALEM, Israel – Israel is set to embark on a three-year expedition to search for additional Dead Sea Scrolls and other antiquities in the Judean Desert.

 

Israel is launching a new expedition next month in hopes of finding more Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts in the area where the original Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.
CBN News reports that the archaeological survey is being undertaken by a government research team. It will be the first archaeological survey of the area in more than 20 years.
The original Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered between 1946 and 1957 in caves 1.2 miles from the Dead Sea. They were found in the ancient Jewish settlement of Khirbet Qumran, the area of the modern-day West Bank.
Archaeologists on the new expedition plan to explore hundreds of desert caves in the area in hopes of finding more manuscripts.
In recent years, looters have found manuscripts in the area which has led the government to believe there are more to be discovered.

The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the 1940’s and 50’s were very significant to biblical scholarship. At the time, the oldest surviving manuscripts containing portions of biblical text were the Masoretic texts, dating from the tenth century C.E., but the Dead Sea Scrolls predate the Masoretic texts by a full thousand years.
Portions of many Old Testament books were found, including manuscripts from the books of Genesis, Psalms, and many of the prophets.