A Material Approach to Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls

The Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls are the remains of around 950 scrolls discovered in eleven caves in the vicinity of the Qumran (Judean Desert) between 1947 and 1956. They contain Jewish religious literature, including 240 ‘biblical’ scrolls, dated between the end of the 3rd century BCE and the 1st century CE. Before this discovery, the only manuscript dating back to this time was the small Nash papyrus (2nd century BCE); the Jewish literature and the Bible were only known through later manuscripts. The earliest dated complete Hebrew Bible is the codex Firkovich, circa 1008–1009 CE.

To date, the research on the Dead Sea Scrolls has focused mainly on the texts they contain, overlooking their nature as archaeological artefacts. Moreover, in the past 50 years archaeological research at Qumran has largely neglected the caves where the manuscripts were found, focusing on the ruins of Qumran.

This project aims at contributing to the scholarship on Qumran through a material approach: studying the physical features of the scrolls and taking due account of the material contexts of their discovery.

The most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaaª): 7.34m long, it is composed of 17 sheets of parchment, in a very good state of preservation. The text is distributed over 54 columns, which contain all 66 chapters of the book of Isaiah. It is dated to the second half of the 2nd century BCE.

The first stage of the project will focus on a specific research topic concerning 1QIsaaª: testing the bisection. Preliminary investigations have identified several features that suggest that 1QIsaaª was produced and possibly used in two distinct parts, each containing almost half of the text. 1QIsaaª would be the result of the union of two parts/scrolls. This hypothesis is supported by the textual characteristics of 1QIsaaª, by indirect sources, and by some evidence found in other fragmentary copies of Isaiah found at Qumran in Cave 4Q. This has implications on the transmission and reception of the text of Isaiah at Qumran.

Testing the bisection of 1QIsaaª requires a description of the material characteristics of the scroll. Once this is ascertained, some research questions about the artefact arise: were the two parts produced together – at the same time – or was the second one produced to be joined to the first? In addition to the production process, is it possible to determine a different history of use for the two parts? How were the two parts joined into a single one with the entire book of Isaiah?

Marcello Fidanzio has been entrusted by the Israel Museum to lead a research project on 1QIsaaª as an archaeological artefact, in collaboration with Hagit Maoz, curator of the Shrine of the Book.