ARCHEOLOGIA NUOVA

This scroll fragment preservesparts of the Book of Leviticus, in which God promises to reward the people ofIsrael if they observe the Sabbath and obey the 10 commandments.

Credit: copyright The SchøyenCollection, Oslo and London, MS 4611

More than 25 previouslyunpublished "Dead Sea Scroll" fragments, dating back 2,000 years andholding text from the Hebrew Bible, have been brought to light, their contentsdetailed in two new books.

The various scroll fragmentsrecord parts of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Samuel,Ruth, Kings, Micah, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, Joel, Joshua, Judges, Proverbs,Numbers, Psalms, Ezekiel and Jonah. The Qumran caves ― where the Dead Sea Scrollswere first discovered ― had yet to yield any fragments from the Book ofNehemiah; if this newly revealed fragment is authenticated it would be thefirst.

Scholars have expressedconcerns that some of the fragments are forgeries. [See Photos of the Dead SeaScrolls Fragments]

These 25 newly publishedfragments are just the tip of the iceberg. A scholar told Live Science thataround 70 newly discovered fragments have appeared on the antiquities marketsince 2002. Additionally, the cabinet minister in charge of the IsraelAntiquities Authority (IAA), along with a number of scholars, believes thatthere are undiscovered scrolls that are being found by looters in caves in theJudean Desert. The IAA is sponsoring a new series of scientific surveys and excavationsto find these scrolls before looters do.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls werediscovered between 1947 and 1956 in a series of 11 caves by the archaeologicalsite of Qumran in the Judean Desert, near the Dead Sea. During that time,archaeologists and local Bedouins unearthed thousands of fragments from nearly900 manuscripts.

Some of the Bedouin sold theirscrolls in Bethlehem through an antiquities dealer named Khalil IskanderShahin, who went by the name "Kando." Shahin died in 1993 and his sonWilliam Kando now runs his business and estate.

Many scholars believe that theDead Sea Scrolls were hidden in the Qumran caves around A.D. 70, during aJewish revolt against the Roman Empire. They may have been written by a Jewishsect known as the Essenes.

Qumran and its caves arelocated in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel from Jordan during theSix-Day War in 1967. Jordan at times has asserted that the Dead Sea Scrollsbelong to them.

Although the term Dead SeaScrolls usually refers to the scrolls found at Qumran, there have been scrollsfound in caves at other sites in the Judean Desert that are considered Dead SeaScrolls.

Collecting scrolls

The 25 newly published scrollfragments were purchased by two separate collectors. [Gallery of Dead SeaScrolls: A Glimpse of the Past]

Between 2009 and 2014, SteveGreen, the owner of Hobby Lobby, a chain of arts and crafts stores, purchased13 of the fragments, which he has donated, along with thousands of otherartifacts, to the Museum of the Bible. Green is helping to fund construction ofthe museum, scheduled to open in Washington, D.C., next fall. (A fly-through ofthe museum can be seen on YouTube).

A team of scholars haspublished details of these donated fragments in the book volume "Dead SeaScrolls Fragments in the Museum Collection" (Brill, 2016).

The provenance of this batchof scrolls is not certain.

"Some of these fragmentsmust have come from Qumran, probably Cave 4, while the others may have derivedfrom other sites in the Judean Desert," wrote Emanuel Tov, a professor atthe Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the book volume. "Unfortunately,little is known about the provenance of these fragments because most sellersdid not provide such information at the time of the sale."

Antiquities dealer WilliamKando told Live Science that he doesn't know where the donated fragmentsoriginated.

Scientists are conductingtests on the donated fragments to help determine if any are forgeries, saidMichael Holmes, executive director of the Museum of the Bible ScholarsInitiative, in a statement sent to Live Science.

The results will be combinedwith an analysis of the writing to help determine what the chances are of thedifferent fragments being forgeries.

"The results will beincorporated in our future museum exhibits, inviting visitors to grasp andengage with issues involved with assessing authenticity," Holmes said.

Biblical manuscripts

Martin Schøyen, a collectorfrom Norway, owns the other batch of the recently revealed Dead Sea Scrolls.The texts from those fragments are detailed in the book "Gleanings fromthe Caves: Dead Sea Scrolls and Artefacts from The Schøyen Collection"(Bloomsbury, 2016). Also detailed in the book are other artifacts related tothe scrolls, including a linen wrapper in which one of the Dead Sea Scrolls wasfound. [Photos: Who 'Penned' the Dead Sea Scrolls?]

Schøyen, who has a vastcollection of antiquities, began collecting biblical manuscripts in 1986."The ultimate challenge had become to acquire a fragment of the Dead SeaScrolls with a biblical text," Schøyen wrote in the book. "It was for me a 'Mission: Impossible.'"

His determination paid off as,gradually, he was able to track down scroll fragments that were for sale by anumber of sources. He bought several from a family collection that is now in inZurich (the name was not published) and several more from the descendants oftourists or collectors who had purchased scrolls from Shahin's shop inBethlehem in the 1950s. He also purchased a few fragments that were once ownedby two scholars who had worked in the Qumran caves as students in 1948 (thestudents got the fragments as gifts from a bishop who supported the work).

"The quest that startedas a 'Mission: Impossible' in 1986, gradually proceeded to become a collectionof [about] 115 fragments from around 27 different scrolls,"  Schøyen said. He added that some of thefragments in his collection come from caves 1, 4 and 11 at Qumran, while somecome from other caves in the Judean Desert.

Nehemiah

A highlight from the newlypublished Museum of the Bible collection is a fragment from the Book ofNehemiah (Nehemiah 2:13-16).

The fragment tells of a mannamed Nehemiah who lived during the fifth century B.C., at a time afterJerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Persian Empirehad taken over Babylon's territory and the Jews, who had been forced to leaveIsrael by the Babylonians, were allowed to return home.

The fragment recordsNehemiah's visit to a ruined Jerusalem, finding that its gates had been"consumed by fire." According to the fragment text, he inspects theremains of the walls before starting work on rebuilding them.

Scholars have noted inprevious studies that archaeologists hadn't found any copies of the Book ofNehemiah in the Qumran caves. How this fragment came to America is unknown, andscholars say they can't be sure it's from Qumran.

"It is assumed to comefrom Cave 4 [at Qumran], but in the final analysis it must be said that theprovenance of the fragment remains unknown," wrote Martin G. Abegg Jr., aprofessor at Trinity Western University who led the team that analyzed the fragment,in the book "Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments in the Museum Collection."

Leviticus

A highlight from the SchøyenCollection is a fragment containing part of the Book of Leviticus. In thefragment text, God promises that if the Sabbath is observed and the TenCommandments are obeyed, the people of Israel will be rewarded.

"If you walk according tomy laws, and keep my commandments and implement them, then I will grant yourrains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the treesof the field their fruit," part of the fragment reads (translation byTorleif Elgvin).

"I will grant peace inthe land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone; and I will exterminatevicious beasts from the land, and no sword shall cross your land," thefragment continues. "I will look with favour upon you, and make youfertile and multiply you."

Schøyen published a note fromWilliam Kando saying that the Leviticus scroll fragment was once owned by hisfather who got it from Bedouin in 1952 or 1953 and it was sold, along withother fragments, to a customer in Zurich in 1956.

Original article on LiveScience.