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Mazal tov to Hannah and Methuselah on their 111 miracle babies! The proud parents are date palms grown from ancient seeds uncovered in archeological excavations in Israel. These dates, recently picked at the Arava Institute at Kibbutz Ketura in southern Israel, are a type that hasn't been tasted since the times of Jesus and the Maccabees. "Dr. Elaine Solowey, our director of the Center for Sustainable Agriculture, grew our first ancient date tree, Methuselah, in 2005," explained Miriam May, CEO of Friends of the Arava Institute. "He came from a 2,000-year-old seed found in excavations at Masada; his growth was...

Rechavi's group obtained DNA from minuscule bits that either fell off or were removed from 26 Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Those samples contained no writing. After excluding DNA left by people who had handled the scrolls, the scientists identified DNA of animals used to make the ancient parchments. All fragments were made of sheepskin except for two made from cow skin... Four Qumran fragments from the Hebrew Bible's book of Jeremiah likely came from two different versions of that book, the investigators find. Two sheepskin fragments belonged to one book and two cow skin fragments belonged to another. Cows couldn't...

Treasure hunter Jim Barfield follows new clues to an ancient city where he believes he has found the contents and location of the Ark of the Covenant in this clip from Season 2, "Secrets of the Bible."Quest for The Ark of the Covenant: New Clues Found! | In Search Of (Season 1) | History (Channel) | Published on Saturday, November 2, 2019 | YouTube

The Museum of the Bible said Monday that five of its 16 famous Dead Sea Scrolls fragments are fake. A team of German experts analyzed the privately funded Washington, D.C., museum's fragments and found they had "characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin." The fragments will no longer be displayed at the museum. "Though we had hoped the testing would render different results, this is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken and our commitment to transparency," said Jeffrey Kloha, chief curatorial officer for the museum, said...

An archaeologist says he discovered nine tiny scrolls with biblical text from the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed, according to news reports. The newfound scrolls, which date back to about 2,000 years ago, were hidden inside three leather tefillin cases, also known as phylacteries, traditionally carried by observant Jewish men, Italian news agency Ansa Mediterranean reported. These cases were first pulled out of the caves in the 1950s, but their contents apparently were not examined until now....

Challenging History: The Dead Sea Scrolls By: Neil Altman, For The Bulletin 09/24/2007 Editor's Note: According to an exhibit at the United States Library of Congress, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat in the Judean Desert in 1947, entered a long-untouched cave and found scrolls in a jar and under debris on the floor. That initial discovery by the Bedouins began a search that lasted nearly a decade, eventually producing thousands of scroll fragments from 11 caves. During those same years, archaeologists tried to identify the people who deposited the scrolls. They found the Qumran ruin, a...

They were hidden inside some phylacteries discovered during some excavations sixty years ago but never opened. The news was announced at a conference at the Faculty of Theology in Lugano. . . So there are now nine Qumran scrolls to keep experts busy. The discovery was made very recently and was announced a few days ago at the international research seminar. . . “The new discovery shows that the research being carried out on the Qumran is not complete yet. There are a thousand reasons, especially political ones, why the material unearthed is still being studied and why the the...

Israeli paleographer Ada Yardeni has recently identified 50 Dead Sea scrolls found near Qumran in Israel as having been penned by the same scribe, a scribe who also penned scrolls that have been found at the Herodian mountain-top fortress of Masada, where Jewish rebel zealots made their last suicidal stand against the Romans in 73 A.D.The subject scrolls were previously discovered in six different caves in the area of the Qumran site. In an article authored by Sidnie White Crawford and published in the November/December 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Crawford writes that documents penned by the same scribe and found...

The Dead Sea Scrolls may have been written, at least in part, by a sectarian group called the Essenes, according to nearly 200 textiles discovered in caves at Qumran, in the West Bank, where the religious texts had been stored. Scholars are divided about who authored the Dead Sea Scrolls and how the texts got to Qumran, and so the new finding could help clear up this long-standing mystery. The research reveals that all the textiles were made of linen, rather than wool, which was the preferred textile used in ancient Israel. Also they lack decoration, some actually being bleached...

JERUSALEM — Two thousand years after they were written and decades after they were found in desert caves, some of the world-famous Dead Sea Scrolls went online for the first time on Monday in a project launched by Israel's national museum and web giant Google. The appearance of five of the most important Dead Sea scrolls on the Internet is part of a broader attempt by the custodians of the celebrated manuscripts — who were once criticized for allowing them to be monopolized by small circles of scholars — to make them available to anyone with a computer. See msnbc.com's...

An intact, sealed, jar has been discovered at Qumran, the site where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in nearby caves. A multinational team of scientists have been analyzing the jar and their findings are set to be published in the journal Archaeometry. If you have a subscription (or access to a library with one) you can already see the article on the publication's website... Altogether nine scientists are credited in the paper. Kaare Lund Rasmussen, of the University of Southern Denmark, is listed at the lead author. The jar itself was excavated in 2004. It was found about 50...

After a decade of intense laboratory tests, a Danish archaeochemist has found a way to enable scientists to precisely date the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ownership of which is currently a bone of contention between Israel and Jordan, according to videnskab.dk. The Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient documents were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in caves near the Qumran Wadi northwest of the Dead Sea. Treatment of the rolls has included them being spread out using plant oil, which in turn made precise carbon dating of the scrolls almost impossible. A Danish archaeochemist and an international team of researchers,...

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been guarded for 60 years like crown jewels, the possessions of a scholarly elite who were challenged only in the past decade to bring the scrolls to the public. Now, there is accumulating and compelling evidence that these supposedly ancient texts are medieval at best and have a connection with China. That connection is raising questions about the manuscripts' true dating, origin and possible authenticity. ........ In 1991, I wrote articles for the Washington Post and Boston Herald about the idea that a number of previously undeciphered markings in the margins of two Dead Sea...

<p>Editor's Note: According to an exhibit at the United States Library of Congress, young Bedouin shepherds, searching for a stray goat in the Judean Desert in 1947, entered a long-untouched cave and found scrolls in a jar and under debris on the floor. That initial discovery by the Bedouins began a search that lasted nearly a decade, eventually producing thousands of scroll fragments from 11 caves.</p>

Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon. Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's...

Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon. Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem. "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's...

Qumran CavesSomething about Israel's latest advertising campaign irked the British Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), and the latter told Israel to change it. Without protest or investigation, Israel did so. The theme of the Israeli ad campaign - in Britain and elsewhere - is, "It takes six hours to cross Israel. Imagine what you can experience in seven days." This motto appeared on the backdrop of various photos of Israeli scenes, one of which was the Qumran Caves - where the Dead Sea Scrolls, including chapters from the Book of Isaiah, were found in the 1940's. Qumran is situated near Kibbutz...

The Tourism Ministry has been forced to change an advertising campaign in Britain in which the Qumran caves were pictured, after the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that it did not consider the site part of Israel, it was reported Saturday. The ASA also reprimanded the Tourism Ministry for not responding to its numerous appeals on the matter. The Tourism Ministry's representative in Britain, Uri Gafni, told Israel Radio that the ministry had no intention whatsoever of claiming that the Qumran caves were in Israeli territory. He said the picture had now been swapped with an image of Masada....

VATICANIn the Cenacle, Passover was probably celebrated without the lamb, says Benedict XV, I indicating that the calendar of the Qumran points to the exact moment of Christ’s death. By laying down His life He gives true meaning to the ancient memorial of freedom from Egypt. Rome (AsiaNews) – Jesus, probably “celebrated the Passover without the lamb” , in so far as the Last Supper may have taken place before the moment in which , according to Hebrew tradition the lambs were sacrificed,  and above all because He himself became the voluntary sacrificial victim, by offering His life as a...

The hidden latrines of the Essenes By Ran Shapira In one of his detailed accounts of the Essenes, Flavius Josephus (Yosef Ben Matityahu), described one of the many laws that shaped the Jewish sect's way of life during the Second Temple period. While the Essenes sat in a circle, Josephus wrote, it was forbidden for them to spit into its center. Like many other laws outlined by Josephus, the details of this law appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls found in caves along the northern end of the Dead Sea. These scrolls are attributed to the Essenes. The resemblance between...