Dead Sea Scrolls - Older Than First Thought
The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of approximately 15,000scrolls and fragments, were discovered in eleven different caves near the cityof Qumran. The original scrolls were discovered by Bedouin Shepherds in 1947.Other scrolls and fragments continued to be found over the next ten years andare thought to make up some 972 different manuscripts. Now, a new study usingAI (Artificial Intelligence) has shown the scrolls may be even older than initiallythought.
The scrolls contained all but one book of the Bible’s OldTestament and were thought to be
approximately 2,000 years old. Along with thebiblical materials were a large number of other parchments. Interestingly, thetext found in the Dead Sea Scrolls matched almost perfectly with the currentBible texts. This offers proof that the Bible text has been accurately passeddown for more than twenty centuries.
The new study examined several Dead Sea Scrolls,particularly the book of Daniel. Original evaluation and evidence allowedresearchers to date the scroll back to approximately 160 B.C. This is just onegeneration after the author of the book, Daniel, is said to have lived. TheBook of Daniel was primarily a tale of Daniel's life, who was a Jewishexile in Babylon.
Many scholars claim that Daniel could not be the authorbecause of prophecies in the book that they considered too accurate. Theybelieved the writing was historical and was written well after the events itdepicts. The new study allowed an AI program trained in Paleographic data toexamine the scroll. The program, named ‘Enoch’, determined the scroll was olderthan originally thought and placed its age at approximately 230 B.C. This iscritical because it places the age of the scroll back to the time in which Daniellived. This means that Daniel could havebeen the author after all.
The study also performed radiocarbon dating on 27 samples. Whenthey compared the radiocarbon results with the AI analysis, two of the sampleswere found to be younger than the AI suggested, while 25 were found to beolder. This raises confidence in the claim that the scroll (4Q114) was notwritten a generation after Daniel lived, but was written during his lifetime. Itwould seem the traditional author of the Book of Daniel was likely correctafter all.
