Dead Sea Scrolls

American  

plural noun

1. a number of leather, papyrus, and copper scrolls dating from c100 b.c. to a.d. 135, containing partial texts of some of the books of the Old Testament and some non-Biblical scrolls, in Hebrew and Aramaic, and including apocryphal writings, commentaries, hymns, and psalms: found in caves near the NW coast of the Dead Sea beginning in 1947.

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Dead Sea Scrolls British  

plural noun

1. a collection of manuscripts in Hebrew and Aramaic discovered in caves near the Dead Sea between 1947 and 1956. They are widely held to have been written between about 100 _bc and 68 _ad and provide important biblical evidence

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Dead Sea Scrolls Cultural  

1. A large collection of written scrolls, containing nearly all of the Old Testament, found in a cave near the Dead Sea in the late 1940s. The scrolls were part of a library collected by the Essenes, a religious community of Jews (see also Jews) that flourished for a few centuries around the time of Jesus. The scrolls are highly valued for the information they give about the Bible (see also Bible) and about Judaism in the period.

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Example Sentences

The oldest copies of Biblical text ever found were the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were discovered in caves in 1947.

From Reuters • May 17, 2023

Only the Dead Sea Scrolls and a handful of fragmentary early medieval texts are older, and “an entire Hebrew Bible is relatively rare,” he said.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 22, 2023

Early skepticism about the prominently displayed Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, proved valid when, in 2018, officials acknowledged that five of the 16 fragments were fake.

From Washington Post • Jul. 29, 2021

There are few of the anomalous features that are common in the Dead Sea Scrolls and other texts from later in antiquity, to say nothing of the howlers in many modern forgeries.

From New York Times • Mar. 10, 2021

“She’s almost finished one of the Dead Sea Scrolls and she hates to put it down now that she’s at the good part,” Ben explained.

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy