The Dead Sea Scrolls Could Have Been Written by the Authors of the Bible

Ancient manuscripts discovered in the Judean desert may be much older than scientists thought. Researchers have re-examined the age of several Dead Sea Scrolls and found that some biblical texts may come from the same period as their original authors, reports theguardian.com.
The study, led by Mladen Popovic and his team at the University of Groningen, is based on preliminary results from radiocarbon dating of 30 scroll fragments found at four sites around Qumran.
Before testing, the team carefully removed the castor oil, a substance used in the 1950s to preserve manuscripts but known to interfere with radiocarbon dating results.
The results confirmed that while two of the samples were newer than expected, most were older than previously dated, and some of them directly coincided with the lifetimes of the biblical authors.
“It’s like a time machine,” Popovich said. “We can shake hands with these people who lived 2,000 years ago.”
In addition to physical tests, the researchers used a machine learning model called Enoch, trained on digital images of ink marks from 24 carbon-dated texts.
When Enoch was tested on additional samples, the dating matched the radiocarbon results 85% of the time and often gave more accurate age estimates. When applied to 135 previously undated scrolls, it successfully dated 79% in line with expert estimates.
Enoch also helped to reveal the overlap in the use of Hasmonean and Herodian scripts and showed that texts such as Ecclesiastes and the Daniel 4Q114 fragment were likely written closer to the time of their hypothetical authors.
Machine learning has an advantage over traditional methods that require physical samples that are partially destroyed during testing. Enoch offers an alternative that preserves the integrity of these rare texts.
“There are more than 1,000 Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts, so our study is a first but important step,” Popovich said.
Experts see wide-ranging implications. Professor Joan Taylor of King’s College London said the findings challenge previous assumptions about Qumran’s role in scroll production.
However, Dr Matthew Collins of the University of Chester urged caution, pointing out that radiocarbon dating reflects the age of a parchment, not necessarily the time it was written, and expressed concern about the limited variety of study data.
However, he acknowledged the model as a valuable addition to the tools available for dating manuscripts.