Dead Sea Scrolls - Older Than First Thought

 The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of approximately 15,000 scrolls and fragments, were discovered in eleven different caves near the city of Qumran. The original scrolls were discovered by Bedouin Shepherds in 1947. Other scrolls and fragments continued to be found over the next ten years and are thought to make up some 972 different manuscripts. Now, a new study using AI (Artificial Intelligence) has shown the scrolls may be even older than initially thought.

The scrolls contained all but one book of the Bible’s Old Testament and were thought to be

approximately 2,000 years old. Along with the biblical materials were a large number of other parchments. Interestingly, the text found in the Dead Sea Scrolls matched almost perfectly with the current Bible texts. This offers proof that the Bible text has been accurately passed down for more than twenty centuries.

The new study examined several Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly the book of Daniel. Original evaluation and evidence allowed researchers to date the scroll back to approximately 160 B.C. This is just one generation after the author of the book, Daniel, is said to have lived. The Book of Daniel was primarily a tale of Daniel's life, who was a Jewish exile in Babylon.

Many scholars claim that Daniel could not be the author because of prophecies in the book that they considered too accurate. They believed the writing was historical and was written well after the events it depicts. The new study allowed an AI program trained in Paleographic data to examine the scroll. The program, named ‘Enoch’, determined the scroll was older than originally thought and placed its age at approximately 230 B.C. This is critical because it places the age of the scroll back to the time in which Daniel lived.  This means that Daniel could have been the author after all.

The study also performed radiocarbon dating on 27 samples. When they compared the radiocarbon results with the AI analysis, two of the samples were found to be younger than the AI suggested, while 25 were found to be older. This raises confidence in the claim that the scroll (4Q114) was not written a generation after Daniel lived, but was written during his lifetime. It would seem the traditional author of the Book of Daniel was likely correct after all.