Open Access Journal: The Orion Center Newsletter

[First posted in AWOL 26 July 2016, updated 19 June 2021]

The Orion Center Newsletter

The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature

The Center aims to stimulate and foster research on the Scrolls, particularly the great task of integrating the new information gained from the Scrolls into the body of knowledge about Jewish history and religion in the Second Temple period. Such integration will affect areas like biblical studies, Jewish literature and thought of the Second Temple Period, earliest Christianity and the New Testament, the study of early rabbinic Judaism, and more.  

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See AWOL's full List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

Scripta Qumranica Electronica

Scripta Qumranica Electronica

The   S C R I P T A   Q U M R A N I C A   E L E C T R O N I C A   project (SQE) is all about bringing the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, first discovered by beduins in 1947 and today curated at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the Shrine of the Book, to the digital age. Its aim is to provide a new standard online platform for Dead Sea Scrolls editing and to prepare pioneer Digital Scholarly Editions of Qumran Texts. It is the intention of the SQE project to provide the public with world-wide free access to its tools for Dead Sea Scrolls research. The resulting dynamic, extensible, and collaborative platform will ultimately set the stage for the next generation of Dead Sea Scrolls research.

By combining two major databases (the digital images of all known Qumran fragments at the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, IAA, Jerusalem, and the textual and linguistic data for all texts included in the Qumran­wörter­buch, Qumran Dictionary, at Göttingen Academy), SQE brings together scholars of the Scrolls and AI as well as database specialists on the one hand, as well as a broader public on the other hand. The highly customized and cutting-edge tools will enable scholars and students of the Scrolls (and more than 25.000 fragments) deeper insights than previously thought possible.

• Home
• Qumranica in Depth
• Personnel
• Project Output
• About the Project

The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library

[First posted in AWOL 18 December 2012, updated 18 November 2018]

The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) is very proud to present the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, a free online digitized virtual library of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Hundreds of manuscripts made up of thousands of fragments – discovered from 1947 and until the early 1960’s in the Judean Desert along the western shore of the Dead Sea – are now available to the public online. The high resolution images are extremely detailed and can be accessed through various search options on the site.

With the generous lead support of the Leon Levy Foundation and additional generous support of the Arcadia Fund, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Google joined forces to develop the most advanced imaging and web technologies to bring to the web hundreds of Dead Sea Scrolls images as well as specially developed supporting resources in a user-friendly platform intended for the public, students and scholars alike.

The launch of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library comes some 11 years after the completion of the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, initiated and sponsored by the IAA, and 65 years after the first scrolls were unearthed in the Caves of Qumran. This digital library is another example of the IAA's vision and mission, to make these ancient texts freely available and accessible to people around the world. The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library represents a new milestone in the annals of the story of one of the greatest manuscript finds of all times.

• The Leon Levy
• dead sea scrolls
• Digital Library

• contact us
• help
• Accessibility Statement
• terms & conditions

• © 2012 Israel Antiquities Authority

• featured scrolls

• explore the archive

• about the project
• A Note From the IAA Director
• The IAA
• The Digital Library
• The Leon Levy and Arcadia Funds

• learn about the scrolls
• Introduction
• Historical Background
• Historical Timeline
• Discovery and Publication
• Discovery Sites
• Scrolls Content
• Languages and Scripts
• Conservation

Latest News

September 4 2018

The papyri from Wadi Daliyeh (Cave of Abu Shinjeh) – A cache of 40 Aramaic papyrus fragments, inscribed seals and coins, and the skeletal... read more »

July 17 2018

Qumran Cave 4 (4Q) – Discovered by Bedouin treasure hunters in 1952, who were exploring right under the noses of archaeologists excavating the... read more »

June 7 2018

For those of you who can not go and see for yourselves, we made a small slideshow showing the scrolls which are now on display in the... read more »

Dead Sea Discoveries: The following 5 articles are now freely accessible until 15 June:

To celebrate the 25th Volume of Dead Sea Discoveries, 25 articles from the past 25 Volumes will be available for free downloading during 2018. The following 5 articles are now freely accessible until 15 June:

• Residential Caves At Qumran, Magen Broshi and Hanan Eshel
  (Volume 6, Number 3)
• Angels at Sinai: Exegesis, Theology and Interpretive Authority,
  Hindy Najman (Volume 7, Number 3)
• Pliny on Essenes, Pliny on Jews, Robert A. Kraft
  (Volume 8, Number 3)
• Scholars, Soldiers, Craftsmen, Elites?: Analysis of French Collection of Human Remains from Qumran, Susan Guise Sheridan (Volume 9, Number 2)
• From Literature to Scripture: Reflections on the Growth of a Text's Authoritativeness, Eugene Ulrich (Volume 10, Number 1)

The Leverhulme International Network Project for the Study of Dispersed Qumran Cave Artefacts and Archival Sources

The Leverhulme International Network Project for the Study of Dispersed Qumran Cave Artefacts and Archival Sources

In the Qumran caves that yielded the Dead Sea Scrolls many jars, lids and other artefacts were discovered by local Bedouin and also in joint Jordanian, French and American excavations (1949-56). Some of these material artefacts were sent to collections worldwide very early on, either gifted or sold. Recently the École Biblique et Archéologique Française of Jerusalem and the ISCAB Lugano started a program for the final report on the Caves of the Qumran Area, dealing mainly with the materials kept in Jerusalem and Amman. The program is directed by Pere Jean-Baptiste Humbert (EBAF) and Marcello Fidanzio (ISCAB). The network for the Dispersed Qumran Caves Artefacts and Archival Sources hopes to  engage with this publication project, by facilitating the study of all the dispersed artefacts enabling more comprehensive new reports. This will provide more information about the Qumran cave artefacts, and contribute to reconstructing a material profile of each cave’s contents. Alongside the analysis of ceramic jars, lids, textiles, leathers and wooden remains, the network will additionally explore the written and photographic dossiers of archaeologists and visitors.

• The Project
• The International Network Team

• Photographic Collections
  • ASOR Photographs of the 1952 Qumran Caves’ Expedition
  • Christopher Davey 1974 Photographs
  • John Allegro Photographs: Private Collection of Mrs Judith Brown

 LINKS TO ONLINE RESOURCES

Open Access to Featured Articles in Revue de Qumrân

Revue de Qumrân
ISSN: 0035-1725

On the occasion of the launch of the Website of the Revue de Qumrân, Gabalda publishing and the editorial board are pleased to offer in open access twelve articles published in the journal between 1958 and today. Most of them have been seminal in one way or another, and all, we think, continue to repay close study. The selection was made to illustrate the diversity of subject matter, scholarly approach, geographic provenance.

	Jean Carmignac, “Note sur les Peshârîm”, RdQ 3 (1962), 342–78.
	Paolo Sacchi, “Il problema degli anni 390 nel Documento di Damasco I:5-6”, RdQ 5 (1964), 89-96.
	John Strugnell, “Notes en Marge du volume V des 'Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan'”, RdQ 7 (1970), 163-273"
	George Brooke, “Qumran Pesher: Towards the Redefinition of a Genre”, RdQ 10 (1981), 483–503.
	Emile Puech, “Un hymne essénien en partie retrouvé et les béatitudes”, RdQ 13 (1988), 59-88.
	Marinus de Jonge, “The Testament of Levi and ‘Aramaic Levi’,” RdQ 13 (1988), 367–85.
	Florentino García Martínez and Adam S. van der Woude, “A ‘Groningen’ Hypothesis of Qumran Early Origins and Early History,” RdQ 14 (1990), 521-541.
	Annette Steudel, “אחרית הימים in the Texts from Qumran”, RdQ 16 (1993), 225–46.
	Emanuel Tov, “Excerpted and Abbreviated Biblical Texts from Qumran,” RdQ 16 (1995), 581-600.
	Harmut Stegemann, “Some Remarks to 1QSa, to 1QSb, and to Qumran Messianism,” RdQ 17 (1996), 479-505.
	Joe Zias, “Qumran archaeology : skeletons with multiple personality disorders and other grave errors,” RdQ 81 (2003), 83-98.
	D. Dimant, “The composite character of the Qumran sectarian literature as an indication of its date and provenance,” RdQ 22 (2006), 615-630.

Updates at the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library

Israel Antiquities Authority Updates Dead Sea Scroll Library

The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scroll Digital Library receives an upgrade, including new content and high-quality photos.

By Tova Dvorin

First Published: 2/4/2014, 1:53 PM

The Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) revamped their Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library Tuesday. 

The IAA launched the library in 2012 as a means of providing an index of the scrolls, as well as analysis and commentary, to any interested researcher or historian. The site has been wildly successful; over half a million people worldwide have visited the site and 25,000 new users enter the site every month.

Updates include over 10,000 new high-quality photographs of the scrolls, content pages in Russian and German, easy access to the site from social media, and a better search engine.

 Read the rest of the press release here.

See AWOL's entry on the The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library