Dead Sea Scrolls by the Numbers: 11 Caves, 981 Manuscripts and the Great Isaiah Scroll

Late in 1946 or early in 1947, Bedouin shepherds found a cave in the cliffs near Qumran. Inside were tall jars, and some held scrolls wrapped in linen. In the next ten years, eleven caves gave up the oldest Bible manuscripts ever found, about a thousand years older than any copy known before them. Dead Sea Scrolls by the Numbers tells that story in counts, with the whole Great Isaiah Scroll to unroll and read.

Seven pounds and a newspaper ad

Seven scrolls came out of the first cave. Three were sold to a dealer for seven Jordanian pounds, about $28. Four, including the Great Isaiah Scroll, went to the Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan Mar Samuel. On June 1, 1954, those four were offered for sale in an ad in The Wall Street Journal, and Yigael Yadin bought them through intermediaries for $250,000. All seven first scrolls are now in Jerusalem.

Eleven caves, two kinds of hunters

Bedouin found five of the caves. Archaeologists found the other six, often after the Bedouin had been there first. Cave 4 held about 75% of all the Qumran material, about 15,000 pieces from roughly 500 manuscripts, many the size of a fingernail. Cave 10 held a single inscribed potsherd.

The Bible in the caves

About 40% of the identified texts are copies of books of the Hebrew Bible. Psalms leads with 39 copies, and Psalms, Deuteronomy, Genesis and Isaiah top the shelf, the same four books the New Testament quotes most. There are 25 copies of 1 Enoch, more than Isaiah, which Latter-day Saints will find interesting because of Moses 6 and 7.

Unroll the Great Isaiah Scroll

This is the real scroll, photographed end to end: 17 sheets of leather sewn together, 54 columns of Hebrew and all 66 chapters of Isaiah, copied about 125 BC. Tap any column to see the King James translation beside it. Dots mark the 24 places the page connects to the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. About 1 in 3 of Isaiah's 1,292 verses is quoted in the Book of Mormon.

Why the numbers disagree

Ask how many Dead Sea Scrolls there are and you'll hear 900, 930, 972 or 981. None is wrong. They count different things, and fragments get joined and split as scholars work. Wherever the page uses a number, it names the source.

Latter-day Saints and the scrolls

Latter-day Saint scholars have worked on the scrolls for decades, and a few finds have drawn special interest, like the name Mahaway in the Book of Giants and Mahijah in Moses 6. The page presents those with both sides of the scholarly debate. It's also clear about what the scrolls don't contain: baptism for the dead, temple sealing and the priesthood offices of the Restoration are absent. The Church has taken no official position on the scrolls.

Questions

Are the photographs real?

Yes. Every photograph on the page is of the real scrolls and caves, with its credit and license. The paintings are labeled as paintings.

Can I see the scrolls myself?

The Israel Museum's Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem holds the first seven, and its Digital Dead Sea Scrolls site lets you zoom into the Isaiah Scroll. The Copper Scroll is on display at the Jordan Museum in Amman.

Is this an official Church resource?

No. By the Numbers is an independent Weak Things project. The figures come from official Church reports and other published sources, listed on the page.

Keep exploring

• Book of Mormon by the Numbers: the book that quotes Isaiah most
• Old Testament & Pearl of Great Price by the Numbers: the books the scrolls preserve
• New Testament by the Numbers: how its text survived

See all the projects on the By the Numbers page.

Unroll the Isaiah Scroll →