Manuscripts
Primary Biblical Witnesses
Ancient scrolls, papyri, parchments, fragments, and codices — the physical sources behind every Bible in every language.
Great Isaiah Scroll
1QIsaᵃ
scroll
- Date
- c. 125–100 BCE
- Language
- Hebrew
- Material
- Parchment (leather)
- Provenance
- Qumran Cave 1
One of the seven original Dead Sea Scrolls and the only complete biblical book from Qumran, roughly 1,000 years older than the Masoretic Text.
Dead Sea Scrolls
scroll
- Date
- c. 250 BCE – 70 CE
- Language
- Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek
- Material
- Parchment and papyrus
- Provenance
- Qumran caves, Judean Desert
Revolutionized understanding of Second Temple Judaism and the transmission of the Hebrew Bible.
Ketef Hinnom Silver Scrolls
scroll
- Date
- c. 600 BCE
- Language
- Paleo-Hebrew
- Material
- Silver
- Provenance
- Ketef Hinnom, Jerusalem
The earliest surviving fragment of biblical text, predating the Dead Sea Scrolls by four centuries.