Hebrew experts decipher Dead Sea Scroll

ISRAELI scholars have pieced together and deciphered one of two previously unread manuscripts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, more than half a century after their discovery.

The more than 60 tiny fragments of parchment bearing encrypted Hebrew writing had previously been thought to come from a variety of different scrolls, an Israeli university has said.

However, Eshbal Ratson and Jonathan Ben-dov, of Haifa University’s Bible studies department, found the pieces all fitted together after they started examining them almost a year ago, university spokesman Ilan Yavelberg said. “They put it all together and said it was actually one scroll.”

The university said Ratson and Bendov are now working on deciphering the last remaining scroll out of the 900 discovered between 1947 and 1956 in the Qumran caves above the Dead Sea. The scrolls include the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible.