Oldest Biblical Scroll — The Great Isaiah Scroll — to Be Fully Displayed to Public for First Time
Creatrip Team
4 months ago
Israel Museum in Jerusalem will exhibit the full Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the oldest known Hebrew Bible manuscripts, during its 60th anniversary show “A Voice from the Desert.” The Isaiah scroll, discovered near Qumran in caves along the Dead Sea between 1947 and the 1950s, dates to around 125 BCE and spans 734 cm, containing all 66 chapters of Isaiah. Researchers say it matches the modern Masoretic (Hebrew Bible) text by more than 95%. The multi-month exhibition recreates the discovery journey from the desert caves and presents new findings about how ancient communities produced, used, and preserved scrolls — including materials, scribal practices, and textual history. The display offers visitors a rare chance to see the entire original scroll (the Isaiah “great” scroll) and to study the early form of square Hebrew script, important for both religious and historical-cultural scholarship.
