BREAKTHROUGH AI decryption has revealed that the iconic Dead Sea Scrolls may be older than boffins previously believed.
Researchers enlisted the help of cutting-edge technology to unearth never-before-seen text on the ancient scrolls.
The bombshell discovery challenges previous scientific research regarding their age and the historic periods they were made in.
And it has suggested that several of the Scrolls could be from the biblical era.
The crucial findings are extremely significant in early Judaism and Christianity studies.
Pioneered by the University of Groningen, the groundbreaking work combines radiocarbon dating, ancient handwriting analysis, and machine learning.
The team created an AI model called Enoch – a nod to the biblical figure who was renowned for his scientific knowledge.
The model’s creators said: “With the Enoch tool we have opened a new door into the ancient world, like a time machine, that allows us to study the hands that wrote the Bible.”
They said their work had “established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors”.
After their mindblowing research, the team dated 135 scroll manuscripts using their model.
In many cases, the AI bot validated previously made estimates of age.
Enoch did however contest some widely-accepted knowledge.
The Scrolls were previously thought to date from around the third century BCE to the second century CE.
But than margin has now been narrowed, with a new uncertainty margin of about 30 years.
In its most striking revelation, Enoch dated two biblical scroll fragments to the periods traditionally associated with their authors.
This unique find was a first in Dead Sea Scroll research.
Enoch found that Hasmonaean-type script appears earlier than the commonly accepted 150-50 BCE date range.
And it also revealed that Herodian script emerged earlier than previously believed, suggesting these two styles coexisted from the late second century BCE.
What are the Dead Sea Scrolls?
by Harvey Geh
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient religious texts found in caves near the Dead Sea in the 1940s and 1950s.
They include some of the oldest known copies of the Bible, dating back over 2,000 years.
The Scrolls were discovered by accident by Bedouin shepherds in from 1946 to 1956 in the West Bank’s Qumran caves.
More than 980 scrolls have been found, written mainly in Hebrew, with some in Aramaic and Greek.
They contain books from the Old Testament, along with hymns, prayers, and other Jewish writings.
Experts theorise they were held by a Jewish sect known as the Essenes.
The Scrolls have helped historians understand how the Bible evolved.
Most are now kept in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, but pieces have been studied and displayed around the world.
Scholars will now be able to better connect the scrolls to pivotal historical events.
This includes ancient developments like the emerging Hasmonaean dynasty, as well as the evolution of new religious movements.
Boffins were able to train Enoch by feeding it 62 digital images of ink traces from 24 of the radiocarbon dated manuscripts, and the carbon-14 dates.
The first parts of the ancient scrolls were discovered in the caves of Qumran in the Judean desert by Bedouin shepherds in the mid 1900s.
They range from legal documents to parts of the Hebrew Bible.
