![1QIsa b](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/1QIsa_b.jpg)
1QIsa
b is a fragmentary copy of the
Book of Isaiah
The Book of Isaiah ( he, ספר ישעיהו, ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC ...
found at
Qumran
Qumran ( he, קומראן; ar, خربة قمران ') is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli ...
Cave 1 by
Bedouin
The Bedouin, Beduin, or Bedu (; , singular ) are nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Bedouin originated in the Syrian Desert and A ...
from the Ta'amireh tribe in 1947.
It was discovered along with and grouped and sold together with two other
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the nor ...
, the
Thanksgiving Hymn and the
War Scroll
''The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness'', also known as War Rule, Rule of War and the War Scroll, is a manual for military organization and strategy that was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The manuscript was among the ...
.
History
Eleazar Sukenik
Eleazar Lipa Sukenik (12 August 1889, in Białystok – 28 February 1953, in Jerusalem) was an Israeli archaeologist and professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is best known for helping establish the Department of Archaeology at the ...
purchased the scroll from an antiquities dealer in
Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
named Faidi Salahi, who had purchased the scroll from the Bedouin, on December 21, 1947.
Much of the scroll is dark and blackened, preserved in multiple fragments, and in four major sheets that contain the upper section of the last third of the book.
Paleography
Palaeography ( UK) or paleography ( US; ultimately from grc-gre, , ''palaiós'', "old", and , ''gráphein'', "to write") is the study of historic writing systems and the deciphering and dating of historical manuscripts, including the analysi ...
dates the scroll to the late
Hasmonaean
The Hasmonean dynasty (; he, ''Ḥašmōnaʾīm'') was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity, from BCE to 37 BCE. Between and BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, and ...
or early
Herodian
Herodian or Herodianus ( el, Ἡρωδιανός) of Syria, sometimes referred to as "Herodian of Antioch" (c. 170 – c. 240), was a minor Roman civil servant who wrote a colourful history in Greek titled ''History of the Empire from the Death o ...
period in the first century BCE.
References
Book of Isaiah
1946 archaeological discoveries
Dead Sea Scrolls
1st-century BC biblical manuscripts
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