The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Tanakh and extra-Biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name. They were specifically located at Khirbet Qumran in the British Mandate for Palestine, in what is now named the West Bank.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are traditionally divided into three groups:
- “Biblical” manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 40% of the identified scrolls;
- “Apocryphal” or “Pseudepigraphical” manuscripts (known documents from the Second Temple Period like Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc., that were not ultimately canonized in the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and
- “Sectarian” manuscripts (previously unknown documents that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism) like the Community Rule Scroll, War Scroll, Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, and the Rule of the Blessing, which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls.
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