14 DAY TRIAL // In 1970, a badly burnt scroll dating back to 1,500 years ago was discovered by archaeologists in a synagogue at Ein Gedi in Israel.
It took them quite a while but, courtesy to high-resolution scanning technologies, researchers have at long last managed to decipher this ancient manuscript.
Thus, scientist Brent Seales at the University of Kentucky and his colleagues say the scroll has verses from the Book of Leviticus, which is the third book of the Hebrew Bible, inscribed on it.
The long lost text is written in Hebrew and the verses are from the beginning of the Book of Leviticus, the researcher team who deciphered it go on to detail.
According to specialist Brent Seales and fellow researchers, the text is the oldest excerpt from the Hebrew Bible discovered after the Dead Sea scrolls.
“To date, this is the most ancient scroll from the five books of the Hebrew Bible to be found since the Dead Sea scrolls,” the team write in a report describing their work deciphering it.
To read the text, the scientists used a micro-computed tomography machine to scan it and reveal the words inscribed on it. Had they tried to simply open it, the manuscript would have broken apart.
In case anyone was wondering, here are the first 8 verses of the Book of Leviticus that the researchers unveiled with the help of the micro-computed tomography machine:
“The Lord summoned Moses and spoke to him from the tent of meeting, saying: Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When any of you bring an offering of livestock to the Lord, you shall bring your offering from the herd or from the flock. If the offering is a burnt-offering from the herd, you shall offer a male without blemish; you shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, for acceptance in your behalf before the Lord. You shall lay your hand on the head of the burnt-offering, and it shall be acceptable in your behalf as atonement for you. The bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord; and Aaron’s sons the priests shall offer the blood, dashing the blood against all sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting. The burnt-offering shall be flayed and cut up into its parts. The sons of the priest Aaron shall put fire on the altar and arrange wood on the fire. Aaron’s sons the priests shall arrange the parts, with the head and the suet, on the wood that is on the fire on the altar.”
