Thanks to a collaboration between Google and the Israel Museum, the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been put online in a section of the museum site specifically created. Initially, five scrolls have been put on-line but others are being digitized and the project plans to put online almost all those in possession of the museum by 2016.

The online very high resolution versions of the scrolls can be viewed by anyone, with the ability to zoom in on details or out to have an overview, translate them into English – the scrolls are in Hebrew and Aramaic – and have access to additional material.

These scrolls are a total of 972 texts discovered between 1947 and 1956 near the Dead Sea, in particular in the area of Qumran. Some are texts of the Hebrew Bible and some other texts are attributed to the Jewish sect of the Essenes, though over the years various scholars developed some other theories about their origin.

The analysis of the style of the scrolls led to a dating that goes between 250 B.C. and 70 A.D. however a dating done using the method of mass spectrometry and radiocarbon led to believe that they might be as old as until the fourth century B.C. with some scrolls that were tested more than once.

The Dead Sea Scrolls have been the focus of several controversies after their discovery. Until 1966 most of them were kept by the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem but after the Six Day War Israel seized them and gave them to the Israel Museum. Since then Jordan demanded several times their return.

The most heated controversy however focused on access to the scrolls. Obviously it’s impossible to allow anyone to access such ancient scrolls at any time. Over the years however there have been many complaints about the restrictions on the access to the scrolls, considered excessive by many.

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Some accused the Vatican to put pressure to keep silence over the Dead Sea Scrolls. The reason would be that the scrolls concerning the Essenes show how certain elements of Christianity were present before the birth of this religion, also suggesting that Jesus could belong to that sect.

Concerning the possible interference of the Vatican, opinions are very divergent. In such cases it’s almost inevitable that biased personal opinions are formed and it can be hard to tell where the truth ends and where paranoia begins.

Now finally this kind of controversy will be eliminated and everyone can read the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you know Hebrew and Aramaic you can personally verify the validity of the provided translations and possibly give an alternative one.

Whatever you think, the Dead Sea Scrolls are a treasure because they give us elements that we didn’t know about the history of a chaotic period in Palestine. Maybe there are more scrolls still hidden in that area near the Dead Sea that one day will be found and will reveal even more.