The Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest known version of the Bible that came to light 70 years ago, began to be studied successfully with the help of artificial intelligence technology. Utilizing this advanced technology the researchers initially tested the largest of these texts, known as “Isaiah the Great Papyrus.” The first findings show that the text was composed by two different writers who copied the words from elsewhere, using almost identical graphic characters.
The papyri and parchments that make up the Dead Sea Scrolls were found about 70 years ago by a Bedouin in a cave in the Qumran area, which is now part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The manuscripts have been dated to the 3rd century BC. and are written in three languages: Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. Isaiah’s papyrus stands out among the approximately 950 different texts discovered because of the way it is written. The entire text of the papyrus is divided into 54 columns, divided into two and perfectly symmetrical.
Researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands used artificial intelligence, initially analyzing a single letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the aleph. This letter was found on Isaiah’s papyrus more than 5,000 times. Photographing the letter as many times as it appeared and analyzing the digital images the researchers concluded that “traces of ink on the surface indicate very specific muscle movements, referring to a unique person who would write the text”.
Further analysis and minimal differences in the letters, however, made the scientists understand that the text was eventually written by two people with a very similar graphic character. “The most likely scenario is that the text was written by two different writers, who worked close to each other, trying to maintain a similar writing style, inevitably revealing, in detail, their differences,” the text concluded.
The two scribes are presumed to have received the same education, either in the context of a school or through their family environment. For example, as the scholars say, the scribes could be “brothers who had been taught to write by their father.”