(c) Images Courtesy of the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library. Photo, Shai Halevi. www.deadseascrolls.org.il

Five Temple Scroll copies were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The most famous, 11Q19, stretches twenty-eight feet—the longest scroll discovered—containing the complete text. This appears to be a law book reworking biblical laws for its contemporary period. Written as direct divine revelation from Mount Sinai, it quotes extensively from the first five biblical books but notably omits Moses’ name wherever it originally appeared. The scroll commands building a massive temple complex unlike either Jerusalem Temple, and institutes a festival calendar including many non-biblical celebrations. The temple and city dimensions seem unrealistically vast. Yet the author wasn’t describing an end-times utopia but proper temple conduct for his lifetime—evident from his mention of an even greater temple God would build in the final days. Scholars debate whether this is a sectarian composition or an earlier text the Dead Sea community adopted. Its laws parallel distinctively sectarian works like the Damascus Document and Community Rule, though differences exist. The displayed fragments discuss annual festivals, including new non-biblical celebrations. Fifty days after Passover comes the biblical Feast of First Fruits, followed by two new festivals—the Feast of New Wine and the Feast of New Oil.

Col. IV

Detail translation

1 On which you brought the new offering to the LORD, the b]read of the first fruits, seven wee[ks. It will be seven]

2 [full Sabbaths up to the morning of the] seventh [Sabbath] you will count fifty [days, and o]f[f]er

3 [new wine for the libation, four hin (liquid measure) for all the tribes of] Israel, a third of a hin for each

4 [tribe. And on that day] all [the heads of the thousands of Israel will offer with this wine an offering] to the LORD tw[el]ve

5 [ra]ms, and their offering according to the regulation, two-

6 [tenths of finest flour mixed with oil, a third of a h]in of oil for each ram with this libation

7 [and they will offer a burnt-offering: two bullocks, one ram, and] seven yearling [lamb]s and [one] he

8 [goat, as a sin-offering to atone for all the people of the] assembly.

[xxx] = restoration of missing text based on other versions of the same text or scholarly research

LORD = the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God in the Hebrew Bible