Radiocarbon Dating and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Comment on "Redating"

‘On scrolls and fragments’ explores the physical difficulties in working with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Firstly: how does one define a scroll? There is not a single, complete scroll in the entire collection, and questions exist about how many scrolls there were originally. Counting the scrolls is also difficult—are two fragments of the same scroll distinct? The scroll fragments are grouped together according to language, content, and handwriting, with obvious joins between fragments providing definitive proof that they are related. Handwriting was taught through scribal traditions, and as such palaeography is difficult but not impossible. Radiocarbon dating using accelerometer mass spectrometry has accurately dated the scrolls.

Download Full-text

The Effects of Possible Contamination on the Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls II: Empirical Methods to Remove Castor Oil and Suggestions for Redating

Radiocarbon ◽

10.1017/s0033822200034081 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 1005-1022 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Kaare Lund Rasmussen ◽

Johannes van der Plicht ◽

Gregory Doudna ◽

Frederik Nielsen ◽

Peter Højrup ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Amino Acids ◽

Castor Oil ◽

Radiocarbon Dating ◽

Soxhlet Extraction ◽

Dead Sea Scrolls ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Empirical Methods ◽

Advantages And Disadvantages ◽

The Dead ◽

East Jerusalem

While kept at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, many Dead Sea Scroll fragments were exposed to castor oil by the original team of editors in the course of cleaning the parchments. Castor oil must be regarded as a serious contaminant in relation to radiocarbon dating. If modern castor oil is present and is not removed prior to dating, the 14C dates will be skewed artificially towards modern values. In Rasmussen et al. (2001), it was shown that the standard AAA pretreatment procedure used in the 2 previous studies dating Dead Sea Scroll samples (Bonani et al. 1992; Jull et al. 1995) is not capable of removing castor oil from parchment samples. In the present work, we show that it is unlikely that castor oil reacts with the amino acids of the parchment proteins, a finding which leaves open the possibility of devising a cleaning method that can effectively remove castor oil. We then present 3 different pretreatment protocols designed to effectively remove castor oil from parchment samples. These involve 3 different cleaning techniques: extraction with supercritical CO2, ultrasound cleaning, and Soxhlet extraction—each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Our data show that the protocol involving Soxhlet extraction is the best suited for the purpose of decontaminating the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we recommend that this protocol be used in further attempts to 14C date the Dead Sea Scrolls. If such an attempt is decided on by the proper authorities, we propose a list of Scroll texts, which we suggest be redated in order to validate the 14C dates done earlier by Bonani et al. (1992) and Jull et al. (1995).

Download Full-text

Radiocarbon Dating of Fourteen Dead Sea Scrolls

Radiocarbon ◽

10.1017/s0033822200064158 ◽

1992 ◽

Vol 34 (3) ◽

pp. 843-849 ◽

Cited By ~ 38

Author(s):

Georges Bonani ◽

Susan Ivy ◽

Willy Wölfli ◽

Magen Broshi ◽

Israel Carmi ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mass Spectrometry ◽

Old Testament ◽

Accelerator Mass Spectrometry ◽

Radiocarbon Dating ◽

Dead Sea Scrolls ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Direct Information ◽

Western Shore ◽

The Dead

The name Dead Sea Scrolls refers to some 1200 manuscripts found in caves in the hills on the western shore of the Dead Sea during the last 45 years. They range in size from small fragments to complete books from the holy scriptures (the Old Testament). The manuscripts also include uncanonized sectarian books, letters and commercial documents, written on papyrus and parchment. In only a few cases, direct information on the date of writing was found in the scrolls. In all other cases, the dating is based on indirect archaeological and paleographical evidence. To check this evidence, radiocarbon ages of 14 selected scrolls were determined using accelerator mass spectrometry. The calibrated radiocarbon ages agree well, except in one case, with the paleographic estimates or the specific dates noted on the scrolls.

Download Full-text

An Assessment of the Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Radiocarbon ◽

10.1017/s0033822200065036 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 35 (2) ◽

pp. 335-338 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

G. A. Rodley

Keyword(s):

Statistical Analysis ◽

Radiocarbon Dating ◽

Dead Sea Scrolls ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Precise Information ◽

The Dead

I suggest, on the basis of a statistical analysis, that recently determined “conventional radiocarbon ages” of Dead Sea Scroll documents are offset systematically by about +40 yr, leading to a similar overestimate of the ages of these documents. Much closer agreement with paleographic and specific dates is obtained when a correction of this magnitude is made to the “conventional 14C” values. This indicates that 14C dates may convey more precise information about the ages of these documents than initially recognized.

Download Full-text

Reconsidering the Date of the En-Gedi Leviticus Scroll (EGLev): Exploring the Limitations of the Comparative-Typological Paleographic Method

Textus ◽

10.1163/2589255x-02701004 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 44-84

Author(s):

Drew Longacre

Keyword(s):

Radiocarbon Dating ◽

Dead Sea Scrolls ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Second Century ◽

Supporting Evidence ◽

The Third ◽

The Dead

AbstractYardeni dated the charred En-Gedi Leviticus scroll (EGLev) to the second half of the first or early second century CE. Paleographic evidence is often ambiguous and can provide only an imprecise basis for dating EGLev. Nevertheless, a series of important typological developments evident in the hand of EGLev suggests a date somewhat later than the Dead Sea Scrolls of the first–second centuries, but clearly earlier than comparanda from the sixth–eighth centuries. The cumulative supporting evidence from the archeological context, bibliographic/voluminological details (wooden roller and metallic ink), format and layout (tall, narrow columns)—each individually indeterminative—also suggests dating EGLev to the period from the third–sixth centuries CE. I argue that EGLev should be dated to the third–fourth centuries CE, with only a small possibility that it could have been written in the second or fifth centuries, which is possibly supported by radiocarbon dating.

Download Full-text

Use of Radiocarbon Dating in Assessing Christian Connections to the Dead Sea Scrolls

Radiocarbon ◽

10.1017/s0033822200019524 ◽

1999 ◽

Vol 41 (2) ◽

pp. 169-182 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

G A Rodley ◽

B E Thiering

Keyword(s):

Radiocarbon Dating ◽

Dead Sea Scrolls ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Radiocarbon Dates ◽

Christian Origins ◽

The Dead

We present an analysis of radiocarbon dates on Dead Sea Scrolls that have a bearing on the question of the Scroll documents’ relation to Christian origins. We assess details of dating reports, discuss paleographical evidence, and consider the content of the documents. When collated, these findings may be seen as compatible with a view that personalities mentioned in the Scrolls were contemporary with the founders of Christianity.

Download Full-text

The Effects of Possible Contamination on the Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls I: Castor Oil

Radiocarbon ◽

10.1017/s0033822200031702 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 127-132 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Kaare L Rasmussen ◽

Johannes van der Plicht ◽

Frederick H Cryer ◽

Gregory Doudna ◽

Frank M Cross ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Castor Oil ◽

Radiocarbon Dating ◽

Dead Sea Scrolls ◽

Dead Sea ◽

Oil Contamination ◽

Cleaning Procedures ◽

The Dead

Some fragments of the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts were contaminated with castor oil in the late 1950s. We have conducted experiments in order to establish if the AAA pretreatment cleaning procedures conducted on Dead Sea Scroll manuscript samples in the last two dating series (Bonani et al. 1992; Jull et al. 1995) were effective in removing oil contamination. Our experiments show that not all oil contamination can be expected to have been removed by the acid-alkaline-acid (AAA) pretreatment, and that the radiocarbon ages previously reported therefore cannot be guaranteed to be correct. Any samples contaminated with castor oil were most likely reported with ages that are too young by an unknown amount.

Download Full-text