Computer scientists at the University of Kentucky together with Jerusalem's biblical scholars has now come to the extent of using new technology that unlocks the secrets of a digital image of the scroll found half a century ago at the Western Shore of the Dead Sea.
The New York Times reported that it is believed that the scroll holds a fragmented identical to the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible at nearly 2,000 years old.
"We have never found something as striking as this," Dr Tov said in an interview. " This is the earliest evidence of the exact form of the medieval text," he continued about Masoretic text.
With the use of a specialized computer, the writing was retrieved from the digital image of the unopened scroll. At the same time, this machine alternately showed a clear and legible interpretation in contrast to the scrolls beaten-up exterior.
"Never in our wildest dreams did we think anything would come of it," said Pnina Shor, Head of the Dead Scrolls Project located at the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Jewishworldreview published an article explaining that the first bits of analysis, reveal that the 1,500-year-old En-Gedi scroll contains the book of Leviticus written in Hebrew, making it the oldest Pentateuchal scroll ever found in Hebrew outside of the Dead Sea.
"We may safely date this scroll to between A.D. 50 and 100," according to Ada Yardeni, an expert with regards to Hebrew Paleography. But the time of this En-Gedi scroll is subject to conflicting evidence.
Inspired by many charred and mystery scrolls found at Herculaneum, W. Brent Seales, a computer scientist at the University of Kentucky made this text recovering possible through the image software which he developed. He has been working for 13 years finding ways to read the text inside the mystery scrolls, and now his research earned what he pays for it.
