Jerusalem Treasure Find! Nine Tiny Unopened Dead Sea Scrolls

Teresa Neumann : Mar 21, 2014
Ilan Ben Zion – Times of Israel

The cache of scrolls from the caves at Qumran date from the second and first centuries before Christ and the first century AD—"a critical time in the development of Judaism and early Christianity."

(Jerusalem, Israel)—Scholars have announced the opening of 9 ancient parchments, not much larger than the size of lentils, that were discovered with Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950's, but were "administratively forgotten" for decades. (Photo via Times of Israel)

According to a report in the Times of Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has been tasked with unraveling and preserving the new discoveries.

The parchments were found in phylacteries, or tefillin, which are leather cases containing Biblical passages from Exodus and Deuteronomy.

Said Prina Shor, curator and head of the IAA's Dead Sea Scrolls Project, "Either they didn't realize that these were also scrolls, or they didn't know how to open them."

Professor Lawrence Schiffman of Yeshiva University, was quoted as saying he doesn't expect any bombshells emerging from the new scrolls that will "overturn the concepts that we have… We're going to be able to augment what we know about tefillin already."