Bits & Pieces

Computers Enhance Scroll Studies

If “making it” in today’s world means being on a computer, then Dead Sea Scroll studies have finally arrived. Two new developments have thrust the scrolls into the digital arena.

The first is the availability on computer of all the information contained in the 14 fascicles of the Dead Sea Scroll Inventory Project: Lists of Documents, Photographs and Museum Plates, prepared by Stephen A. Reed of the Ancient Biblical Manuscripts Center (ABMC) of Claremont, California.^a Like the fascicles, ABMC’s newly launched Electronic Manuscript Center provides such data as document titles, name of the assigned editor, publication status, bibliography, a list of photos by PAM (Palestine Archaeological Museum) number and a list of museum plates that tells what documents are contained on each plate at the Rockefeller Museum (formerly the Palestine Archaeological Museum). Users of the database can, for example, identify in a single procedure all the photos and plates for a particular Dead Sea Scroll document.

Researchers visiting the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center can use the database at no charge. Others can join the Center’s electronic bulletin board for $25 per year (plus phone charges). The Center is at 1325 N. College Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711; inquiries can be made by phone at (714) 621–6451.