Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The War Scroll, cols. 12-13

One of the original seven scrolls found at Qumran; purchased by Prof. E. L. Sukenik for the Hebrew University in 1948. Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Ardon Bar Hama.

Professor E. L. Sukenik of the Hebrew University, studying the War Scroll (1951)

Source: Hebrew University Archaeology Department, © The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Qumran site: The Scriptorium

Viewed from the Tower. Photo by Elad Vladislovsky for the Orion Center ©.

Qumran cave 4 (southwest of the Qumran site)

Photo by Asher Altshul for the Orion Center ©.

Search the full bibliography

Since the Center began in 1995, it has maintained a weekly online bibliography of the latest in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship. The Current Bibliography is posted every Monday. The cumulative Online Bibliography now features more than 21,000 entries; we are gradually expanding the database to encompass entries dating from the beginnings of scrolls research. Search the full bibliography!

Take a Virtual Qumran Tour

Orion’s Virtual Qumran features a video tour of the site led by archaeologist Professor Jodi Magness, of the University of North Carolina, as well as information pages on the Scrolls and the people who produced them. TAKE the Tour!

Upcoming Events

Reading evening in honor of the launch of Menachem Kister's new book

July 4, 2024

Remember to check the events page for more upcoming online events

More Orion Center News

Now Published!

The Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy: “Clear a Path in the Wilderness!” Proceedings of the Sixteenth International Symposium of the Orion Center. Edited by Esther G. Chazon, Ruth A. Clements, Armin Lange, Adolfo D. Roitman, Lawrence H. Schiffman, and Pnina Shor. Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 147. Leiden: Brill, 2024.

The Textual History of the Bible from the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Biblical Manuscripts of the Vienna Papyrus Collection/ Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Symposium of the Orion Center. Edited by Ruth A. Clements, Russell Fuller, Armin Lange, and Paul D. Mandel Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 137. Leiden: Brill, 2023

Meghillot: Meghillot: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls 16
Edited by Devorah Dimant, Noam Mizrahi and Liora Goldman. Haifa: The University of Haifa; Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies and the Bialik Institute, 2023.
Meghillot-Journal

Scholarships and Internships

Applications are now open for Orion Center Research scholarships. Deadline: May 15, 2023. For application materials, please click here.

The Center also offers the opportunity for students already learning in Jerusalem to volunteer as interns at the Center. For more details, click HERE.

Other Scholarship and Fellowship Opportunities

Dead Sea Scrolls Online

NEW: Congratulations and many thanks to Elisha Qimron on the publication of the second, updated edition of his monumental three volume work, The Qumran Texts Composite Edition, and for graciously sharing it with the Orion community worldwide,

The Israel Museum and the Israel Antiquities Authority have put online searchable digital images of many of the scrolls in their collections. The Cambridge University Library has done the same with its manuscripts of the Damascus Document and the Aramaic Levy Document. Click here to access these collections.

Of special interest

Congratulations to Orion Founder Prof. Michael E. Stone, who just received the prestigious Armenian Medal of Gratitude.

Congratulations to our colleague Prof George J. Brooke, on receiving the Burkitt Medal for Biblical Studies

Honors and awards