In a recent development, AI has been deployed to date the Dead Sea Scrolls with astounding accuracy, radically challenging misconceptions regarding their age and the historical timelines they fall under.

The results show that several of the Scrolls might actually be much older than what is assumed, and in some cases, could be from the era of the biblical figures that supposedly wrote them.

Pioneered by the University of Groningen, this multidisciplinary work merges radiocarbon dating, ancient handwriting analysis, and machine learning.

The outcome is Enoch, the first AI system that can derive probabilistic dates from the script of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts, providing estimates based solely on the script’s stylistic elements.

“With the Enoch tool we have opened a new door into the ancient world, like a time machine, that allows us to study the hands that wrote the Bible, especially now that we have established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors,” say the authors. (Read more. from “New Analysis Reflects That Dead Sea Scrolls May Date to Time of Their Biblical Authors” HERE)