Computers Decipher Burnt Scroll Found In Ancient Holy Ark (nationalgeographic.com)

bsharma writes: Scientists have formally announced their reconstruction of the Ein Gedi Scroll, the most ancient Hebrew scroll since the Dead Sea Scrolls. This was done by CAT scanning the burnt scrolls and virtually reconstructing the layers of scrolls with ink blobs on them. National Geographic reports: "For decades, the Israel Antiquities Authority guarded the document, known as the Ein Gedi Scroll, careful not to open it for fear that the brittle text would shatter to pieces. But last year, scientists announced that they had scanned, virtually unrolled, and translated the scroll's hidden verses -- a feat now formally described in the scientific literature. Based on preliminary scans, [Brent Seales of the University of Kentucky, who specialized in digitally reconstructing damaged texts,] and his colleagues announced in 2015 that the Ein Gedi Scroll was a biblical text from the sixth century A.D. containing a column of text from the book of Leviticus. But the full CT scan results, published on Wednesday in Science Advances, tell a deeper story. Further analysis revealed an extra column of text, ultimately fleshing out the first two chapters of Leviticus -- ironically, a book that begins with God's instructions for burnt offerings. What's more, radiocarbon dating of the scroll suggests that it may be between 1,700 and 1,800 years old, at least 200 years older than previously thought. In fact, the scroll's distinctive handwriting hearkens back to the first or second century A.D., some five centuries earlier than the date ascribed to the scroll last year." University of Cambridge lecturer James Aitken told Smithsonian's Devin Powell in 2015: "There's little of surprise in finding a Leviticus scroll. We probably have many more copies of it than any other book, as its Hebrew style is so simple and repetitive that it was used for children's writing exercises."

Comments

How much do they vary?

[Khomar]

You make an assertion that there are "dramatic" changes in the text, but is that true?

Here is an example of analysis of the Great Isaiah Scroll from the Dead Sea scroll find. It dates to 200 B.C., only 500 years after Isaiah wrote the original and over one thousand years older than the previously used manuscript (used in the King James Version of the Bible).

Is that a "dramatic" change the closer you get?

Re:How much do they vary?

[AthanasiusKircher]

One of the reasons the Hebrew text was stable was because they used checksums when copying. Each letter in the Hebrew alphabet is also used as a number. That made it easy to calculate checksums for each line of text.

Actually, there were a number of reasons for the stability. The "checksums," as you put it, were more associated with medieval Kabbalistic practices that date from probably more than a millennium after the "stable" version had basically been established. (And I'm not sure any scribes actually did this sort of "checksumming" in this way on any scale; only the "Bible code" wackos today seem to think so.)

Instead, you had a confluence of a number of factors:

(1) A tremendous set of ritualistic requirements for copying came about at a very early stage, which made copying the Torah distinct from any other scribal task. Scribes were required to take extra care with everything from ink quality to page layout. And they were to make verbal checks when copying every word, as well as other various checks (but mostly involved counting words and letters, not "summing" them).

(2) A rabbinical tradition was already in place nearly 2000 years ago which created a giant commentary on top of the actual text. Rabbis emphasized that even a single error in a single letter could create problems in accurate commentary, and the commentary itself often depended on tiny details of wording. (Remember all those stories of Jesus where he criticizes the "elders" and such for paying too much attention to details of the text so they forgot the broader meaning... that's what he was talking about. It was a new fad at that time, which caught on.) Hence, even if an error in copying occurred in the text, you could spot it by the fact that it disagreed with the commentaries by learned rabbis. (It's sort of like if you had documentation for code that explained every single operation in detail. Even if the original code became corrupted, you could reconstruct it from the documentation.)

(3) Finally, you had the fact that a lot of Jews were slaughtered by the Romans and other folks in the early centuries of the first millennium, around the time many of these exacting traditions had developed. Thus, any competing editions/variants were likely to be lost (burned down with synagogues, etc.), with only a few official copies preserved. Those few copies -- whatever their source -- then became the dominant text once the others had been lost.

So yeah, scribes could check the text in many ways, but there were various events and ideologies that helped that process along.

Re:"it was used for children's writing exercises"

[Ol Olsoc]

Atheism is a religion for most who 'believe' in it.

Every Sunday, atheists gather in their athiest churches (tax exempt by the way) and pray to (no one) to show theiir lack of faith in no one.

Then at night, before they go to bed, they pray to (no one) to keep themselves and their family safe and healthy.

Likewise, in times of stress, they also pray to (no one) petitioning (no one) for an outcome they desire.

Then after a hopefully long life lived according to their belief in (no one), when they shift this mortal coil, the eternal soul that they don't have will forever be in teh presence of (no one)

I think you are mistaking the fact that atheists, like all humans, can be assholes, just like the people of faith in a deity can be assholes at time.

Finally, the faithful tend to think about their particular deity all the time. I know I only think about a deity when we have these discussions and people try to tell me I have a religion. As a recovering Catholic, I know the difference well. But otherwise nope, sorry, no religion here.

Re:And they discovered that Slashdot has gone to H

[AthanasiusKircher]

The science behind this is pretty amazing, and could lead to being able to read other ancient burned documents like those found at Herculaneum from the time of its destruction by Vesuvius.

Just to note -- the computer techniques for reconstructing text from scrolls here were actually developed within a project for analyzing the scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. This biblical scroll application was just another use of this computer analysis technique, showing its power to deal with even very badly burned and less intact fragments.