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PHOTOGRAPHY BY ARDON BAR-HAMA, SPONSORED BY GEORGE S. BLUMENTHAL

Ancient manuscripts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls lack any markings besides the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet—no vowels, cantillation marks, notes, or the like. One paratextual element, however, exists in these ancient texts and has been preserved since antiquity: the use of white spaces to break up the text into paragraphs. In column 39 of the Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa^a) from Qumran, showing Isaiah 45:21–47:11, are two types of breaks: “closed” breaks that interrupt the text for a short distance within a single line, and “open” breaks that extend to the left-hand margin.