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Biblical scholarship entered the computer age more than 20 years ago, when the computerized analysis of texts began. Only more recently have computers been used on the Dead Sea Scrolls. This kind of computer use may have reached its zenith in the work of Ben Zion Wachholder and Martin G. Abegg, both of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, who are reconstructing the texts of the unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls from a concordance compiled more than 30 years ago (see “BAS Publishes Fascicle Two of DSS Transcripts,” in this issue).
With the advent of computer-imaging systems, however, the field of Dead Sea Scroll research has moved beyond such conventional data-processing applications. Computer imaging allows photographs to be converted into electronic images that can be stored in a computer and displayed and manipulated on the screen. The electronic storage of photos, in combination with a CDROM (disks with enormous memories, similar to the audio CDs that are so popular now), means that some day a single disk with all the Dead Sea Scroll photos may be available.
Computer imaging also enables scholars to employ a variety of research methods 071never before possible. The fragments can be magnified at will, faint traces of script can be enhanced, confusing background “noise” (such as ink smudges and shadows) can be minimized, and the images can be moved around the screen to try to find or to check alternative “joins” between the scroll fragments. In addition, the ability to quickly print out multiple copies of an enhanced or otherwise manipulated photo is a boon to seminars and as a teaching aid. However, Dead Sea Scroll scholar Lawrence H. Schiffman points out that these new capabilities require a note of caution. Enhancement and rearrangements of images generally involve some degree of subjective judgment on the part of the scholar, and so the results should always be regarded as tentative until they can be checked against the actual scroll fragments.
The Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center (ABMC) in Claremont, California, the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies and the Oxford Forum for Qumran Research (see “Dead Sea Scroll Research Burgeoning,” in this issue) are leading the way in this form of high-tech research. The ABMC recently received a major grant of computer equipment from Apple Computer, which will allow the ABMC “to turn all our photographic images into electronic images,” according to Acting Director Bruce Zuckerman. The Oxford Centre, too, has recently acquired computer-imaging equipment—three Macintosh IIci computers, a scanner (Scan-X Professional), a LaserWriter II printer and other support equipment—now available to qualified scholars in the Qumran Room of their library at Yarnton Manor, located five miles outside of Oxford. With this equipment, the Oxford Centre has already begun scanning their complete collection of scroll photographs for storage in electronic form. The Oxford Forum, a part of the Oxford Centre, is now using this equipment in its research in the various ways described above. Dr. Timothy Lim, secretary of the Oxford Forum, notes that the printed-out results of their image processing, circulated before seminars, “are a distinctive feature of the Forum’s study of the unpublished scrolls.”
Biblical scholarship entered the computer age more than 20 years ago, when the computerized analysis of texts began. Only more recently have computers been used on the Dead Sea Scrolls. This kind of computer use may have reached its zenith in the work of Ben Zion Wachholder and Martin G. Abegg, both of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, who are reconstructing the texts of the unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls from a concordance compiled more than 30 years ago (see “BAS Publishes Fascicle Two of DSS Transcripts,” in this issue). With the advent of computer-imaging systems, however, the field of […]