The Great Isaiah Scroll

Shown here is a portion of the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah (1QIs^a) that is believed to date from 125 to 100 B.C.E. It was found in 1947 in a cave in Qumran, near the Dead Sea. The highlighted portion shows Isaiah 61:1, 2, the section Jesus read when he visited the synagogue in Nazareth. The individual sheets that make up this scroll were sewn together with linen thread. The scroll was made of 17 parchment strips averaging about 26.4 cm (10.3 in.) in height and varying in width from about 25.2 cm (nearly 10 in.) to about 62.8 cm (about 25 in.). The scroll is a total of 7.3 m (24 ft) in length in its present state of preservation. It was probably a scroll like this one that Jesus opened and then “found the place” where the prophetic words about the Messiah were written. (Lu 4:17) Also highlighted are the three places where the Tetragrammaton occurs in this passage.