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SHAI HALEVI, COURTESY OF THE ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY

A NEW COVENANT. Fragments of the Covenant of Damascus were discovered in the Qumran caves (4Q266, fragment 11 shown here). This document presents the views of a Second Temple period Jewish sect that fled from Judea.

These manuscripts were included in Fascicle 1 of the Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls, which helped break the Dead Sea Scroll logjam when Hershel Shanks published it in 1991. At the time, editors Martin Abegg, Jr., and Ben Zion Wacholder did not have access to photos of the manuscripts, but when photos became available, the transcriptions they reconstructed from the Preliminary Concordance proved to be very accurate. Today, thanks in part to BAR’s campaign, the Dead Sea Scrolls are available in high definition images—infrared and full spectrum color—for free on the internet for anyone to view. Browse the images for yourself at www.deadseascrolls.org.il.