Dating the Dead Sea Scrolls Using Computational Linguistics Tools

Remnants of more than 900 distinct literary works, known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, were discovered in Qumran. While these texts were undoubtedly written before 70 CE, the exact composition dates of each scroll and their literary connections are subjects of ongoing debate among scholars.

This project employs computational linguistic tools to address this issue. By utilizing machine learning models and algorithms, we compare the language of the DSS to Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, aiming to uncover linguistic affinities between the scrolls and these corpora. This allows us to determine which texts retain more features of ancient Hebrew and which exhibit more innovative characteristics, potentially leading to a relative dating of the scrolls.