Why does this give me a bad feeling? It’s certainly not the idea of easier access to these very important, ancient documents… but who’s in charge of doing this and why.
Google certainly has no history of being a hero of free speech or helpful in favoring the propagation of unbiased truth. They definitely have never had a reputation of supporting Christian values or interests.
The scrolls themselves are housed within the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
There’s no question about the opposition of Rockefeller goals and Christianity in general. Quite a number of scrolls discovered at Qumran have never been made public and i highly doubt that will change now.
Google is solidly under the auspices of the NSA, which is solidly in alignment with international globalists, as are all things Rockefeller. My concern is that what will become available to research on the internet will be adulterated intentionally for the purpose of misconstruing biblical truth to fit a secularized or Paganized ideology.
The digital version is already being touted as “better” than the original. One might automatically assume that “better” simply means more legibly clear, but out of the mouth of an official with Israel’s Antiquities Authority comes the suggestion that theological doctrine itself might be changed by “new” discoveries in the Googled scrolls.
We should keep these things in mind and not be too quick to even believe what we can see if information becomes presented to the public by way of “new and improved” digital Dead Sea Scroll revelation.
The veracity of what gets shown on the internet in the way of images of the scrolls or translations of them are no less susceptible to alteration than your average picture in Photoshop. The trustworthiness of any new information coming out of them is only as good as the trustworthiness of those making it available.
Photo by: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post
“For decades, access to 500 scrolls was limited to a small group of scholar-editors with exclusive authorisation from Israel to assemble the jigsaw puzzle of fragments, and to translate and publish them. That changed in the early 1990s when much of the previously unpublished text was brought out in book form.
“But even now, access for researchers is largely restricted at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the originals are preserved in a dark, temperature-controlled room.
“Miss Shor said scholars must receive permission to view the scrolls from the authority, which receives about one request a month. Most are given access, but because no more than two people are allowed into the viewing room at once, scheduling conflicts arise. Researchers are permitted three hours with only the section they have requested to view placed behind glass.
“Putting the scroll online will give scholars unlimited time with the pieces of parchment and may lead to new hypotheses, Shor said.
“This is the ultimate puzzle that people can now rearrange and come up with new interpretations,” she said…
“The more accessible the fragments are the better. Any new line, any new letter, any better reading is a great happiness for scholars in this field…””
Dead Sea Scroll Fragments of 1Enoch
“The $3.5m. project will enable the IAA to use digital imaging technology that processes each piece with different wavelengths, giving researchers a unique view of the separate layers of each parchment and bringing to light sections of the fragments that have faded with time.”
“”This is the ultimate image you can get of any scroll,” said Pnina Shor, project head of the Dead Sea Scrolls research … Shor explained that the infrared imaging will allow the researchers to see parts of the fragments that have turned black with age..”
“IAA hopes to start using the technology in two to three months, after which they will partner with Google-Israel to upload the images to the Internet.”
“The first images will be available to the public in the spring of 2011, though it will take a long time for the IAA to scan the 30,000 fragments that make up 900 separate manuscripts of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
Time No Longer 