Here is the last of the presentations. This was the first one I delivered, so the handout was in bullet form rather than paragraph form. Hopefully it still has useful information for the curious out there.
The Dead Sea Scrolls
Significance
∞ Gave a look into the life of the Essenes sect of Judaism
∞ Scrolls hidden during First Jewish Revolt circa 66-70 C.E.
∞ Oldest surviving manuscripts of the OT
o Gave great support for the accuracy of the Masoretic Text (MT)
o Only 13 significant variances between the two in Isaiah[1]
∞ All books of the OT canon are present in some form except Esther[2]
∞ A complete copy of Isaiah, 1QIsaa, dates back to 100 B.C.E.
o Previous complete books dated only to 895 C.E. from Cairo[3]
∞ Non-canonical books include: Enoch, Jubilees, Manual of Discipline, War Scroll
