The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

14 DIGITAL MIRACLES
Figure 6: The bottom lines demark the periodicity of the degradation,
which indicates the diameter of the rolled scroll. The upper line measures
the same distance from the discovered characters to their origin in
column 16 of the Temple Scroll.
in column 17 (counted from the top) is aligned with the sixth line in column
16. The measured horizontal separation places the new characters
within the missing region of column 16.
At the left edge of the “missing” region of column 16 is the left half of
the character sin. Also, one of the characters that appears in reverse on the
back side of column 17 is the right half of a sin. When the new characters
visible in column 17 are moved to the position indicated from the measurements
of the period of the rolled scroll, the two halves of the sin match
precisely and the character is reformed as seen through the parchment
from the front. This merging of characters from columns 16 and 17 is
shown in figure 7. Our measurements, as shown in this figure, confirm
Professor Charlesworth’s conclusion that these new characters originated
in the gap in column 16 and constitute previously unknown text.
At this time, we have examined only a very few columns of the Temple
Scroll using these digital imaging techniques. Preliminary investigation of
a few other columns indicates that other discoveries are likely.