Reconsidering the Date of the En-Gedi Leviticus Scroll (EGLev): Exploring the Limitations of the Comparative-Typological Paleographic Method

Abstract

Abstract Yardeni dated the charred En-Gedi Leviticus scroll (EGLev) to the second half of the first or early second century CE . Paleographic evidence is often ambiguous and can provide only an imprecise basis for dating EGLev. Nevertheless, a series of important typological developments evident in the hand of EGLev suggests a date somewhat later than the Dead Sea Scrolls of the first–second centuries, but clearly earlier than comparanda from the sixth–eighth centuries. The cumulative supporting evidence from the archeological context, bibliographic/voluminological details (wooden roller and metallic ink), format and layout (tall, narrow columns)—each individually indeterminative—also suggests dating EGLev to the period from the third–sixth centuries CE . I argue that EGLev should be dated to the third–fourth centuries CE , with only a small possibility that it could have been written in the second or fifth centuries, which is possibly supported by radiocarbon dating.