Books of the Bible included in the Dead Sea Scrolls

QUESTION: Books of the Bible included in the Dead Sea Scrolls – How many of the Bible's books are represented?

ANSWER:

Thirty-eight of the thirty-nine books of the Protestant Old Testament are represented among the Dead Sea Scrolls. None of the 27 books of the New Testament have been conclusively identified. There has been some speculation that some very small, very fragmented pieces of scroll are from the New Testament; four fragments from Mark and one each from Acts, Romans, 1 Timothy, and James. This view is not generally accepted by scroll scholars however, and remains a fringe theory.

The books of the Old Testament are included among the Dead Sea Scrolls, with only the book of Esther missing. The portions of the books of the Bible that are included are for the most part very fragmentary, with one notable exception being the Great Isaiah Scroll. Nevertheless, the fragments that we have are sufficient to teach scholars a great deal about the transmission and integrity of the text over thousands of years.