Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library: First Impressions

I have recently laid my hands on a copy of the most recent edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library CD-ROM (with thanks to Machiel Kleemans of Brill Academic Publishers). Here are some of my very first thoughts:

Overall, this CD-ROM is extremely helpful. It allows you to simultaneously read the transcription and translation of all ‘sectarian’ writings, while it also gives a morphological analysis and glosses of every Hebrew/Aramaic word you scroll over. The best thing, of course, is that the scanned image of the scroll on which the transcription is based is just one click away. Usually these are black/white images (the contrast and brightness of which is adjustable), 1QpHab and 1Q34bis have colour images.

Since all Hebrew/Aramaic (and occasional Greek) has been morphologically analyzed, complex searches in all or part of the corpus are possible. The WordCruncher software that is included allows for special analyses of these searches, producing, for instance a ‘Vocabulary Dispersion
Report’ and a ‘Frequency Distribution Report’.

I was somewhat less impressed by the program’s interface which is graphically not very appealing and, more importantly, does not work very ‘intuitively’. Moreover, the fact that it is a standalone application instead of a module of e.g. Libronix means that 1) you’ll have to figure out a whole new search method and 2) you cannot ‘link’ this CD-ROM to other software. It would have been nice, for instance, to have the DSS root forms linked to a digital version of HALOT.

Other than that, this CD-ROM is an extraordinarily helpful tool. It is simply indispensable for the DSS specialist and recommended for all others working in the field of early Judaism.

Its price may seem excessive (Euro 272,- / $ 405,-), but is, of course, very reasonable in comparison to the Discoveries in the Judean Desert series.

Here are some screenshots: