An artificial intelligence program named Enoch has advanced the dating of many of the Dead Sea Scrolls by 50 to 150 years earlier than previously believed, according to a new study published in the journal PLOS One.

Researchers from the University of Groningen developed Enoch to analyze the handwriting styles of ancient manuscripts, combining radiocarbon dating and paleography to provide more accurate date estimates for individual Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts. The AI model suggests that many of the scrolls date back to the early second century BCE, and sometimes slightly earlier.

"With the Enoch tool we have opened a new door into the ancient world, like a time machine, that allows us to study the hands that wrote the Bible, especially now that we have established, for the first time, that two biblical scroll fragments come from the time of their presumed authors," the authors stated, according to Ars Technica.

The most striking results from the study concern the ages of two fragments from the Book of Daniel and Ecclesiastes. The fragments, known as 4QDaniel and 4QQohelet, are the first known biblical manuscripts dated to the time of their presumed authors.

"Radiocarbon dating is a destructive method," said Professor Mladen Popović, an archaeologist at the University of Groningen and study lead author. To overcome this hurdle, the researchers created Enoch, which combines radiocarbon dating and machine-learning-based handwriting analysis to achieve more accurate date estimates.

Enoch was trained on two primary datasets: an index of radiocarbon-dated historic biblical texts and an analysis of each manuscript's handwriting, allowing it to objectively determine an approximate age range for the scrolls. The AI program analyzed the handwriting style of 135 scrolls with unknown dates spanning three centuries from around 200 BCE to 100 CE.

"In some cases we see dates that are 50 years older or maybe even a century older than previously assumed," Popović adds.

Enoch’s date prediction estimate for 4Q319. (credit: Popović et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/))
Enoch’s date prediction estimate for 4Q319. (credit: Popović et al., 2025, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/))

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The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the Qumran Caves in the West Bank between 1946 and 1956, are considered the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, including some of the oldest complete biblically canonical books known to exist.

Previously, the age of individual scrolls was mainly estimated using paleography, which analyzes letter forms and handwriting. This method lacked an empirical basis due to a chronological gap between dated manuscripts from the 5th–4th centuries BCE and the 1st–2nd centuries CE.

By combining writing styles with carbon-14 dates of manuscripts using artificial intelligence, the date-prediction model Enoch can produce accurate dates for the manuscripts. The AI model provides a quantitative and empirical basis for the style analysis of handwriting, which traditional paleography cannot deliver.

"It is very exciting to set a significant step into solving the dating problem of the Dead Sea Scrolls and also creating a new tool that could be used to study other partially dated manuscript collections from history," the study's authors said in a statement.

Popović plans to apply the Enoch model to more Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as other ancient Aramaic texts like the Elephantine Papyri. "The techniques and methods we developed are applicable to other handwritten collections of text," he said.

Enoch's analysis suggests we should backdate the two main writing styles used in the Dead Sea Scrolls: the Hasmonean and the Herodian script, indicating that the Herodian-type script emerged earlier than previously thought.

According to a press release published on EurekAlert, the researchers evaluated the age of historic manuscripts from sites in modern-day Israel and the West Bank.

"Enoch allowed the researchers to determine the age of individual Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts, offering 'realistic' dating estimates for nearly 80 percent of the scrolls, which could help order the remaining hundreds of scrolls," reports Popular Science.

"The advantage of the [AI] model is that it provides quantified objectivity to paleography, reducing the method's subjectivity," the authors write.

The study suggests that scribes were copying multiple literary manuscripts before this period, which could have major implications for our historical narratives.