The writings of the Old Testament were written by hand, on separate leather scrolls, so no reader ofthat period of history was able to do what we can do, that is pick up and read an entire Old Testament.

Figure 4:scroll used in ancient writing

A leather scroll was an awkward thing to read from as it had to be rolled and unrolled. A long book would take up the space in one full-length scroll, but several short books could be contained in one scroll. The oldest Hebrew scrolls in existence are those discovered in caves near the Dead Sea from 1947 onwards.

Figure 5:scrolls in different kinds

They had been stored in large clay pots which had been sealed. The pots were stored in caves for safety when the community to whom they had belonged was in danger. The very dry climate of the area and the fact that the scrolls were protected in the clay pots allowed them to survive for over two thousand years. The finest of these scrolls, a complete copy of the book of the prophet Isaiah, is now on display in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The writing is still clear although the scroll was written around 100 B.C., a century before the birth of Jesus Christ.

When Jesus stood up to preach in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4: 16-17) it was such a scroll as this which he held in his hands, unrolling it to find the passage which he quoted from the book of Isaiah.

In every Jewish synagogue there was a collection of scrolls which were very carefully copied and replaced when the old ones wore out. Scrolls were usually made of vellum, a kind of very fine prepared leather which gave a smooth surface for writing in ink, but papyrus was also used. Papyrus was less strong and less able to survive in the way that the Dead Sea scrolls have.