Paul Calvert spoke with archaeologist Stephen Pfann about their history

There are also rule books concerning how you are to keep your lives either as a community or as individuals; whether you're up at the Temple in Jerusalem, or you're the average person on the street; whether you're in a community like you have out in Qumran; or like you would have with John the Baptist's group. We now have something in our hands that shows what they believe and what they felt was important and also the stresses they had in their lives, for example the community role like it would be with John the Baptist with the Essenes also believe that the persons heart very much has to be circumcised; that they have to go through a period of testing after they decide to enter the group; that they have to be challenged on various issues in their lives and with that they're going to have to daily go into the ritual immersion pool. Every time they say a prayer they have to check their heart out and make sure it is in the right place. This is something that links the Dead Sea Scrolls with John and Jesus' teaching more so than it does with Rabbinic teaching or Sadducees teaching and so these are some of the things that we gain from these scrolls; these rule books; these calendars; actual wisdom texts that they have among these different groups that help us to really be enlightened on life in the Second Temple period.

Paul: Have all the Dead Sea Scrolls in Israel been translated?

Stephen: Yes they have all been translated. All the scrolls that have existed have been translated in one form or another. Most importantly is first transcribing them; going through the work to get the best picture and images of the scrolls. This is because they are deteriorating, even today as we talk. Because there is no way to totally stop the deterioration, we need to go in and get proper photographs of the text themselves. It is a task that is still on going; with the help of these technologies you can bring out even more of the scrolls than what we have today. So yes they have been translated, but the work still goes on to get more out of them than we have in the past.

Paul: Where can people see the Dead Sea Scrolls today?

Stephen: The Dead Sea Scrolls are on display in the Shrine of the Book in Israel. What is nice about the ones that are there is that these are the larger portions; the ones that we really consider to be scrolls. You can tell that they were taken and unrolled; you can see whole sheets of these scrolls that are on display. The many fragments that are so fragile that came from places like cave four and five and most of the other caves are found in vaults and are rarely on display unless they actually go out on tour.