Words, Unwrapped

Seth Parker, Seales Research Group, University of Kentucky

The biblical and the scientific merge with the work of W. Brent Seales MS’88, PhD’91, a University of Kentucky computer scientist who developed the technique of “virtual unwrapping” to make legible the text of a charred ancient scroll found nearly 50 years ago near the Dead Sea. Making out the scroll’s text, which comes from the Book of Leviticus, represents one of the most significant biblical discoveries of the last decade and helps to show how the Hebrew Bible came to be. The method may make it possible to read other ancient scrolls.

Published in the Spring 2017 issue