The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered in 1946/47 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered to be a keystone in the history of archaeology with great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism. At the same time they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. Most of the scrolls are held by the State of Israel in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, but some of them had been taken to Jordan and are now displayed at The Jordan Museum in Amman. Ownership of the scrolls, however, is claimed by the State of Palestine.Many thousands of written fragments have been discovered in the Dead Sea area. They represent the remnants of larger manuscripts damaged by natural causes or through human interference, with the vast majority holding only small scraps of text. However, a small number of well-preserved, almost intact manuscripts have survived fewer than a dozen among those from the Qumran Caves. Researchers have assembled a collection of 981 different manuscripts discovered in 1946/47 and in 1956 from 11 caves. The 11 Qumran Caves lie in the immediate vicinity of the Hellenistic-period Jewish settlement at Khirbet Qumran in the eastern Judaean Desert, in the West Bank. The caves are located about one mile (1.6 kilometres) west of the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, whence they derive their name. Archaeologists have long associated the scrolls with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes, although some recent interpretations have challenged this connection and argue that priests in Jerusalem, or Zadokites, or other unknown Jewish groups wrote the scrolls.Most of the texts are Hebrew, with some written in Aramaic (for example the Son of God Text; in different regional dialects, including Nabataean), and a few in Greek. Discoveries from the Judaean Desert add Latin (from Masada) and Arabic (from Khirbet al-Mird) texts. Most of the texts are written on parchment, some on papyrus, and one on copper. Scholarly consensus dates the scrolls from the last three centuries BCE and the first century CE, though manuscripts from associated Judaean Desert sites are dated as early as the 8th century BCE and as late as the 11th century CE. Bronze coins found at the same sites form a series beginning with John Hyrcanus (in office 135104 BCE) and continuing until the period of the First JewishRoman War (6673 CE), supporting the radiocarbon and paleographic dating of the scrolls.Owing to the poor condition of some of the scrolls, scholars have not identified all of their texts. The identified texts fall into three general groups:

About 40% are copies of texts from the Hebrew Scriptures.

Approximately another 30% are texts from the Second Temple period which ultimately were not canonized in the Hebrew Bible, like the Book of Enoch, the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Tobit, the Wisdom of Sirach, Psalms 152155, etc.

The remainder (roughly 30%) are sectarian manuscripts of previously unknown documents that shed light on the rules and beliefs of a particular group (sect) or groups within greater Judaism, like the Community Rule, the War Scroll, the Pesher on Habakkuk, and The Rule of the Blessing.

Israel (; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל, romanized: Yīsrāʾēl; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل, romanized: ʾIsrāʾīl), officially the State of Israel (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat ʾIsrāʾīl), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea, and shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, and Egypt to the southwest; it is also bordered by the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to the east and west, respectively. Tel Aviv is the economic and technological center of the country, while its seat of government is in its proclaimed capital of Jerusalem, although Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is unrecognized internationally.Israel has evidence of the earliest hominid migrations out of Africa. Canaanite tribes are archaeologically attested in the region since the Middle Bronze Age, while the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged during the Iron Age. The northern Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE, and the Kingdom of Judah was incorporated into the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. Some of the Judean population was exiled to Babylon, only to return after Cyrus the Great conquered the region. The Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule led to an independent Hasmonean kingdom by 110 BCE. The kingdom became a client state of the Roman Republic in 63 BCE, following which the Herodian dynasty was installed by 37 BCE, and in 6 CE, the former kingdom was finally incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea (Latin: Iudaea). A series of unsuccessful Jewish revolts against the Romans that broke out during the first and second centuries resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem, the expulsion of many Jews, and the renaming of Iudaea to Syria Palaestina. In the 7th century CE, the Byzantine-ruled Levant was taken by Arab forces and incorporated into the Rashidun Caliphate. It remained in Muslim hands until the First Crusade of 1096–1099 re-established a Christian sovereign presence; Crusader control was partly dismantled by the Ayyubids in 1187, but ultimately lasted until 1291. The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt extended its control over the region by the end of the 13th century until its defeat in 1516 to the Ottoman Empire. During the 19th century, a national awakening among Jews led to the founding of Zionism, a movement that espouses the return of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, also known as the Land of Israel, which was followed by the immigration of diaspora Jews.

Following World War I, Britain controlled the entirety of the territory of what makes up Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan as a League of Nations mandate. After World War II, the newly formed United Nations adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine in 1947, recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency but rejected by Arab leaders. Following a civil war within Mandatory Palestine between Yishuv and Palestinian Arab forces, Israel declared independence at the termination of the British Mandate. The war internationalized into the 1948 Arab–Israeli War between Israel and several surrounding Arab states and concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements that saw Israel in control of most of the former mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by Jordan and Egypt respectively. Israel has since fought several wars with Arab countries, and since the Six-Day War in June 1967 has occupied several territories, and continues to occupy the Golan Heights and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, though whether Gaza remains occupied following the Israeli disengagement is disputed. Israel has effectively annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, though these actions have been rejected as illegal by the international community, and established settlements within the occupied territories, which the international community also considers illegal under international law. Efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in a final peace agreement, while Israel has signed peace treaties with both Egypt and Jordan, and more recently has normalized relations with a number of other Arab countries.

In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and democratic state, and as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The country is a liberal democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation, and universal suffrage. The prime minister serves as head of government and the Knesset is the unicameral legislature. Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, and has a population of over 9 million people as of 2021. It has the world's 31st-largest economy by nominal GDP, and is the most developed country that is currently in conflict. The standard of living in Israel is the highest in the Middle East, and the country ranks high on the global HDI list. Israel also ranks among the world's top countries by percentage of citizens with military training, percentage of citizens holding a tertiary education degree, research and development spending by GDP percentage, women's safety, life expectancy, innovativeness, and happiness.