What exactly is the Dead Sea Scrolls?

The dead Sea scrolls are fragments of the Hebrew Bible written by Jews living in Israel up to 2,300 years ago.They are almost exactly the same as the Hebrew bible read in synagogues today. The Palestinians don't like to be reminded that Jews have a historical right to the land of Israel.That is why one commentator referred to these oldest existing texts of the Hebrew Bible as "Toilet Paper."The dead sea scrolls are today housed in a beautiful building in the Hebrew Museum and is now on the internet for all to see.

Westboro gave a good answer, but I will add that the debate over the ownership of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a farce. The scrolls are NOT Israeli, they were written LONG after the fall of Israel (we're talking CENTURIES) at a time when Palestine was controlled by Persian then Greek overlords and then hidden when the area was Roman. Undeniably they are Jewish, but because archaeologists dig up centuries old Catholic writings in Poland does not make them the property of the Vatican. The Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in Jordan and stolen when Israel took East Jerusalem. The hypocrisy is Israel has very strict rules about antiquities even those Canaanite in origin and would never tolerate such a theft of its history. It is afterall Palestinians history as well, Palestinians may not be Jewish, but they are the direct ancestors of the authors of the scrolls. @merc Are you kidding me? Palestinians never denied the existence of the temple nor of ancient Israel, as Christians and Muslims it is in their code of beliefs. They consider the scrolls theirs because it was FOUND IN THEIR TERRITORY BY A PALESTINIAN. If they had intended to destroy the scrolls, why didn't they in the years they were in their possession?

The Dead sea scrolls is part of Palestine history.....It has nothing to do with israel......

It's funny that the Palestinians claim the scrolls as theirs. They want the scrolls for one reason only: so they could burn them. (Like they did to Joseph's tomb, which they claimed as theirs as well.) The official Palestinian stance, which they preach at their mosques, is that the Temple has never existed. Nor that any Jewish kingdom had ever existed. The scrolls are going to provide a logical challenge to them. But I guess they are used to what George Orwell called (in "1984") "doublethink". That's the reason there are no Nobel prizes in the Arab/Muslim world: When you forsake Logic you also forsake Math and Science.

They are very old transcripts of parts of the Hebrew Bible (and some writings not related to that) which were found near the Dead Sea in the late 40's-early 50's. They were officially found in the British Mandate for Palestine and there is an ownership dispute over them. Probably some Jewish people a long time ago made them.

the toilet paper that the palestinians use to use.