New scholarship has identified a fragment of the Book of Nehemiah among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Heretofore fragments of every canonical book of the Hebrew Bible had been identified among the Scrolls except for the Book of Esther and the Book of Nehemiah:
Working together with Esther Eshel of Bar-Ilan University, Torleif Elgvin of Evangelical Lutheran University College in Oslo, Norway, has been examining previously unknown fragments from 29 scrolls (including scraps of four others). The fragments include that of Nehemiah for the first time, textual variations of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Ruth, Proverbs, and the Twelve; a fragment from an unknown Enoch-related text and two new copies of 1 Enoch; and a new copy of a sectarian biblical commentary. Most of these fragments were found decades ago in “Cave 4” near the Dead Sea, but several were found at the Bar Kokhba caves and some small fragments were originally discovered at Wadi el-Daliyeh, a valley fourteen kilometres north of Jericho.
Now the only book unrepresented among the Scrolls is Esther. Note, also that the scrolls contain a number of non-canonical books, e.g. the Book of Jubilees and the Book of Enoch.
I blame the War on Women.
The discovery has already resulted in radical revision of pre-existing theology. For one thing, _Nehemiah_ was a bullfrog. And he was no friend of wine. Also, Moses really did have horns on his head. Michelangelo was right!!!