This will take a few years before anything is actually available online, but what an ambitious undertaking by the Israel Antiquities Authority: They plan to digitally photograph the entirety of the Dead Sea Scrolls and display them on the Internet.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are at least 2000 years old. They were likely written around the time of Christ and were hidden in caves around the edge of the Dead Sea, in the area of the Qumran settlement. The final scrolls were likely composed sometime after Christ’s crucifixion, most probably around the time of the destruction of the Second Temple, which would put them around 72 AD. Most scholars attribute them to a sect of Judaism called the Essenes, an ascetic sect that lived in the Dead Sea area about that time.

They offer a fascinating account of early Christian life, as well as Jewish life and ritual, at that time. They were preserved in the caves until 1947, with continuing discoveries until about 1979.

CNet has some details about the project here