Discovered from 1947 in 11 caves in the Judean desert, the Dead Sea Scrolls were locked away for study by a select group of academics led by Catholic monk Father Roland De Vaux. As they slowly laboured, conspiracy theories filled the vacuum: who wrote these ancient Scrolls? What secrets did they contain? Were the predominantly Christian scholars covering up inconvenient truths about the historical Jesus?

Stepping in to the controversy is Dr Bob Cargill, a young archaeologist from UCLA: he is determined to answer once and for all Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. In this film Bob is given unprecedented access to the Scrolls, going beyond the glass to see the real Scrolls close up in the museum vaults and conservation room; he explores the Scroll caves and Qumran; he investigates de Vaux’s archaeological records; and he meets the world’s leading Scroll experts as he begins to unravel the mystery. Bob’s journey becomes not just one of truth for the history books, but a very personal one.