60 Years with the Dead Sea Scrolls

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The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls changed many lives—arguably, including mine (as editor of BAR).

As the cornerstone of our observance of the 60th anniversary of the scrolls’ discovery, eight leading Dead Sea Scroll scholars have agreed to talk about how and why the scrolls changed their lives. Pride of place goes to Harvard’s Frank Cross, the only surviving member of the original publication team who can speak of those times when a few young scholars were assigned to publish about 15,000 scroll fragments that had been discovered in 031Cave 4. We are especially grateful to him for sharing his memories. (John Strugnell is also living, but in poor health.)

For the rest of the first-generation giants—perhaps nephilim in Biblical terms (Genesis 6:1–4)—we must be content with photographs and a brief description of what they did: Muhammad edh-Dhib, or “the Wolf,” who discovered the first scrolls by accident; Roland de Vaux, the excavator of Qumran and first chief editor of the publication team; Eleazer Sukenik, who brought home to Jerusalem an Isaiah scroll and two other intact scrolls in 1948; Kando, the Arab

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middleman who sold most of the scroll fragments to the scholars; archaeologist Yigael Yadin, Sukenik’s son, who acquired four other intact scrolls to be housed in the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem; John Allegro, who went searching, unsuccessfully, for the treasures of the Copper Scroll; Józef Milik, the extraordinarily talented Polish priest whose assignments were more than anyone could fulfill; and John Strugnell, the brilliant but emotionally burdened chief editor of the scroll team who was forced out after giving an anti-Semitic interview to an Israeli journalist.

In this issue, in addition to the interview with Cross, we present the recollections of three new Dead Sea Scroll giants: Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University, who succeeded Strugnell as editor-in-chief; Martin Abegg, who, together with his mentor, Hebrew Union College professor Ben Zion Wacholder, managed to reconstruct some of the unpublished scrolls with the aid of a computer; and Sidnie White Crawford of the University of Nebraska—Lincoln and former president of the William F. Albright School of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, who was Strugnell’s assistant at the time of his breakdown.

In the next issue of BAR, we will feature the recollections of Oxford don Geza Vermes and New York University’s Lawrence Schiffman, who, he says, “re-Judaized” the scrolls.

The issue after that will showcase the memories of Princeton Theological Seminary’s James Charlesworth and Notre Dame’s James VanderKam.

Some of those who agreed to write for us in these three issues were not even born when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. Others were mere toddlers. But they all now take their place among the current generation of leading Dead Sea Scroll scholars. In the course of their adventurous, sometimes humorous tales, we, their readers, begin to understand what life for a Dead Sea Scroll scholar is like. In addition to the human aspect of scroll scholarship, they also tell us what we learn from the scrolls.

For those who are just beginning their entry into the world of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we recommend you begin with “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Short History”.

Some have suggested that I, too, should write 033about how the Dead Sea Scrolls changed my life. In the popular mind, BAR and I (by association) are often given credit for freeing the scrolls, liberating them from the tiny clique of scholars who controlled them and would not allow the rest of the world (including other scholars) to see them. I have always had trouble talking about this. It is true that BAR often complained in shrill tones about the way this secret cabal was withholding their treasures. But we were not the first; after all, it was Oxford’s Geza Vermes who, 30 years after their discovery, warned that the situation could become “the academic scandal par excellence of the 20th century.” Equally important, others gave us material to make the arguments and to reveal some of the withheld texts: Wacholder and Abegg, who used a computer to reconstruct texts from a secret scroll concordance, and Robert Eisenman of California State University, Long Beach, who provided us with photographs of thousands of hitherto-unpublished fragments that we published in a two-volume set. Finally, Bill Moffett of the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, courageously made available a microfilm of the unpublished scrolls that had been deposited in the library for security purposes.

Moreover, the authorities in Jerusalem who controlled access and who finally released the scrolls have always contended that my screeds had no influence on them. Indeed, the current editor-in-chief says in this issue that my intervention only delayed publication (see Emanuel Tov’s story in this issue’s article, “Dead Sea Scrolls: How They Changed Life”). They would have done the same thing had I never complained, he says. I have never disputed the point, and I have subsequently become friends with many of my critics. To publicly admit that BAR’s campaign to release the scrolls had little effect (as I now seem to be doing) might seem a little disingenuous. So I will say no more.

My other major involvement with the scrolls was as a defendant in a lawsuit for copyright infringement brought by a great Israeli scroll scholar, Elisha Qimron. BAS had published a reconstruction of an important Dead Sea text known as MMT; Qimron had contributed to its reconstruction, supplying some of the missing letters or words, so he sued the Biblical Archaeology Society and me. Qimron won the case. It cost us, all told, over $100,000—for our own lawyers, Qimron’s lawyers (as the losing party, we had to pay the victor’s attorneys under Israeli law) and the monetary judgment in Qimron’s favor. The case went to the Israel Supreme Court, which affirmed the judgment against us. One of America’s preeminent copyright experts (David Nimmer) wrote an 85-page law review article explaining why the Israeli court was wrong, but by that time the case was long over.

That was just one of the ironies of the case, however. Long after the court proceedings had concluded, Qimron (and Strugnell) published the secret text that I had supposedly purloined, together with a commentary. As a distinguished reviewer (Florentino Garcia Martinez) pointed out, by looking at earlier photographs that became available with the publication of the text, the reconstructions that Qimron had introduced could be seen as minimal; his great contribution—and it was a great contribution—was in interpreting the document and its significance; interpretation, however, is not copyrightable. When this came out, Qimron threatened to sue Garcia Martinez for libel, but nothing came of the threat. Alas, Qimron remains bitter—he alone among Dead Sea Scroll scholars. He has rebuffed my efforts even to speak with him. Inasmuch as I lost the case, I have always thought that I am the one who is supposed to be bitter. In any event, Qimron was represented by a superb lawyer—Isaac Molcho, Bibi Netanyahu’s personal attorney (I can recognize a good lawyer, even when he’s on the other side)—and Qimron had, at the time, the support of Israeli scholars, the Israeli press and a judiciary attuned to Israeli scholarship. Besides, it is universally agreed that I do not, and did not, make a very sympathetic witness (smart-alecky editor against a soft-spoken, serious Israeli scholar).

Anyway, it’s been a great ride. The Dead Sea Scrolls have changed our thinking about a broad range of subjects: the origins of Christianity, the development of the Biblical text, and the intricate world of Second Temple Judaism, for starters. Read on.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls changed many lives—arguably, including mine (as editor of BAR).