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Dead Sea Scrolls Become Household Words
The Dead Sea Scrolls have become household words, no longer the exclusive property of scholars, or even of devotees like BAR readers. Now the scrolls are part of the vernacular.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported new studies in supermarkets that tracked shoppers’ carts in an effort to determine buying patterns. With “this kind of research in hand,” says the Journal, “marketers are beginning to unravel some of the mysteries of product location and purchase habits.” Then the article quotes Willard Bishop, a food-retailing consultant: “This is like the Dead Sea Scrolls of the grocery business.”
New York Times columnist William Safire recently took the United States Supreme Court to task for trying to suppress a book of transcripts of famous oral presentations before the high court. Here is how Safire made the point: “As the Dead Sea Scroll monopolists learned, unless a public document or tape or photo is a national secret or an invasion of privacy, it should be and will be available for dissemination in any way the market system decides.”
Apparently the case of the Dead Sea Scrolls is becoming a Supreme Court precedent. We only hope it does not follow the precedent of the Jerusalem court in the MMT case. If it does, we can put the scrolls back in the caves.
February Is DSS Month
“Living Texts from Ancient Times”—and in particular the Dead Sea Scrolls—will be the subject of a series of free lectures set for February at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. The program opens on February 3, 1994, with P. Kyle McCarter, Jr. (Johns Hopkins University), who will discuss the mysterious treasure recorded on the Copper Scroll. On February 9, James C. VanderKam (University of Notre Dame) will examine the identity of the Qumran community. Bruce Zuckerman (University of Southern California), on February 17, will discuss other recently discovered texts that have influenced interpretations of the Bible. The series will close on February 24, when Michael O. Wise (University of Chicago), recipient of Millikin’s Moore lectureship, will address new horizons in scroll research.
The lectures, accompanied by an exhibition of photographs of the scrolls and of the caves at Qumran, will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Perkinson Gallery in the Kirkland Fine Arts Building, Millikin University. For more information, call Dr. William Bodamer, chairman of the university’s religion department, at (217) 424-6277.
How Do the DSS Fragments Fit Together? Just Ask the DNA
Scholars have spent decades trying to piece together the fragments that make up the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, the application of technology for testing DNA (the carrier of the genetic code) promises to aid the process and to check previous reconstructions, according to the Winter 1993 issue of The Folio, the newsletter of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center (ABMC). The suggestion comes from Dr. Helen F. Stanbro, a member of the Los Alamos Committee on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Intrigued by recent publicity on the Dead Sea Scrolls, this private group of scientists at the national laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, has banded together to consider new technological approaches to scroll research and preservation.
Most of the scrolls were written on goatskin. Therefore, DNA testing of these skins may enable scientists to determine which fragments came from one particular goat, because each goat has a unique DNA “fingerprint.” Presumably, fragments from one goatskin came from one document. Studying the DNA might also allow scientists to group together fragments that came from goats from the same flock. This could aid in determining which scrolls were made from goats that belonged to one group, such as the Qumran community, and which came from the outside. James Sanders, president of the ABMC, suggests that a preponderance of unrelated goats would strengthen the argument that people outside the community hid the scrolls in the caves for protection, whereas related goats would imply an origin at Qumran.
The introduction of DNA technology and other scientific processes promises to bring our knowledge of the Dead Sea Scrolls to an exciting new level. The insights that may be gained certainly attest to the value of bringing scroll scholarship to a wider audience.
Dead Sea Scrolls Become Household Words
The Dead Sea Scrolls have become household words, no longer the exclusive property of scholars, or even of devotees like BAR readers. Now the scrolls are part of the vernacular.
