Isaiah Among the Scrolls

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In 2011, more than 60 years after the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by the Bedouin in what became known as Qumran Cave 1, a splendid new edition of the Great Isaiah Scroll—1QIsa^a, in more technical language—has been published in the official scroll series, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD). It is Volume 32—or XXXII, as it prefers to call itself—and includes two sub-volumes, Parts 1 and 2. This brings to completion the 40-volume series.¹

Ultimately, more than 900 different manuscripts were discovered in the caves near the ruins of Qumran. Almost a quarter of them are Biblical scrolls. Every book of the Hebrew Bible, except Esther 062and counting Ezra-Nehemiah as one book, is among them. But almost all are just tiny fragments. There are exceptions, however. The most extraordinary exception is the Great Isaiah Scroll. As it turns out, it accounts for fully 25 percent of the Biblical corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Great Isaiah Scroll is one of the four relatively intact scrolls purchased in 1954 by Israel’s most romantic and prominent archaeologist and general, Yigael Yadin, in response to a classified ad in The Wall Street Journal:

“The Four Dead Sea Scrolls”

Biblical Manuscripts dating back to at least 200 BC, are for sale. This would be an ideal gift to an educational or religious institution by an individual or group.

Box F 206, The Wall Street Journal

In July 1947, seven years before this ad appeared, Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, Metropolitan (bishop) of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, had purchased these four scrolls from the storied (and wily) antiquities dealer known as Kando. The price was 24 Jordanian dinars—$96 in American money. Kando paid the Bedouin $24 for the four scrolls, keeping $72 for himself.

In February 1948 a priest in the church’s monastery took the scrolls to the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR) in Jerusalem. There John Trever, a near-professional photographer who was also a budding scholar at ASOR with a Yale Ph.D. barely five years old, persuaded the Metropolitan to allow him to photograph what he could of the scrolls. The Great Isaiah Scroll, Trever reported, “unrolled easily.”

This was in the waning days of the British Mandate over Palestine. Violence was rife. Barbed wire divided the city. Photographic supplies were scarce. In addition to his black-and-white film, Trever used color portrait sheets (2.4 x 3.5 in), the only film that was left in the city.

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Trever’s photographs remain the finest pictures of the Great Isaiah Scroll ever taken. Not only is the photography fantastic but they were taken when the scroll was in its best condition, before any further deterioration, fading, etc., had occurred These photographs are beautifully reproduced in 57 breathtaking plates in this volume of DJD.

But the Metropolitan had difficulty selling the scrolls. After failure in trying to sell them from Jerusalem, he had them taken to Beirut, but still without success. Finally, he decided to take them on tour in the United States. Among other places, they were exhibited in the Library of Congress in Washington. But again no buyers, perhaps because he could not assure good title. Somewhat in desperation, he placed the classified ad in The Wall Street Journal quoted above. Through a front, Yigael Yadin purchased the four scrolls, including the Great Isaiah Scroll, for $250,000—more than the $96 the Metropolitan had paid for them, but still an extraordinary bargain!

The other three original scrolls from Cave 1, including 1QIsa^b, had been purchased years before by Yadin’s father, Eleazar L. Sukenik. An architectural marvel in the shape of a scroll jar was built on the grounds of the Israel Museum to house the seven scrolls, now all in Israel’s hands. In the center, in a half-buried hall recalling the cave where the scrolls were found, is a huge encased exhibit in the shape of a drum around which was displayed the Great Isaiah Scroll, the star of the museum. Alas, it had to be removed (and replaced with a replica) when it began showing signs of deterioration and developed cracks in the leather from being bent backwards after 2,000 years in a roll.

As the editors of this DJD volume Eugene Ulrich and Peter W. Flint note, it is not a commentary, but a critical edition illustrated with the finest digitized photographs, as well as transcripts of the texts and analytical notes. The text of the scroll has of course long been available, but not with such extensive critical notes and analysis of the text.

What an analysis of the Great Isaiah Scroll demonstrates, in the editors’ words, is “that the biblical text was pluriform and still developing prior to the Jewish Revolts [in 66 C.E. and again in 132 C.E.].”

Moreover, the editors have also discovered what they call “isolated interpretive insertions” in the text (see Biblical Views). One of these, the last verse of chapter 2 of Isaiah, I found especially affecting:

Oh, cease to glorify man,

Who has only a breath in his nostrils.

For by what does he merit esteem?

Imagine the ancient who, reading the text of Isaiah, inserted this thought into it!

In 011, more than 60 years after the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by the Bedouin in what became known as Qumran Cave 1, a splendid new edition of the Great Isaiah Scroll—1QIsaa, in more technical language—has been published in the official scroll series, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD). It is Volume 32—or XXXII, as it prefers to call itself—and includes two sub-volumes, Parts 1 and 2. This brings to completion the 40-volume series.1 Ultimately, more than 900 different manuscripts were discovered in the caves near the ruins of Qumran. Almost a quarter of them are […]