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In what may seem like BAR’s unrelieved criticism of the Israel Antiquities Authority, its scroll advisory committee and the international team of Dead Sea Scroll editors, we may have neglected to emphasize what they have done right and done well. It is time to correct this omission.
In so doing, however, it is important to be very precise about what we have criticized them for and what we have not criticized them for. We have called them monopolists, a moniker they surely dislike, but which is not only convenient, but precisely identifies what they have been guilty of—and, by exclusion, what they have not been guilty of.
Our sole complaint has been that they would not allow free and unencumbered access to the texts. We wanted all scholars—or nonscholars, for that matter—to be able to look at photographs of the unpublished texts and do whatever they pleased with them—transcribe them, translate them, print them, reprint them, publish them or take them (the photographs, that is) into the bathtub to play with. That is what we mean by free access. That access has now been provided with the publication of the facsimile volumes (see “The Dead Sea Scrolls Are Now Available to All!” in this issue).
The monopolists—if they will forgive me for continuing to use that pejorative term—long ago conceded that the failure to publish the scrolls for nearly 40 years was a scandal that should never have occurred. They recognized that the long delay in publishing these texts was unjustified. While they thus agreed with us to this extent, they proposed a different solution.
Their solution was to speed up the team’s publication of the texts—by reassigning texts from some of the original team editors who had more than they could handle in a lifetime, by expanding the size of the team, by publishing a timetable, by giving deadlines to the new editors and by making it clear that sanctions would follow failure to meet agreed deadlines.
All this was laudable—except that it was coupled with an insistence on keeping the texts secret until published by the expanded team.
Much of this laudable change began when John Strugnell was appointed editor in chief in 1987. Another major event was the appointment in 1988 of a new director of the Israel Antiquities Authority (then the Department of Antiquities), General Amir Drori.
Strugnell’s accomplishments were many. 065He persuaded J. T. Milik to give up major hunks of his texts for reassignment. (A scholar in a position to know has recently written me that this occurred “only after many pressures [on Milik], mainly thanks to your efforts, but nobody other than John Strugnell—neither you nor the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem—would have succeeded to move Milik this way.”) Strugnell was also the first to give scroll assignments to Jews and to Israelis. He was a major factor in training a younger generation of Qumran editors—Carol Newsom, Eileen Schuller, Sidnie White, Emanuel Tov, Elisha Qimron and Devorah Dimant. He took the lead in publishing the concordance, which was on three-by-five-inch cards, so it would be available to scholars not in Jerusalem who were editing texts. From all reports, he was exceptionally helpful to others on the team as well as to those scholars close to the team. He also gave to colleagues and students some of his own texts for them to edit and publish. He took on the task of editor in chief because he knew more about the unpublished scrolls than anyone else. The job was more a source of pain than of pleasure to him and deflected him from what he would have preferred to do—namely, edit unpublished texts. John Strugnell has his weaknesses too; there is no need to recount them here.
Amir Drori can also be credited with many accomplishments. He has unquestionably revitalized Israel’s Antiquities Authority.
He has brought order and efficiency to it. And his influence in this direction has been an important aspect of the speed-up in the publication of the scrolls. For all his accomplishments, John Strugnell has never claimed that efficiency or administrative capability was his long suit; this is what Drori brought to the operation. Under his influence, an Israeli scroll advisory committee was appointed. Under the aegis of this committee, Professor Emanuel Tov of Hebrew University was appointed co-editor in chief, along with Strugnell. When Strugnell was relieved of his duties as editor in chief, Tov took on a more commanding position—one of three editors in chief (the others are Professor Eugene Ulrich of Notre Dame University and Father Emile Puech of the École Biblique). Although Tov thus shares authority, the administration of the project is his; by all reports he is doing an excellent job. Reassignments are continuing apace and the new editors are being suitably encouraged to complete their assignments in a timely fashion. Tov now promises that everything will be completed within six years.
All these are wonderful developments. Praise is surely due for these many accomplishments.
Where we differ is in the demand the team is—at this writing—still making that they be given an additional six years to complete their work—and that during that time they have exclusive publication rights. They even promise to show the photographs to other scholars—provided those scholars first promise not to publish them.
It is here that BAR parts company with the official scroll editors. But this does not in the least diminish our admiration for the tremendous advances they have made nor for the exemplary work they are doing.
It is, however, simply too late in the day to give anyone exclusive publication rights to these texts.
As far as I can understand, the monopolists give three justifications for their continued demand for restrictions on access, none of which, in my judgment, holds water:
The first is that giving access to everyone (presumably including people who would quickly publish the texts) would somehow “harm” the young scholars who have recently received text assignments. But the “harm” is never specified. I suppose the harm is that someone else will preempt a young scholar’s efforts by producing either a quicker or a better product. Perhaps a reasonable argument could have been made to this effect 30 or 35 years ago, but now it is too late to start the clock running all over again. In short, the world has waited long enough. It is too late for an exclusive assignment.
The second argument is that if the texts are made available to everyone, the market will be flooded with inferior productions. There is, however, a quick and easy answer to this; I will borrow the words of a distinguished Biblical scholar who was recently quoted in a newspaper article, Professor Jacob Milgrom of the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Milgrom said, “If the scholarship is shoddy, it will sink of its own weight; the important thing is to let anyone who wishes to see them. I believe scholarship should never be a closed circle. It should never be a cartel of any sort.”
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The third and final argument is that releasing photographs is unfair to the scholars who have assembled the various fragments into plates of distinct documents because it steals their work. But this work was done over 30 years ago; by now the scholars’ claim to ownership of their work product must give way to the higher claim of academic freedom and the world’s right to see these texts. Moreover, when the now-aged scholars did this assembling 30 years ago, they were acting as trustees, as fiduciaries for mankind. These documents did not belong to them. They were working on our documents, for we—all of us—are the beneficiaries of that trust. Their work belongs to us. It is rightfully ours.
All of this is, of course, beside the point now that the photographs have been published. But it is necessary to recite these considerations if only to emphasize that this is the limit of our disagreement with the team of editors.
Otherwise, we agree with them.
We heartily applaud them for expanding the team, for bringing in Jewish and Israeli scholars, for revitalizing the administration of the project, for setting strict timetables with clear sanctions for those who do not meet the deadlines.
Moreover, their scholarship is exemplary. They really have no need to fear the competition of the marketplace.
We encourage them in their work. They are doing wonderful things. All we ask is that they not hinder others who wish to work in the same vineyard. There is room for all.
Finally, we hope that now that the raw material is available to all scholars, the team scholars and the Israel Antiquities Authority will cooperate with outside scholars who will be studying the texts.
This should be—and can be—a time of cooperative and burgeoning Dead Sea Scroll scholarship. It is time to come together in a joint effort toward that end.—
In what may seem like BAR’s unrelieved criticism of the Israel Antiquities Authority, its scroll advisory committee and the international team of Dead Sea Scroll editors, we may have neglected to emphasize what they have done right and done well. It is time to correct this omission.
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