Scroll Editors Spurn $100,000 Offer to Publish Book of Photographs of Still-Secret Texts

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The Dead Sea Scroll editors, who control access to nearly 400 unpublished texts found over 35 years ago in the wilderness of Judea, have spurned a $100,000 offer to publish a book of photographs of the secret manuscripts.

The offer was made by a prominent multimillion-dollar American foundation. The foundation also expressed its willingness to consider supporting research on the texts once the photographs are made available to all scholars who wish to study them.

The offer was transmitted by BAR on April 2, 1990, to chief scroll editor John Strugnell, as well as to scroll editors J. T. Milik, Frank M. Cross and Emile Puech. None even bothered to reply. Milik, in a telephone interview from Paris, rejected the idea of publishing the photographs. Milik controls access to the lion’s share of the unpublished texts.

Several sets of photographs of the unpublished texts exist. For security purposes, a set has been deposited with the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center, in Claremont, California. An incomplete set has also been deposited with Hebrew Union College, in Cincinnati, Ohio. However, Israel’s Department of Antiquities (now the Antiquities Authority) has placed restrictions on access to these photographs. Even scholars at the institutions where the photographs are deposited are forbidden to see them.

The American foundation has now written to the Israeli government, offering to finance publication of the photographs with up to $100,000. The offer remains under consideration by the Israeli government, but whether the government will be able to break the resistance of the scroll editors is not known.

Meanwhile, one scroll editor with a subassignment from J. T. Milik, James C. VanderKam of North Carolina State University, has announced that he will provide photographs to anyone who wishes to see copies of the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, which he has been assigned to edit. VanderKam is the first scholar to make his photographs available to anyone who wants to see them. Milik has branded VanderKam’s decision “irresponsible.”

Why don’t the scroll scholars want to allow other people to see photographs of these secret texts found over 35 years ago? See the next article (“The Dead Sea Scroll Monopoly Must Be Broken”).

The Dead Sea Scroll editors, who control access to nearly 400 unpublished texts found over 35 years ago in the wilderness of Judea, have spurned a $100,000 offer to publish a book of photographs of the secret manuscripts. The offer was made by a prominent multimillion-dollar American foundation. The foundation also expressed its willingness to consider supporting research on the texts once the photographs are made available to all scholars who wish to study them. The offer was transmitted by BAR on April 2, 1990, to chief scroll editor John Strugnell, as well as to scroll editors J. T. […]