Who Controls the Scrolls?

Even before the now-infamous anti-Semitic interview that chief Dead Sea Scroll editor John Strugnell gave to Israeli journalist Avi Katzman,a Strugnell was locked in a bitter struggle with the Israel Antiquities Authority and its Dead Sea Scroll oversight committee for control of the unpublished texts.b Just prior to Strugnell’s anti-Semitic diatribe, the Israeli authorities had appointed Hebrew University Professor Emanuel Tov as co-chief editor of the scroll editorial team. Tov was to work independently of Strugnell and would not be subject to Strugnell’s authority. When Shemaryahu Talmon of Israel’s oversight committee told me of the Tov appointment, I called […]