Déjà Vu
“What a contrast that magnificent evening at Qumran—on the last day of the Dead Sea Scroll Congress—was with the first time I was there, in August 1959 with Frank Cross. We had to use a ‘high car.’ It was an old command car, if I remember correctly. There were no roads, only tracks made by the archaeologists from 1951 on. As we approached the area, the only living things in sight were a huge camel with a big black bird on its back doing its job picking nits. Besides the caves and the ruins of Khirbet Qumran, that was all there was to see. So the banquet and the concert were both stunning and disturbing to see staged in that setting.”