by Geza Vermes
On the western shore of the Dead Sea, about eight miles south of Jericho, lies a complex of ruins known as Khirbet Qumran. It occupies one of the lowest parts of the earth, on the fringe of the hot and arid wastes of the Wilderness of Judaea, and is today, apart from occasional invasions by coachloads of tourists, lifeless, silent and empty. But from that place, members of an ancient Jewish religious community, whose centre it was, hurried out one day and in secrecy climbed the nearby cliffs in order to hide away in eleven caves their precious scrolls. No one came back to retrieve them, and there they remained undisturbed for almost 2,000 years.
The account of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as the manuscripts are inaccurately designated, and of the half a century of intense research that followed, is in itself a fascinating as well as an exasperating story. It has been told many a time, but this fiftieth anniversary of the first Scroll find excuses, and even demands, yet another rehearsal.1
A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF FIFTY YEARS OF DEAD SEA SCROLLS RESEARCH
1. 1947-1967
News of an extraordinary discovery of seven ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts began to spread in 1948 from Israeli and American sources.2 The original chance find by a young Bedouin shepherd, Muhammad edh-Dhib, occurred during the last months of the British mandate in Palestine in the spring or summer of 1947, unless it was slightly earlier, in the winter of 1946.3 In 1949, the cave where the scrolls lay hidden was identified, thanks to the efforts of a bored Belgian army officer of the United Nations Armistice Observer Corps, Captain Philippe Lippens, assisted by a unit of Jordan’s Arab Legion, commanded by Major-General Lash. It was investigated by G. Lankester Harding, the English Director of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, and the French Dominican archaeologist and biblical scholar, Father Roland de Vaux. They retrieved hundreds of leather fragments, some large but most of them minute, in addition to the seven scrolls found in the same cave.
Three of the rolls, an incomplete Isaiah manuscript, a scroll of Hymns and one describing the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, were purchased in 1947 by the Hebrew University’s Professor of Jewish Archaeology, E. L. Sukenik, who proceeded at full speed towards their publication. The other four were entrusted for study and eventual publication by their owner, the Arab metropolitan archbishop Mar Athanasius, head of the Syrian Orthodox monastery of St Mark in Jerusalem, to the resident staff of the American School for Oriental Research in Jerusalem, Millar Burrows, W H. Brownlee and J. C. Trever. These three took charge of a complete Isaiah manuscript, the Commentary on Habakkuk and the Manual of Discipline, later renamed the Community Rule. Finally, after the splitting of British mandatary Palestine into Israel and Jordan, at the École Biblique et Archéologique Française in Jordanian Jerusalem two young researchers, the Frenchman Dominique Barthélemy and the Pole Józef Tadeusz Milik, were commissioned by de Vaux and Harding in late 1951 to edit the fragments collected in Cave I.
Between 1951 and 1956, ten further caves were discovered, most of them by Bedouin in the first instance. Two yielded substantial quantities of material. Thousands and thousands of fragments were found in Cave 4 and several scrolls, including the longest, the Temple Scroll, were retrieved from Cave II. The previously neglected ruins of a settlement in the proximity of the caves were also excavated by Harding and de Vaux, and the view soon prevailed that the texts, the caves and the Qumran site were interconnected, and that consequently the study of the script and contents of the manuscripts should be accompanied by archaeological research.
Progress was surprisingly quick despite the fact that in those halcyon days, apart from the small Nash papyrus, containing the Ten Commandments, found in Egypt and now in the Cambridge University Library, no Hebrew documents dating to Late Antiquity were extant to provide terms of comparison. In 1948 and 1949, Sukenik published in Hebrew two preliminary surveys entitled Hidden Scrolls from the JudaeanDesert, and concluded that the religious community involved was the ascetic sect of the Essenes, well known from the first-century CE writings of Philo, Josephus and Pliny the Elder, a thesis worked out in great detail from 1951 onwards by André Dupont-Sommer in Paris.4 The first Qumran scrolls to reach the public, and the archaeological setting in which they were discovered, echoed three striking Essene characteristics. The Community Rule, a basic code of sectarian existence, reflects Essene common ownership and celibate life, while the geographical location of Qumran tallies with Pliny’s Essene settlement on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, south of Jericho. The principal novelty provided by the manuscripts consists of cryptic allusions to the historical origins of the Community, launched by a priest called the Teacher of Righteousness, who was persecuted by a Jewish ruler, designated as the Wicked Priest. The Teacher and his followers were compelled to withdraw into the desert, where they awaited the impending manifestation of God’s triumph over evil and darkness in the end of days, which had already begun.
An almost unanimous agreement soon emerged, dating the discovery, on the basis of palaeography and archaeology, to the last centuries of the Second Temple, i.e. second century BCE to first century CE. For a short while there was controversy between de Vaux, who decreed that the pottery and all the finds belonged to the Hellenistic era (i.e. pre-63 BCE), and Dupont-Sommer, who argued for an early Roman (post-63) date. But the finding of further caves and the excavation of the ruins of Qumran brought about, on 4 April 1952, de Vaux’s dramatic retraction before the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. His revised archaeological synthesis, presented in the 1959 Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, while admittedly incomplete, is still the best comprehensive statement available today.5
A third point of early consensus concerns the chronology of the events alluded to in the Qumran writings, especially the biblical commentaries published in the 1950S and the Damascus Document. The so-called Maccabaean theory, placing the conflict between the Teacher of Righteousness and the politico-religious Jewish leadership of the day in the time of the Maccabaean high priest or high priests Jonathan and/or Simon, was first formulated in my 1952 doctoral dissertation, published in 1953,6 and was soon to be adopted with variations in detail by such leading specialists as J. T. Milik, F. M. Cross and R. de Vaux.7
As long as the editorial task consisted only of publishing the seven scrolls from Cave I, work was advancing remarkably fast. Millar Burrows and his colleagues published their three manuscripts in 1950 and 1951.8 Sukenik’s three texts appeared in a posthumous volume in 1954-5.9 In the interest of speed, these editors generously abstained from translating and interpreting the texts, and were content with releasing the photographs and their transcription. The best-preserved sections of the Aramaic Genesis Apocryphon followed closely in 1956.10 Even the fragments from Cave I, handled with alacrity and loving care by D. Barthélemy and J. T Milik, appeared in 1955.11 The secrecy rule of later years, restricting access to unpublished texts to a small team of editors appointed by de Vaux, had not yet been applied. On my first visit to Jerusalem in 1952, I was allowed to examine the fragments of the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa), as may be seen from the inclusion in the final edition of a reading suggested by me to the editors.
The scroll fragments, partly found by the archaeologists, but mostly purchased from the Arabs, who nine times out of ten outwitted their professional rivals, were cleaned, sorted out and displayed in the so-called Scrollery in the Rockefeller Museum, later renamed the Palestine Archaeological Museum, to become after 1967 once more the Rockefeller Museum. If the mass of material disgorged by Cave 4 had not upset the original arrangements, the scandalous delays in publishing in later years need never have happened.
To deal with Cave 4, Father de Vaux improvised, in 1953 and 1954, a team of seven on the whole young and untried scholars. Barthélemy opted out, and the brilliant but unpredictable Abbé J. T. Milik, who later left the Roman Catholic priesthood, became the pillar of the new group. He was joined by the French Abbé Jean Starcky, and two Americans, Monsignor Patrick Skeh
an and Frank Moore Cross. John Marco Allegro and John Strugnell were recruited from Britain, and from Germany, Claus-Hunno Hunzinger, who soon resigned and was replaced later by the French Abbé Maurice Baillet.
It should have been evident to anyone with a modicum of good sense that a group of seven editors, of whom only two, Starcky and Skehan, had already established a scholarly reputation, was insufficient to perform such an enormous task on any level, let alone to produce the kind of ‘last word’ edition de Vaux appears to have contemplated. The second serious error committed by de Vaux was that he wholly relied on his personal, quasi-patriarchal authority, instead of setting up from the start a supervisory body empowered, if necessary, to sack those members of the team who might fail to fulfil their obligations promptly and to everyone’s satisfaction.
Yet before depicting the chaos characterizing the publishing process in the 1970s and 1980s, in fairness it should be stressed that, during the first decade or so, the industry of the group could not seriously be faulted. Judging from the completion around 1060 of a primitive Concordance, recorded on handwritten index cards, of all the words appearing in the fragments found in Caves 2 to 10, it is clear that at an early date most of the texts had been identified and deciphered. The many criticisms advanced in subsequent years, focusing on these scholars’ refusal to put their valuable findings into the public domain, should not prevent one from acknowledging that this original achievement, in which J. T. Milik had the lion’s share, deserves unrestricted admiration.
After the publication of the Cave I fragments in 1955, the contents of the eight minor caves (2-3, 5-10) were released in a single volume in 1963.12 In 1965 J. A. Sanders, an American scholar who was not part of the original team, edited the Psalms Scroll, found in Cave II in 1956.13 Finally, with its typescript completed and dispatched to the printers a year before the fatal date of 1967, the first poorly edited volume of Cave 4 fragments saw the light of day in 1968.14
2. 1967-1990
With the occupation of East Jerusalem in the Six Day War, all the scroll fragments housed in the Palestine Archaeological Museum came under the control of the Israel Department of Antiquities. Only the Copper Scroll and a few other fragments exhibited in Amman remained in Jordanian hands. The Temple Scroll, which until then had been held by a dealer in Bethlehem,15 was quickly retrieved with the help of army intelligence and acquired by the State of Israel. Yigael Yadin, deputy prime minister of Israel in the 1970s, mixing politics with scholarship, managed to complete a magisterial three-volume publication by 1977.16
A gentlemanly gesture on the part of the Israelis, who decided not to interfere with de Vaux, left him and his scattered troop in charge of the Cave 4 texts.17 As for the unpublished manuscripts from Cave II, they were handled by Dutch and American academics.18
Father de Vaux, whose anti-Israeli sentiments were no secret, quietly withdrew to his tent and remained inactive until his death in 1971. Another French Dominican, Pierre Benoit, succeeded him as it were by natural selection in the editorial chair in 1972. The Israeli archaeological establishment, still aloof, conferred its blessing on him. By then, at my instigation, C. H. Roberts, Secretary to the Delegates, i.e. chief executive of Oxford University Press, decided to demand speedier publication, but Benoit’s ineffectual rallying call either elicited no response from his men, or produced promises which were never honoured.19 In a lecture delivered in 1977, I coined the phrase which was thereafter often repeated that the greatest Hebrew manuscript discovery was fast becoming ‘the academic scandal par excellence of the twentieth century’.20
One may ask how and why, after such an apparently propitious beginning, a group of scholars, most of whom were gifted, had turned the editorial work on the Scrolls into such a lamentable story? In my opinion, the ‘academic scandal of the century’ resulted from a concatenation of causes. Lack of organization and unfortunate choice of collaborators can be blamed on de Vaux. For the majority of the team members who had other jobs to cope with, the overlong part-time effort caused their original enthusiasm to fade and vanish. J. T. Milik, the most productive of them until the mid-seventies, appears to have been disenchanted by the cool reception of his highly speculative thesis contained in his edition of The Books ofEnoch:Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4(1976). ‘Academic imperialism’ was also a factor. It was easier to hold that ‘These texts belong to us, not to you!’ than to admit that the procrastinating editors had undertaken more than they could deliver. Add to this the initial unwillingness of the Israelis to shoulder their responsibilities, and, as will be shown, their lack of foresight and repeated misjudgements before, finally, in the late 1980s, they began to take an active part in matters of editorial policy. Need I say more?
The inevitable began to happen: in 1980 Patrick Skehan died, followed by Jean Starcky in 1986, both without publishing their assignments. Eugene Ulrich and Emile Puech became their heirs, while F. M. Cross and J. Strugnell distributed portions of their texts to serve as dissertation topics for doctoral students at Harvard University. Though responsible for some good, and occasionally excellent, monographs, this unfortunate practice further delayed progress as thesis writers like to keep their cards close to their chests until their PhDs are in the bag.
In 1986, a year before his death, Pierre Benoit resigned as editor-in-chief and the depleted international team elected as his successor the talented but tardy John Strugnell, who in thirty-three years failed to produce a single volume of text. In 1987, at a public session of a Scrolls Symposium held in London, I urged him to publish at once the photographic plates, while he and his acolytes carried on with their work at their customary snail pace. This request was met with a one-syllable negative answer. To the surprise of many, the Israel Antiquities Authority (or IAA) acquiesced in Strugnell’s appointment. His grandiose schemes never bore fruit. In 1990, after a compromising interview given by him to an Israeli newspaper, in which he was reported as having made disparaging remarks not only about Israelis, but also about the Jewish religion - he called it horrible - his fellow editors persuaded him to tender his resignation. It was accepted by the IAA on health grounds. Belatedly even the Israelis saw the light, and de facto terminated the thirty-seven-year-old and ultimately disastrous reign of the international team.
3. 1990-2003
After John Strugnell’s withdrawal, the very capable Emanuel Tov, Professor of Biblical Studies at the Hebrew University, was appointed chief editor, the first Jew and the first Israeli to head the Qumran publication project. He began his activities auspiciously by redistributing the unpublished texts among freshly recruited collaborators. The new editorial team, of which I became a member in 1991, consists of some sixty scholars compared to the original seven! Unfortunately, Tov did not feel free to cancel the ‘secrecy rule’, introduced and strictly enforced by de Vaux and his successors, prohibiting access to unpublished texts to all but a few chosen editors. However, the protective dam erected around the fragments by the international team collapsed in the autumn of 1991 under the growing pressure of public opinion, mobilized in particular by Hershel Shanks, in the columns of the widely read Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR). The first landmark event leading towards full freedom was the publication in early September by BAR’s parent body, the Biblical Archaeology Society, of seventeen Cave 4 manuscripts reconstructed with the help of a computer by Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin Abegg21 from the Preliminary Concordance, alluded to earlier, which was privately issued in twenty-five copies (in theory only for the use of the official editors) by John Strugnell in 1988.22 Later in the same month out of the blue came the announcement by William A. Moffett that the Huntington Library of San Marino, California, a renowned research institution, would bring to an end the forty-year-old closed shop by opening its complete photographic archive of the Qumran Scrolls to all qualified scholars.23
The IAA and the official editors attempted to resist but, by the end of October, under pressure from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, they were all forced to reco
gnize that the battle was lost and all restrictions had to be lifted. Almost at once, the Scroll photograph archives at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies and at the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center at Claremont, previously legally compelled to restrict access only to persons approved by Jerusalem, were also thrown open to all competent research scholars. Moreover, in November 1991 the Biblical Archaeology Society published a two-volume photographic edition of the bulk of the Qumran fragments compiled by Robert Eisenman and James Robinson.24 How the two Californian professors obtained the material remains unclear. This new policy has had an essentially beneficial effect on Qumran studies. Since vested interests are no longer protected, the rate of publication has noticeably accelerated and from 1992 learned periodicals have been flooded with short or not so short papers by scholars claiming fresh insights. Free competition has expedited the official edition itself. The first Cave 4 volume of biblical texts, announced as imminent by Father Benoit in 1983, actually appeared -pace the 1992 date on the cover page—on 4 March 1993.25 Scholarship and the general public were to become the beneficiaries of the new era of liberty. Only the procrastinators and the selfish stood to lose. By 1996, thanks to the highly efficient stewardship of the editor-in-chief, Emanuel Tov, four further volumes have been published and another four are in the pipeline. Compared with the output of the previous regime, this is an admirable change indeed. At the time of the revision of this book, thirty-six out of the thirty-nine volumes of Discoveries in the JudaeanDesert (DJD) have appeared, twenty-eight of them since the watershed year of the Scrolls ‘revolution’ in 1991.
THE PRESENT STATE OF DEAD SEA SCROLLS STUDIES
Between 1947 and 1956, the eleven Qumran caves yielded a dozen scrolls written on leather and one embossed on copper. To these we have to add fragments on papyrus or leather, the precise number of which is unknown but probably in the order of six figures. About 800 original documents are fully or partly represented. The Cave 4 list alone contains 575titles,26 though it seems that some twenty documents (4Q342-61) probably originating from non-Qumran Judaean desert locations were mistakenly catalogued as 4Q material. Most scrolls are written in Hebrew, a smaller portion in Aramaic and only a few attest the ancient Greek or Septuagint version of the Bible.27