The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

by Michael Baigent

  Roth and Driver were both famous, acknowledged, ‘heavyweights’ in their respective historical fields, who could not be ignored or cavalierly dismissed. Their prestige and their learning could not be impugned or discredited. Neither could they be isolated. And they were too skilled in academic controversy to put their own necks into a noose, as Allegro had done. They were, however, vulnerable to the kind of patronising condescension that de Vaux and the international team, closing ranks in their consensus, proceeded to adopt. Roth and Driver, august though they might be, were portrayed as out of their element in the field of Qumran scholarship. Thus, de Vaux, reviewing Driver’s book in 1967, wrote, ‘It is a sad thing to find here once more this conflict of method and mentality between the textual critic and the archaeologist, the man at his desk and the man in the field. ‘7 Not, of course, that de Vaux spent so very much time ‘in the field’ himself. As we have seen, he and most others on the international team were content to remain ensconced in their ‘Scrollery’, leaving the bulk of the fieldwork to the Bedouin. But the ‘Scrollery’, it might be argued, was at least closer to Qumran than was Oxford. Moreover, de Vaux and his team could claim first-hand familiarity with the entire corpus of Qumran texts, which Roth and Driver, denied access to those texts, could not. And while Roth and Driver had questioned the international team’s historical method, they had not actually confronted its excessive reliance on archaeology and palaeography.

  Archaeology and palaeography appeared to be the team’s strengths, allowing de Vaux to conclude his review of The Judaean Scrolls by stating, confidently and definitively, that ‘Driver’s theory… is impossible’.8 He could also, by invoking archaeology and palaeography, dazzle other figures in the field and effectively hijack their support. Thus Professor Albright was persuaded to weigh in against Driver, whose thesis, Albright declared, ‘has failed completely’. Its failure, Albright went on, derived from ‘an obvious scepticism with regard to the methodology of archaeologists, numismatists, and palaeographers. Of course, he [Driver] had the bad luck to run into head-on collision with one of the most brilliant scholars of our day — Roland de Vaux…’9

  Moving on to the offensive, the international team and their colleagues continued to bombard Roth and Driver with increasingly contemptuous criticism. Both, as Eisenman has observed, ‘were ridiculed in a manner unbecoming their situation and — with such ferocity as to make one wonder’.10 No one dared support them. No one dared risk the wrath of the now solidly entrenched consensus. ‘And the scholarly sheep’, as Eisenman says, ‘fell into line.’11 So far as Roth and Driver were concerned, their interests and reputations weren’t confined exclusively to Qumran research. In consequence, they simply retired from the arena, not deeming it worthwhile to pursue the matter further. That this should have been allowed to happen testifies to the timidity and docility of other researchers in the field. It remains a black mark in the record of Qumran scholarship.

  If the international team had exercised a monopoly before, their position now appeared to be unassailable. They had outmanoeuvred two of their most potentially formidable adversaries, and their triumph seemed to be complete. Roth and Driver had been driven to silence on the subject. Allegro had been discredited. Everyone else who might pose a threat had been intimidated into compliance. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, the hegemony of the international team was virtually absolute.

  By the mid-1980s, such opposition as existed to the international team was scattered and disorganised. Most of it found expression in the United States, through a single journal, Biblical Archaeology Review. In its issue for September/October 1985, BAR reported a conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls held at New York University the previous May. It repeated the statement by Professor Morton Smith made at that conference: ‘I thought to speak on the scandals of the Dead Sea documents, but these proved too numerous, too familiar, and too disgusting.’12 It observed that the international team were ‘governed, so far as can be ascertained, largely by convention, tradition, collegiality and inertia’.13 And it concluded:

  The insiders, the scholars with the text assignments (T.H. Gaster, professor emeritus of Barnard College, Columbia University, calls these insiders ‘the charmed circle’), have the goodies — to drip out bit by bit. This gives them status, scholarly power and a wonderful ego trip. Why squander it? Obviously, the existence of this factor is controversial and disputed.14

  BAR called attention to the residue of frustration and resentment built up among scholars of proven ability who had not been admitted to the ‘charmed circle’. It also, by implication, called attention to the benefits reaped by institutions such as Harvard University, where both Cross and Strugnell were stationed and where ‘pet’ graduate students were granted access to Qumran material while far more experienced and qualified researchers weren’t. BAR ended its report by calling for ‘immediate publication of photographs of the unpublished texts’,15 echoing Morton Smith, who asked his colleagues to ‘request the Israeli government, which now has ultimate authority over those scroll materials, immediately to publish photographs of all unpublished texts so that they will then be available to all scholars’.16

  That Smith’s exhortation was ignored again bears witness to academic faint-heartedness. At the same time, it must be mentioned that Smith’s exhortation was unfortunate in that it implicitly passed the blame from the international team, the real culprits, to the Israeli government, which had more immediate problems on its hands. The Israelis had kept their side of the bargain, made in 1967, that the international team would be allowed to retain their monopoly, provided they published; the international team had not. Thus, while the Israeli government might have been irresponsible in letting the situation continue, it was not to blame for the situation itself. As Eisenman soon came to realise, most Israelis — scholars and journalists alike, as well as government figures — were appallingly ignorant about the true situation, and, it must be said, indifferent to it. Through this ignorance and indifference, an outdated status quo had been allowed to continue intact.

  In 1985, however, the same year as the conference reported by BAR, a well-known Israeli MP, Yuval Ne’eman, began to take an interest in the matter, and in the process showed himself to be surprisingly well briefed. Ne’eman was a world-famous physicist, Professor of Physics and head of the Physics Department at Tel Aviv University until 1971, when he became President of the university. Prior to that he had been a military planner, one of those responsible for evolving the basic strategic thinking of the Israeli Army. Between 1961 and 1963, he had been scientific director of the Soreq Research Establishment, the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. Ne’eman raised the issue of the scrolls in the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, declaring it a ‘scandal’ that the Israeli authorities had not reviewed or updated the situation — that the international team had been left with a mandate and monopoly dating from the former Jordanian regime. It was this challenge that finally forced the Israeli Department of Antiquities to investigate how and why an enclave of Catholic-oriented scholars should exercise so complete and exclusive a control over what was, in effect, an Israeli state treasure.

  The Department of Antiquities proceeded to confront the international team on the question of publication. What accounted for the procrastination and delays, and what kind of timetable for publication could reasonably be expected? The director of the team at the time was Father Benoit, who on 15 September 1985 wrote to his colleagues.17 In this letter, a copy of which is in our possession, he reminded them of Morton Smith’s call for immediate publication of photographs. He also complained (as if he were the aggrieved party) about the use of the word ‘scandal’, not just by Morton Smith, but by Ne’eman as well, in the Knesset. He went on to state his intention of recommending John Strugnell as ‘chief editor’ of future publications. And he requested a timetable for publication from each member of the team.

  Compliance with Father Benoit’s request was dilatory and patchy. The Department of Antiquities, prodded by N
e’eman, wrote to him again on 26 December 1985, repeating its request for a report and for answers to the questions it had raised.18 One cannot be sure whether Benoit based his reply on reliable information received from his colleagues, or whether he was simply improvising in order to buy time. But he wrote to the Department of Antiquities promising definitively that everything in the international team’s possession would be published within seven years — that is, by 1993.19 This timetable was submitted, in writing, as a binding undertaking, but of course no one took it seriously, and in personal conversation with us, Ne’eman stated he had heard ‘on the grapevine’ that the timetable was generally regarded as a joke.20 It has certainly proved to be so. There is no prospect whatever of all the Qumran material, or even a reasonable part of it, appearing by 1993. Not even the whole of the material from Cave 4 has been published. Following Allegro’s volume for Discoveries in the Judaean Desert back in 1968, only three more have been issued, in 1977, 1982 and 1990, bringing the total number of volumes to eight.

  Nonetheless, the intensifying pressure engendered panic among the international team. Predictably enough, a search began for a scapegoat. Who had brought the Israeli government into the affair? Who had briefed Ne’eman and enabled him to raise the issue in the Knesset? Perhaps because of the repetition of the word ‘scandal’, the team concluded Geza Vermes to have been responsible. In fact, Vermes had had nothing whatever to do with the matter. It was Robert Eisenman who had briefed Ne’eman.

  Eisenman had learned from the omissions of Roth and Driver. He appreciated that the entire edifice of the international team’s consensus rested on the supposedly accurate data of archaeology and palaeography. Roth and Driver had correctly dismissed these data as irrelevant, but without confronting them. Eisenman resolved to challenge the international team on their own terrain — by exposing the methodology and demonstrating that the resulting data were irrelevant.

  He opened his campaign with the book that first brought him to our attention, Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran, published by EJ. Brill in Holland in 1983. In this book, he posed the first serious challenge the international team had yet encountered to their archaeology and palaeography. In his introduction, he explicitly flung down the gauntlet to the ‘small group of specialists, largely working together’ who had ‘developed a consensus’.21 Given the text’s limited audience and circulation, of course, the international team could simply ignore the challenge. Indeed, the likelihood is that none of them read it at the time, in all probability dismissing it as a piece of ephemera by an upstart novice.

  Eisenman, however, refused to let his efforts be consigned to oblivion. By 1985, his second book, James the Just in the Habakkuk Pesher, had appeared in Italy, ironically under the imprint of one of the Vatican presses, Tipographia Gregoriana. It carried an Italian preface, and the next year, with some additions and a revised appendix, was brought out by EJ. Brill. That same year, Eisenman was appointed Fellow-in-Residence at the prestigious Albright Institute in Jerusalem. Here he began working behind the scenes to acquaint the Israeli government with the situation and raise the scrolls on their agenda of priorities.

  The international team’s stranglehold, he realised, could not be broken solely through decorous or even strident protests in learned journals. It would be necessary to bring external pressure to bear, preferably from above. Accordingly, Eisenman met and briefed Professor Ne’eman, and Ne’eman then forced the issue in the Knesset.

  Later that year, Eisenman himself approached Father Benoit, and verbally requested access to the scrolls. Predictably enough, Benoit politely refused, adroitly suggesting that Eisenman should ask the Israeli authorities, and implying that the decision was not his to make. At this point, Eisenman was still unaware of the stratagems employed by the international team to thwart all applicants who wanted access to the scrolls. He was not, however, prepared to be excluded so easily.

  All scholars during their tenure on the staff of the Albright Institute give one lecture to the general public. Eisenman’s lecture was scheduled for February 1986, and he chose as his subject ‘The Jerusalem Community and Qumran’, with the provocative subtitle ‘Problems in Archaeology, Palaeography, History, and Chronology’. As in the case of his book on James, the title itself was calculated to strike a nerve. In accordance with custom, the Albright Institute sent invitations to all important scholars in the field in Jerusalem, and it was a matter of courtesy for sister institutions, like the French Ecole Biblique, to be represented. Five or six turned up, a higher number than usual.

  Since they were unfamiliar with Eisenman and his work, they may not have expected anything out of the ordinary. Gradually, however, their complacency began to crumble, and they listened to his arguments in silence.[2] They declined to ask any questions at the end of the lecture, leaving without extending the usual courtesy of congratulations. For the first time, it had become apparent to them that in Eisenman they faced a serious challenge. True to form, they ignored it, in the hope, presumably, that it would go away.

  The following spring, one of Eisenman’s friends and colleagues, Professor Philip Davies of Sheffield University, arrived in Jerusalem for a short stay. He and Eisenman went to discuss with Magen Broshi, director of the Shrine of the Book, their desire to see the unpublished scroll fragments still sequestered by the international team. Broshi laughed at what apparently struck him as a vain hope: ‘You will not see these things in your lifetime,’ he said.22 In June, towards the end of his stay in Jerusalem, Eisenman was invited to tea at the house of a colleague, a professor at the Hebrew University who would later become a member of the Israeli ‘Scroll Oversight Committee’. Again he took Davies with him. A number of other academics, including Joseph Baumgarten of Baltimore Hebrew College, were present, and early in the evening John Strugnell — Allegro’s old adversary and subsequently the head of the international team — made his appearance. Boisterous and apparently intent on confrontation, he began to complain about ‘unqualified people’ importunately demanding access to the Qumran material. Eisenman responded on cue. How did Strugnell define ‘qualified’? Was he himself ‘qualified’? Aside from his supposed skills in analysing handwriting, did he know anything about history? Ostensibly, it was all a half-joking, more or less ‘civilised’ debate, but it was growing ominously personal.

  The next year, 1986-7, Eisenman spent at Oxford, as Senior Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies and visiting Member of Linacre College. Through contacts in Jerusalem, he had been given two secret documents. One was a copy of a scroll on which Strugnell was working, part of his ‘private fiefdom’. This text, written apparently by a leader of the ancient Qumran community and outlining a number of the community’s governing precepts, is known by those in the field as the ‘MMT’ document. Strugnell had shown it around at the 1985 conference, but had not published it.23 (Nor has he yet, though the entire text comes to a mere 121 lines.)

  The second document was of more contemporary significance. It comprised a computer print-out, or list, of all Qumran texts in the hands of the international team.24 What made it particularly important was that the international team had repeatedly denied that any such print-out or list existed. Here was definitive proof that vast quantities of material had not yet been published and were being suppressed.

  Eisenman had no hesitation about what to do:

  Since I had decided that one of the main problems between scholars, which had created this whole situation in the first place, was over-protectiveness and jealously guarded secrecy, I decided to circulate anything that came into my hands without conditions. This was the service I could render; plus, it would undermine the international cartel or monopoly of such documents.25

  Eisenman accordingly made available a copy of the ‘MMT’ document to anyone who expressed a desire to see it. These copies apparently circulated like wildfire, so much so that a year and a half later he received one back again from a third party who asked if he had seen it. He c
ould tell by certain notations that this was one of the copies that he had originally allowed to circulate.

  The print-out, like the ‘MMT’ document, was duly circulated, producing precisely the effect Eisenman had anticipated. He made a particular point of sending a copy of it to Hershel Shanks of BAR, thus providing the journal with ammunition to renew its campaign.

  By this time, needless to say, Eisenman’s relations with the international team were deteriorating. On the surface, of course, each maintained with the other a respectable academic demeanour of frosty civility. They could not, after all, publicly attack him for his actions, which had been manifestly disinterested, manifestly in the name of scholarship. But the rift was widening between them; and it wasn’t long before a calculated attempt was made to freeze him out.

  In January 1989, Eisenman visited Amir Drori, the newly appointed director of the Israeli Department of Antiquities. Drori inadvertently reported to Eisenman that he was about to sign an agreement with the team’s new chief editor, John Strugnell. According to this agreement, the team’s monopoly would be retained. The previous deadline for publication, accepted by Father Benoit, Strugnell’s predecessor, was to be abrogated. All remaining Qumran material was to be published not by 1993, but by 1996.26

  Eisenman was naturally appalled. Attempts to dissuade Drori, however, proved futile. Eisenman left the meeting determined to employ a new and more drastic stratagem. The only means of bringing pressure to bear on both the international team and on the Department of Antiquities, and perhaps stop Drori from proceeding with the contract, would be Israel’s High Court of Justice, which dealt with miscarriages of justice and private appeals from individuals.