Index and Preamble
Direct information about the contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls is still rather
scarce on-line. Fortunately, that situation is finally beginning to change.
Meanwhile, information in print is now readily available. In the less than three
years since work on this site began, many new and interesting works have
appeared in print and the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has finally gotten
the members of the International Editorial Team into high gear. The official
publications are now coming into print at a "breakneck" pace. Some of the early
volumes of the official series from Oxford University Press are also being
reissued. All of that is documented here.
The official and unofficial publication of photographic and microfiche editions
of the scrolls provided a critical impetus enabling the vast majority of scroll
scholars to begin preparing their own translations, reconstructions and
commentaries on the scrolls. Most of these scholars would not otherwise be able
to access the essential source documents. Photographic access to the previously
unpublished scrolls is producing a diversity of opinions, analyses,
interpretations and reconstructions. These are now coming into print and
collectively they may eventually revolutionize our understanding of the scrolls.
The scrolls may grow or shrink in stature as a result of this intense scrutiny.
Whatever happens, it is already clear that the attempts of the original
editorial team, and more recently of the IAA, to present a "final" and unified
interpretation of the significance of the scrolls, both as a whole and for many
of the individual scrolls, is falling apart. Too many scholars with too much
experience now have an opportunity to see for themselves what has been
accomplished. In many cases the "outside scholars" have much more experience and
expertise than those lucky or well connected enough to be chosen to serve as
official editors. Many of these experts seem sorely disappointed by the quality
of the work done to date.
That said, it is also clear that a lot of good work was also completed by the
official editors, their successors and students. From the pace of the work
taking place now, we can expect that most of the shortcomings will be remedied
sooner rather than later.
Much important work was left undone or incomplete by the original investigators.
The archaeological work cannot easily be repeated, for example. What was done 40
or 50 years ago cannot be un-done now in order to redo it more professionally.
The entire community of interested scroll scholars is simply stuck with the work
and the notes produced at the time and the artifacts found at that time which
happen not to have been lost in the intervening decades.
Roland de Vaux's archaeological site reports provide but one outstanding example
of work left unfinished and difficult, time consuming and expensive, if not
quite impossible, to complete by a new generation of investigators.
Nevertheless, the interest on the part of the entire academic community has been
intense and frustrated for decades. That pent up energy is now finding its
outlet and I believe it is safe to assume that the work left undone will
eventually be completed; and I am convinced that it will get gone fairly soon.
One can also hope that more on-line translations will eventually appear, but for
the moment the best sources are only available in print.
On the other hand, recent developments suggest that more authors are interested
in circulating their work to a wider audience. For example, I recently received
an introduction to Fred P. Miller's web site covering the most intimate details
of the scribal marks, and conventions he has identified in the Great Isaiah
Scroll from Qumran Cave 1 (1Q). It includes photographs of each section of text
and covers it exhaustively line by line, and even letter by letter, looking for
spelling, marking and textual differences between the Scroll and the Masoretic
text.
Observations and careful analysis, like that provided by Mr. Miller, on the well
known biblical texts are exactly what is required before anyone can begin to
understand the non-biblical texts with the same level of confidence. By studying
the biblical texts the various scribal spelling and editing traditions, the
common types of scribal mistakes, the characteristic spellings that are not
mistakes, and dozens of other indicators can be evaluated.
That understanding can then be applied to analyzing the similarities and differences encountered in the non-biblical texts. Only after all of that is accomplished to the general satisfaction of the larger community of Dead Sea Scroll scholars can questions about whether this is a unified or multi-source library, whether the entire library is sectarian, and whether or not it is even a library be undertaken with some confidence. The work produced by Mr. Miller serves as a fine example to others and an encouragement to make their own work as freely available over the internet.
Recent published work by Ernest A. Muro, Jr., G. Wilhelm Nebe, and Emile Puech
identify certain of the previously unidentified Cave 7 fragments as parts of the
Book of Enoch. Mr. Muro's web site provides copies of these fragments, an
introduction to the fragments from this cave, the complete text of his December
1997 article in Revue de Qumran, a summary of the related article by Fr. Puech
in the same issue, and a useful Glossary. Their analyses cover fragments 4, 8,
and 11 - 14 from Cave 7.
Both Fred P. Miller and Ernest A. Muro, Jr. are providing an invaluable service
to the internet community in making their work generally available over the
internet. I hope that others will be encouraged by their example to do more of
the same.
The published journal articles must number in the tens of thousands by now and
the number of books in print must already surpass 5,000 volumes.
The Dead Sea Scroll Bibliography under construction at this site is still in its formative stages and already occupies a high percentage of the available web space at this site. For the non-specialist, this presents a daunting wall of seemingly irrefutable expertise. If only a reasonable percentage of those documents were available over the internet, we would all be making a lot more progress in our personal studies of these intriguing documents.
This site will attempt, using such resources as are or become available on the
Web, to provide anyone with an active interest in any aspect of the Dead Sea
Scrolls with an opportunity to determine for themselves what, if any, interest
or relevance these ancient writings or the ancillary artifacts from Qumran have
for them.
My personal interest is mostly historical, but I cannot help but be fascinated
by some of the archaeological information that is beginning to come out, as
well. It is easy to understand why this region and this time, even apart from
the religious questions which many people find endlessly fascinating, are able
to generate so much interest. For one thing, we can all see that the history of
this region is still playing itself out on the front pages of newspapers all
over the world. The roots of humanity are deep in the Middle East.
Ancient Palestine sat at the crossroads of the world. Rome, Egypt, Syria,
Greece, Persia, Babylon, and Assyria, among others, left traces of their trade
wares and their armies on this narrow strip between the Mediterranean Sea and
the nearly impassable desert of Arabia. It served as the pressure relief valve
for most of the world's trading nations and almost all of the conflicts of
Europe and western Asia for at least 4,000 years.
This land can not help but bear the scars of all
that activity; in its people, their writings, their religions, their cities and
their political institutions. That is the history which I would like to
understand much better.
Introduction - the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran
The main area of interest at this site is the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran and
the primary concern is with their historic, literary, and cultural significance;
and only marginally with their religious significance.
The scope of the site coverage is limited by my own nascent understanding of the peoples, religions, history and languages of Palestine (which is understood here to include Maccabaean Palestine, including all of Galilee, Samaria, Judaea, Philistia, Idumaea, Gaulantis, Galaaditis and the whole of the eastern shore of the Dead Sea. Near neighbors, in various eras, included the Seleucid Empire (Phoenicia/Syria/Ituraea) to the North, Decapolis and Peraea to the East, Nabataea to the East and South, and Egypt to the South and Southwest).
The predominant outside influences, during the era of greatest interest, came first from Egypt, then from Babylon and Seleucid Syria, and finally from Rome.
The primary temporal focus is aimed at the period from about 200 BCE to about
100 CE. This is supposed to be the time of the composition, copying and storage
of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
There is also considerable interest in more recent Dead Sea Scroll developments,
including; their discovery, assembly, translation, and interpretation;
allegations of conspiracy; intrigues involving concordances; and charges and
counter-charges of all kinds - all of which have swirled around the scrolls. All
the controversy has finally produced what amounts to a publishing bonanza. Even
the official editors and their chosen publisher are getting back into the act.
Clarendon Press is putting out new volumes of its Discoveries in the Judaean
Desert (of Jordan) series and is even re-issuing several of the earliest numbers
from that series.
The "release" of the Cave 4 scrolls in the early 1990's is marked by the
publication of certain facsimile copies of photographs of the scroll fragments
from Qumran Cave 4 (4Q). Scrolls from ten other Qumran caves had already been
published, nearly in their entirety, by that time. Cave 4 contained by far that
largest surviving cache of scrolls in the area. Publication of such a large
number of scrolls has to be treated as a major event and welcomed with open
arms. Direct access to the scrolls is, however, still limited to members of the
newly expanded International Team of Scroll Editors, who currently work under
the auspices of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). The vast majority of
scroll scholars, meaning those not lucky enough to be chosen as official
editors, have nevertheless taken the opportunity to produce a growing number of
independent translations and analyses from outside the cloister of the IAA.
This can only be viewed as a good thing. A diversity of ideas, opinions and
proposals works for all other disciplines and there is no reason to expect that
it won't work in the arena of scroll scholarship. There is no way to corner the
market on ideas and there is nothing like a broad consensus to beat out a narrow
one every time. But there is no way to arrive at a broad consensus unless
everyone with expertise and an interest has the opportunity to see the evidence.
Even publication of the photographs does not constitute complete access to the
evidence, but it has given the interested parties something to work with for
now.
I admit feeling uncomfortable with the general agreement that has been expressed
until recently about the origins, authors and provenance of the scrolls. I think
it is well past time that the broadest range of ideas be consulted with respect
to all matters concerning these scrolls. I am very glad to see such a process
getting underway, even if it does have a long way to go.
The evidence that has not been released includes the scrolls themselves (which all admit are too fragile to permit general access), the archaeological materials (all of which is inaccessible, some of which appears to be missing, and most of which has still not been published), and the notes from the early archaeological digs at Qumran. The early editors certainly appeared to be participating in an attempt to control the interpretation of the scrolls by limiting access to the evidence. This type of behavior has a foul reek even if the excuses used to explain it away may have some merit. Only small minds think they can get away with such a small-minded exercise. The events of the 1990's have proven their inability to get away with it any longer, if that was their intention.
Everyone is still waiting to see if the delay was worth it. The diversity of the
contents of the Dead Sea Scrolls is somewhat surprising considering the
impressions one gets from the early publications. If one small sect in the
desert could hold such a diversity of incompatible views about itself, its God,
its raison d'etre, its neighbors, and its enemies, then I will be flabbergasted.
There is more going on than anyone has suspected and it looks as though it might
take decades more to figure out, if we ever can, what it was.
The decades of unnecessary delay imposed by the original editors has certainly not helped this aspect of the situation.
Other Scrolls from Palestine
There was clearly a vibrant and complex society thriving throughout Palestine
during the relevant period and the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran are among the
most significant documents ever discovered dating from that time. As the
following summary shows, however, they are not the only ancient Judaean or
Palestinian manuscripts discovered in modern times. Furthermore, it is probably
safe to assume that caves have been used to store scrolls since scrolls were
first produced in this region. Here is a list of the known modern scroll
discoveries from Palestine:
Papyri from Wâdi Daliyeh or Samaria Papyri
From several caves 9 miles north of Jericho, discovered and excavated,
1962-64, papyri written in Aramaic and dated between 375 and 335 BCE were
found. Nearly 200 human skeletons covering all age groups were discovered
there; apparently killed by Macedonian soldiers of Alexander the Great when
he conquered Samaria in 331 BCE.
The documents are primarily, if not exclusively, legal documents; many still
bearing official seals. Mary Joan Winn Leith published her analysis of the
Wadi Daliyeh Seal Impressions in DJD XXIV. The Clarendon Press has this to
say about her volume:
"The seal impressions found at Wadi ed-Daliyeh near Qumran (9 miles north of
Jericho is not actually that close to Qumran; the skeletons in this cave
appear to be of Samarian rebels against Alexander's Persian lieutenants-mah)
were originally clay seals fixed to the Samaria Papyri (legal documents
dated to the mid-fourth century BCE). They provide a rare glimpse of the
cultural influences to which one area of Palestine was exposed before the
coming of Alexander. This volume presents a catalogue and analysis of the
legible sealings and two gold rings in the collection of the Rockefeller
Museum, Jerusalem."
The Masada Manuscripts
Texts discovered during the excavation of the fortress, including Hebrew
and Aramaic ostraca and fragments of Latin papyri, several biblical texts, a
Hebrew manuscript of Ben Sira, a copy of Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, a
composition also known from Qumran, many fragments of Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek
and Latin. Not all of the this collection has been published.
The Manuscripts of Wâdi Murabbacat
Includes a 7th Century BCE palimpsest, some Arabic texts, some 1st
century CE remains, and other documents in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin
from the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt. This was all published in DJD II as
Les grottes de Murabbacat by P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux
The Manuscripts of Nahal Hever
Discovered during Israeli archaeological campaigns to two caves in 1960
and 1961; the 'Cave of Letters' and the 'Cave of Horror'. The first
contained some biblical fragments and a large quantity of Hebrew, Aramaic,
Nabataean and Greek papyri in two lots: the archive of the family Babata and
additional Bar Kokhba documents. The contents of the second cave are less
abundant and appear to point to this cave as the real source of the
collection, reported by Bedouin as originating, from Wâdi Seiyâl.
Emanuel Tov published "The Greek Minor Prophets Scroll" from Nahal Hever
(8HevXIIgr), as The Seiyal Collection I in DJD VIII
Hannah M. Cotton and Ada Yardeni published the Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek
Documentary Texts from Nahal Hever and Other Sites, with an Appendix
Containing Alleged Qumran Texts as The Seiyâl Collection II in DJD XXVII.
Clarendon Press has the following to say about this volume:
"This volume contains first and second century CE documents in Aramaic and
Greek said to come from Nahal Se'elim and now generally held to come from
Nahal Hever (the venue of the Babatha Archive and the Bar Kokhba documents).
They reveal legal, social, and linguistic aspects of the life of Jews in the
Roman provinces of Judaea and Arabia."
The Manuscripts of Wâdi Seiyâl
The earliest manuscripts were acquired from Bedouin between 1952 and
1954 by the erstwhile 'Palestine Archaeological Museum'. They were
represented as from this location; see DJD VIII. Subsequent discoveries at
Nahal Hever make it the almost certain source for at least some of those
manuscripts. Additional documents were actually discovered here by an
Israeli expedition in 1960. The two collections are still stored separately
and will be published separately.
The Manuscripts from Nahal Mishmar
Artifacts from the Chalcolithic period (4500-3000 BCE) were uncovered,
but hardly any manuscripts. A couple of papyri fragments were found in 1961.
The Manuscripts from Khirbet Mird
Manuscripts in Greek, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, and Arabic from the
ruins of the monastery of Castellion were acquired from Bedouin and by a
Belgian expedition in 1953. These seem to be mostly from the more recent
Byzantine and Arab periods.
The documents found in those caves are also deservedly a part of the legacy of the region. Here, however, I intend to concentrate on the specific collection of manuscripts and fragments found in eleven caves, out of several hundred examined by the earliest archaeological expeditions, near Khirbet Qumran by Bedouin and Jordanian expeditions beginning in 1946 and 1947. In what follows the term 'Dead Sea Scrolls' refers, almost exclusively, to materials found within about 1.5 miles of Qumran.
The controversy about lack of access to the scrolls concerns primarily the
thousands of fragments from Cave 4 (4Q). Those are almost the only scroll
fragments not in print. With few exceptions, the contents of Cave 1-3, 5-11 have
been published for decades. Cave 4 was an entirely different matter. It
contained literally thousands of fragments from hundreds of manuscripts. The job
of cleaning, preserving and translating them, we now know, took several years.
Some delay beyond that must be attributed to the sheer volume of the manuscripts. But even allowing a decade for that, we are still entitled to an accounting of why it has taken another quarter of a century to get the ball rolling. Batches of manuscripts, most even more obscure than these, have almost always managed to work their way into print in far less time.
The Times and the Culture of Palestine
The period from c. 200 BCE to the time of the destruction of the Second Temple
in 70 CE, was the era from which both Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity
sprang. Many of the worlds great religions trace their history through this
region, if not from it. These documents, from the world's cultural, religious
and linguistic crossroads, are from a unique formative period before the
Rabbinical, Christian and Moslem redactors made their contributions and
alterations to this literature. That fact alone enhances the significance of
these unique, ancient, and primarily, parchment documents.
One tidbit that I find very revealing is that no two copies are alike. These
people had, it seems, an opinion very different from that held by many modern
religious authorities about the immutability of the biblical texts; even those
with centuries of tradition already behind them, such as the Book of Isaiah. It
might be concluded that each scribe considered it his duty to "improve", clarify
or "correct" each text he copied. That gives me the impression of a rather more
flexible religious canon during the intertestamental period. This is the sort of
insight that reveals much about who these people were and how they conducted
their daily lives.
The scrolls were clearly meant to be read, but they are also clearly storage
vessels for ideas. Who were they meant to be read by? What assumptions did the
author and the reader share? Was any of this literature aimed at the far distant
reader? How many people, either at Qumran or within the general population,
could read these manuscripts and how were they to be used to transmit
information to the illiterate?
Answers to questions like these are endlessly fascinating and ultimately
unanswerable. Nevertheless, it is by looking for answers to these that we can
hope to gain some insight into the minds of the composers of these and other
scrolls.
Texts, Sources and Archaeology
A secondary interest at this site involves trying to understand the controversy
and resolve the issues engendered by and lingering after the discovery,
reconstructions, translations and interpretations of these documents, as well as
the ongoing doubts about the quality of the archaeology practiced by Harding and
de Vaux at Qumran itself.
The most significant controversy is starting to resolve itself as the pace of
publication by the International Team of Editors picks up steam under the goad
of international outrage and the scrutiny of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Too little was done by too few for too long.
It took several prods to get the IAA and its academic editors moving. Among
these was the publication of photographic images of almost all the unpublished
Cave 4 scrolls. These were obtained from a mysterious source by Robert Eisenman
between September 1989 and the autumn of 1990. When E. J. Brill of Leiden
withdrew as publisher shortly before the scheduled publication date for these
photographs in April 1991, BAR's editor, Hershel Shanks, his Biblical
Archaeology Society, and the Irving Moskowitz Foundation stepped in to cover the
cost of publication of the two volume A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
Another prod came with the announcement, only two months before publication of
Eisenman's photographs, that the Huntington Library in San Marino, California
would open its previously secret archive of Dead Sea Scroll photographs to all
interested scholars. (If the Huntington was not the source of the photographs
sent to Eisenman, then who was and where did the photographs come from? There
have not been that many opportunities for outsiders to take a full set of
photographs.)
Both of these events followed the publication of A Preliminary Edition of the
Unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts from Cave Four:
reconstructed and edited by Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin Abegg, 2 fascs.
(Washington, D. C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991 and 1993).
These guesses about the contents of certain Cave 4 manuscripts were extracted with the aid of a computer from John Strugnell's very limited edition Concordance prepared exclusively for the use of the members of the international team of editors working on the scrolls. How Wacholder and Abegg obtained a copy of that Concordance is still a mystery to me. These were guesses, at best, and recent comparisons show that they are not very accurate. Still, this work did much to shake up the IAA and its editors. It was the first serious shot across their bow, and it did encourage both Eisenman and the Huntington Library in their determination to "Free the Scrolls."
These events put the IAA and its entire international team of official editors
on notice that their nearly 50 year old monopoly, and entire academic lifetimes
of foot dragging, were coming to an end. The IAA originally favored the status
quo after it took de jure but not de facto control of the scrolls following the
Six Day War. Eventually it did expand the size of the editorial board,
reassigned all the unpublished material not in imminent danger of publication
and started pushing for firm publication dates from the new and old editors.
I have a certain sympathy for the rights of those who invested their time and
energy into the intensive early work of collecting, cleaning, preserving,
assembling and translating the Cave 4 documents. However, enough is enough.
Having had almost 50 years to make whatever hay they could of the exclusive
contract they seem to have had with the Palestine Archaeology Museum, it was
long past time for those with access to either publish or perish.
Other Unresolved Questions
Other fascinating problems remain to be resolved and, now that the wider
community of scroll scholars has access, to at least the photographic evidence,
some real progress can be anticipated in these areas as well.
For example, there is an amazing amount of academic support for the hypotheses
that:
a small group of Essenes (now recast more generally as Sectarians) wrote and/or transcribed, and were the sole owners and readers of the Dead Sea Scrolls
the sectarians were an all male group of
celibate religious zealots or separatists who were totally disconnected from
and out of step with the wider Jewish society of Jerusalem and Judaea; and
further,
while an entire sectarian library was saved from
the ravages of the Roman war against the rebels throughout Palestine during
the period 66 to 74 CE, no other works from any other source, not even the
presumably large collection associated with the Temple in Jerusalem, were
similarly saved;
that this library was stored in caves
practically at the base of the walls of Qumran itself, and yet no Roman
soldier or subsequent occupant ever noticed they were there, and
that the sectarians were pacifists living in or near what is obviously a well fortified, possibly military, structure in a key location for monitoring, if not actually guarding, trade and immigration along the routes carrying people and products to and from the southern and eastern regions beyond the Dead Sea.
(Roman forces apparently thought it made a good enough fortification to be used by their own military forces following the end of the First Jewish Revolt. Even though Qumran was in ruins, only slight modifications were required to make it suitable for the Roman Army's purposes during the occupation and what must have been, at times, a very uneasy peace.)
On the face of it, this entire integrated scenario seems highly unlikely to me. Real life is not that simple. Which parts of it are true and which parts are fanciful remain to be determined.
The near monopolistic hold once maintained by the few scholars with access to
the primary (and still largely unpublished) archaeological evidence said to
support these propositions has been broken. Whether or not any of it will stand
up to the light of wide ranging scrutiny is still an open question. I have been
disappointed, however, to see how reluctant some researchers are to broach even
the slightest doubt about this story. Roland de Vaux invented much of it in the
first couple of weeks he spent digging around Khirbet Qumran. De Vaux revised
his own ideas after reflection and modern scholars are beginning to do more of
the same now that the scrolls and archaeological data are beginning to appear.
Given the current level of archaeological sophistication, it is a wonder that
our understanding of Qumran, itself, is so weak or that anyone still refuses to
acknowledge that:
it was a defensive fortress and not a monastery,
if the Sectarians were warriors, then no ruler
of Judaea could long afford to let them sit astride an important trade route
within his own borders,
anyone living in a fortification this close to
Jerusalem needed the approval of the authorities in Jerusalem,
the occupants, therefore, could not have been the isolationist outcasts they
are portrayed to have been,
Qumran fits the design and style of other fortifications of the same age in
the region (though not the large frontier fortresses like Masada or
Machaerus),
it needed to be occupied by military or
administrative representatives of Jerusalem, because it sits astride a
significant trading route,
(Specifically, it should have been occupied and controlled by Herodian
administrative or military personnel, followed by Hebrew revolutionary
troops until it was captured by Roman soldiers around 69/70/71 CE; after
which it was continuously occupied by Roman soldiers until about 100 CE. In
other words, it was occupied by official/military personnel, not by
pacifists, during the entire span of time when the scrolls are supposed to
have been stored, if not actually hidden, in the caves within plain site of
Qumran's fortified walls. How could they do that without the cooperation of
those in charge of Qumran itself?
Some have proposed that these caves were used, perhaps for a couple of
centuries, as a genizah, a storage place for documents too sacred or
important to be destroyed. Perhaps that makes sense. Perhaps we should
assume that the purpose of a genizah was storage but with the understanding
that some level of natural destruction operated beyond the control of those
in charge of the storage facility. Like the equivalent of the trash bin on a
modern computer, where the files are out of sight but not out of reach if
one happens to change ones mind later, but not too much later.
This might also explain the divergent views expressed by the various scrolls. It might also explain why so many of the scrolls are either sectarian or canonical. The canonical scrolls have always been revered and saved in this way, while the sectarian scrolls, while perhaps not held in such reverence, still could not be destroyed outright even after they were purged from public access by Sadduccaean and/or Pharisaic leaders.
Others have proposed that these caves served as a sectarian lending library
for members of the sect that presumably occupied Qumran; instead of the
official personnel who should have been there. It is difficult to see how
the scrolls could have been overlooked by the warring parties and occupying
Romans between 70 and 100 CE. Perhaps everyone knew they were there and
considered them about as much as we consider any garbage heap, which is to
say not at all unless it smells.
I would like to know what other items, including garbage, if any, was found among or on top of the scrolls in order to make some determination about how they got there. No one seems to mention either latrines or garbage dumps in what I read and yet those can be crucial to understanding the size of an occupying population, its variation with time, and much about who they were. Here again, inadequate archaeology at the time of the original excavations is letting us down.)
A possible scenario which permits an extensive sectarian presence in a large region around Qumran during the 100 years from 31 BCE to 70 CE is one in which they served as support staff for the official representatives in exchange for their use of the facilities and camping rights nearby. Sectarians may have managed the kilns, raised food south of Qumran and maintained the drainage system which kept the cisterns full of water, among other things.
Significantly, even this level of accommodation to the official presence implies that they were able to maintain some sort of civil relationship with the authorities in Jerusalem.
(The current interpretation of some of the works from Cave 4 seem to suggest that such an arrangement is unlikely. But that is only a problem if one is also assuming that there was only one source for the scrolls and that all the scrolls must fit within the confines of a single sect of Judaism.)
In fact, if the presumptive sectarians had provided these services to a series
of rulers through earlier politically sensitive times, even back to the Roman
expeditions of the 60s and 40s BCE, then the sectarians may have felt some
confidence that, if the Romans ever captured the fortification, they would be
asked to provide the same services for them. Such a miscalculation could explain
the size of the large nearby cemetery.
(The odd placement, orientation and aspect of the graves suggests that Jewish Sectarians did not construct those graves, though they may be buried in them. Others have suggested that the graves are occupied by immigrants who were denied entry into Jerusalem due to physical ailment or impairment.)
Sectarians are not required for these purposes, however, well educated and hard
working domestics are hard to find in the desert and one or more sectarian
groups might have been very welcome to fulfill these tasks in exchange for cash
or protection.
The original version according to de Vaux is too narrow to be true. Sectarian
domestics may not be realistic, but what makes warrior monastics so believable?
Why de Vaux's early ideas have gained such a foothold is less important than
that their shortcomings should eventually be recognized and corrected. I don't
see how most of the important questions about the Scrolls can be resolved until
the source of the scrolls is firmly established. I do not see any overriding
reason to assume a single source for the scrolls, a single sectarian belief
system behind their composition, a single group, sectarian or otherwise, living
at Qumran, or one good reason to think that the group was Essenic. While all of
this may be true, it is not good enough to simply assume it. Someone needs to
produce the evidence and present the arguments. Then we'll see how many it
convinces.
There is no reason why there has to be one single source for the scrolls. Given
their diversity, three or four predominant sources might easily be responsible
for the bulk of the manuscripts. Too many already use a single source approach
to explain the meaning and to imagine internally consistent theologies which
attempt to incorporate the scrolls as a unity. No one is examining the scrolls
with the goal of determining if the scrolls came from one or many sources. That
oversight dooms much of the current work to a permanently provisional status.
In the late 1980's and early 1990's curiosity about the scrolls was heightened
by suggestions that there was an on-going and systematic campaign to suppress
their contents. There were several pet theories about who was suppressing what
and why.
For example, the list of theories includes but is not limited to the following,
in no particular order;
that the Dominicans, who in the persons of
Roland de Vaux and J. T. Milik, initially controlled most of the scroll
material and were in charge of all the early publications about them and all
the early archaeology at Qumran, sought to prevent certain early "Christian"
writings from appearing to contradict the current Roman Catholic Canon, or
that those same Dominicans might be trying to
"steal the heritage of the Jewish People" of Palestine by hiding or
distorting, one supposes, the "true meaning" of the scrolls, or
that, the Israel Antiquities Authority, which
has had nominal control of the scrolls since the 1967 Six-Day-War, might be
trying to suppress certain unflattering commentaries concerning early Hebrew
practices or embarrassing facts about important historical personages from
Jerusalem or Judaea, or
that a group of clearly amateurish scholars working way in over their heads may have stumbled into a tub of butter and decided to keep everyone else out of the loop while they alone basked in the glory, got all the publications, cornered all the tenure track positions at the world's most prestigious universities, and indoctrinated all the best graduate students to perpetuate their claim to fame.
That last one sounds as likely as any to me.
The so-called Qumran-Sectarian hypothesis was formulated very early in the
exploration of Qumran, its caves and its scrolls. The fact is that most of the
excavation was not undertaken by professional archaeologists. Roland de Vaux,
who with G. Lankester Harding controlled the early expeditions, was not himself
a trained archaeologist. The archaeology stopped well short of a complete
understanding of the site.
The results of the early field work have still not been published, though a new team is working on them now that de Vaux and Harding are both dead. Their early reports suggest that many artifacts listed in the field inventories are now missing. Different parts of the inventory are now controlled by governments that are barely civil to each other. Over the decades parts of the inventory have been lent to various associates of de Vaux. Most of these never published anything either. Those who have died in the mean time may or may not have passed on the artifacts to their own chosen successors.
How much better it would have been if the original excavators had bothered to
publish the work they did with their own hands rather than forcing others to
reconstruct that work from inadequate documentation and deteriorating or missing
artifacts. Work was undertaken anew in the late 1980's after a hiatus of almost
thirty years. The new Belgian team must have had a difficult time just gathering
the materials, much less synthesizing an entire dig without the benefit of
having been there at the time.
This is not the record of a dedicated group of serious scholars. It is more like
the record of occasionally enthusiastic amateurs. It could be the record of an
incompetent group whose main interest was in protecting their pet theory by
limiting access to their data and their material, some of which, for all we
know, might contradict it. Or perhaps they were just too busy to bother or too
lazy to care.
The Qumran-Essene hypothesis did not initially appear unreasonable in light of
the contents of the first six or seven scrolls recovered and published (from
1Q), nor in light of the first reports from the archaeological digs at the site.
The pace of public interest and adulation, however, may have overwhelmed the
slower more studied pace of site excavation and scroll scholarship with such
heady consequences that those involved in the earliest speculations were
emotionally and professionally trapped into perpetuating what has become an
almost insurmountable jumble of improbable speculation, labyrinthine arguments,
and ignored or suppressed contradictions.
The tragedy is that so few scholars with a vested interest and direct access to the scrolls and the archaeological material have shown the courage during the last forty years to face up to the facts and examine the evidence. Too many are still defending the dogma rather then evaluating the evidence. Most appear more interested in telling us what the evidence means than in examining the evidence to see what it says and what it does not say.
This is not science; it is a new religion; and that is one more than we need. There is no room for dogma in the face of facts. What we need are more facts, and fact based arguments, less speculation, and fewer unsupported defenses of the old dogma. If anyone has the evidence, then it is time to produce it. No more appeals to higher authority or the "classical interpretation" are allowed. There is nothing classy about a worn-out idea.
One of the prime motives behind the interest of the general public in the Dead
Sea Scrolls is undoubtedly speculation about their relationship, if any, to the
presumed roots of the Christian church; assumed to be newly emerging from its
Hebrew roots, but still tied to them, at about the time the scrolls were hidden
in the desert. The political entanglements, if any, and the identity of the
particular sect, or sects, or sub-sect which eventually evolved into the early
Christian church are not readily apparent from any of the other known historic,
literary or religious writings of that era. The Dead Sea Scrolls are largely
unedited, at least by modern hands, primary documents of contemporary literary
and religious writing of this history-making epoch.
High levels of interest in this aspect of their contents is completely
understandable. The same can be said for their bearing on our understanding of
the roots of Rabbinic Judaism, which was also beginning to emerge at about the
same time and which finally established its position of dominance only in the
third century CE. The complex and turbulent state of Judaism makes any
contemporary documents from that era extremely important and potentially
revealing of new insights into the processes that were shaping the lives, the
culture and the ethos of the peoples of the ancient Middle East.
Given the commonality of their early histories and the diversity of the "Judaean
Religion" which spawned both of them, it is probably fair to say that
Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism are two sects of one common religion. The
differences are largely bound up in their differing responses to the cultural
heritage of the Israelites. Rabbinic Judaism was an exclusive religion limited
to those who were descendants of Israelites who fled with Moses from Egypt or
who had adopted the cultural standards of Judaean society through intermarriage.
The exclusion of the Samarians provides an example of how exclusive it
eventually became.
The early Christian religion, in contrast, might be characterized as inclusive.
It made accommodations with the local heritage of the non-Israelite populations
all over the Mediterranean basin. Its inclusivity gave it a vast numerical
advantage in its early efforts to establish itself and that advantage continues
to this day. The Christian sect had to give up most of its ties to the cultural
heritage of the Israelites in order to present this inclusive appearance,
however, and many of the differences between these two great religions have
evolved from this one crucial early difference.
One expectation of those awaiting further work on the scrolls is the
reasonableness of such a view. Could the diversity of the Israelite religion
harbor two such groups within its boundaries? If it could, then the beginnings
of the Christian Church might reasonably predate the birth of Christ. The
assumption that he started the sect that eventually adopted his name would have
to be dropped. Oddly enough, I do not see much evidence that anyone is actually
investigating this question; as interesting as it would be to know the answer.
The seeming obsession of the major Hebrew sects,
beginning around 200 BCE, with matters of ritual purity may have been a response
to the appearance of one or more sects that threatened to disconnect themselves
from the well known heritage of the Mosaic Law. This would be purely speculative
at this point, but it is a question that begs an answer or at least an attempt
at elucidation. The urge for a more inclusive religion may well have predated
the first appearance of the Christian sect in Judaea. How will we ever know if
no one asks the question?
The scrolls were rediscovered over 50 years ago but the vast majority from Cave 4 have only been available to the scholarly community at large since about 1993. Therefore, the possibility still exists that the Dead Sea Scrolls could shed new light and offer new insights into many hitherto unreported or inadequately reported events, beliefs or groups of that period. They might also help us understand how various Jewish groups competed with each other during that period for political, religious, and moral supremacy.
It is unlikely that they will tell us how one variant of intertestamental Judaism evolved within a few generations into the early Christian church. But, even if they do not, they can still tell us volumes about the cultural milieu in which early Christian and Rabbinic ideologies developed and, perhaps, something about the complex of ideas from which they sprang.
These manuscripts should still have some interesting surprises which will, if
they can ever be unraveled from the myths and misinformation that has come down
to us from other, presumably, less pristine, sources, both ancient and modern,
tell us much about our own culture and expand our world view.
About WEB Links / Academic
Resources - the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran
Many of the sites my searches have uncovered are sponsored by religious and
other organizations of various types whose primary interest is not directed at
the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves. I am trying to weed out those sites which do
not provide specific information about the scrolls, their creation, discovery,
modern history, preservation, translation, interpretation, historical or
literary ancestry, or their comparison with or relationship to other known
biblical, canonical, literary or historical texts.
The political, military, cultural, religious, and economic context for the
composition of these scrolls is very important and links to a number of
non-scroll specific sites will be incorporated as they are identified. Related
topics of interest include such areas as archaeology, languages, history,
classics, religion, biblical studies, Jewish studies, geology and carbon-14
dating, among others. The choice of sites is by design focused primarily on
their relevance to the scrolls and events of the ancient Middle East and the
civilizations of the Eastern Mediterranean.
This site will continue to grow and evolve as new web sites are created, as
additional existing sites are discovered, and as information about the scrolls
becomes more generally available on the Web. Please send me your suggestions,
comments and questions, along with your list of the interesting and relevant
sites you've discovered while searching for Dead Sea Scroll sites. They will be
added here as quickly as possible.
While there are only a few translations of actual scroll material available on
the Web, there is still plenty of interesting information for anyone who has the
inclination and time to delve into it. This site includes a collection of the
currently available documents related to Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls and other
related documents.
In editing lists of sites uncovered by various search engines, this topic area
has been interpreted fairly broadly to include subjects that may not seem, at
first glance, to be directly related to the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves. This
was done purposely to provide some measure of perspective for this topic.
The collection at this site is not geared to an examination of biblical
accuracy, the history of biblical scholarship, why a large segment of the
scrolls have still not been officially translated and published by the vastly
expanded editorial group currently entrusted with that task, the political
history of the modern Middle East or the ownership of the various scroll
collections. All those topics are relevant and certainly interesting. Such
links, as can be found for those and similar topics, may eventually be included.
This site is geared to generating a wide angle view of the scrolls, the scrolls' original owners and copyists, the modern scroll scholars, their techniques, and the lessons that they have, or should have, learned. The goal is to put that information into an effort to unravel the historical setting in which the scrolls were first created and to read them honestly and to learn what they can tell us about intertestamental Palestine and its inhabitants.
About English Translations
in Print
There are now four very affordable books in print for English speakers who want
to see for themselves what to make of the contents of the 4Q scrolls. None of
them covers the biblical texts, which have mostly been published already. These
concentrate instead on the much more interesting non-biblical texts.
The paperback editions of these books are:
Robert Eisenman and Michael O. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (New York: Penguin, 1993).
F. García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated - The Qumran Texts in English, 2nd ed., trans. W. G. E. Watson (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995).
Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and Extended Fourth Edition (London: Penguin, 1995)
Michael O. Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr. and Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls, A New Translation, (Harper, San Francisco, 1996)
The first of these contains translations of 50 selected Cave 4 documents while the other three contain nearly complete collections of the (mostly) non-biblical texts from Cave 4.
One should not assume, and I do not, that these offer anything like the final
word on the translations of these texts. There are plenty of people working on
them now; all have their own specialties, perspectives, and ideas about how to
read them and what they mean.
On top of that, and adding to the complexity of the problems, there are
difficulties with the condition and readability of the manuscript fragments
themselves. Of course, parts of the text are almost always missing. Of the
pieces available, it may not always be obvious to everyone how to put the pieces
together or which ones belong together; which belong to separate copies of the
same text; and which belong to entirely separate texts.
Furthermore, there is the continuing evolution of the shapes of the letters and the spelling of the words to contend with. Some changes in spelling are merely due to scribal errors. Other times they reflect changes in usage. Sometimes there are reasonable disagreements about which vowels have been left out. Such fundamental uncertainties clearly make it difficult for all parties to agree on the simple translation, much less the meaning, of many of these fragmentary documents.
But underlying all other concerns there is the fundamental question about what
the words, in context, meant to their authors, the scribes who copied them, and
the audiences that read or listened to them. This is the critical concern,
obviously, and it is a much larger problem than merely translating the scrolls.
Answering this question requires knowing much more about the people and their
social, political, economic, linguistic and emotional status than we have any
current right to claim to understand. Until we get the simple steps out of the
way, however, there is no rational way to examine these larger issues.
Some words with very different meanings are spelled similarly or identically. Sometimes, even with the complete context, it is difficult to tell which meaning was intended. The meanings change with time, vary among different sectarian groups, are used allegorically and figuratively, or with secret meanings and in other ways that are difficult for the modern translator to unravel. Our understanding of the meaning of these documents is bound to evolve as studies continue. And after all that, a single unambiguous meaning might never be satisfactorily demonstrated.
It might be helpful to remember that one of the reasons sectarian groups existed
was to explain certain critical matters to their adherents. If the meaning of
God's word was obvious or if God's revelations were given to everyone the
teachers and their writings would have found no one in need of instruction. An
allegorical or downright misleading or ambiguous text, we might expect, would
have been generally preferred, if not to keep the unbelievers in the dark, then
at least to keep the believers coming back.
Nevertheless, these manuscripts offer glimpses into a fascinating cultural
period just prior to the beginning of the millennia of Christianity and Rabbinic
Judaism. It was a time of religious, cultural and political upheaval. It was a
time when, for example, there was a significant increase in the cultural
fascination and obsession with ritual purity. Disagreements over this one
cultural practice may have been sufficient to spawn dozens of sectarian groups
with strong antithetical responses to each other. The implied mini-upheavals,
leading to an ongoing and culture-wide religious upheaval, eventually produced
two of the World's great religions.
The extent of that birthing process convinced both
the Christian and Jewish leaders that they had to decide once and for all the
specific Canon for each defining version of the Bible. In that attempt both were
largely successful.
Faint ripples of that upheaval, largely buried by religious leaders for almost
two thousand years, have resurfaced in the form of a religious library (or
possibly a genizah) with a significant non-canonical selection of works that
escaped centuries of suppression, censorship and redaction.
If it is true that much of it was never meant for public viewing, that is interestingly relevant in light of the fact that modern scholars have perpetuated that intention for additional 50 years, nearly. If they were meant for a wider audience, it is also interesting to see how widely and how successfully the first and second century authorities were able to bury the parts of our religious heritage which they did not approve or could not rationalize into their more compact and more rigid belief systems.
There is no doubt that the importance of the non-biblical scrolls will impact
most deeply on studies of the history of Jewish religious beliefs, culture and
practice. That will have a secondary effect on studies of the early Christian
church as well. It is also possible that some indirect evidence about the events
which sparked the appearance of early Christianity might be gained from studying
these manuscripts. Clearly, some large segment of Palestinian Jewish heritage
was lost, purposely or not, for a very long time. Otherwise, we would not find
the Dead Sea Scrolls consisting of fully one-third new, never before seen,
manuscripts (though some have been mentioned by other sources).
In fact, they are undoubtedly only a small part of the lost heritage of the Jews
of intertestamental Palestine. At the Qumran site itself there is evidence that
several caves collapsed when they were undermined by running water coursing
through them. The few remaining bits of scroll evidence found in those caves
suggest that substantial but unknown numbers of scrolls were destroyed in situ
or, possibly, by being swept into the Dead Sea by ancient downpours.
Furthermore, if none of the Qumran scrolls is from Jerusalem, then there are potentially thousands more scrolls from the Temple which might remain to be discovered. Though some Temple scrolls were burned by the Romans, it seems highly likely that some part of the vast library associated with the Temple was spirited out of Jerusalem ahead of the approaching Roman Army prior to 70 CE.
Since the discovery of the caves at Qumran other caves, possibly by now all the
caves, in the Judaean Desert and elsewhere nearby have been explored and there
is a growing corpus of written material from about the 4th century BCE, through
the period of the First Jewish revolt against Rome, and up to and including the
time of the Second Jewish revolt around 135 CE.
These discoveries along with scattered historical reports of other scroll caches, discovered near Jericho and elsewhere in early Christian times, evidence the fact that the practice of storing scrolls in caves was not limited to one sect or to the eleven caves at Qumran or even to one time period. The materials from the Qumran caves are, rather, merely a part of an expanding documentary reservoir from the region in and near greater Palestine from a range of historic periods, as well, apparently, as from an assortment of literary traditions.
About the Supplementary Files for
the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran
I have reconstructed from a variety of
other sources, most of them not available on the WEB, several additional files
that may be of interest to students of this topic. These are not simple copies
of those other sources and as such are subject to errors introduced due to my
own lack of understanding.
The Supplementary Files include:
An Inventory of Manuscripts from Qumran,
An Ancient Timeline - Qumran, Palestine, Syria and Rome,
A Modern Timeline - Qumran, Israel and Jordan,
A collection of Selected Ancient Profiles,
A collection of Selected Modern Profiles,
A Glossary of Terms,
A Bibliography, and
A list of Abbreviations and Sigla.
Recommended References in Print
The most intelligent book for the general reader that I have found on this topic
is Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? - The Search for the
Secret of Qumran (New York: Touchstone, 1995).
Professor Golb is associated with the University of Chicago's Oriental
Institute. The clarity of his arguments and the depth of his experience and
understanding of scroll scholarship, in general, are remarkable. It is well
worth the price and it really is a pleasure to read.
There is much in it that is thought provoking. For that alone it is worth the
read. While I doubt that his story is entirely accurate, it is much more deeply
based in understandable scholarship than the Qumran/Sectarian dogma. One thing
that seems certain, based on my general reading in the field, is that it is very
easy to imagine any number of wild scenarios for what "really" took place. It is
much more difficult to do what Golb has done and try to tie his ideas to known
facts with a minimum of clearly defined speculation.
His speculations are labeled as such and are based on carefully examined evidence and a wide-ranging perspective on the more generalized scroll scholarship of many regions and time periods. He does good science and uses clear logic and even if he cannot reconstruct the complete story, he will have done his job by stimulating others to follow his methods to even better conclusions. That's what I expect from any serious scholar.
I only hope that by sifting through and studying Professor Golb's mountain of
information that I will, during my own future studies, be able to comprehend
some small part of it. The wealth of information is somewhat daunting but well
worth the effort.
For the most sympathetic view of the Qumran/Sectarian hypothesis by a reasonable
voice from among the original International Editorial Team, Frank Moore Cross
has published The Ancient Library of Qumran, rev. and ext. 3rd ed.
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995).
I am also evaluating other sources and I will incorporate what they have to
offer at this site and the best of them in this short list. I expect Professor
Golb's book to remain the best starting place that I can recommend to anyone
with an active intelligence and an interest in what the Dead Sea Scrolls are
really about. I would be very interested in reading his translations and/or
interpretations of the contents of specific scrolls.
It seems, however, that he is putting his efforts
elsewhere and is relying on his young colleague, Michael Wise, to do the
translating. Perhaps we should be looking to Professor Golb for future analyses
of Professor Wise's translations. Whatever he does, I think it is likely to be
worth reading and very interesting.