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.