Index Dead Sea Scrolls & Qumran Your suggestions are welcome. Index and Preamble Introduction Other Scrolls Times/Cultures Texts, Sources, etc. Unresolved Questions ABOUT: WEB Links Academic Resources English Translations Supplementary Files Inventory of Caves Ancient Timeline Modern Timeline Ancient Profiles Modern Profiles Glossary Bibliography Abbreviations Recommendations WEB LINKS: Maps & Photos Bibliographical CD-ROM's Glossaries LoC Exhibit News/Observer Orion Center Shrine o/t Book Tour & Travel Videos Miscellaneous ACADEMIC LINKS: U Arizona Boston U Brandeis U BYU U Calgary U Chicago Columbia U DePaul U U Edinburgh Emory U Fordham U GR Baptist Sem Gulf Coast CC U Haifa Hanover C Indiana U U Kent-Lex Maricopa Cent U Michigan Northwestern U U Pennsylvania U Phoenix U Pittsburgh Schools Net Southampton C U Toronto Tufts U U Virginia U Wales U Washington Miscellaneous Dead Sea Scrolls Phylactery

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 Photographic access to the previously unpublished scrolls is producing a diversity of opinions, analyses, interpretations and reconstructions.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.

Psalms (Tehillim) 11QPs

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.

The Community Rule
Serekh ha-Yahad

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.

Calendrical Document
Mishmarot

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.

Some Torah Precepts
Miqsat Ma`ase ha-Torah

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 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.

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.