This volume was published in 1998, nearly 50 years after the initial discovery. They have grown in scholarly significance over the 50 years of research.
Chapter One: “Introduction” (1-25)
Some notes and musings:
·
Khirbet Quman is “complex of ruins” 8 miles
south of Jericho on the western edge of the Dead Sea and just north of En
Gedi. It’s vacant, arid, and hot. But, it was the site of an “ancient Jewish
community.”
·
11 caves are nearby. Cave 1 is a “stone’s throw” away
·
A young Bedouin boy, Muhammad ed-Dhib, found
some manuscripts in the final years of the British mandate, 1947.
·
Various scrolls had a varied history of
ownership: (1) E.L Sukenik of Hebrew University got 3 scrolls (Isaiah, Scroll
of Hymns, War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness), (2) 4 scroll to
a Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan, Mar Athanasius (complete scroll of Isaiah, Commentary
on Habukkuk, Manual of Discipline), and others
·
“1000s of 1000s” of fragments were found at
Cave 4
·
Several scrolls were found at Cave 11,
including the “Temple Scroll”
·
Philo, Josephus, and Pliny the Elder described
an “ascetic sect” in this area
·
The “Community Rule,” a scroll, was a “code of
sectarian existence” (3)
·
Scholarly debates began over dating: Prof. de Vaux dating to the “last centuries”
of the Second Temple (pre-63 B.C.) while Profs. Dupont and Sommer dating them to
the early Roman period (post-63 B.C.)
·
A general scholarly consensus locates them
during the Maccabean period, called the “Maccabean Theory” (4). Profs. Vermes and F.M. Cross (Harvard) hold
this view.
·
Cave 4 contents: chaos in claims to
ownership. This cave alone yield 575
titles. Most are in Hebrew, few in Aramaic and few still, LXX titles.
·
“Politics mixing with scholarship” along with “academic
imperialism,” to use Mr. Vermes’ terms.
·
Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Emanuel Tov, Professor of
Biblical Studies, Hebrew University, gets sovereignty. He widens access for scholars.” “Scholarship and the general public were to
become the beneficiaries of the new era of liberty” (10).
·
All books of the OT are extant minus
Esther. Mr. Vermes thinks this
accidental, but other theorize an anti-Esther perspective because of her
marriage to a Persian King.
·
General scholarly consensus on dating = 200
B.C. to 70 A.D. Although, some scholars see Babylonian antecedents
·
Importance: no Hebrew or Aramaic documents from
the pre-Christian era. Earliest Hebrew text is the Ben Asher Scroll in Cairo,
895 A.D. Yet, the Isaiah Scroll in 1000
years older. Mr. Vermes says of the canonical books: “…remarkable for almost general uniformity to
the Masoretic Text…”
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