Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Geza Vermes' "The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English:" (Ch. 1)

Vermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Dead-Scrolls-English/dp/0713991313/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381787067&sr=8-2&keywords=Geza+Vermes+complete+dead+sea+scrolls


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…”