DSS.950119 Minutes, Dead Sea Scrolls Class, 19 Jan 1995
University of Pennsylvania, Religious Studies 225, Robert Kraft
Brad Kirkegaard, recorder (ed RAK)

Preliminaries: Minutes of the first class session can be found in the
class archive on the ccat gopher. Most class members can access it by
typing "gopher ccat.sas.upenn.edu" from the unix command line. The menus
are pretty self-explanatory thereafter. Note that the list of approved
books for review has also been placed in a separate file. Sometime soon
people should be choosing their books and notifying RAK, who will add
appropriate notations to the file to avoid too much duplication. The
reviews should consist of about two pages (500 words), and should reflect
your knowledge gained from the required reading in VanderKam and Fitzmyer. 
These will be due before spring break (beginning of March). 

The general plan of attack is for everyone to get the introductory
materials (VanderKam, Fitzmyer, your review book) under their belts
quickly so we can plunge into the primary sources for ourselves, with 
some awareness of the issues and problems.

Main translations of primary material (see also the Course Requirements):

Garcia Martinez - represents the most complete translation. The appendix
in the back will make some sense of the different naming systems that have
been employed over the years for the documents (basic system lists cave,
document and specific copy, when relevant; e.g. 1QIsa\a is from cave 1 at
Qumran, the text of Isaiah, copy 1). 

Gaster - 2 main values.  The first is both good and bad, he doesn't
translate very literally, but with an eye to what he thinks the texts
mean, in the framework of his extensive knowledge of early Judaism and the
ancient world.  The second major value of Gaster is that he has an
appendix that is organized topically (e.g. laws, opponents, eschatology,
etc.). 

Vermes (pronounced Vermesh) - attempts to be fairly literal and has
achieved wide acceptance;  most criticized for not providing line numbers
(essential for working with photographs, etc.).  An expanded version 
including many of the recently released fragments, and line numbers (thus 
comparable in scope and format to Garcia Martinez) is announced for 
release in May. 

Student Question: Any simple ways to get started in this material
("Reader's Digest version")?  

In addition to the secondary literature already mentioned, the Anchor
Bible Dictionary provides a good basic overview as well as references to
other sources (see John J. Collins, "Dead Sea Scrolls"; also J. 
Murphy-O'Connor, "Qumran").  The introductions for each of the
aforementioned translations also provide a good starting place.  Two other
sources utilizing visual images as well include the film for today (see
below; there are also other films on the subject) and the "Dead Sea
Scrolls Revealed" CD-ROM.  The CD-ROM should be available for use in MMETS
(basement of Rittenhouse Lab) some time after Monday.  One copy will also
eventually be ready for use in the Van Pelt Library (reference section). 
And, fingers crossed, one copy will be up and running in our very own
computer lab in 109-110 Duhring Wing in about two weeks. 

A brief bit of history on recent scholarship on the scrolls (for more
details, see VanderKam ch.7 and Fitzmyer, passim [= "here and there"]): Up
until about four years ago, before Hershel Shanks launched his campaign in
the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine (about 1990, with increasing
intensity), access to the material was somewhat limited for some
researchers, largely based on connections and whether one was deemed a
responsible scholar.  Then the director of the Huntington library in
southern California discovered that the library had photos of all of the
scrolls and decided to fulfill his role of making information available
by releasing them to the public. This doubtless influenced the newly
formed committee in Jerusalem to hasten the release of the official
photographic archive for public access, and to publish the photos 
officially in 1993. The film you are about to see was made in 1991, in 
the midst of these developments. 

Film - "Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls" (NOVA from the WGBH Collection,
Boston: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, FFH 3000; 60 min., color)

Throughout their history controversy has surrounded the scrolls.  In 1946
three Bedouin shepherds were travelling through the area.  The youngest in
search of a stray found the first of the Qumran caves. 

(Brief description of the texts partly from RAK and partly from film:  the
texts date from around 250BCE to 70CE.  The fragments of the book of
Exodus from ca. 250BCE represent the oldest preserved biblical text. 
Most of the texts are of a somewhat more sectarian nature - who these
people were remains an issue of debate.  The texts are written mostly in 
Hebrew (some Aramaic and Greek), and mostly on leather, with some papyri 
and even one on copper.)

Back to our film story... After finding the scrolls the Bedouin brought
them to Bethlehem to sell to Kando, who was a cobbler (the Bedouin thought
the leather would have some value for making straps for shoes, etc.) but
also sometimes dealt in antiquities.  Some of these documents were then
purchased by the Metropolitan (a high church office) Samuel, who thought
they might be very old documents in Syriac.  Three more texts, still in
Bethlehem, were bought by Sukenik, and Israeli scholar.  Samuel, having
realized something of the value of his property, took it to America where
it received great acclaim.  However, after 5 yrs. he was still unable to
sell it for his asking price of 1 million dollars.  He then advertised it
in the Wall Street Journal, where it was seen and purchased through a
complex string on negotiations by a visiting Israeli scholar, Yigael
Yadin, for $250,000.  The Shrine of the Book Museum was then built in 
Jerusalem to house the documents. 

In 1952 a second cave was found by the Bedouin.  The archaeological
community, partly not wanting to pay the Bedouin, and partly thinking they
might hit pay dirt went on to dig some 275 caves - only one of which, cave
3, resulted in significant finds.  The Bedouin, on the other hand, hit pay
dirt again with cave 4.  Their large number of fragmentary documents were
then bought by the Jordanians for the Palestine Museum (subsequently
renamed the Rockefeller Museum).  The project of deciphering them was
under Jordanian control, and no Jews were includeded on the team - the
seeds for future conflicts. 

The story now jumps to John Strugnell and the scholars who painstakingly
tried to reassemble the documents.  The canonical texts were separated off
and the fragments arranged.  The non-canonical material, however, was not
particularly easy to reassemble.  This elaborate jigsaw puzzle was pieced
together primarily by handwriting of the scribes, shapes of fragments, and
and other physical characteristics of the different scraps. 

Qumran.  This site, some 14(?) miles East of Jerusalem, was originally
thought to be a Roman garrison.  Popular opinion now sets it as the home
of a sectarian Jewish community known as the Essenes (though scholarly
opinion continues to have dissenting views).  The Essenes were a monastic
group who left Jerusalem in protest to establish a purified community and
await the end times.  They were destroyed in 68 CE by the Romans, in 
connection with the "first Jewish revolt" against Rome. 

Excavation at Qumran began in the early 1950s under the direction of the
eccentric figure of Roland de Vaux.  He was struck by parallels to a
monastic community.  More particularly he felt that the discoveries fit
well with the type of community described in the scrolls (room where they
might have been written - ink wells, etc., possible dining hall and pantry
- large number of pots, grave site with majority of male remains.)

[Time ran out: the Film will be concluded next class.]

/end dss minutes.950119/