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Category Archives: Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls of New Jersey
It is well known that a few of the best preserved Dead Sea Scrolls spent some time in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s. The Syrian Archbishop Mar Athanasius Yeshue Samuel brought four scrolls to the US in … Continue reading
Dead Sea Scrolls at the Vatican
A visit to the Vatican Museums almost always yields something new. You can never know which rooms will be open, so occasionally there is the pleasant surprise of getting to see material that is usually hidden away. There are also … Continue reading
A Dead Sea Scrolls Photo Shoot from the 1950s
Among the PAM negatives of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is a short sequence of photos that puzzled me when I encountered them last year. The photos occur in a sequence taken in June 1956, PAM 42.139-141. They are described … Continue reading
Mr. Spock and Qumran
Thanks to Stephen Goranson for drawing my attention to an episode of the television show “In Search of…” that aired on 9 February 1978. The topic of this episode, narrated by Leonard Nimoy, was the Dead Sea Scrolls. The content … Continue reading
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Two Unheralded Excavators of Cave 1 at Qumran: Ibrahim Asuli and Mohamed Mustafa
In spare moments, I continue to work on the manuscripts generally associated with Cave 1 at Qumran. I’ve become very interested in the photographs of the excavations of Cave 1. Both Gerald Lankester Harding and Ovid R. Sellers took pictures … Continue reading
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Trever’s Photos of the Cave 1 Scrolls Freely Available Online
I’ve written before on this blog about the dispersion of libraries, and I have another instance to report. The Claremont School of Theology has begun the process of merging with Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. As a part of this … Continue reading
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Qumran Cave 1 Questions, Part 6: 1QSa and 1QSb
As I continue to work through the Cave 1 scrolls to try to sort out the purchases from the excavated materials, I spent some time today with the lists of photographs in Tov and Pfann, Companion Volume to the Dead … Continue reading
Qumran Cave 1 Questions, Part 5: The Strange Case of 1Q5 Fragment 13
1Q5 is a collection of dozens of fragments reassembled into 20 or so more substantial fragments representing one of two copies of the book of Deuteronomy associated with Cave 1 (1QDeutb). The fragments of 1Q5 were edited in DJD 1 … Continue reading
Qumran Cave 1 Questions, Part 4: Sukenik’s Isaiah Scroll
Before diving in to this post, a quick note: The conference that was the proximate cause for me trying to organize my thoughts on the topic of the Dead Sea Scrolls said to come from Cave 1 took place a … Continue reading
Posted in Antiquities Market, Dead Sea Scrolls
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Forgeries, Inks, and Writing Surfaces
When I was writing God’s Library, I was constantly confronted with how little I knew about several domains of knowledge that are important for the study of ancient manuscripts. One of these areas is the more technical chemical make-up of … Continue reading
Variant Readings 