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The study of old manuscripts is not a popular subject at universities, and until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls it was not one that the public followed closely. Starting in 1947 there has been a notable change in the cultural atmosphere. Reading about the discoveries taking place in the Judaean Wilderness and later perusing some of the texts, a wide audience began to perceive how much of the history of two great religions, and of those times in general, was shrouded in silence. By piecing together fragments of long-lost writings, magnifying bits of words and letters, and slowly building new vocabularies of meaning and connotation, students of ancient languages and civilizations were laying the foundation for a better understanding of the past and casting new light on it. It was apparent that such understanding was the result of a dynamic process, achieved through discovery and the fundamental investigation of ancient sources.

This public awareness of the value of ancient manuscripts probably would not have occurred except for the particular circumstance that those texts were what they were, and were found where they were found. The Greek papyri of Egypt discovered in such relative abundance during the past two centuries, the fifteen hundred Greek and Latin scrolls brought out from under the lava of Herculanaeum, the remarkable Coptic gnostic manuscripts revealed virtually at the same time as the first Qumran scrolls, the multitude of medieval Hebrew treasures extracted from the Cairo Genizah—all these together never moved the Western world as did the treasures from the caves near the Dead Sea. The wisdom of the Greeks and Romans, their literary treasures, formed a cultural monument powerfully shaping European consciousness—and yet in our own century, prevailing at the heart of this consciousness, were the values articulated by writers of the ancient Hebrew books forming the Bible of the Jews. Lying behind the social and intellectual vigor of the Jewish people in antiquity, those books and values had acted as a mesmerizing force upon the Hellenistic world when it conquered Palestine and then in turn was conquered by the faiths of its inhabitants, as first Judaism and then a nascent Christianity placed their indelible stamp on the Roman empire. The West will not tire of seeking to solve what remains the profound puzzle of its own metamorphosis into its Jewish and Christian self, and no other discoveries of modern times have approached the scrolls in their potential for casting light on that remarkable phenomenon.

My preoccupation with this theme and others related to it began well over forty years ago, when I worked on the scrolls as a graduate student. In my own case, these ancient texts, representing several centuries of Jewish history, initially served not as an end in themselves, but as an introduction to the study of Hebrew manuscripts written over a far longer period. While I eventually drew the conclusion that the discipline of scroll studies could not properly be divorced from other Hebrew manuscript investigations, the scrolls still came to form one of my primary fields of teaching and research at the University of Chicago over more than three decades. This book began as an effort, based on that experience, to clarify my views on the question of the scrolls’ origin and meaning, always in relation to wider historical themes.

For reasons described in the first several chapters that follow, by the late sixties I had become disenchanted with the traditional belief that the scrolls derived from a small, extremist Jewish sect living in the desert near where they were found. In the specialized studies and more general articles that followed, I explained why the increasing burden of evidence made the traditional theory untenable. While expressing my admiration for the work of pioneers in Qumran studies, I also expressed the hope that my critique, and the new interpretation of Qumran origins that I offered in place of the old, would be useful in the overall elucidation of the remarkable contents of these texts. I increasingly urged free and open debate on that basic question in the course of the 1980s and into the early nineties—and thereby met face-to-face with the reality of Qumran scholarship as it had come to be practiced. It became starkly clear to me that traditional scholarship on the scrolls had become a highly politicized endeavor whose purpose was to protect the old sectarian theory at all costs, rather than a collegial effort welcoming new ideas. What had begun as a scholarly enterprise, in other words, had transformed itself—despite all appeals for open debate—into an ideological agenda. I have found myself obliged to deal with that agenda in the following pages, in the hope of contributing to a greater awareness of what is at stake in the controversy. My criticisms are offered in a spirit of constructive fellowship, and in the hope that they will encourage a higher quality of discourse.

In view of the fact that the scholarship and politics of Qumran studies have become so deeply interwoven, and in view of the way my own scholarly labors were affected by this process, it cannot be said that this was an easy book to write. I was aided, however, by many friends, colleagues, and students, as well as by my immediate family. I primarily owe the idea of developing a critique of Qumranology into book form to my son Joel, an editor and scholar, who took the crucial first steps in encouraging my discussions with the publishers and in helping us reach our mutual decision to publish this work. He thereafter served as the editor of the manuscript, offering a searching critique of all drafts of the work; and his insights and overall sense of logic and balance proved indispensable. Over more than a decade, my son Raphael has uncovered precious information with an unerring eye for detail; in addition to his careful editorial reading, he has played a vital role in furthering the publication of several of my studies on the scrolls. Elements of these studies appear, usually in changed and developed form, at several junctures in this book.

While not directly engaged in the process of writing this book, my daughter Judy was ever a source of deepest love and inspiration as the project unfolded. And my wife Ruth, through her grace and sense of beauty, turned whatever periods of difficulty might otherwise have accompanied the work into days of warmth and friendship. I am deeply thankful to her for the steadfast encouragement she gave me, particularly in the face of her own work and responsibilities.

During my abundant years at the University of Chicago, I have benefited from association with many versatile and erudite colleagues in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and at the Oriental Institute. I have learned much about the goals and values of scholarship from them, as well as from many outstanding students, both graduate and undergraduate. I am particularly grateful to the director of the Oriental Institute, Prof. William Sumner, for his aid and encouragement. Under his leadership the Institute sponsored, with the New York Academy of Sciences, the 1992 International Conference on the scrolls—held just one year after the texts were made accessible to the world of scholarship; and he was instrumental in establishing the Institute’s Dead Sea Scrolls Research Project.

My colleague and former student Professor Michael Wise offered countless important insights on the scrolls and their cultural and historical background. I am grateful to him for his incisive comments on many passages in this work, which were of much help to me in the course of development of the manuscript. Over a two-year period, our student and research assistant Anthony Tomasino unstintingly offered his time and knowledge; his grasp of ancient Christianity and the intertestamental history of the Jews is reflected in several of the chapters that follow.

My colleague in historical studies, Michael Maas of Rice University, offered many helpful comments on parts of the manuscript, as did Matthias Klinghardt, a friend and New Testament scholar at Augsburg University. I would also like to express a special word of remembrance regarding the late Katharine Washburn, a superb editor and belletrist in the best sense of that term, for her incisive comments on the manuscript in its last stages.

I am also indebted to Kathryn Cochran, an advanced graduate student in the University’s Department of English, for her devoted and unusually careful labors in word processing and proofreading the manuscript.

Over the years, I was greatly aided in my research on the scrolls and other historical topics by two fellowships granted me by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and by additional research aid from the Lucius Littauer Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. My heartfelt thanks also go to the administration of the University of Chicago for granting me an extended research leave during the 1992-93 academic year, which enabled me to bring the manuscript of this work to completion without the interference of other academic responsibilities. Part of my research on the Qumran texts was carried out at Cambridge University, where over many years I have benefited from the collegial hospitality made possible by a life membership in Clare Hall granted to me by its Fellows and President.

I owe a debt of gratitude as well to Mark Chimsky, formerly editor-in-chief of Collier Books and my editor at Macmillan, for his goodwill, unceasing encouragement, and most perceptive advice regarding the style and flow of the following chapters. His assistant, Rob Henderson, was of aid in countless ways during all stages of preparation of the manuscript. I am also grateful to my editor at Scribner, William Goldstein, for his important help in the final stages of the book’s preparation.

Yet it would be absurd to think that I could have written this book without constant return to Israel for both shorter and longer periods of study. The many friends and colleagues there who have encouraged my investigations include, first and foremost, Yehoshua Blau, Israel Eph’al, Moshe Gil, Joel Kraemer, and Ya’acov Shavit, as well as the late Menahem Banitt, Michael Klein, and Shelomo Morag. I particularly wish to salute my fellow members of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies—themselves for the most part living and working in Israel—whose incisive scholarship and collegial goodwill continue to be a source of pride and sustenance of spirit.

Intended both as a treatment of the scrolls in their relation to Jewish history and as a chronicle of the rise and fall of a notable idea of modern scholarship, this work differs from studies in literature, languages, and other disciplines in an important respect. While also involving the investigation of texts and sources, the immediate challenge of historical study is not only to decipher, translate, and interpret pertinent records but, beyond this, to construct the narrative necessarily lying behind the words of the texts. The words are not, of course, the history itself, but rather provide the means to write it. Yet once this is accomplished, a fundamental contrary element is brought into play, particularly as one proceeds further and further back through the centuries and discovers the increasing sparseness of historical testimony. Whatever historical witnesses we possess for these older periods, they remain islands in a sea of muteness. Compared to what we might have known had the records of the human past not mostly perished, we can learn little from ten existing documents of one vanished king, from fifty of another, or yet a thousand of another. We do not, in effect, possess the wholeness of history, but only some of its pages—and a historian faces his severest challenges when he attempts to grasp the silences that lie between them. For this goal, philology and analysis of texts are only preliminary tools aiding another process. This consists not in whimsy or fantasy, nor in the imagination of the painter or poet, but rather in the synthesis of new ideas regarding the historical unknown, made from separately experienced elements: the faculty, that is, by which we attempt to reconstruct what is absent. Except for those narrow historical works that only recite the barest known facts, there are none that do not require this mental synthesis—and no process is more difficult for the historian to master or use judiciously. Aware that this book will inevitably contain shortcomings, I take comfort in Master Tarphon’s observation two millennia ago that “It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you at liberty to desist from it.”

Chicago

Spring 1994

PREFATORY NOTE TO THE TOUCHSTONE EDITION

Since publication of the hardcover edition of this book in 1995, many readers in America and abroad have written to express their fascination with the ongoing scholarly conflict over the meaning of the scrolls. International interest has been signaled as well by the book’s recent and impending publication in several languages on three continents. These indications notwithstanding, the question of accessibility of the work to wider groups of readers—particularly students and others concerned with the history of ideas, academic sophistry, and the nascence and promulgation of religious beliefs—has been a matter of serious concern to me since its publication. Thus it was with pleased relief that I learned of the interest of Touchstone in publishing a paperback edition of the work. Except for several minor corrections of wording, the original chapters remain intact in this edition. To bring matters up to date, however, an Afterword has been appended to the volume, in the hope that its contents will be all the more revelatory of the current struggle now being played out. It is a pleasure to thank my wise and discerning editor at Touchstone, Penny Kaganoff, and her devoted assistant, Diana Newman, as well as all others at the press who have been involved in the project, for their valuable help in bringing the present edition before the public. I can do no more than hope that the effort expended will contribute, in whatever additional measure, to the current debate on the scrolls and on the scholarship so far consecrated to their elucidation.

Chicago

Spring 1996

PREFATORY NOTE TO THE 2012 E-BOOK EDITION

This edition largely follows the wording of the 1996 Touchstone USA edition. A number of references to recent works have been inserted at relevant points in the text.

In face of the Qumranological establishment’s traditional dogmatism, Dead Sea Scroll studies continue to evolve. There is growing recognition that a proper understanding of the Scrolls and their relationship to ancient history and thought is tied to the issues first fully discussed in the first edition of this book.

In addition, readers are presented with a wide range of basic ethical issues emerging from the claims and events described in the book. Many of those claims and events point to a basic fact: advances in scholarship in this field have been hindered by efforts to discourage free and open debate.

The controversy surrounding those efforts is in fact an essential backdrop to the debate over the origin of the Scrolls. It is hoped that the new availability of Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? will enhance public awareness of the central issues involved and the challenges facing researchers who study these ancient Jewish texts.