Location of Cave 1 at Qumran

 

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This fragment of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes is one of the hundreds of fragments of the Old Testament found among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

DEAD SEA SCROLLS:  TIMETABLE

A table of events related to the Dead Sea Scroll Discovery, and the debates surrounding their publication and interpretation, was compiled by Dr. Mahlon H. Smith of Rutgers University.  This version contains modifications and additions.  (The original version -- which includes a variety of amplifying links -- is found at Dr. Smith's excellent web resource on The Dead Sea Scrolls.)  

1947 -- [Feb ?] Bedouin shepherd finds 7 scrolls in jars in cave above Khirbet Qumran.
-- [March] British barricade Jewish settlements in Jerusalem to contain incidents of violence.
-- [April] Ta'amireh Bedouin take scrolls to Bethlehem antiquities dealer (Kando) who shows them to the Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of Jerusalem (Athanasius Yeshue Samuel) who purchases 4 of them (including the Isaiah scroll [above], Habakkuk commentary, Genesis Apocryphon & the Community Rule) for about $250.
-- [Nov.] Another Bethlehem antiquities dealer (Feidi Salahi) shows 2 other scrolls to Hebrew University Prof. Eliezer Sukenik.
-- [Nov. 29] United Nations votes to partition Palestine between Arabs & Jews.
-- [Dec.] Sukenik buys 3 scrolls (another Isaiah scroll, the War scroll, & Hodayoth) from Salahi.
1948 -- [Jan.] Sukenik sees Archbishop Samuel's scrolls but fails to arrange purchase.
-- [Feb.] Syrian Orthodox monk shows Isaiah scroll to John C. Trever at American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) center in Jerusalem (Dr. Trever's name has been misspelled "Trevor" in some references) who, with ASOR colleague William Brownlee, photographs & identifies it.
-- [Mar.] American archaeologist, William F. Albright, confirms Trevor's identification of Isaiah scroll as the oldest known Hebrew manuscript.
-- Archbishop Samuel gives ASOR director Millar Burrows rights to publicize scrolls & takes scrolls to Beirut as violence between Arabs & Jews increases.
-- [Apr. 11] Burrows issues press release announcing the discovery of the scrolls.
-- [May 15] British leave Palestine. Jews establish state of Israel & repel Arab attacks.
-- Trevor describes "The Discovery of the Scrolls" in Biblical Archaeologist 11 (46-68).
-- Prof. Sukenik publishes portions of his scrolls, identifying the authors as Essenes.
-- G. L. Harding, British director of antiquities for Jordan, launches search for scroll caves with aid of Jordan's Arab Legion.
1949 -- [Feb.] Harding authorizes Roland de Vaux of French Dominican l'Ecole Biblique to survey Cave 1 where the first 7 scrolls had been discovered. Many more fragments recovered, including original Hebrew versions of Jubilees & the Testament of Levi.
-- Archbishop Samuel brings 4 scrolls to U.S. to try to raise money for Palestinian refugees & publishes account of his purchase in Biblical Archaeologist 12 (26-31). Scrolls displayed in American museums through 1951.
1950 -- French scholar, André Dupont-Sommer, publishes his Preliminary Views on the Dead Sea Manuscripts, identifying them as the product of Essenes & suggesting that they were composed at the still unexcavated site of Khirbet Qumran.
-- Skeptical historian, Solomon Zeitlin, challenges "The Alleged Antiquity of the Scrolls" & claims they were forgeries (Jewish Quarterly Review 40-41).
-- W. F. Albright engages Zeitlin in public debate in Philadelphia presenting persuasive arguments for the authenticity of the scrolls based on external evidence .
-- Trevor publishes photos of Isaiah scroll & a commentary on Habakkuk (1QpHab).
1951 -- Burrows & Brownlee publish text of 1QS as Manual of Discipline (1951).
-- Harding locates Kando & agrees to purchase all scrolls he can get from Bedouin.
-- [Nov.] Fr. R. de Vaux begins excavation of Khirbet Qumran.
1952 -- [Feb.] Bedouin discover 30 fragments of other scrolls in Cave 2, including Jubilees & the ben Sirach in the original Hebrew.
-- [March] Teams from ASOR explore other caves. Copper scroll found in Cave 3.
-- [Sept.] Kando sells De Vaux a large pile of fragments from another cave.
-- Jordanian consortium seeks funds from foreign museums & universities to purchase more scrolls.
-- De Vaux locates Cave 4 less than 200 yards from Khirbet Qumran. 15000 of fragments of 574 mss. found including Aramaic versions 1 Enoch & Tobit, a scroll of Samuel that was closer to the Greek Septuagint than the official Hebrew text & fragments of a copy of the Damascus Covenant, a text that had been discovered in 1896 in the geniza of old Cairo synagogue.
-- Nearby Caves 5 & 6 yield fragments of other copies of the Damascus Covenant.
1953 -- R. de Vaux's lectures to the British Academy on his Qumran excavations support Dupont-Sommer's hypothesis that the scrolls were written in its "scriptorium" by Essenes.
-- Harding assembles international team of 8 scholars to work on scrolls in east Jerusalem:
from U.S.: Frank Moore Cross (McCormick) & Patrick Skehan (Catholic U);
from U.K.: John Allegro (Manchester) & John Strugnell (Oxford)
from France: Dominique Barthélemy & Jean Starcky
from Germany: Claus-Hunno Hunziger (Göttingen).
from Poland: Josef T. Milik.
De Vaux named project director.
1954 -- Sukenik's son, Yigael Yadin, in the U.S. arranges covert purchase of Archbishop Samuel's 4 scrolls for $250,000.
-- Chaim Rabin (Oxford) re-edits the fragments of the Zadokite Document
1955 -- [Feb.] Yadin returns to Israel reuniting the 7 original scrolls.
-- [May] Literary critic Edmund Wilson publishes article in the New Yorker arguing Dupont-Sommer's observation of parallels between the figure of the Teacher of Righteousness & Jesus indicated that Christian ideas were borrowed from the scrolls.
-- Barthélemy & Milik publish the fragments of Cave 1.
-- Caves 7-10 south of Qumran yield other mss.
-- Allegro (of Manchester U) enlists Manchester College of Science & Technology's aid in opening the Copper scroll. Sends preliminary transcriptions listing huge buried treasure to de Vaux.
1956 -- Allegro publishes The Dead Sea Scrolls, announcing that the Copper scroll contained "an inventory of the the sect's most precious possessions" (183).
-- De Vaux & Harding issue statement to French Academy dismissing the Copper scroll's buried treasure as a fiction, incompatible with Essene communal economy.
-- Rabin publishes article suggesting that the Copper scroll was written by zealots who buried the Temple treasure.
-- In BBC broadcast Allegro claims to have found evidence that Qumran sect worshipped a crucified Messiah & suggests that Christians borrowed this story.
-- De Vaux, Milik, Starcky, Skehan & Strugnell send letter to London Times challenging Allegro.
-- Allegro retracts claims & admits they were based on his interpretation rather than on text.
-- Genesis Apocryphon unrolled at Hebrew U & published by Yadin.
-- De Vaux's team of scholars complete reconstruction & photographing of fragments of scrolls from Cave 4.
-- Bedouin sell Kando 7 scrolls from Cave 11 who sells 6 of them to the Palestine Archaeological Museum which in turn auctions them to European & American institutions
1957 -- Jewish scholar, Cecil Roth, proposes "A Solution to the Mystery of the Scrolls" (Commentary 24) identifying the authors as followers of the zealot leader, Menachem, who was executed in Jerusalem by other Judean rebels in 68 CE.
-- Theodore H. Gaster (Columbia U) publishes English translations of 13 Dead Sea Scriptures from cave 1 claiming that they "furnish a picture of the religious and cultural climate in which John the Baptist conducted his mission and in which Jesus was initially reared...and whose religious ideas served largely as the seedbed of the New Testament" (12).
1958 -- Hunziger leaves Dead Sea scroll team. De Vaux gives his scrolls to Maurice Baillet.
-- De Vaux finishes excavating Khirbet Qumran.
1959 -- Allegro returns to Palestine to launch his own search for the treasure described in Copper scroll, without success. De Vaux accuses him of disturbing excavations for a treasure hunt.
-- Dupont-Sommer's Essene Writings from Qumran details archaeological, paleographic & historical evidence supporting classic hypothesis of the scrolls' origins.
-- Milik's survey of Ten Years of Discovery in the Judean Wilderness suggests that the "last phase" of the Essene community had militant zealot characteristics.
-- Milik publishes translation of Copper scroll in Revue Biblique without mentioning his use of Allegro's transcriptions..
1960 -- Allegro publishes his own book on The Treasure of the Copper Scroll using unauthorized photos.
-- Death of Archaeological Museum's patron, John D. Rockefeller Jr., ends main source of funding for work on scrolls.
-- [June] Transcription of Cave 4 scrolls completed; workshop dismantled & scrolls locked in safe.
-- Photos of 574 texts divided among remaining scholars:
-- Cross & Skehan take responsibility for editing biblical scrolls; Milik & Strugnell get 200 others.
1961 -- De Vaux reviews Allegro's Copper Scroll book, attacking it as imprecise & dishonest.
-- Yadin learns that Kando still had largest scroll from Cave 11 but fails to negotiate purchase.
1962 -- New translation of Dead Sea Scrolls in English by Geza Vermes (Oxford) becomes popular introduction to Qumran as the center of the Essene sect.
1963 -- K. H. Rengstorf (U of Münster) claims the Dead Sea scrolls originally came from the Temple library in Jerusalem (Hirbet Qumran and the Problem of the Library of the Dead Sea Caves).
-- Yadin begins excavation of Masada. Copies of Hebrew ben Sirach & the Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice found in Cave 4 of Qumran discovered in Masada synagogue built by zealots.
1965 -- British OT scholar, G. R. Driver, publishes The Judean Scrolls: the Problem & a Solution challenging the accuracy of De Vaux & Dupont-Sommer's interpretation of archaeological & paleographic evidence in dating the scrolls & supporting Roth's hypothesis of the 1st c. CE zealot origins of the scrolls.
-- Shrine of the Book (The Israel Museum, Jerusalem) opens exhibiting major scrolls from Cave 1 & documents from the bar Kochba revolt.
1966 -- [Aug.] Allegro publishes "The Untold Story of the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Harpers Magazine, accusing de Vaux's team of deliberately avoiding releasing scrolls because of content adverse to Christian teaching.
-- Driver & other eminent OT scholars sign letter in London Times criticizing Allegro's charges.
-- Allegro persuades Jordan government to nationalize Palestine Archaeological Museum.
1967 -- [June 5-10] Israel defeats Arabs in 6 Day War & occupies Palestine to the Jordan, gaining control of Khirbet Qumran, the Rockefeller Archaeological Museum & all the scrolls (except the Copper Scroll & some fragments from Cave 1 that had been sent to Amman, Jordan).
-- Yadin searches Kando's property in Bethlehem & finds the Temple Scroll in a shoe box.
1967-69 -- Pro-Arab scholars de Vaux, Skehan, Starcky & Milik refuse to cooperate with Israelis. Further publication of scrolls blocked.
1970 -- Norman Golb (U of Chicago) presents paper to ASOR Albright Insitute in Jerusalem, questioning whether all Dead Sea scrolls were products of an Essene sect based at Qumran, but is denied authorization to examine unpublished scrolls.
1971 -- [Sept.] W.F. Albright & R. de Vaux die.
1972 -- Fr. Pierre Benoit of Dominican Ecole Biblique becomes project director, vowing to cooperate with Israeli authorities to bring scrolls to publication.
-- Spanish Jesuit Jose O'Callaghan publishes article in Biblica 53 interpreting fragments of Greek scrolls from Cave 7 as remnants of New Testament books (Mark 6:52-53, 1 Tim 3:16-4:1 & James 1:23-24).
1973 -- Agreement reached to publish scrolls under revised title (Discoveries in the Judean Desert) without reference to modern political jurisdictions.
1975 -- Lawrence Schiffman (NYU), an expert in Jewish law, publishes The Halakah of Qumran based on the regulations in the Damascus Covenant & the Community Rule.
1976 -- Milik publishes long-awaited Hebrew fragments of Book of Enoch claiming that absence at Qumran of any text comparable to the "parable" section of the Ethiopic version proved that the "son of Man" passages in the Ethiopic text were later Christian insertions.
1977 -- 30th anniversary of scrolls' discovery prompts Geza Vermes to warn of "academic scandal" if pace of publication of scrolls is not accelerated.
-- Biblical Archaeologist editor, David Noel Freedman, questions the ethics of a small group of scholars having exclusive rights to study & publish the scrolls "at their own...discretion" (p. 96).
1979 -- Allegro publishes The Dead Sea Scrolls & the Christian Myth claiming that the gospels were narrative fictions about a non-existent hero (Jesus) based on the Teacher of Righteousness.
1980 -- Burrows & Skehan die. Emanuel Tov & Elisha Qimron (U of Negev) become first Israeli scholars to work on the Dead Sea scrolls.
-- Philanthropist Elizabeth Bechtel finances a re-photographing of the scrolls & has a microfilm of the project made for herself.
1983 -- Yadin publishes The Temple Scroll from Cave 11.
-- Ben Zion Wacholder (Hebrew Union College) publishes The Dawn of Qumran: the Sectarian Torah & the Teacher of Righteousness arguing that scrolls were written by opponents of Jerusalem Zadokites.
-- Historian Robert Eisenman (Cal State at Long Beach) publishes Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians & Qumran arguing that the scrolls were produced by a militant splinter group of Sadducees who who became the zealot movement out of which John the Baptizer & early Christianity arose.
1984 -- Invited to lecture at the Rockefeller Museum, Golb argues that the absence of autograph letters & legal documents among Dead Sea scrolls indicated that they were not composed at Qumran.
-- Jerusalem post reports that Strugnell & Qimron had found a "letter from the Teacher of Righteousness" to the Wicked Priest among Cave 4 scrolls (4QMMT).
-- Yadin & Brownlee die.
1986 -- Strugnell invites Schiffman to elucidate the ritual laws in the Acts of Torah (4QMMT) & sends him photos & transcriptions.
-- Eisenman publishes James the Just in the Habakkuk Pesher (1QpHab) identifying the Teacher of Righteousness as the brother of Jesus & his opponents -- "the Man of the Lie" & "the Wicked Priest" -- as Paul & Hanan II.
-- German scholar Carsten Thiede's Earliest Gospel Manuscript? argues that O'Callaghan's identification of 7Q5 as a fragment of Mark requires complete revision of many modern assumptions about the composition of the gospels.
1987 -- Fr. Benoit dies; succeeded by Strugnell.
-- Elizabeth Bechtel donates her private microfilm of the scrolls to the Huntington Library (Cal) shortly before her death.
-- Vermes convenes London conference on 40th anniversary of discovery of the scrolls & calls for immediate publication of all photographs without transcription, commentary or editorial notes.
1988 -- Allegro & Starcky die.
-- German scholar G. Wilhelm Nebe identifies 2 fragments from Cave 7 as portions of the epistle of Enoch in Greek (Revue de Qumran 13).
1989 -- Royal Dutch Academy grants Wacholder permission to publish its fragment of a 2nd copy of the Temple scroll. Strugnell sends Wacholder scroll photos & a concordance of unpublished scrolls that had been made at his insistence 30 years earlier.
-- Oxford mediates $350,000 grant to expedite publication of the scrolls.
-- [March] Eisenman asks Strugnell for access to photos of Cave 4 scrolls of Damascus Covenant. Strugnell refuses since Eisenmann lacked training to interpret paleographic documents.
-- [May-Aug.] Herschel Shanks, editor of Biblical Archaeological Review, calls for publication of timetable for release of the scrolls & characterizes Strugnell's response as a "hoax or fraud."
-- [Sept.] Shanks publishes correspondence between Eisenman & Strugnell. NY Times & other newspapers run articles on debate between scholars over issue of access to the scrolls.
-- Colloquium on scrolls in Mogilany, Poland issues resolution calling for immediate publication of photos of the scrolls.
-- [Oct.] Israelis with access to scrolls begin to send Eisenman unauthorized photos of the scrolls.
1990 -- [June] Schiffman publishes "The New Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) & the Origins of the Dead Sea Sect" (Biblical Archaeologist 50), arguing that the Essenes originated as schismatic Sadducees who withdrew from Jerusalem when leading Sadducees accepted Hasmonean claims
-- [Nov. 9] Israeli newspaper HaAretz publishes interview in which Strugnell characterized Judaism as "a horrible religion" & lamented the survival of Jews as a group.
-- [Dec.] Eisenman shows 1700 scroll photos to U of Chicago scroll specialist, Michael Wise, who immediately begins transcription.
-- [Dec. 30] Emanuel Tov replaces Strugnell as editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls project.
1991 -- Wacholder's request for further scroll photos denied.
Wacholder's assistant, Martin Abegg, uses Strugnell's unpublished concordance to begin to reconstruct transcription of original texts.
-- Golb & Wise launch Dead Sea Scrolls Project at U of Chicago's Oriental Institute to decipher fragments from cave 4.
-- [June 24] Oxford announces receipt of a complete set of scroll photos & formation of Forum for Qumran Research under direction of Vermes.
-- [Sept. 4] Herschel Shanks announces publication of Wacholder & Abegg's computer-reconstructed transcription of scrolls based on Strugnell's unpublished concordance.
-- [Sept. 22] Huntington Library grants all "qualified scholars" access to the Bechtel microfilm of the photos of the scrolls.
-- [Oct. 22] Israeli department of Antiquities announces that it will grant access to official photos of the scrolls to scholars who agree not to publish their findings.
-- [Nov 20] Shanks publishes Eisenman's photos in A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls, co-edited by James M. Robinson.
-- [Nov 25] At annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Kansas City MO, scroll project director, E. Tov, announces lifting of all publication restrictions, allowing any scholar to examine the official scroll photos & publish whatever was discovered.
-- SBL passes resolution affirming the right of all scholars to have access to facsimile reproductions of all ancient manuscripts without any publication restrictions
1992 -- In Jesus & the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls Barbara Thiering (U of Sydney) interprets the scrolls as the product of rivalry between the supporters of John the Baptizer (the "Teacher of Righteousness") & Jesus (the "Man of the Lie").
-- [Nov.] Eisenman & Wise publish The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered containing transcriptions & translations of 50 scrolls.
1993 -- [Apr.] Project Judaica Foundation opens Scrolls from the Dead Sea Exhibit at Library of Congress.
1994 -- Qimron & Strugnell publish the Acts of Torah (4QMMT) but retract their earlier claim that it was written by the Teacher of Righteousness.
-- Schiffman publishes Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls developing his thesis that the Qumran sect was founded by schismatic Sadducees, but insisting (like Golb) that many of the Dead Scrolls were eclectic sources that were not composed at Qumran.
1995 -- Golb publishes Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? challenging the identification of Qumran as an Essene settlement & updating Rengstorf's argument that the scrolls came from libraries (of different groups) in Jerusalem.
-- [Aug.] Israeli archaeologist Hanan Eshel announces discovery of 4 sealed man-made caves near cave 4.
-- [Nov.] Bruce Zuckerman (USC) reports on his use of infra-red photography & digital imaging to reconstruct the text & lacunae in fragments of 4QDan & the potential of this technology for restoring the text of other damaged scrolls.
1996 -- French scholar Emile Puech supports Nebe against Thiede in identifying Cave 7's Greek fragments as portions of 1 Enoch rather than various New Testament books (Revue Biblique 103).
1997 -- Ernest Muro uses computer scans to reassemble Cave 7 fragments, confirming Puech's identification of text as 1 Enoch 103 in Greek (Revue de Qumran 70) & show that the controversial 7Q5 is probably not from any OT or NT book.
1998 -- Distinguishing the worldview of sectarian scrolls found only at Qumran from that of non-canonical works that circulated elsewhere, Gabriele Boccaccini (UMich) goes Beyond the Essene Hypothesis to argue that Qumran was not the center of the Essene movement but rather the retreat of an extremist splinter group that had separated from the main Enochic/Essene party.
2000 Steve Mason argues that the hypothesis identifying the authors of the Dead Sea scrolls as Essenes ignores & distorts the accounts of Josephus.
2004 After 10 years of excavation Magen & Peleg conclude that the settlement at Qumran could not have been a monastery, but rather was a pottery factory which was vacated by its few inhabitants during the Jewish-Roman war & that refugees from Jerusalem deposited the scrolls (possibly from the Temple library) in nearby caves.
--[Aug.] Bedouin find two miniature fragments of Leviticus from a Torah scroll in cave used by zealot refugees during bar Kochba revolt [135 CE]. These are the first scroll finds in 40 years.
2005 [July 15] Eshel (Bar Ilan U) announces that he has obtained new scroll fragments, raising scholars' hopes that there may still be more to discover.
--[Nov] Eshel arrested for engaging in the illegal trade of antiquities but is released without charges being filed. Eshel's scroll fragments confiscated by the Israeli Antiquities Authority [IAA], sparking new controversy between scholars & the Israeli government.
2006 [Dec. 15] Golb criticizes traveling exhibit of Dead Sea scrolls for inaccurately identifying scrolls by promoting classic Essene thesis & failing to acknowledge recent findings that support alternative interpretations.
2007 [May] Eshel complains that the IAA has mutilated the newfound Torah scroll fragments to run tests to try to prove them forgeries.
--[Dec. 5] Italy's Central Institute for Restoration and Institute for Book Pathology announces joint project to preserve Dead Sea scrolls from further deterioration.

For further analysis of events & theories listed in this timetable read:

Cook, Edward M. Solving the Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls: New Light on the Bible. Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 1994.

Cross, Frank Moore. The Ancient Library of Qumran (3rd ed.). Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press, 1995.

Golb, Norman. Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The Search for the Secret of Qumran. New York: Scribners, 1995.

Boccaccini, Gabriele. Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1998.

 

 

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