Yale University to Publish Photostats of 2,000-year-old Biblical Scrolls Found in Cave

Photostatic copies of scrolls said to be more then 2,000-year-old copies of the Book of Isaiah and other parts of the Old Testament, the authenticity of which has been the subject of heated dispute among Biblical scholars in the U.S., Israel, Britain and France in recent weeks, will be published by Yale University in the fall, it was announced here today.

The manuscripts were accidentally discovered in a Palestine cave near the Dead Sea by a group of Arab Bedouins. Announcement of publication of photographs of the Biblical finds was made by the American Schools of Oriental Research at Yale University, which said that photostatic reproduction of the manuscripts “climaxes a scientific fortune hunt which has been conducted by Hebrew, American, French and English archaeologists in the Holy Land despite continuous warfare during the past two years.”

The announcement added: “Other volumes will follow soon thereafter, based on original animal-skin manuscripts now in the U.S. but not owned or held by the American Schools of Oriental Research. These documents are in this country in the possession of Metropolitan Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, of the Syrian Orthodox Monastery of St. Mark in Jerusalem. Scholars of the American Schools have made photographic copies of these precious documents, which go back to the first and second centuries B.C., and the Syrian church leader has stored them in a safe place. The American Schools are now using their good offices to make the material in the U.S. available to all scholars in Israel and England, or anywhere else, who have portions of these ancient Hebrew manuscripts at hand.”

SCROLLS HAILED AS KEY LINKS IN KNOWLEDGE OF JUDAISM

Prof. Carl H. Kraeling, chairman of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures at Yale, and president of the A.S.O.R., declared that “scholars throughout the world regard the discovery of these Hebrew manuscripts, and the many fragments which have been found also, as key links in completing our knowledge about an important period of Judaism. Their importance can be compared with the finding of the famous ‘Codex Sinaitious’ by the scholar Tischendorff in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Tischendorff found in the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai a fourth century A.D. Greek manuscript of the Bible. The new findings, including the material in this country, are even more ancient than the famous Nash Papyrus, which heretofore was the oldest Biblical fragment.”

The dramatic events leading up to discovery of the manuscripts had their setting in war-torn Jerusalem in 19.47 and early 19.48, when Bedouins brought a group of the parchment scrolls to St. Mark’s Monastery in the Old City. They were not recognized as being very ancient Biblical manuscripts until many months later when they were examined by both Prof. Eliezer Sukenik, of the Hebrew University, and John C. Trever, Fellow of the American Schools. Word of the discovery flashed throughout the scholarly world.

Meanwhile, some of the manuscripts came into possession of scholars at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Eventually the manuscript cave was found by Transjordan government officials, in whose territory it is located, who excavated it and turned up many additional fragments. The cave is located at Ain Fashkha, above the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. As of now, there major collections of Biblical and Hebrew material in existence, as follows:

1. Four scrolls were brought to the U.S. in February by the Syrian Archbishop, along with a group of manuscript fragments. The scrolls include the Isaiah manuscript, which has the distinction of being the oldest existing manuscript of a complete Book of the Bible in any language; the Commentary on Habakkuk; a manual of discipline of a minor Jewish sect which existed at some time in the first or second century B.C., and a fourth scroll, which has not yet been opened.

2. Scrolls obtained by Prof. Sukenik have proved to be of first importance. They came from the same cave and include, according to information which has reached this country, the following: “The Scroll of Thanksgiving Songs,” three manuscript documents of hymns of thanksgiving which were wholly unknown heretofore; a scroll of “The War Between the Children of Light and the Children of Darkness,” in which there is an account of the battle formation used by the Jews in a period probably before the Maccabeans, and which tells of stone-slingers, cavalrymen and methods of celebrating victory; a part of the Book of Isaiah, which shows that the manuscript was identical in text and spelling with the Masoretic version, the standard Hebrew version of the Bible.

3. Fragments of manuscripts which are now in London in the British Museum, where they were brought by Dr. G. Lankester Harding, Chief Curator of Antiquities of Transjordan, represent the latest finds in this cave near the Dead Sea. The fragments found were from the Book of Leviticus, the oldest so far discovered from the cave; and from Genesis, Deuteronomy, Judges and Jubilees, an Apocryphal book.