Conference lgp30::christian-perspective

    
    PBS will be airing a program tonite at 8 pm on channel 2 (Boston)
    entitled "The Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls," sponsored/produced 
    by NOVA.  This program will also be repeated this Friday evening 
    (10/18) on channel 44 at 9 pm.  Beyond the Boston area, check local 
    listings for date and time. 
       

    Did anyone watch the PBS _Nova_ documentary last night on the Dead Sea
    Scrolls?  Apparently the scrolls have been embroiled in controversy
    since their discovery by a Bedouin shepard boy back in the 1940's
    sometime.  I don't remember the exact date.  The controversy is not in
    the content of the scrolls.  If anything the scrolls proved the
    accuracy of the Old Testament.  The controversy is in their
    publication, many scholars complain that access to the scrolls have
    been restricted only to a small group of individuals.  Only a small
    number of all the scrolls have been published.  Recently however 2
    scholars have been able to reconstruct the content of the scrolls on a
    personal computer(a Macintosh) based on a concordance of the scrolls.
    Also a university in California have released a series of microfilm of
    the scrolls without the permission of the scholars who are studying the
    scrolls.  Another controversy with the scrolls is that the small group
    of scholars who are studying them are all Christians.  Up until
    recently no Jewish scholars had access to them.
    

>    scrolls.  Another controversy with the scrolls is that the small group
>    of scholars who are studying them are all Christians.  Up until
>    recently no Jewish scholars had access to them.

	Not completely so. I believe the scrolls were divided into groups
    and a Christian group is being very slow with theirs. There are other
    scrolls that are accessible. I've seen some myself. They are on public
    display in Jerusalem in the Shrine of the Book.

    			Alfred    

Article: 1816
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: clari.news.interest.history,clari.news.religion,clari.news.top.world
Subject: Israel opens access to Dead Sea scrolls
Date: 27 Oct 91 18:36:38 GMT
 
 
	JERUSALEM (UPI) -- Israel announced Sunday it would give scholars open
access to the Dead Sea scrolls, capping an international controversy
over the 2,000-year-old parchments.
	``Now everyone can have a go at it,'' said Samuel Tov, a professor at
Hebrew University who heads a team charged with publishing a definitive
edition of the scrolls.
	The team had come under fire for moving at a snail's pace and
preventing access to many of the precious scrolls for nearly half a
century.
	Researchers in the United States announced recently that in the
absence of permission to inspect the originals, they would work from a
series of photographs of the scrolls and speed up their translation,
sparking protests from the Israel Antiquities Authority.
	The restricted access has led to a great deal of speculation.
	``It's claimed the scrolls have been withheld because they contain
materials damaging to Judaism and Christianity,'' said Tov. ``In due
course we'll know whether those claims are correct.''
	About 80 percent of the scrolls have been published, but until today,
thousands of fragments remained the exclusive possession of a few
academics, who were picked years ago to translate them.
	``We were pressured into moving faster than we would move,'' said
Shemaryahu Talmon, a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls Advisory Committee
which inaugurated the new procedures allowing unlimited examination.
Talmon said copyright laws will still limit publication of the entire
text.
	The latest controversy is one of many surrounding the manuscripts
since their discovery in 1947 by a Bedouin shepherd, in the Qumran Caves
in what was then Jordanian-occupied Palestine.
	The writings, though badly decomposed, are the earliest known version
of the Hebrew Bible. They are considered a treasure trove potentially
containing new insights into the origins of the Bible, Judaism and
Christianity.

Article: 1869
From: [email protected]
Newsgroups: clari.news.religion,clari.tw.education
Subject: Final Dead Sea Scrolls to be published
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 91 17:58:01 EST
 
	LOS ANGELES (UPI) -- After 40 years of cloak-and-dagger secrecy, the
last sections of the Dead Sea Scrolls will be published by two
California scholars, a newspaper reported Wednesday.
	Photographs of the last 20 percent of the legendary scrolls will be
published in volumes prepared by Robert Eisenman of Cal State Long Beach
and James M. Robinson of the Claremont Graduate School, according to the
Los Angeles Times.
	``Now, for the first time, it is open to all scholars to transcribe,
to print, to edit, to publish or republish or to take into the bathroom
to play with,'' said Hershel Shanks of the Washington-based Biblical
Archeological Society, which will publish the scroll volumes.
	``The monopoly has been broken once and for all,'' Eisenman said. ``I
believe this will be the last step in a long struggle to allow public
access.''
	The publication of the scrolls was annouced at a press conference in
New York.
	Access to the Dead Sea Scrolls has been tightly controlled since
their 1947 discovery in caves near the Dead Sea in Israel. The 800
scrolls are inscribed with the oldest known copies of the Old Testament
and other religious writings dating from 200 BC to AD 50.
	Most of the scrolls have been translated and published. But the last
20 percent, mostly tattered scraps, have been monopolized by a small
group of scholars affiliated with the Israel Antiquities Authority.
	The monopoly was first broken two months ago, when the Huntington
Library in San Marino announced it would make microfilmed photographs of
most of the scrolls available to all qualified scholars.
	The library decided not to publish the photographs, citing copyright
concerns.
	Unauthorized photos of the last sections of the scrolls were mailed
to the two California scholars by an anonymous source over a two-year
period. Long Beach attorney William Cox brokered the exchange of photos
for the anonymous source, and said their publication doesn't infringe on
copyright laws.
	The Israel Antiquities Authority maintains that it has the copyright
to the scrolls, and general release of the fragments will force scholars
to rush their painstaking translation efforts.
	The scholars ``will now be under great pressure to publish them, even
before they are sure their work is correct,'' said Amir Drori, head of
the organization.
	Release of the fragmented scrolls may even set back Biblical
scholarship, theologian Eugene Ulrich of Notre Dame told the Times. The
scrolls are ``chaos-fragments that were poured out on a table at the
museum and photographed,'' Ulrich said.
	The scroll fragments are clear and legible, Shanks said. The
fragments ``are remarkably clear considering these fragments are over 2,
000 or more years old,'' Shanks said. ``They jump out of the page at
you. If you look at them, you will share some of the mystery and some of
the excitement we have experienced producing them.''
	The publication of the scrolls will be funded by a $25,000 grant from
the Irving I. Moskowitz Foundations of Hawaiian Gardens.
	The new set of scrolls will be available in a two-volume set of 1,787
photographic plates. The volumes will cost $210 for a set, and will be
available Dec. 4.

    Gee $210 a set !

    I guess I'll wait for the movie.;)



    Jim

re Note 330.5 by DEMING::VALENZA:

> 	The Israel Antiquities Authority maintains that it has the copyright
> to the scrolls, and general release of the fragments will force scholars
> to rush their painstaking translation efforts.

        They copyrighted the scrolls? (Perhaps they mean the
        photograph of the scrolls?)

        Bob

    
    So what revelations did the scrolls contain????? 
    
    Jamd
    

    .8
    
    Julie!  Good to "see" you here! :-)
    
    I regret no one has responded to your question.  I'm fairly certain it's
    because we've yet to learn the answer ourselves.
    
    Thanks for asking, anyway!
    
    Richard

For those who have access to the application Mosaic, there is a document
on the Dead sea scrolls and it looks like it is based on the exhibit at
the Library of congress, Washington, DC.

To access, open a URL to it from the menu bar: File->Open URL and type in

	http://sunsite.unc.edu/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/intro.html

I have only viewed the introduction of the document, but it looks interesting. 

Phil.

    re: .10 Phil
    
    Thanks for the info, Phil.
    
    If anyone does have access (I do not), I would be very grateful for a copy
    of the document.
    
    Greetings, Derek.                                       

Derek,

The document seems to be quite extensive, I'll contact you off-line via email
to see what can be done.

Phil.

1946.  Near the Dead Sea.  The oldest biblical texts ever found are discovered
in caves of adjoining cliffs by Bedouin herdsmen.

Apparently Jewish scholars were excluded from working with the texts until
the mid-1980s.  Since their addition, many suppositions have been challenged.
It could be that Qumran, where the scrolls were thought to have originated,
was not an Essene community.  There is speculation that the ruins are that
of a Roman outpost.

I gathered the above from a recently aired PBS program.

Shalom,
Richard

>Apparently Jewish scholars were excluded from working with the texts until
>the mid-1980s.

Not true.  Read Hershel Shanks books, not Baigent & Leigh.

Most of the texts were made public more than forty years ago.

/john

    Jewish scholars were originally excluded from working on the dead sea
    scrolls.  It was the Government of Israel in my opinion of going
    overboard in trying to be fair.
    
    The interpretors have a goal of translating all the scrolls by the year
    2000.
    
    I gather these fact from the guest lecturer from the Hebrew University
    in Jerusalem who spoke at Andover Newton.  This man showed us how he
    was using computer techniques to interpret his assigned sections of the
    scrolls.  What is left to be translated are very fragmented pieces cut
    and pasted together according to the best skill and hunches of those
    doing the work.  IT is truly amazing work.