The American Jewish Archives Journal, Volume LXI 2009, Number 1

Ziony Zevit of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles responded positively
to the publication, noting:
For years we have been trying to open up access to the scrolls to qualified
scholars … but those who are in charge of deciphering and publishing them
have made the scrolls available only to their students. Serious scholars have
found themselves closed out. 499
A prominent leader of the Reform movement, Rabbi Gunther Plaut, came out
in their support as well:
I have no idea whether Prof. Wacholder and Company have done a good job,
but they have succeeded in breaking a scholarly stranglehold. The fragments
should long ago have been photographed and surrendered to anyone who
wanted to study them. Too much hangs on their understanding to continue
scholarly hide-and-seek games. 500
Commenting on the ethical issues he noted:
‘Pirated version’ implies that the scrolls belong to someone who has violated
a copyright. No such thing; they belong to the world and its time that
the veil of secrecy is torn away so that a lot of scholars may have a go at
deciphering material. 501
Reform Judaism, an official publication of the Union of American Hebrew
Congregations (now Union of Reform Judaism) showed its support as well,
publishing in 1992 a volume devoted to the scrolls that included an article by
Wacholder and an interview with Abegg. 502 Even Schiffman, a member of the
editorial team who had challenged the ethics of bootlegging the scrolls, had to
concede the value of Wacholder and Abegg’s efforts: “‘For my own research,
this is very important,’ said Schiffman.… ‘When you get rid of the hoopla,
they have put a lot into the arena that some scholars have been wanting for a
long time.’” 503
A thorough study of the first volume later proved it to be far more accurate
than anyone had supposed previously. Hartmut Stegemann of Gottingen
University examined the edition and concluded that it was “a trustworthy
representation of about 98% of the textual evidence.” 504 That it had gone into
a second printing by the time the second volume of texts appeared in July
1992 proves its success. 505 The difficulty Abegg and Wacholder faced in the
wake of the first volume was finding funding to support the work on the
remaining volumes.
To help recoup costs and maintain the work of reconstructing the texts, a
public plea was made for donations to “The Dead Sea Scroll Project, Institute
for Mediterranean Studies,” which Wacholder had established. Donors who
contributed $500 or more received an inscribed copy of Volume 1. 506 BAR
Optimistic, Even with the Negatives: HUC-JIR and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1948–1993 • 69