Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

consignments, then more insistently, until by the autumn of 1990, a year later, photographs of
virtually the whole of the unpublished corpus and then some, had been made over to him. Those
responsible for this obviously felt that he would know what to do with them. The present editors hope
that this confidence has been justified. The publication of the two-volume Facsimile Edition two years
later, together with the present volume, is the result.
At this juncture Professor Michael Wise of the University of Chicago, a specialist in Aramaic, was
brought into the picture. Eisenman began sharing the archive with him in November 1990. Professor
Wise describes the impression the sight of the extensive photographic archive made on him when he
came to California and mounted the stairs for the first time to the sunny loft Eisenman used as a study:
'The photographs were piled in little stacks everywhere around the room. They were so numerous that
stacked together, they would have topped six feet in height. Someone should have taken a picture and
recorded the scene, the two of us standing on either side of a giant stack of 1800 photographs of
previously sequestered and unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls - the big one that did not get away.'
Two teams immediately set to work, one under Professor Eisenman at California State University at
Long Beach and one under Professor Wise at the University of Chicago. Their aim was to go through
everything every photograph individually - to see what was there, however long it took, leaving
nothing to chance and depending on no one else's work.
At the same time, and in pursuance of the goal of absolutely free access without qualifications,
Eisenman was preparing the Facsimile Edition of all unpublished plates. This was scheduled to appear
the following spring through E. J. Brill in Leiden, Holland. Ten days, however, before its scheduled
publication in April 1991, after pressure was applied by the International Team, the publisher
inexplicably withdrew and Hershel Shanks and the Biblical Archaeology Society to their credit
stepped in to fill the breach. But time had been lost and other events were now transpiring that would
render the whole question of access obsolete.
Independently and separately, the Huntington Library of San Marino, California, in pursuance of a
parallel commitment to academic freedom and without knowledge of the above arrangements-though
aware of the public relations benefits implicit in the situation - called Eisenman in as a consultant in
June 1991. Thereafter, in September 1991, the Library unilaterally decided to open its archives. The
monopoly had collapsed. B.A.S.'s 2-volume Facsimile Edition was published two months later.
What was the problem in Qumran studies that these efforts were aimed at rectifying? Because of the
existence of an International Team, giving the appearance of 'official' appointment, the public
naturally came to see the editions it produced (mainly published by Oxford University Press in the
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series) as authoritative. These editions contained interpretations,
which themselves came to be looked on as 'official' as well. This is important. Those who did not have
a chance to see these texts for themselves were easily dominated by those claiming either to know or
to have seen more.
This proposition has been put somewhat differently: control of the unpublished manuscripts meant
control of the field. How did this work? By controlling the unpublished manuscripts - the pace of their