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In 1954, Yigael Yadin, the former Chief of Staff for the Israeli Defense Forces, who taught
Archaeology at Hebrew University, purchased Samuel’s four scrolls for $250,000. Ironically, he
was the son of Professor Sukenik. These four scrolls, and the three purchased by his father were
then housed in a building known as the Shrine of the Book. While the Israelis worked on these
scrolls, across town at the Rockefeller Museum, de Vaux and his group of international scholars
were working on the fragments they discovered.
In 1967, Yadin interrogated Kando, who subsequently relinquished possession of a scroll he
had for six years, which had been found in Cave 11. Known as the Temple Scroll, at 27 feet, it is
the longest scroll, and has been dated between 150-125 BC. It has references to the building of
the Temple in Jerusalem, and the rituals to be performed there, however, because of the laws
found in it in regard to general matters, and quotes from the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the
Bible, known as the Torah of Moses), it has been referred to as the Sixth Book of the Law, and
may contain the information referred to in 1 Chronicles 28:11-19 and 1 Samuel 8:11.
The Pentateuch was compiled by Ezra (Ezra 7:14) about 458 BC, and it is believed that what
was edited out, became part of the Temple Scroll. Five separate sources were compiled to form
the Temple Scroll, and it is now considered a supplement to the Torah. In addition to the content,
another reason that it is considered a Biblical text, is that in all established Biblical books, the
name of God, YHWH (Yahweh), is written in the square Aramaic script like the rest of the text;
while in non-Biblical writings, the name is written in Paleo-Hebrew, while the rest of the text is
in Aramaic.
The goal of de Vaux’s international team was for the Oxford University Press to publish all
Qumran scrolls by 1962 in a series called the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan. That
didn’t happen. The first, in 1955, contained the fragments found in the original cave, known as
Cave 1. In 1961, the second volume appeared, however, it contained material discovered in the
four caves of Wadi Murabba’at, eleven miles south of Qumran, and was dated from 70-135 AD.
This find included the Hebrew versions of all the minor prophets, including Hosea, Joel, Amos,
Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. In
1963, the third volume was published, containing fragments from Cave 2, Cave 3, and Caves 5 -
10; including the Copper Scroll found in Cave 3, and fragments from two copies of The Book of
Jubilees, a copy of which was later found at Masada. Some researchers believe that the Copper
scroll should be put in a different category, and separated from the other texts that have been
found, because it is the only document that was recorded on metal, it was written in a different
variation of Hebrew, and was discovered in an isolated section of the cave; which could indicate
a different origin. The fourth volume, in 1965, was a collection of Psalms found in Cave 11. The
fifth volume, in 1968, under the direction of Allegro, contained some material from Cave 4,
however, most of the scrolls from this cave continued to be withheld from the public, even
though Allegro had said in 1964 that the compilation and translation had been nearly completed
by 1961. The sixth installment of the series appeared in 1977, the seventh in 1982, and the
eighth, which didn’t even deal with the texts of Qumran, was released in 1990.
These eight volumes are said to represent only 25% of the information contained in the
Scrolls, even though Father Benoit had said in December, 1985, that everything would be
published by 1993. Strugnell would later set a deadline of 1996. Then it was announced that it
would be done by 2000.
Edmund Wilson, author of The Scrolls of the Dead Sea, said in 1955 that de Vaux’s team
wanted to isolate the sectarian non-Biblical scrolls from being connected with Christianity and
Judaism, and concentrated only on the Biblical literature. In 1956, tired of de Vaux’s attempts to