Reviewed by Jaqueline Du Toit (University of the Free State, South Africa) Published on H-Judaic (September, 2011) Commissioned by Jason Kalman
Excerpt:
In short, The Dead Sea Scrolls. A Full History is therefore, as the cover claims, an attempt at “a more complete account of the discovery of the scrolls and their history over the past 60 years since the first scrolls were discovered in a cave near the Dead Sea.” The project, of which this is only the first volume, was anticipated in 2006 by Fields’s The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Short History, also published by Brill. The current first of a projected two volumes of the “full history” (henceforth referred to as volume 1) sets out to record the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the moment of discovery in the late 1940s until the present day. Much necessary ink is spilt on the relationships between the primary actors in the drama of the scrolls’ discovery, purchase, reconstruction, decipherment, and the often less than successful attempts at publication of the first decade. As is to be expected, of the thirteen chapters, the predominant number (chapters 4 to 13) are devoted primarily to the discovery and management of what became known as the Cave 4 cache of fragments and the establishment of the international coterie of scholars that would become known as the “Cave Four Team”--a term Fields prefers to “International Team” or “International Committee” (pp. 191-192) for its emphasis on the nature of their work.