Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, July 11, 1993                   TAG: 9307110204
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: D-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JULIA M. KLEIN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Long

SCHOLARLY DEBATE DOESN'T OBSCURE THE WONDER OF EXHIBIT

First discovered more than four decades ago in the caves of Qumran in the Judean desert, these 2,000-year-old manuscripts are considered vital to understanding the development of both rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. But until two years ago, access to unpublished materials was restricted to a small group of scholars under the aegis of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

For a while, a truly nasty battle over access and publication rights made the abundant intellectual disputes over the authorship and meaning of the 100,000 or so scroll fragments seem positively restrained. Then, in the fall of 1991, the increasingly shaky research monopoly was shattered by the Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., which unveiled a complete set of scroll photographs.

Now, in "Scrolls From the Dead Sea: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship," an exhibition on view at the Library of Congress through Aug. 1, the Israel Antiquities Authority offers the public a fascinating glimpse of some of these ancient documents - and a chance to puzzle over the mysteries that have perplexed experts for so long.

To wit: Were the scrolls, which date from the 3rd century B.C. to 68 A.D., the library of a Jewish sect called the Essenes? Who were these Essenes, anyway? Did the scroll authors merely foreshadow some tenets of Christianity, or were they in some way connected to it? Why was Qumran established, and why did its inhabitants disappear?

"It is an exhibit that really tries to raise questions in visitors' minds, not to provide all the answers," said Irene Burnham, the Library of Congress' director of interpretative programs.

This is not the first such display. In 1949, two years after the initial find by a Bedouin boy, three scrolls were exhibited at the Library of Congress and elsewhere. The Smithsonian Institution mounted a major scrolls show in 1965.

But, with 88 archaeological artifacts from Qumran and 50 items from the library's own collections, this exhibition is the most comprehensive ever, Burnham said. And it coincides with what its curator, Michael W. Grunberger, head of the library's Hebraic Section, calls a "golden moment" in scrolls research.

In addition to the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco all collaborated on this traveling show, which is divided loosely into three parts - "The World of the Scrolls," "The Qumran Library" and "The Scrolls and Modern Scholarship."

The dozen fragmentary scrolls that are the exhibition's centerpiece are beautifully displayed and accompanied by helpful partial transcriptions and translations. Composed in Hebrew and paleo-Hebrew on various animal skins, the exhibited scrolls include the earliest known versions (by a thousand years) of some Old Testament texts - as well as "apocryphal" biblical works and other contemporary Jewish writings.

Most interesting, perhaps, are the so-called sectarian documents, which most researchers believe were unique to Qumran. Among these are the "Community Rule," setting out its followers' strict adherence to Jewish law, and the "War Rule," the tiniest fragment in the show. The latter is particularly controversial because the lack of context makes possible two opposing interpretations: The scroll may refer either to a (Jewish) Messiah who kills, or a (Christian) one who is killed. The show adopts the former view.

The artifacts from Qumran are mostly spare and unornamented, suggesting a simple, if not ascetic, lifestyle. Objects on view include coins, combs, leather sandals, a cylindrical jar in which scrolls were found and even an inkwell that may have been used by community scribes.

Also displayed are rare books, maps, prints and photographs from the library's own collections. Some of these items - notably descriptions of the Essenes by the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman geographer Pliny - supply famous clues to the scrolls' authorship. Various later versions of the Bible suggest both textual continuity and change. But they also dilute the exhibition's focus and make an already-complicated topic even harder to absorb.

"Scrolls From the Dead Sea" does offer a superficial introduction to the problems posed by the scrolls, but it is insufficiently detailed to satisfy anyone with previous knowledge of the subject. While the show does outline some areas of controversy, it gives us little basis on which to judge the debate.

Nor is it consistent with the exhibition catalog, as even Burnham concedes. While the exhibition aims "to treat the varying interpretations dispassionately," Burnham said, the catalog unmistakably adopts the traditionalist view of Qumran: that the scrolls were the library of a separatist, monastic Jewish group called Essenes who shared a communal lifestyle and an apocalyptic view of history.

Some dissenters are given their say - although only in the most cursory fashion - on the audiotape accompanying the show. For example, Norman Golb, Rosenberger Professor of Jewish History and Civilization at the University of Chicago, argues that Qumran was a military fortress, that the scrolls came from diverse libraries in Jerusalem, and that they were sequestered in desert caves because of the first-century A.D. Roman siege of Jerusalem.

"The traditional view deprives Jerusalem of any place in this whole process," Golb said in an interview. "It blocks out the events of the war with Rome. It deprives the Jewish people as a whole of the spiritual ownership of the scrolls, giving them instead to a little sect out in the desert."

The University of Chicago researcher said he believed the exhibition's text "could have been much more objective," although he praised its organizers for listening to his views.

The show gives even shorter shrift to the controversial theories of Robert Eisenman, professor of Middle East Religions at California State University at Long Beach. Eisenman argues that the scrolls were the work of members of the messianic movement in Palestine, whose later views were "the same as or all but indistinguishable from" those espoused by the Jerusalem church of James the Just, Jesus' putative brother. In fact, Eisenman said in an interview, the scrolls' "Teacher of Righteousness" could well have been James.

Eisenman called the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition "an attempt to . . . capitalize on the excitement we've generated over the last three or four years," adding that "we find ourselves being followed by the establishment, official team, but we're never given any decent credit."

But Lawrence Schiffman, professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, said the Library of Congress had no obligation to present Eisenman or Golb's arguments in depth. "You should be aware that there are no people who agree with those two individuals - zero," said Schiffman, who identifies Qumran's ancient inhabitants as Sadducees, yet another Jewish group.

Burnham purports to find all this conflict bracing. "I loved it," she said - although she also said she wished she'd had the opportunity to show the exhibition to scholars with draft labels and text before it opened. Listening to all the subsequent criticism, she said, "really showed how much they know, how important the nuances are and how great it is when a scholar "feels" what he believes."

The typical visitor to "Scrolls From the Dead Sea," whatever his or her religious leanings, may find the scholarly debate more obscure than illuminating. No matter. The miracle of the scrolls' survival, their extreme antiquity and their prophetic nature remain the stuff of wonder.

"Scrolls From the Dead Sea: The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Scholarship" is on view through Aug. 1 in the Madison Building of the Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington. Hours: Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 5 p.m. Tickets required. Same-day passes available free at the library. Advance tickets available from Ticketmaster, 800-551-7328, for a $3.50 fee. Information: 202-245-5284.