Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 11, 1993 TAG: 9307130342
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEIL ALTMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Now, new and interesting clues suggest the scrolls were written centuries after the 300 B.C.-to-50 A.D. period steadfastly maintained by a clique of scholars that has kept large portions of the scrolls out of public view for decades.
If the later origin is true, the value of the scrolls as the oldest copy of the Old Testament would be - at best - in question, threatening a multimillion-dollar industry that has sprung up around the scrolls and the reputations of the scroll scholars themselves.
At worst, what has been called the greatest archaeological find of the century may turn out to be the century's biggest hoax.
Further, the scrolls are not totally silent about Jesus of Nazareth, as those same scholars have said since the documents came to light in 1948.
One large scroll fragment named "Testimonia," which the scroll scholars have called a "Biblical proof text" because it points to who the Messiah should be, contains a reference to "Yeshua" - the Hebrew for Jesus.
Orthodox Rabbi Martin Rubenstein, a leading Philadelphia rabbi, translates the text directly as, "at the time when Yeshua completed to praise and to give thanks . . ." Another Orthodox rabbi from a major Philadelphia synagogue, Albert Gabbai, translates it as, "at the time that Jesus completed to praise."
A third possible translation of the Hebrew text is, "[All] are startled that Jesus is completely [or fully] praised and exalted."
Unlike the previous four paragraphs in "Testimonia," which are quotes from Old Testament prophecies about a coming messiah, the last paragraph is divided into three sections: a statement about Jesus, Jesus quoting a biblical prophecy, and a lengthy commentary on that prophecy.
Anyone familiar with the New Testament would recognize that the commentary is based upon prophecies in the Gospel of Matthew and the Book of Revelation.
On April 19, 1992, The New York Times reported that one scroll fragment never before made public read: "the heavens and the earth shall obey Messiah . . . He shall heal the wounded, resurrect the dead, preach glad tidings to the poor."
And in the Oct. 7, 1991, issue of U.S. News and World Report, another secret fragment was brought to light: ". . . and by his name he shall be hailed [as] the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High."
Why are obvious references to Jesus only now being brought to light?
The simplest possible answer is that the appearance of the name or clear references to this religious figure would wreck longstanding assumptions about the age of the scrolls.
The reference in "Testimonia" was mistranslated by scholars who have kept the scrolls secret and who have stood by their pre-Christ dating of the scrolls.
Upon re-examination of this text, Jesus' name in Hebrew - Yeshua (the Hebrew letters are Yod, shin, vov, ayin) - was found to be mistranslated as Joshua. In Hebrew, Joshua is pronounced Yehosuah - and is spelled with an extra letter and in different order (yod, hay, vov, shin, ayin).
Stephen Reynolds, professor emeritus of Hebrew at Gordon-Conwell and Faith Theological seminaries, specializes in corrections of words that have been mistranslated. As one of the translators of the New International Version of the Bible, Reynolds says, "I am convinced that . . . the Dead Sea Scrolls have been badly interpreted." He adds, "I believe that the Yeshua of the `Testimonia' is Jesus Christ and that the work was produced by someone who believed in him."
It is important to understand the politics that have swirled around the Dead Sea Scrolls. Access to them has been controlled by some scholars who are anti-Semitic or anti-theistic as a springboard to promote their theories of biblical criticism - that the books of the Old and New Testaments were written long after many of the events they describe.
Crucial to their theories regarding the scrolls has been the carbon-14 dating of the materials, which supposedly indicated that they were written between 300 B.C. and 50 A.D.
But results of carbon-14 tests conducted in 1990 and 1991 on a few tiny samples from the scrolls now are being questioned by some scholars who challenge the accuracy of the carbon-14 dating method. These test results initially reinforced the theory that the scrolls are from before the time of Christ.
One of the earliest skeptics was the late Solomon Zeitlin, a professor of Hebrew at Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning - now known as the Annenberg Institute for Post-Doctoral Research - in Philadelphia. In an article, he gave the actual dating of the carbon-14 test done some 40 years ago by F.E. Zeuner on the woolen wrapping from the Murabba'at Caves, which scholars now link with the Dead Sea Scroll finds at Qumran.
Zeuner's test dated those wrappings at 546-566 A.D.
Yet the 1990-91 carbon test at Switzerland's Zurich Institute of Technology - done for the first time on a few samples from the actual scrolls - dated a sample of the Murabba'at scrolls at 69-136 A.D.
At the May 1991 international conference on carbon-14 in Tucson, George Bonani, who conducted the tests on the scrolls in Switzerland, presented his findings. Bonani, in a telephone interview, said there was only a 67 percent chance that the tests gave the correct age of the documents.
Last spring, I approached Jeff Klein, a physicist and carbon-14 specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, to ask the university to do new carbon-14 tests on the scrolls.
Neither of us knew that the Rehovot Institute in Israel had done these tests but withheld the results - a fact exposed in the November-December 1991 issue of the Biblical Archeological Review.
Klein made several inquiries to Rehovot with no reply.
Then in the Review's May-June issue, Greg Doudna of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University stated that 25 percent of the dates of the tests on the scrolls are in error. Doudna demanded new tests.
Scholars are catching on that something is very wrong with the dating of the scrolls.
The question remains, however: Why has there been such dependence on the carbon-14 method, admittedly faulty and needing constant correction and revision?
And why is the clique of scroll scholars so obsessed with maintaining a pre-Christian dating of the scrolls when evidence continues to mount that the scrolls are later in origin - medieval to late medieval, 1000 A.D. to 1500 A.D.?
Those controlling the scrolls also have failed to give a satisfactory account for the existence of Chinese symbols in the margins in the scrolls, published in my Washington Post article of March 31, 1991. Nor have they accounted for the appearance on the scrolls of Western letters, numbers, Masoretic vowels that appear no earlier than 10th century A.D., and other symbols originating in the medieval period.
Two years ago, people were shocked to learn of the virulent anti-Semitic views of John Strugnell, head of the international committee responsible for the scrolls' translation. He was fired after he was quoted as saying that Judaism is "a horrible religion" and that "the occupation of Jerusalem - and maybe of the whole state [of Israel] is founded on a lie."
The March 27, 1992, issue of the Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia further quoted him as saying: "an anti-Judaist, that is what I am."
Amazingly, after Strugnell was fired, he was still allowed to be part of the international committee.
It's not only Strugnell's anti-Semitic remarks that need exposure, but also the fact that the Dead Sea Scroll scholars connected with the international committee barred Jews from that committee until 1985.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are beginning to reveal more about Judaism and Christianity than the scholars who have kept them secret bargained for.
Neil Altman is a Philadelphia-based writer who has specialized in the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has done graduate work at Dropsie College for Learning and Conwell School of Theology. He has a master's degree in Old Testament from Wheaton Graduate School in Wheaton, Ill., and was an American Studies Fellow at Eastern College.
by CNB