Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 30, 1995 TAG: 9504280008
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: NEIL ALTMAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
No, it's not the O.J. Simpson trial or the John F. Kennedy assassination.
It's the story of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Continuing research on the scrolls - generally considered the biblical archeological find of the century - is raising anew questions about the antiquity of the scrolls and their relevance to the Bible.
For years, for example, it was assumed that the first pictures taken of the scrolls were those of scholar John Trever in 1948.
Recently, however, it has come to light that a CIA agent in the Middle East took at least 30 photographs of one of the scrolls in the fall of 1947 before the documents caught the attention of the scholarly world. The agency now says it has no records of such photographs.
There also are apparent discrepencies between Trever's photographs of the Isaiah Scroll published in 1950 and his enhancements of those same photos published in 1972. A comparison of the sets of photos reveals that many of the Hebrew words do not match up.
Trever's photos also "differ in a number of significant ways" from a set of Japanese photos taken of the Isaiah Scroll in the 1970s, according to Harold Scanlin, translator for the American Bible Society.
In 1948, Trever had sent his photos to William F. Albright, biblical archeologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, to establish the age of the scrolls. Albright was nearly blind at the time, yet it was upon his authority that many scholars accepted his dating as "pre-Christian."
Some scholars disagreed. According to Hebrew paleographer G.R. Driver from Oxford University, "the arguments to establish the pre-Christian date of the scrolls [were] fundamentally unsound." The dating, he adds, was "but a 'conjecture' [that] unfortunately soon became a 'fact.'"
Other controversies surrounding the scrolls - including questions about where precisely they were found or how they could have survived - pale in light of the glaring problem of dating, which could have radical consequences on the Bible itself.
Some scholars would use the scrolls to revamp the sacred texts of Judaism and Christianity. According to a 1993 article in U.S. News and World-Report, one group of scholars recommended that "at least some of the 27 books [of the New Testament] be jettisoned and that other ancient texts [traditionally considered false or apocryphal writings] be added."
Other scholars would add a sixth "book of Moses" to the Old Testament - the Temple Scroll.
They also would alter the texts of the Gospels themselves, such as the second chapter of Luke.
"Behind the move," the magazine reported, "is the modern discovery of ancient documents, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls."
Dead Sea Scroll scholars have relied for the past 50 years primarily on the carbon-14 dating method. Yet research by James Weinstein of Cornell University is an open challenge to the dating of the scrolls, if not to all carbon-14 dating.
In a 1984 edition of the scientific journal Radiocarbon, Weinstein reported that most of the material tested in relation to the Dead Sea Scrolls, which included linen wrapping materials and woolen textiles found at the sites, actually date well into the Christian era, some as late as 600 A.D.
That report lends credibility to the claim of the late Solomon Zeitlin of Dropsie University - now part of the University of Pennsylvania - that the scrolls date from medieval times, anywhere from 300 A.D. to 1600 A.D.
Weinstein concluded that for the conventionally held scroll period - as far back as 300 B.C. - carbon-14 dating "has only limited value because the technique is less precise than normally available archeologic and historic materials."
Jeff Klein, an internationally recognized carbon-14 expert at the University of Pennsylvania, also points out problems with the procedure. In an interview, Klein said that in the 1950s and '60s, all the carbon-14 test results from a major lab in Holland were wrong. It was not the only lab that experienced difficulties, which, he said, continued for decades.
John Dayton, author of "Minerals, Metals, Glazing, and Man," gives some examples of why some archeologists discarded the carbon-14 method. Egyptian pharaoh Seti I lived approximately from 1309 until 1291 B.C., yet the carbon dating for materials associated with him is almost 200 years later at 1095 B.C. Similarly, for Ramesses III, one carbon date is almost 400 years later than his known lifetime.
Dayton points out that the carbon method has been manipulated. W.F. Libby, inventor of the dating method, "when he found that his Carbon 14 dates did not fit archaeological dates, had to look for a correction factor ... The correction factors have thus been used to bend chronology to fit the archaeologists' preference."
Some scholars don't find other scientific methods of dating the scrolls any more satisfactory.
Norman Golb, Dead Sea Scroll scholar from the University of Chicago, brings out that the traditional methods of dating - paleography, archeology and carbon-14 - have been compromised to fit the theories that the scrolls date from before the time of Christ.
In his 1995 book, "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?" Golb says that the methods "neither prove a 'firm dating of the scrolls to the pre-Christian era' nor that the estimated paleographic datings of the individual scrolls 'have been corroborated by science' ..." He points out that none of the sciences used for dating the scrolls are valid compared with the internal evidence of the words on the scrolls themselves.
The Isaiah Scroll is a typical example of how the scrolls have defied the world of science.
Carbon dating of the Isaiah Scroll is as early as 335 B.C., according to tests done in 1991. Paleographic and archeological dating is as late as 100 B.C. But Zeitlin found spelling on the Isaiah scroll "on a par with the spelling in many [Hebrew] writings of the Middle Ages."
The author of this article found new evidence in the Isaiah scroll to indicate a medieval origin at the earliest. The scroll shows sentence separation - most evident in chapters 49 and 50 - a practice unknown in Hebrew texts before the sixth century A.D. It was between the 6th and 10th centuries A.D. that the Masoretes began separating the previously unbroken strings of letters into words and sentences.
Philip Comfort, professor of Greek and New Testament at Wheaton (Ill.) College and senior Bible editor at Tyndale House Publishers, agrees that there is "very clear versification" in the Isaiah scroll.
Evident also is the medieval style of breaking the formation of the Hebrew letter "L" at the center, a practice that didn't begin until the 11th century A.D., and putting a vowel on the right side of that letter.
Aside from the internal evidence of the text, there is archeological evidence for dating the scrolls after the time of Christ. If the Dead Sea Scroll caves had been untouched since 50 A.D., as most current scroll scholars contend, material from later periods should not have been found there.
But, according to the Bulletin of American Schools of Oriental Research in Oct. 1951, the two most prominent archeologists at the time of the scrolls' discovery found lamps and other objects from the 3rd century A.D. Researchers also discovered codices - books composed of pages written on both sides - that didn't originate until the 2nd century A.D.
Most people are unaware that New Testament texts may have been found at Qumran as well. Among the scrolls in one cave there were Greek fragments that scholars could not identify.
In 1973, a Spanish expert in papyrus manuscripts, Jose O'Callaghan, determined that the fragments matched the Gospel of Mark, as well as the New Testament texts of Romans and First Timothy.
While that controversial contention has been endorsed by a growing number of scholars, many others disagree.
New York University professor Lawrence Schiffman, for instance, said in a recent book, "The claim that New Testament manuscripts were found at Qumran can be dealt with in a sentence. None was found - for a very good reason: New Testament texts are later than the Qumran texts."
There is less disagreement on the fact that numerous "Xs" are found in the margins on the Isaiah scroll. Since 1950, it has been acknowledged that there are 11 Xs on the scroll. This author discovered that all of them seem to correspond to passages widely recognized as messianic prophecy, lending credence to the theory that they were written in the Christian era.
Comfort, of Wheaton College, says, "Isaiah chapters 42:1 and 42:6 are clearly messianic passages that speak of Jesus and the 'X's' here relating to him are an extremely important discovery."
A possible 12th "X" appears at the start of Isaiah 7:14, which deals with the Virgin Birth of the Messiah. In correspondence with this author, Trevor, the original photographer of the scrolls, agreed there is an "X" there. Scanlin said in an interview that the "X" is consistent with others found in the scroll.
Corrections of words within the text of the Isaiah scroll also indicate Christian-era transcription. Jewish scribes made their corrections in the margins of the text, while "Christian copyists usually made the change in the text itself," according to Dr. Richard Nysse, professor of Old Testament at Lutheran Northwestern Seminary in St. Paul, Minn.
Questions are also raised about how the leather and papyrus scrolls could have survived 2,000 years in caves that Otto Betz describes as "humid" in his article in the book, "Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls."
Such external evidence adds further validity to the view that the scrolls originated much later than originally thought, and the X's on the Isaiah scroll mark the spot on the calendar of time.
Neil Altman is a Philadelphia-based writer who specializes in the Dead Sea Scrolls. He has done graduate work at the Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, Conwell School of Theology, and Temple University.
by CNB