(7 votes, average: 4.43 out of 5)
Loading...Years ago I published a blog post about a scandal involving the Dead sea scrolls. I had forgotten all about it, but ran across it today and thought it would be an interesting re-post. It involved a court case and jail time! Here’s what I said:
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A few years ago I was asked to give a speech at a museum in Raleigh NC in connection with an exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls that had been long in the works and had finally become a reality. I will be the first to admit, I’m not the first person you should think of to give a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls. It’s not my field of scholarship. But the lecture was to be one of a series of lectures, and the other lecturers actually were experts, including my colleague Jodi Magness, a world-class archaeologist who happens to teach in my department (well, she doesn’t “happen” to teach there; we hired her when I was chair of the department) and who has written the best popular discussion of the archaeology of Qumran, the place where the scrolls were found, and my colleague at cross-town rival Duke, Eric Meyers, another archaeologist famous for his work in ancient Israel. The organizers of the exhibit wanted me to give a talk because they wanted a lecture dealing with the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for understanding both the historical Jesus and the rise of early Christianity. And those *are* topics that I know something about.
Before giving the lecture, I started getting some emails from a person I did not know; these started out as innocent enough, but very quickly they turned highly vitriolic and mean-spirited and accusatory, attacking me viciously for not embracing the theories about the Dead Sea Scrolls held by Norman Golb, who is famous for thinking that the scrolls were not produced by the Jewish sect known as the Essenes (most other scholars think they were; I don’t know of anyone who has been convinced by Golb – but I’m sure there must be someone who has!).
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I did begin to read Norman Golb’s book a few years ago but didn’t finish it. His idea that the documents mainly belonged to the Sadducees isn’t entirely off the wall and interested me at the time. But the sectarian texts among the Scrolls are hard to explain away in a Sadducee context.
The other ‘scandal’ involving the DSSs was the claims being made before final publication that the Vatican was suppressing them because they contained information undermining the truth of Christianity. It is tue that Roman Catholic scholars did comprise the majority of the early translation teams. Books were published (eg. The Dead Sea Scrolls deception, by the Holy Blood, Holy Grail team – Baigent and Leigh) but their conspiracy theories were finally discredited when the contents of the Scrolls were revealed in all their entirety – fairly late in the day, it has to be said.
Dr Ehrman, I watched your last lecture on youtube as I couldn’t manage to travel in person. It was fascinating. I keep thinking about your narration of the Passion from Mark. Thank you for your work of eminent scholarship throughout your career and sharing it with us non-scholars in a lucid way.
Do you have any plans to hold any lectures or events in the San Francisco Bay Area next year? Or anywhere in California.
No plans for California just now! If I have public events down the line, I’ll announce them on the blog.
Hello Bart! I am an avid student of all things written and discussed by you. I am thankful to have found your many resources on all things bible and history. I am gently deconstructing a fundamentalist non-denom christian life. I have found your story incredibly helpful as I go. I would love to here more about how you relate to those close to you who are still in faith based practice. How one is to remain respectful, wise and loving when in close relationship with other’s polarizing worldviews. I realize this isn’t an area you focus on…..perhaps recommending someone else who does speak to this topic?
One way to start is to check out posts by Jeff and Judy Siker onthe blog (just do a word search for their names). They talk about why they are still Xns (both PhDs in NT and ordained Presbyterian ministers, who agree wiht most of my views about the Bible!)
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman.
Does John 12:10 confirm the Luke 16 parable of the Rich man and Lazarus ?
As in does John 12:10 confirm that Jesus told the parable?
Thanks.
Usually it is thought that John 12 shows that hte parable of Lazarus and the rich man was told, regold, and eventually “historicized” into a real person. But that doesn’t mean that the author of John himself knew the parable.
Hello Bart/Dr Ehrman
And do you think John knew the Lazarus in Luke?
Also someone said to me that John 12:10 confirms Jesus told the parable
John 12:10-11
10 So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well,
Your thoughts?
Thanks.
I think there were stories about Lazarus floating around and by the time John heard it he had become a real figure who came back rom the dead rather than a figure in a parable who was hoped to be able to come back from the dead. Stories change over time!
Sad story/sobering reminder of how easy it is to drift into speculation. I understand the frustration of feeling ignored, but committing fraud isn’t the answer (especially when, for a few dollars, you can interact with a leading Bible scholar and access a huge amount of solid material while helping those in need 😃)
The DSS tend to have that effect… they can draw out a conspiratorial mindset. That’s one reason I try not to stray far from the standard model. It has a lot going for it, even if it isn’t perfect. I do have some sympathy for Golb’s view, since it helps explain why there’re so many different authors represented in the scrolls and few cases of the same hand across multiple manuscripts (odd if they were produced by a single scribal community at Qumran.) Still, the strong hostility toward the temple authorities and the strict use of solar calendar make me doubt the scrolls originated in Jerusalem before the Roman siege. I even briefly wondered whether they might have come from a library associated with the Gerizim temple before its destruction, but the absence of any reference to it as a holy site makes that seem unlikely..
“Academic politics are so vicious because the stakes are so small.”
– Henry Kissinger
😉
I am late in reading this, but I was surprised to discover the whole case has a Wikipedia article!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_v._Golb
Raphael Golb’s defense seems to be that he was “trolling” people – that it was “satire.” He probably spent a lot in legal fees but though initially convicted, appeals led to the conviction being largely reversed. Golb himself had lots of defenders in the “free speech” realm.
This last bit might interest you, Dr Ehrman:
“[The magazine] Tablet asserts that ‘in recent years a subtle shift has occurred: [Norman] Golb’s theory has begun to approach the status of received wisdom,’ and ‘[m]any scholars seem now to be in agreement that some, many, or even most of the scrolls were not of sectarian origin’ and came from Jerusalem.”
From what I’ve read here & elsewhere, that seems completely untrue. The older Golb died in 2020. Maybe the younger Golb edited his own Wikipedia article?
I don’t believe that’s true, that Golb’s case is receiving lots of affirmation now. Yes, it must be there because of someone’s editing.