U.S.

It Was Worth The Wait

November 15, 2001 / 9:37 AM EST / AP

The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating between 250 B.C. and A.D. 70, have nearly all been published 54 years after their discovery by archeologists in caves on the western shore of the Dead Sea.

"It's a very happy moment that we can say today that all this is completed," Emmanuel Tov, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the project's editor in chief for the past decade, announced Thursday at the New York Public Library. "It did take time, it did take a while indeed."

The 900 scrolls and commentaries in 37 volumes were primarily written in Hebrew and Aramaic on more than 15,000 leather and papyrus documents. They were found between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves near the ruins of an ancient settlement at Hirbet Qumran, nine miles south of Jericho in what is now the West Bank.

They are believed to have been written by the Essenes, an austere and insular Hebrew sect.

Scholars consider the scrolls a treasure of Jewish history and religion. They provide insights into what the Hebrew Bible looked like more than 2,000 years ago. They also contain prayer texts, biblical interpretations, poetical fragments, wisdom compositions and various sectarian documents.

Tov and others associated with the project said that nothing in the scrolls is likely to shed a bad light on Judaism or early Christianity as once was thought possible.

Tov, who said that Jesus was not mentioned in any of the scrolls, said the work "leads us to believe that the Bible went through many stages of changes ... It gives us the opportunity to chart the development of the biblical books."

One of the scrolls contains a Hebrew song of thanksgiving and was dedicated to New York City in honor of its steadfastness following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Tov's team of almost 100 international scholars, overseen by the Israel Antiquities Authority, has issued 28 volumes; two more are in the final stages of preparation. They are published by Oxford University Press under the general title "Discoveries in the Judean Desert."

An introductory volume is to be published early next year with a history of the project and a list of all the texts in the various volumes.