The Enigma Of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Ever since their discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been a source of mystery and controversy. Until recently, access to the material has been restricted to a small core group of scholars that have been moving at a snail's pace over the last few decades. Now that the scrolls are more widely available, new books on the subject are appearing with more scheduled for the near future. The Engima of the Dead Sea Scrolls traces the, at times, near slapstick history of the scrolls from the first discovery by a Bedouin boy herding sheep, through the intrigues with an antiques dealer called Kando, to the 1953 advertisement in the Wall Street Journal for four ancient manuscripts, and finally, to their home in Jerusalem's Rockefeller Museum. Interviews with scholars' Frank Cross of Harvard, Sam Ivry of John Hopkins University, Bruce Zuckerman of USC, and Jonas Greenfield of Hebrew University focus on the frustrations in the academic world over the guarded handling of the scrolls and offer some speculations concerning the nature of the original keepers of the scrolls: the radical Jewish sect known as the Essenes. Since the focus of the film is more on academic backbiting, however, than interpretation of the scrolls' content, the audience for the video is limited. General audiences will find the far less expensive The Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls (reviewed in our February 1993 issue) more to their liking. The Engima of the Dead Sea Scrolls is recommended for universities with strong religion studies programs. (R. Pitman)