The Faces behind the Scrolls. Also a children s guide

Transcription

1 The Faces behind the Scrolls Also a children s guide

2 The discovery of seven, two-thousand year old scrolls by Bedouin shepherds in a cave near the northern Dead Sea during the winter of proved to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries in human history. The scrolls generated tremendous excitement, since they were a thousand years older than any biblical manuscripts known at the time, apart from the small Nash Papyrus, dated to the second century BCE. The discovery was initially greeted with a combination of suspicion, skepticism, and amazement, owing to the Shapira Affair that had taken place dozens of years before, but which remained deeply embedded in the collective memory. In 1883 the Jerusalem-based antiquities collector and dealer Moses Shapira was suspected of forging scrolls which he claimed came from the Dead Sea region and ultimately took his own life. These events were undoubtedly in the minds of the heroes of this exhibition when they first encountered the seven scrolls. Three of the scrolls were purchased by Eleazar Sukenik of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the first to notice the writings nature and significance. He concluded that the scrolls were copied during the late Second Temple Period and that they originated in an Essene genizah (a repository for worn copies of Jewish texts). His assumption became the cornerstone of modern scroll research. Sukenik was unable to purchase the remaining four scrolls, which are the focus of this exhibition. Their story is told here through the individuals who recognized their importance and devoted efforts to preserving, studying, and revealing them to the public. Today, it is possible to look back upon the moments of discovery embedded within the sequence of everyday events and understand that the combination of the right people in the right place at the right time is what made them happen. Welcome to the exhibition The Faces behind the Scrolls! You are about to meet some of the fascinating people responsible for bringing four of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Shrine of the Book. Take a look at their photos and the special objects associated with them. Want to find out some surprising things about these people and their objects? Follow us!

3 In Winter 1946/47 two cousins, Muhammed edh- Dhib and Jum a Muhammed, Bedouin shepherds from the Ta amireh tribe, were herding their flocks in the hills overlooking the northern Dead Sea, when they noticed a small opening in the rock. They tossed in a stone and were surprised to hear the sound of shattering pottery. Three days later they returned, crawled through the opening, and discovered a cave (later named Cave 1) containing ten lidded jars, one of which held three rolled scrolls. The shepherds took the scrolls back to camp, intending to sell them in Bethlehem. During a return visit to the cave, they found four additional scrolls. The seven scrolls were sold to antiquities dealers in Bethlehem. Three were eventually purchased by Eleazar Sukenik, professor of archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Four were sold by Khalil Eksander Shahin (Kando), a Syrian Orthodox Christian shoemaker and dealer, to Archbishop Athanasius Yeshue Samuel of Jerusalem. Muhammed edh-dhib and Jum a Muhammed, n.d. Khalil Eksander Shahin (Kando), Use the headsets to listen to an interview with the Bedouin shepherd Muhammed edh-dhib. In the interview Muhammed describes how he found together with his cousin the oldest Bible in the world, written on scrolls and hidden in pottery jars. Before the scrolls were taken to the Shrine of the Book, they were stored in a cave in the Judean Desert for more than two thousand years. The dry, dark conditions in the cave protected them and kept them from disintegrating. That s why we keep the Shrine of the Book dry and relatively dark, just like the cave.

4 Knowledge of the ancient manuscripts reached Athanasius Samuel, head of the Syrian Orthodox Monastery and Church in Jerusalem, in April Samuel and his mother, survivors of the 1916 Ottoman massacre at Hilwah, wandered as refugees until ultimately reaching Jerusalem. There Samuel trained as a priest, became the monastery s librarian, and rose to the rank of archbishop. After purchasing the four scrolls, he consulted scholars at the American School of Oriental Research, who determined that the writings were two thousand years old, and that three scrolls were in Hebrew and one in Aramaic the language spoken in the time of Jesus and used in the Syrian Orthodox Church. In 1948, as fighting between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem increased, Samuel took the scrolls to Beirut and then to the United States. After studying and exhibiting them, he put them up for sale. In 1954 archaeologist Yigael Yadin secretly purchased the scrolls for $250,000 on behalf of the State of Israel. Athansius became Patriarchal Vicar to the United States and Canada and is buried in a cathedral in Glane, The Netherlands. Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, The man in the photo purchased the scrolls that Muhammed and his cousin discovered in the cave. His name was Athanasius Samuel, and he was a Christian clergyman. Today we know that touching the scrolls with bare hands damages them and that they may only be handled by people wearing gloves. Athanasius, like others in his day, apparently did not know this. The book that bears his photo is his autobiography. In it, Athanasius tells the story of his life and reveals If you decided to write a book about your own life, what would be the most important event in it? that the purchase of the scrolls was the greatest thing he ever did.

5 On February 18, 1948 the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem was empty. John Trever, a biblical scholar and professional photographer from Yale University, answered the telephone himself. On the line was Butrus Sowmy, assistant to Athanasius Samuel, asking for help with four ancient scrolls. In the school s basement, against the background of approaching war, Trever took the first photographs of the Great Isaiah Scroll, the Community Rule, and the Commentary on Habakkuk. These photographs enabled the leading scholar William F. Albright to confirm the scrolls dating and authenticity. Trever immediately agreed, and when the scrolls arrived he spread the longest one across his bed and compared the square Hebrew script to that of the Nash Papyrus, a manuscript from the second century BCE. To his astonishment, he realized that before him lay an ancient scroll of the Book of Isaiah. Trever returned to the United States, became a professor of Bible, and engaged in the research of the scrolls. His books remain an important source of information about the story of the scrolls discovery. John Trever, This letter was written by John Trever, an American scholar and photographer of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In his day there was no , and to make sure that his letter would reach the Dead Sea Scroll scholars in Israel quickly, he sent it by airmail in other words, by plane. Letters sent by airmail had to be light, and so they were written on a single sheet of paper. After he finished writing his letter, John folded the sheet into the shape of an envelope and wrote the address on the outside.

6 In 1949 Father Roland De Vaux, director of Ecole biblique et archeologique francaise de Jerusalem, began excavating in the vicinity of the caves where the scrolls were found, on behalf of the Palestine Archaeological Museum (later the Rockefeller Museum) directed by Gerald Lankester Harding. De Vaux, born in Paris and a graduate of the Sorbonne, was ordained as a Dominican priest and eventually joined Ecole biblique, where he became a professor. Between 1951 and 1956 he discovered 267 caves, thousands of scroll fragments, and the site of Qumran. De Vaux laid the foundations for the theory connecting the site, the caves, and the scrolls to the Essenes. This theory, once accepted by most scholars, is now the subject of debate. De Vaux stood at the head of an international team devoted to deciphering the scrolls and was chief editor of the major publications in this field. He was regarded as an outstanding teacher and a meticulous scholar, but was also criticized for preventing other scholars from examining the scrolls. De Vaux is buried at Saint Stephen s Basilica, Jerusalem. Roland De Vaux, This camera belonged to the priest and historian Roland De Vaux. He used it to photograph the archaeological excavations that he directed at Qumran Some of Roland s sharp photos are screened in the exhibition; can you find them? near the Dead Sea. Roland searched for antiquities and scroll fragments. The objects he discovered tell us a lot about the scrolls and about the people who wrote them. The long piece attached to the top of the camera is a distance gauge, which measured the distance between the photographer and the objects being photographed, so that the photo would be sharper.

7 On June 1, 1954 a reporter called the attention of archaeologist Yigael Yadin to a Wall Street Journal announcement advertising the sale of four Dead Sea Scrolls. The advertisement was posted by Athanasius Samuel. Fearing that Samuel would refuse to sell the scrolls to an Israeli, Yadin used a middleman to negotiate with Charles Manoog of the Scrolls Board of Trustees. He succeeded in purchasing the scrolls on behalf of the State of Israel, thanks, in part, to a donation by philanthropist D. Samuel Gottesman. In 1955, when the scrolls arrived in Israel, Yadin initiated the establishment of the Shrine of the Book Foundation, for the promotion of education and science. He commissioned the services of artist James Bieberkraut and his wife, photographer Helene Bieberkraut, to unroll, conserve, and document the scrolls. Yadin was Israel s second military chief of staff, a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, a professor of archaeology, and the excavator of the Cave of the Letters, Masada, and other sites. Toward the end of his life he became involved in politics. He is buried in Israel s national cemetery, Mount Herzl, Jerusalem. Yigael Yadin, This document is called a protocol; it is a record of the things that were said at an important meeting. After each participant s name is a short summary of what he or she said. This protocol records the conversation between archaeologists, scholars from the Hebrew University, and the mayor of Jerusalem. They discussed the steps that needed to be taken in order to conserve the scrolls, study them, and publish them. Perhaps you can write a protocol of your visit to this exhibition and record what everyone said? Protocol of my visit to this exhibition

8 James Bieberkraut, born in Leipzig, Germany, studied art in Berlin and later in Munich, where he was certified by the Academy of Arts in He married Helene Joseph in 1928, and the couple arrived in Mandate Palestine in In his citizenship papers he was accidentally referred to as Professor, and the title stuck. When the four scrolls purchased by Yigael Yadin arrived in Israel in 1955, Bieberkraut began to work on their conservation. He had previously worked on the three scrolls purchased by Yadin s father, Eleazar Sukenik, in The Genesis Apocryphon Scroll was in a particularly poor state, and until then no one had opened it. Its ink contained metal, which had oxidized, blackened, and damaged the parchment. Bieberkraut also worked with Yadin and archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni on finds related to the Bar Kokhba Revolt from the Cave of the Letters, and on finds from Masada. Until his death at the age of 102 he lived with his wife Helene in the Baka neighborhood of Jerusalem. James Bieberkraut, These drawings were made by a talented artist named James Bieberkraut, who helped conserve the Dead Scrolls. They were meant to be used as bookplates (ex libris). People used to commission drawings like these with their names on them and paste them on the first page of all their books. That way everyone knew who owned the book, in case someone borrowed it. How would you design your own bookplate?

9 Helene (nee Joseph) Bieberkraut, was born in Cologne, Germany, studied photography in Munich, and opened a studio for portraits and architectural photography. She documented the unification of Jewish communities in Munich in After her marriage to James Bieberkraut and their arrival in Mandate Palestine in 1934, Helene opened a studio at 6 Hagalil Street, Tel Aviv, and continued to photograph children, adults, and the world around her. When the couple moved to the Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem, she began photographing excavations, archaeological finds, and ancient manuscripts, working alongside such archaeologists as Julius Rothschild, Nahman Avigad, Eleazar Sukenik, and others. Helene Bieberkraut photographed the scrolls on glass negatives, and her photographs are still used by Dead Sea Scroll scholars worldwide. Among other projects, she documented the opening of the Genesis Apocryphon scroll by her husband James. A selection of Helene's photographs from Germany and Israel is presented in the exhibition for the first time, in tribute to her life's work. Helene Bieberkraut, The object before you is a photographic plate that was used by Helene Bieberkraut to take photos of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Her camera resembles a large wooden box. Can you find it in the exhibition? Each plate was used to take a single photo. For that reason, before she took a photo, Helene spent a long time focusing the camera. In the camera s viewer, everything appeared upsidedown.

10 Four of the Dead Sea Scrolls that the people in the exhibition discovered, conserved, and studied The Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, ca. 50 BCE, written in Hebrew, 1.48 m The scroll bears a sectarian commentary on the first two chapters of Habakkuk. It is the only copy of this text in the world. The Great Isaiah Scroll, Manuscript A, BCE, written in Hebrew, 7.34 m The scroll bears the text of the book of Isaiah in a version close to the Masoretic version. It is the only biblical scroll to have been preserved in its entirety. The Genesis Apocryphon Scroll, 25 BCE 50 CE, written in Aramaic, ca. 2.9 m This is the only copy of this text in the world. The surviving fragments are a reworking of part of Genesis. Excavations at Qumran, 1950s The Israel Museum, Jerusalem The Faces behind the Scrolls March 2018 September 2019 The Dorot Foundation Dead Sea Scrolls Information and Study Center in memory of Joy Gottesman Ungerleider Curator: Rotem Arieli Curator in charge: Adolfo Roitman Exhibition design: Michal Aldor, Alex Topaz Animation: Hadar Landsberg Text: Rotem Arieli and Yifah Mivtach-Greenvald Hebrew editing: Tami Michaeli English translation: Nancy Benovitz Leaflet design: Noa Finkelstein Photos: Elie Posner Consultant: Liora Vogelman Printed by Keterpress Enterprises, Beit Shemesh Cat. no. 658 ISBN The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 2018 All rights reserved The Community Rule Scroll, BCE, written in Hebrew, 2.50 m The scroll is the most complete copy of the Community Rule, and the first example of this literary genre to appear in the West. Sources of the photos: James E. Trever, Albuquerque, New Mexico; Charlie Manoog, USA; Ecole biblique et archeologique francaise de Jerusalem; Eddie Hirschbein, Bitmuna Collections; Rani Tachauer, Kibbutz Gevaram; Israel Antiquities Authority; Alexander Schick, Germany; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem Sources of the objects and documents: Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, Treasure of Qumran: My Story of the Dead Sea Scrolls, London: Hoder and Stoughton, 1968; Shrine of the Book Archive; Ecole biblique et archeologique francaise de Jerusalem; Rani Tachauer and Nadav Hadas, Kibbutz Gevaram; Nitza Baruch, Kibbutz Hagosherim The exhibition and leaflet were made possible by the Dorot Foundation The leaflet is a joint project of the Shrine of the Book and the Ruth Youth Wing for Art Education

11 Yigael Yadin Who am I? John Trever Roland De Vaux Athanasius Yeshue Samuel James Bieberkraut Helene Bieberkraut Muhammed edh-dhib, Jum a Muhammed, and Khalil Eksander Shahin 6