Currently, he is a professor in the Department of Hebrew Language at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Israel. For several decades, he has been one of the team of international scholars working on the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly on the texts found in Cave 4 at Qumran.
In 1979 Qimron was co-opted by John Strugnell, the editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication team, to assist in completing long-overdue work on the Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) on which Strugnell had been working alone since 1959. The work on the fragments was eventually completed and published in 1994. Qimron was the first Israeli scholar on the team.
During the late 1970s and the early 1980s, many scholars felt frustrated at the delay in publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls. It was generally known that most of the texts had been translated but still had not been available to researchers. Some also complained about the proprietary attitude of some of Strugnell's team toward the scrolls that they were working on, which made access to them difficult, if not impossible, in some cases.
Hershel Shanks, of the Biblical Archaeology Society, decided that the reconstructions of the Dead Sea Scrolls should be made available to scholars. In 1992, he published the two-volume A Facsimile Edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It included, without permission, material on the Halakhic Letter (4QMMT) that Qimron had been working on for some 11 years. Qimron had even given the document its title.
Qimron decided to sue the Biblical Archaeology Society for breaching his copyright on the grounds that the research it had published was his intellectual property, as he had reconstructed about 40% of the published text. Such reconstruction is unique in the sense that if the original photographs had been given to 100 researchers, that number of different reconstructions would be made.
In 1993, Judge Dalia Dorner of the Israeli Supreme Court awarded Qimron the highest compensation allowed by law for aggravation in compensation against Shanks and others. A 2000 appeal in front of Judge Aharon Barak and colleagues upheld the verdict.
Publications
Elisha Qimron, John Strugnell et al. (1994) Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Volume X. Qumran Cave 4: V: Miqsat Ma'ase Ha-Torah. Oxford University Press.
Elisha Qimron. (1996). The Temple Scroll: A Critical Edition with Extensive Reconstructions. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Edited by Donald W. Parry and Elisha Qimron. (1999). Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah – STDJ 32. Brill Academic Publishers.
Elisha Qimron. The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Harvard Semitic Studies, Scholars Press, Atlanta.
Edited by Donald W. Parry and Elisha Qimron. (1999). The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaª). A New Edition Brill Academic Publishers.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls are considered to be a keystone in the history of archaeology with great historical, religious, and linguistic significance because they include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, along with deuterocanonical and extra-biblical manuscripts which preserve evidence of the diversity of religious thought in late Second Temple Judaism. At the same time they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. Most of the scrolls are held by Israel in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, but their ownership is disputed by Jordan due to the Qumran Caves' history: following the End of the British Mandate for Palestine in 1947, Jordan occupied the area in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and Israel captured both the area and several Scrolls from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. However, some of the scrolls are still in Jordan and are now displayed at The Jordan Museum in Amman. Ownership of the scrolls is also contested by the State of Palestine.
Qumran is an archaeological site in the West Bank managed by Israel's Qumran National Park. It is located on a dry marl plateau about 1.5 km (1 mi) from the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, near the Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalya.
John Marco Allegro was an English archaeologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. He was a populariser of the Dead Sea Scrolls through his books and radio broadcasts. He was the editor of some of the most famous and controversial scrolls published, the pesharim. A number of Allegro's later books, including The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, brought him both popular fame and notoriety, and also complicated his career.
Lawrence Harvey Schiffman is a professor at New York University ; he was formerly Vice-Provost of Undergraduate Education at Yeshiva University and Professor of Jewish Studies. He had previously been Chair of New York University's Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and served as the Ethel and Irvin A. Edelman Professor in Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University (NYU). He is currently the Judge Abraham Lieberman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and Director of the Global Institute for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies. He is a specialist in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Judaism in Late Antiquity, the history of Jewish law, and Talmudic literature.
Emanuel Tov, is a Dutch Israeli, emeritus J. L. Magnes Professor of Bible Studies in the Department of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has been intimately involved with the Dead Sea Scrolls for many decades, and from 1991, he was appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project.
Hershel Shanks was an American lawyer and amateur biblical archaeologist. He was the founder and long-time editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review. For more than forty years, Shanks communicated the world of biblical archaeology to general readers through magazines, books, and conferences. Shanks was "probably the world's most influential amateur Biblical archaeologist," according to The New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein.
John Strugnell became, at 23, the youngest member of the team of scholars led by Roland de Vaux, formed in 1954 to edit the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem. He was studying Oriental languages at Jesus College, Oxford when Sir Godfrey Rolles Driver, a lecturer in Semitic philology, nominated him to join the Scrolls editorial team.
The Habakkuk Commentary or Pesher Habakkuk, labelled 1QpHab, was among the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 and published in 1951. Due to its early discovery and rapid publication, as well as its relatively pristine preservation, 1QpHab is one of the most frequently researched and analyzed scrolls of the several hundred now known.
4QMMT, also known as MMT, or the Halakhic Letter, is a reconstructed text from manuscripts that were part of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran in the Judean desert. The manuscripts that were used to reconstruct 4QMMT were found in Cave 4 at Qumran between the years 1953 and 1959. They were kept at the Palestinian Archaeological Museum, now known as the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.
The Biblical Archaeology Society was established in 1974 by American lawyer Hershel Shanks, as a non-sectarian organisation that supports and promotes biblical archaeology. Its current publications include the Biblical Archaeology Review, whilst previously circulating the Bible Review (1985–2005) and Archaeology Odyssey (1998–2006). The Biblical Archaeology Society also publishes books about biblical archaeology aimed at a general readership. The Society has, for more than 30 years, run seminars and tours offering an opportunity to learn directly from world-renowned archaeologists and scholars. It also produces videos (DVD) and CDs on archaeology and biblical archaeology.
Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) is the official 40-volume publication that serves as the editio princeps for the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is published by Oxford University Press.
Gabriel's Revelation, also called Hazon Gabriel or the Jeselsohn Stone, is a stone tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew text written in ink, containing a collection of short prophecies written in the first person. It is dated to the late 1st century BCE or early 1st century CE and is important for understanding Jewish messianic expectations in the Second Temple period.
4Q240 is believed to be a commentary on the Song of Songs, also known as 'Canticles'. Written in Hebrew, it was found in Cave 4 at Qumran in the West Bank and comprises part of the Dead Sea Scrolls. From its palaeography (script) it has been identified as being early-Herodian.
Donald W. Parry Ph.D. is a professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University. He holds the Abraham O. Smoot Professorship. He is the author and editor of many works related to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament. He has been a member of the International Team of Translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls since January 1994. He served as a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation Board of Advisors, 2008–present and presently serves as a member of the Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation Board of Trustees.
The Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20), also called the Tales of the Patriarchs or the Apocalypse of Lamech and labeled 1QapGen, is one of the original seven Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1946 by Bedouin shepherds in Cave 1 near Qumran, a city in the northwest corner of the Dead Sea. Composed in Aramaic, it consists of four sheets of leather. Furthermore, it is the least well-preserved document of the original seven. The document records a pseudepigraphal conversation between the biblical figure Lamech, son of Methuselah, and his son, Noah, as well as first and third person narratives associated with Abraham. It is one of the nonbiblical texts found at Qumran. A range of compositional dates for the work have been suggested from the 3rd century BCE to 1st century CE. Palaeography and Carbon-14 dating were used to identify the age of the documents. It is 13 inches in length and 2.75 inches in width at its widest point in the middle.
Joseph M. Baumgarten was an Austrian-born Semitic scholar known for his knowledge in the field of Jewish legal texts from biblical law to Mishnaic law and including the legal texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Baumgarten immigrated to the United States with his family in 1939 as a result of the Anschluss, Germany's occupation of Austria in 1938. In 1950, he was ordained a rabbi at Mesivta Torah Vodaath, a prominent Brooklyn yeshiva. He married Naomi Rosenberg in 1953.
4Q41 or 4QDeuteronomyn, also known as the All Souls Deuteronomy, is a Hebrew Bible manuscript from the first century BC containing two passages from the Book of Deuteronomy. Discovered in 1952 in a cave at Qumran, near the Dead Sea, it preserves the oldest existing copy of the Ten Commandments.
Martin G. Abegg Jr. is a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, researcher, and professor. Abegg is responsible for reconstructing the full text of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the Dead Sea Scrolls concordance, a project that broke the lengthy publication monopoly held on the scrolls. He went on to co-direct the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University from 1995 to 2015. Here, Abegg held the Ben Zion Wacholder Professorship. Because Abegg is an influential Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, he has been honoured with a collection of essays written by his peers and students.
Qimron v. Shanks (2000) is a landmark ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court. The Court ruled that an Israeli scholar had a copyright on his reconstruction of an important Dead Sea Scroll and that his right had been violated by an unauthorized early publication of his work.
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