Founded in 1995, the Trinity Western University Dead Sea Scrolls Institute is the only centre in North America dedicated to the manuscript discoveries in the Judean desert and material finds of the Qumran community. [1] With strengths in the textual and philological interpretations of both biblical and non-biblical texts, the institute provides support and resources graduate and faculty research, events, and publications on the Qumran finds. [2]
The Trinity Western University Dead Sea Scrolls institute was founded by Craig Evans in 1995. [3] From 1995 to 2015, the institute was co-directed by Martin Abegg and Peter Flint. Following Abegg's retirement in 2015, Andrew Perrin stepped into the role of co-director alongside Flint. [4] The institute has been home of the Ben Zion Wacholder Chair and Canada Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies.
The institute has a heritage of hosting public and academic events related to the Dead Sea Scrolls [5] and will launch an open-access initiative for research and reviews on the Qumran finds, entitled Maskilim. [6] Open access resources in the form of public lectures and introductory course content for the Dead Sea Scrolls are also archived on the Institute's YouTube channel. [7] Launched by alumni in 2015, the Dead Sea Scrolls Legacy Scholarship supports graduate students who are entering into the Masters of Arts in Biblical Studies program and display a strong interest in researching topics surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls. [8]
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves 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 extra-biblical and deuterocanonical manuscripts that 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. Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, located in the city of Jerusalem. The Israeli government's custody of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on territorial, legal, and humanitarian grounds — they were mostly discovered following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and were acquired by Israel after Jordan lost the 1967 Arab–Israeli War — whilst Israel's claims are primarily based on historical and religious grounds, given their significance in Jewish history and in the heritage of Judaism.
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, about 10 km (6 mi) south of the historic city of Jericho, and adjacent to the modern Israeli settlement and kibbutz of Kalya.
Pesher, from the Hebrew root meaning "interpretation," is a group of interpretive commentaries on scripture. The pesharim commentaries became known from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The pesharim give a theory of scriptural interpretation of a number of biblical texts from the Hebrew Bible, such as Habakkuk and Psalms.
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 biblical scholar and linguist, 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.
John C. Trever was a Biblical scholar and archaeologist, who was involved in the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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.
Vendyl Miller Jones was an American Noahide scholar who directed archaeological searches for biblical artifacts such as the Ark of the Covenant.
Frank Moore Cross Jr. (1921–2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages Emeritus at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opusCanaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and his work in Northwest Semitic epigraphy. Many of his essays on the latter topic have since been collected in Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook.
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.
Eugene CharlesUlrich is an American Dead Sea scrolls scholar and the John A. O'Brien Professor emeritus of Hebrew Scripture and Theology in the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame. He is chief editor of the biblical texts of the Dead Sea scrolls and one of the three general editors of the Scrolls International Publication Project. Ulrich has worked under two editors in chief on the scrolls project, namely John Strugnell and Emanuel Tov.
The Isaiah Scroll, designated 1QIsaa and also known as the Great Isaiah Scroll, is one of the seven Dead Sea Scrolls that were first discovered by Bedouin shepherds in 1946 from Qumran Cave 1. The scroll is written in Hebrew and contains the entire Book of Isaiah from beginning to end, apart from a few small damaged portions. It is the oldest complete copy of the Book of Isaiah, being approximately 1000 years older than the oldest Hebrew manuscripts known before the scrolls' discovery. 1QIsaa is also notable in being the only scroll from the Qumran Caves to be preserved almost in its entirety.
James E. Bowley is Chair and Professor of Religious Studies at Millsaps College. He received his Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (1992). Bowley is a noted editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls concordance project, along with Martin Abegg, Jr., Edward Cook. In addition to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Bowley's research and publishing focus on the Jewish literature of the Greco-Roman World and the cultural interactions among Jews, Greeks, and later Christians, and the use of written and oral traditions in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities. Bowley has also written a column for The Clarion-Ledger on religious issues of the day, and is a frequent speaker for community and scholarly events.
4Q246, also known as the Son of God Text or the Aramaic Apocalypse, is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran which is notable for an early messianic mention of a son of God. The text is an Aramaic language fragment first acquired in 1958 from cave 4 at Qumran, and the major debate on this fragment has been on the identity of this "son of God" figure.
The W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research (AIAR) is an archaeological research institution located in East Jerusalem. It is the oldest American research center for ancient Near Eastern studies in the Middle East. Founded in 1900 as the American School of Oriental Research, it was renamed in 1970 after its most distinguished director and the father of biblical archaeology, William F. Albright. Its mission is to develop and disseminate scholarly knowledge of the literature, history, and culture of the Near East, as well as the study of civilization from pre-history to the early Islamic period.
Hanan Eshel was an Israeli archaeologist and historian, well known in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls studies, although he did research in the Hasmonean and Bar Kokhba periods as well. With Magen Broshi he discovered a number of residential caves in the near vicinity of Qumran and co-published a number of historically significant documents from Qumran.
Peter W. Flint was involved in research of the Dead Sea Scrolls for over 20 years. He was one of the 70 official members of the Dead Sea Scrolls editors worldwide. As the controversy of publishing of the Dead Sea Scrolls escalated, in 1987 he moved from South Africa to the University of Notre Dame in Indiana where he took a doctoral fellowship and began to study under Eugene Ulrich, the chief editor of the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls and one of the central figures of the controversy. In 1997, Flint finished publishing the Psalms Scrolls: the second largest portion of the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls. This publication is full of discoveries providing insights for Bible translations, Bible study and biblical scholarship. Flint was an editor of the largest intact scroll: The Great Isaiah Scroll. He served at Trinity Western University as a professor of Religious Studies, the Canada Research Chair in Dead Sea Scrolls Studies, and a director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute. He died on November 3, 2016.
The Great Psalms Scroll, also referred to as 11Q5, is the most substantial and well preserved manuscript of Psalms of the thirty-seven discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Qumran caves. It is one of six Psalms manuscripts discovered in Cave 11.
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.
Eileen Marie Schuller is a professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Schuller is an official editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls. She teaches undergraduate and graduate studies in the Biblical field. Over a span of 30 years, her involvement in the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls has led to numerous contributions in authenticating the discoveries found in the caves near the Ancient Qumran settlement.