After 30 Years, Milik Sits on More Than 50 Dead Sea Scroll Documents

Professor J. T. Milik is responsible for the publication of more than 50 different Dead Sea Scroll documents which, after more than 30 years, remain unpublished and inaccessible to other scholars. The original documents are in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, but pursuant to scholarly convention, no one can examine them except Milik or someone who has Milik’s permission to do so. Unlike other scholars with extensive uncompleted scroll assignments, Milik has refused to reassign or subassign his extensive holdings to others. Below is a partial listing of Milik’s unpublished documents, which BAR obtained from a confidential American source. This list has never before been published. It may contain some inaccuracies, but we believe it to be substantially correct. The abbreviation “4Q” stands for Qumran Cave IV; “M” stands for Milik and is an early designation no longer used:

Midrash Sepher Moshe (Midrash on the Book of Moses), 4QM108

Targum of Job, 4QM4B

Testament of Levi, 4QM41A,B

Testament of Naphtali, 4QM43, 43A

Patriarchal Stories, 4QM40B

Pesher Genesis, 4QM125; 4QM38; 4QM38A

Berakhot (Blessings) (A), 4QM84-85

Berakhot Milhama (War Blessings), 4QM48

Purity Laws, 4QM82A

Halakh[ic Texts], 4QM79A-81

Halakh[ic Texts], 4QMB82B-84

Angelogical [Texts], 4QM125A

Astr[onomical] Crypt[ograms], 4QM101-105

Crypt[ograms], 4QM113–115B

Mysteries (A and B), 4QM116-120

Mysteries (C), 4QM121

Pseudo Dan[iel] (A), 4QM45A,B; 47A,B

Pseudo Dan[iel] (B), 4QM46

Tobiah (Aramaic), 4QM5-10

Tobiah (Aramaic) (B), 4QM10-14

Otot [?], 4QM97A-99

Salat Nabunaid (Aramaic) [Prayer of Nabonidus], 4QM44