A Hint of Hope

Photographs of all of the Dead Sea Scrolls, both published and unpublished, have been deposited for safekeeping with the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center in Claremont, California. The Center is forbidden by contract, however, from allowing anyone to see these negatives except with the permission of the scroll editors. At a forum on October 27, 1990 at the Smithsonian Institution, James A. Sanders, President of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center addressed this situation:

“Let me say, lest I be bracketed immediately with the bad guys, we simply have to abide by all covenants and agreements that we signed. We did so [signed an agreement] in the case of the scrolls in 1980…I think that that situation is going to change. And it would if the current head of the Israel Antiquities Authority [Amir Drori] would say that those agreements have been superseded. Then we would have no trouble [releasing the negatives of the unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls].”

Director Drori’s address is P. O. Box 586, Jerusalem 91004, Israel.