Dead Sea Scroll Research Burgeoning

Dead Sea Scroll research is growing by leaps and bounds. Two new organizations have recently been formed—in addition to BAS’s own Dead Sea Scrolls Research Council (formerly the Institute for Dead Sea Scroll Studies)—to support and undertake research on the scrolls.

The first is a part of Oxford University in England. Directed by Oxford don and leading Dead Sea Scroll scholar Geza Vermes, it is called the Oxford Forum for Qumran Research and is a part of the Oxford Centre for Postgraduate Hebrew Studies. Dr. Timothy H. Lim, a Junior Research Fellow of the Centre serves as secretary of the forum. The purpose of the forum is to provide a facility where scholars will be invited to do research and attend seminars, making use of the resources of the Centre, Oxford University and the Bodleian Library.

To aid the work of the forum, the Oxford Centre has established a Qumran Room in its library. The room contains photographic copies of all the scrolls, the 4,000-page concordance of the non-Biblical scrolls and a computer that can enlarge and enhance the photographs (see “Reconstructing the Scrolls Byte by Byte,” in this issue).