3 Cases Display BAS Materials

Scrolls Exhibit Features BAS Publications

With commendable candor, the Library of Congress’ Dead Sea Scroll exhibit openly documents the controversies that have surrounded the scrolls, especially the long publication delay and the refusal to allow outside scholars to see photographs of the unpublished texts.

The Biblical Archaeology Society and its publications are frequently mentioned in the wall plaques and display cases. Three display cases are devoted solely to our publications.

One display case features the very page of MMT over which we were sued. The caption in the display case reads as follows:

“In December 1991, a two-volume edition of scroll photographs was published. This facsimile edition was issued by the Biblical Archaeology Society, an American group headed by Hershel Shanks. It is opened here to a transcription and reconstruction of Some Torah Precepts (Miqsat Ma‘ase ha-Torah). The publication of this reconstruction and transcription is currently the subject of lawsuits in Israel and in the United States between the reconstructor of the text, Dr. Elisha Qimron, and the publisher, Mr. Shanks.”

The wall plaque discloses 11 lines of 071Qimron’s still-unpublished transcription and reconstruction. The library of Congress’s lawyer approved the display.

A wall plaque later in the exhibit states: