The Nineties in America - Salem Press (2009)

complete and intact. Approximately a quarter of
them were of books in the Hebrew Bible (only Es-
ther is not represented) or other texts considered
scriptural by some groups but not others. The rest
are extra-biblical texts treating topics such as theol-
ogy, worship, life in a religious community, war, and
the future. The earliest publications, which ap-
peared in the 1950’s, were of complete or nearly
complete manuscripts. The remaining texts, usually
more fragmentary, were assigned to a small group of
distinguished scholars to piece together, edit, and
translate. These scholars, once they had invested
time in the painstaking work of editing the manu-
scripts, understandably also wanted to publish the
earliest scholarly discussions of them.
A dispute arose over the pace of the publication
of the scrolls, and it came to a head in 1991. Most
parties agreed that the pace had been too slow and
that the scrolls needed to be distributed more
broadly. In the late 1980’s, Hershel Shanks, editor of
theBiblical Archaeology Review(BAR), began pushing
for making photos of the scrolls generally available.
In 1990, authorities in Israel, where the scrolls were
being kept, dismissed the translation team and ap-
pointed Emanuel Tov as the new head of the transla-
tion project. He, in turn, appointed a new team of
sixty translators.
In 1991, theBARbegan publishing the texts from
Cave 4, the cave with the largest number of manu-
scripts. These texts were reconstructed by Ben Zion
Wacholder and Martin G. Abegg, professors at the
Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, from a
concordance of manuscripts in Cave 4. The concor-
dance—which listed all the words in the manuscripts
along with the name of the book and the number of
the page and line in which they appeared—was pro-
duced in the 1950’s but not published until 1988.
Next, the publisher of theBARissued a two-volume
collection of photographs of the unpublished
scrolls. About the same time, a donor secured two
sets of photographic copies of the scrolls from the Je-
rusalem Department of Antiquities and gave one set
to Claremont University and the other to the Hunt-
ington Library in San Marino, California. The li-
brary soon made available its photographs to all
qualified scholars. Since then, several scholars have
published their own studies. The official publication
of the scrolls continues, however, in the Discoveries
in the Judean Desert series published by Oxford
University.

Impact The speed with which the Dead Sea scrolls

became available to all scholars was increased after

1991, and the scrolls have revealed information

about groups outside of Rabbinic Judaism and early

Christianity.

Further Reading

Eisenman, Robert, and Michael Wise.The Dead

Sea Scrolls Uncovered: The First Complete Translation

and Interpretation of Fifty Key Documents Withheld

for over Thirty-five Years. New York: Penguin Books,

1992.

Martínez, Florentino García.The Dead Sea Scrolls

Translated: The Qumran Texts in English.2d ed.

Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1994.

Paul L. Redditt

See also Archaeology; Jewish Americans; Litera-

ture in the United States; Publishing; Religion and

spirituality in the United States.

 Death Row Records

Identification Rap music record label

Date Founded in 1991

Place Los Angeles, California

Death Row Records was responsible for launching the ca-

reers of some of America’s most successful rap artists.

Death Row Records was founded in 1991 by rappers

Dr. Dre and Suge Knight. Dr. Dre had a successful ca-

reer in the music industry throughout the 1980’s.

While trying to break his contract with Ruthless

Records, he met Knight, bodyguard to rapper The

D.O.C. The two began talking with artists and

started Death Row with the help of The D.O.C. and

John Payne.

Interscope Records provided the financial back-

ing for the label in exchange for exclusive distribu-

tion of their artists. Death Row’s first release, Dr.

Dre’s solo album,The Chronic(1992), featured new

rap artists, including Daz Dillinger, Kurupt, The

Lady of Rage, RBX, and Snoop Doggy Dogg (later

Snoop Dogg). The album sold more than three mil-

lion copies and legitimized Death Row.

The following year, Death Row released Snoop

Doggy Dogg’s debut album,Doggystyle. The album

rocketed to number one, outsellingThe Chronic.

Along with the record label’s early successes, Death

The Nineties in America Death Row Records
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