FINAL WARNING: Setting the Stage for Destruction
scrolls determined. Meanwhile, in November, 1947, Sukenik was
contacted by someone identifying himself only as an Armenian antique
dealer, and he was able to purchase the other three scrolls, which
turned out to be The War of the Sons of Light With the Sons of
Darkness (also called The War Scroll), the Book of Hymns (also known
as the Psalm of Thanksgiving Scroll), and another copy of Isaiah.In January, 1948, Sukenik received one of Samuel’s scrolls, a copy of
the Isaiah scroll, which he was able to inspect. Although he was
interested in purchasing the four scrolls, he couldn’t raise the money
necessary to make the transaction.Samuel then contacted the William F. Albright Institute of
Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, where the scrolls were
inspected by John C. Trever and William H. Brownlee, who felt they
were as old, if not older, than the 2nd century Nash Papyrus fragment,
which up to then, was the oldest known example of Biblical Hebrew. A
set of prints were forwarded to Professor William Foxwell Albright at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who was the leading
Hebrew epigraphist in the world. He dated the material back to 100 BC.
Upon examination of all these Hebrew and Aramaic scrolls and
fragments which have been discovered at Qumran, it is generally
accepted that they were written between 250 BC and 68 AD, when the
Romans destroyed the Qumran settlement.The scrolls were taken to a bank in Beirut, and then in January, 1949,
to a New York City bank vault. Up to 1954, only three of the scrolls had
been published. Samuel, labeled a ‘smuggler,’ was anxious to sell the
scrolls, and would not allow the fourth to be published until all of them
had been purchased.In February, 1949, Gerald Lankester Harding, director of the
Department of Antiquities for Transjordan and Arab Palestine; and
Father Roland de Vaux, director of the Dominican-controlled Ecole
Biblique in the Jordanian sector of East Jerusalem, went to the cave at
Qumran, where they found the remains of 30 identifiable texts, and a
number of unidentifiable fragments. Harding made it known that he
was interested in all subsequent finds made by the Ta’amireh tribe.
They would sell the results of their excavation to Kando, who would
then sell the items to Harding. Meanwhile, de Vaux, Harding, and a