FINAL WARNING: Setting the Stage for Destruction
group of fifteen workers continued to excavate around Qumran until
1956, where they uncovered the buildings of what they felt were an
Essene community.For nearly two weeks in mid-March, 1952, de Vaux, three members of
the Ecole Biblique, William Reed (director of the Albright Institute), and
24 Bedouins under the supervision of three Jordanian and Palestinian
archaeologists, embarked on an effort to conduct a survey of all the
caves in the area. This survey indicated the existence of 40 caves, and
the umbrella term of the Dead Sea Scrolls refers to the scrolls and
fragments that were found in eleven of the caves.In September, 1952, in Cave 4, located about 50 feet away from some
of the Qumran ruins, the largest number of scroll fragments were
discovered– the remains of over 500 different scrolls.By 1959, all the scroll fragments were kept in a room known as the
‘Scrollery’ in the Rockefeller Museum (formerly known as the Palestine
Archaeological Museum), which had been built with funds provided by
John D. Rockefeller. The Museum was run by an international Board of
Trustees, and later fell under the control of the Jordanian government.
After the Six Day War in June, 1967, when Israel took over control of
the entire city of Jerusalem, the contents of the Museum were
considered spoils of war, so the Israeli government became the
guardian of the fragments.The Museum contained laboratories, photographic facilities, and the
Department of Antiquities, however, the headquarters of the entire
operation was actually located at the Ecole Biblique which contained a
research library totally dedicated to Qumran research, which was not
open to the public. They also published two journals, the Revue
Biblique, printed since 1892, and the Revue de Qumran, started in 1958
to publish information on the scrolls.This may be one of the keys to understanding what may be going on
here behind the scenes. In 1882, on the site where, according to
tradition, St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr was stoned to death, a
French Dominican monk established a Dominican church and
monastery in Jerusalem. At the urging of Pope Leo XIII, a Biblical
school was begun there in 1890 by Father Albert Lagrange to train