The Problem of Dating the Dead 

 Sea Scrolls^ 



By John C. Trever 



A. J. Humphreys Professor of Religion 

 Morris Harvey College, Charleston, W. Va. 



[With 8 plates] 



The recent articles appearing in popular American magazines, 

 describing the application of the radioactive carbon-14 process of age 

 determination to the cloth found in the Dead Sea cave from which the 

 famed Dead Sea Scrolls came, have once again fanned the flames of 

 popular interest in these ancient documents. While popular interest 

 and enthusiasm have waxed and waned, scholarly interest has con- 

 tinued unabated, as the analytical and critical literature on the subject 

 has reached almost staggering proportions. 



For the sake of those who may not be familiar with the subject, it 

 would be well to review a little of the background of the discovery of 

 the Dead Sea Scrolls. High up on the cliffs overlooking the north- 

 west edge of the Dead Sea near 'Ain Fashkha, about ly^ miles south of 

 Jericho in Palestine, some Bedouins happened upon a hole on the side 

 of a rock projection early in the spring of 1947.2 q^ entering, they 

 found a large cave penetrating some 25 feet into the cliff, and about 

 61/2 feet wide by 8 to 9 feet high (pi. 1, fig. 1). 



On the floor of the cave, the Bedouins found some 40 jars, each with 

 a specially prepared cover. Apparently they smashed many of those 

 not already broken. Only two, now in the Hebrew University in 

 Jerusalem, have been recovered intact. With patient labor some have 

 been restored (pi. 1, fig. 2), and archeologists are able to determine 



1 A report based on a period of research in England made possible by grants from ttie 

 American Philosophical Society and the American Schools of Oriental Research in 1950-51 

 and the generous assistance of the National Council of Churches. This paper was first 

 presented as an illustrated address before the Annual Meeting of the American Philosophi- 

 cal Society on April 25, 1952. Reprinted, slightly revised to add later evidence as of 

 August 1953, by permission from the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 

 vol. 97, No. 2, 1953. More detailed results of this research will appear in a volume of the 

 series "The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark's Monastery," being edited by Dr. Millar Burrows 

 for the American Schools of Oriental Research. 



2 A more detailed account was published by the writer under the title "Scrolls from a 

 Dead Sea Cave," in the Christian Century, July 12, 1950, pp. 840-S42. 



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