BOOK
REVIEW
|
LOST TREASURE OF THE COPPER SCROLL |
|
by
Doug Ward |
AUGUST, 2008-When I began my undergraduate career at
Haverford College in 1975, a former student was enjoying celebrity status. On a
popular new television show called Saturday Night Live, comedian
Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase was the "anchorman" for the
show's Weekend Update comedy news segment.
Chase
quickly became the talk of the student body. His Haverford career had been
brief-he had been expelled after a semester and subsequently transferred to
Bard College in New York-but several stories circulated around campus about the
pranks he allegedly had pulled during his few months at Haverford. According to
one account, he had once brought a cow into Barclay Hall, a dormitory. Another
story claimed that he had been involved in directing neighborhood traffic into
two college entrances, creating a huge tie up in the middle of campus.
It
was exciting that a former student at our little college was a television star,
but at the same time, it was disappointing that the star's connection with
Haverford was so peripheral. Weren't there any exciting people who had actually
graduated from Haverford?
Unbeknownst
to me at the time, there were. During that same year, in fact, a Haverford
alumnus launched a project that has since proven to be far more significant
than the comedy of Weekend Update. In March 1975, Hershel Shanks (class of
1952) began a new magazine, the Biblical
Archaeology Review. Shanks, a lawyer, turned his passion for biblical archaeology
into a second, more illustrious, career. Over the years since 1975, Shanks has
communicated the latest archaeological discoveries with many thousands of
readers. Sometime in 2009, the two hundredth issue of BAR will appear.
With
beautiful photography and articles by leading scholars, the Biblical
Archaeology Review has been a delight to read and reread. Lively arguments
appear in the "Queries & Comments" section. Even the
advertisements, in their quirky variety, can be fun to check out.
|
Plenty
of Controversy |
Shanks correctly anticipated that his publication would stir up
controversy, particularly with respect to the historical accuracy of the Bible.
In an introductory editorial in the very first issue of BAR, he articulated his
philosophy on this subject:
"Our readers differ in other ways. Not only are they of
different religions (or no religion), they also have different kinds of
commitments to the Bible. For some, the Bible is the sacred word of God against
which all truth is to be measured. For others, the Bible is the literary
remains of an ancient civilization which may be dissected and analyzed just
like any other ancient literary document.
On this point, we have our own commitment which we shall make explicit at the
outset. Our commitment is to scientific truth, not to sacred truth. Not that we
deny or denigrate the validity of sacred truth. Simply that sacred truth is for
each man or woman to find on his or her own, in his or her own way. We do not
believe it is likely to be found through a study of Biblical archaeology, but
we have no objection to someone's finding inspiration here. On the other hand,
neither do we believe one's faith will be destroyed by a study of Biblical
archaeology-regardless of the archaeologists' findings. If it is, it is a faith
based on too shallow a version of sacred truth. In short, our view of the
parameters of faith is that they do not infringe upon, nor are they threatened
by, a search for scientific truth. Conversely, even the broadest search for scientific
truth leaves plenty of room for faith. The rest is up to each reader."
As
it has turned out, the BAR has carried articles by scholars from a variety of
points of view. Some question the veracity of the Bible, moving disgruntled
readers to cancel their subscriptions. (Almost every issue contains
cancellation letters.) On the other hand, there have been a significant number
of articles by scholars who hold a high view of Scripture, including the likes
of Richard Hess, James Hoffmeier, Kenneth Kitchen,
William Sanford LaSor, Alan Millard, D.J. Wiseman,
Ben Witherington, Bryant Wood, and Edwin Yamauchi. My
personal view: While I do not find everything in BAR to be of value, this
magazine has definitely extended my knowledge of the Bible and the biblical
world. I have found nothing in BAR that has shaken my faith, and evidence
supporting the biblical record is frequently presented.
The controversy for which Shanks and BAR are best known involves
the Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the biggest archaeological finds of the twentieth
century. By the late 1980s, hundreds of scroll fragments remained unpublished,
even though the handful of scholars who were working with those fragments had
had exclusive access to them for some thirty-five years. The aging scholars on
the official scroll team were working very slowly, and they had no intention of
letting others see the scrolls until they had completed definitive editions
with extensive analysis and commentary. As other scholars who wanted to study
the scrolls became more and more impatient, Shanks in 1985 began calling for
photographs of the unpublished scrolls to be made available to the entire
scholarly community. He repeated this call more forcefully in 1989, bringing
the issue to the attention of major media and the broader public. Thanks in
large part to the efforts of Shanks and the BAR, the scroll blackout was
finally lifted in late 1991.
|
The
Strangest Scroll |
The year 2007 was the sixtieth anniversary of the time when the
first seven Dead Sea Scrolls came to the attention of scholars. BAR marked the
occasion with special reports on the scrolls and interviews with leading
experts. As part of this commemoration, Shanks has published The Copper
Scroll and the Search for the Temple Treasure, a book about one of the most
intriguing scrolls of all.
As
Shanks explains, the Copper
Scroll was discovered by scholars on March 30, 1952, on a natural shelf
near the back of the cave that was designated Cave 3 (because it was third cave
in the vicinity of Qumran in which scrolls were found). At the time of its
discovery it consisted of two rolls of thin copper, each about a foot wide.
From
the outsides of the rolls it was clear that Hebrew words had been hammered into
the copper. In 1953 Prof. Karl George Kuhn was able to pick out about 50 of
those words. There were five instances of an instruction to "dig" at
a certain number of "cubits" from something, along with mention of
gold. Here was a hint that the rolls might be some kind of "treasure
map," further increasing the excitement over this find. There was one
problem, however: No one knew for sure how to unroll the copper without
destroying the fragile document in the process.
This
difficulty was surmounted a few years later when one member of the scroll
translation team, the impetuous young John Marco Allegro, volunteered to find
someone in Manchester, England, who could open the copper rolls. Allegro
enlisted the services of Henry Wright Baker, a professor of mechanical
engineering at the Manchester College of Science and Technology. Baker designed
an ingenious process by which a plastic adhesive was applied to the copper as
it was slowly unrolled, making it possible for the copper to be cut into
cup-shaped strips by a tiny circular saw. In late 1955 and early 1956, Baker
successfully implemented his plan, cutting the two rolls into a total of 23
strips. Allegro was then able to make an initial transcription of the text of
the document. An official edition of the Copper Scroll text was subsequently
published by expert scroll scholar Jozef Milik in 1962.
|
Contents
of the Scroll |
Shanks's description of the details of the unrolling of the copper,
and his explanation of the falling out that soon occurred between Allegro and
the rest of the translation team, make for absorbing reading. Even more
fascinating is his discussion of the scroll's contents.
The
text of the Copper Scroll is not a narrative, a prophecy, or a compilation of
laws, psalms, or wisdom sayings. Instead, it is a simple list of 64 locations,
with descriptions of items that have been buried at each one. For example, here
are the first three items in the list:
Location 1: In Harubah, which
is in the Valley of Achor, beneath the steps that
enter to the east, 40 lath cubits: a chest of silver and its vessels.
Weight: 17 talents. ken
Location 2: In the funerary shrine, in the third course of stones: 100
gold ingots.
Location 3: In the large pit that is within the court of the peristyle, in the gutter of its bottom, sealed in the
entrenchment opposite the upper door: 900 talents.
This sample illustrates some recurring features of the document. A fairly
specific location given in the first entry is followed by two less specific
ones. Presumably the "funerary shrine" and the "large pit"
are also at "Harubah, which is in the Valley of Achor." Sometimes a specific metal is mentioned, other
times just a weight-e.g., 900 talents in the third entry. At the ends of
several of the early entries in the list, some Greek letters appear with no
explanation given-e.g., ken
at the end of the first entry.
There
are a number of indications that the treasure catalogued in the Copper Scroll
is connected with the Jerusalem Temple. First, the document is written in
Hebrew, the liturgical language of Israel. Second, temple inventories from the
Roman period were sometimes inscribed in copper, as shown by some examples from
Egypt. Third, the items in some entries include offerings-e.g., "second
tithe" in Location 4-that had been redeemed for precious metals, or sacred
vessels used in Temple worship. Fourth, a number of the locations seem to be
near the Temple. One of the locations (number 32) is "the cave that is
next to the cooling place belonging to the house of Hakkoz."
The House of Hakkoz was a prominent priestly family
(1 Chron 24:10).
For
these reasons, it is generally believed that the treasure described in the Copper
Scroll is associated with the Temple. But when, and under what circumstances,
was it buried?
In
one scenario, the treasure was buried during the Jewish revolt in 66-70 A.D. to
protect it from the Roman invaders. This scenario raises questions about why
the scroll was deposited in the Qumran region and why some of the burial
locations are located in that region. The Romans controlled the Qumran region
during the 68-70 A.D. period, and it is generally
believed that the sectarians of Qumran were hostile to Temple authorities.
|
A
possibility that I find more likely has been advanced by the late scroll
scholar Manfred R. Lehmann.1 Lehmann suggested
that the treasure was collected after the Jewish revolt for the purpose
of financing the rebuilding of the Temple. He noted that the inventory of
offerings includes no mention of sacrificial offerings, consistent with the
post-Temple period when no sacrifices were conducted. |
Lehmann believed that the Copper Scroll treasure was probably
discovered and confiscated by Rome. As evidence for this scenario, he pointed
to a coin that circulated during the short reign of the Roman Emperor Nerva (96-98 A.D.). This coin carries an inscription which
says, "The insult of the Jewish taxes has been annulled." Lehmann saw
this inscription as an indication that the Jews had continued collecting temple
taxes and offerings after 70 A.D., in defiance of the Romans, but that Roman
authorities had eventually learned about this practice and grabbed the proceeds
for themselves.
Treasure Hunting at Hyrcania
The
possibility that the Copper Scroll treasure was unearthed long ago has not
stopped some modern treasure hunters from pursuing it. John Marco Allegro
believed that the first three locations in the list were at Hyrcania,
the site of a palace from the Hasmonean period. He
led a brief expedition there in 1960, which found two tunnels that go into the
hill on which the palace was built. Allegro's team cleared about 100 feet of
one of the tunnels but found no treasure there.
Later,
in the 1980s, a Continental Airlines pilot named Bob Morgan dug a little
further into this tunnel in his spare time. Morgan later enlisted the help of
Oren Gutfeld, an archaeologist. Under Gutfeld's direction the first tunnel, which extends for 328
feet, has been completely cleared out, and investigation of the second tunnel
has begun. Gutfeld does not know why the tunnels were
originally dug.2
With
vivid photographs, helpful maps, and a recent translation of the text, Shanks's
book on the Copper Scroll will delight scroll enthusiasts. And since this
mysterious scroll has generated more questions than answers, we can look
forward to further articles about it in the BAR.
1See Lehmann's article,
"Where the Temple Tax Was Buried: The Key to Understanding the Copper
Scroll" in the November/December 1993 issue of BAR.
2See
Gutfeld's article, "Hyrcania's
Mysterious Tunnels: Searching for the Treasures of the Copper Scroll" in
the September/October 2006 issue of BAR.
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