Journal: Bible and Spade (Second Run)
Volume: BSPADE 02:4 (Autumn 1989)
Article: The Stones Cry Out
Author: Anonymous

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BSP 2:4 (Autumn 1989) p. 125

The Stones Cry Out

Dead Sea Scrolls Scandal

Why are the Dead Sea Scrolls - now over 40 years since being found - still unpublished? Many suspect there is evidence contained in them that would spoil some scholars’ theories. Hershel Shanks has done the scholarly world a real service in his article with the above caption by lashing out against those who keep the scrolls in a “prison” (BAR, 8–9/ 89)!

We suspect there is evidence, for instance, among the fragments of four scrolls of Daniel (see the last issue of A&BR) that make it clear that Daniel was written early, much earlier than men like John Trever contend. The editor of A&BR wrote Millar Burrows in 1967 about the Cave 4 fragments of Daniel and he answered at that time, “The Cave 4 fragments of Daniel will, of course, be published with the other material from that cave in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (Oxford Press).” But, 20 years after his letter they still are not published! All we want to see is photographs. We do not need a learned commentary on them.

The Daniel fragments could be quite early. This is seen in what Millar Burrows said in 1957 - 30 years ago!

In the ease of Daniel, the manuscripts represented by the fragments in the caves may have been made very soon after the original composition of the book [in 165 BC], but such books as Isaiah and Leviticus were unquestionably much older by centuries than the earliest date that can reasonably be assigned to any of the scrolls and fragments. Some of the biblical fragments have been thought by some scholars to be the remains of manuscripts from the 4th and 5th centuries B.C.” (The Dead Sea Scrolls, 1956 ed., p. 222.) [If so, then why not Daniel, too?]

It is absolutely intolerable that only a select few scholars can keep such inestimably valuable and enlightening material to themselves for over 40 years!

2400-Year-Old Boat Excites Archaeologists

A boat which sank off the coast of Israel 2400 years ago may be the first vessel ever discovered which was built and used by the Phoenicians. The Phoenicians lived in city-states along the coast of the Mediterannean Sea and had many contacts with the Israelites. Not all the contacts were beneficial, however. Hiram, King of Tyre, furnished Solomon with cedar for the temple (1 Kgs 5). On the other hand, the wicked queen, Jezebel, was the daughter of the King of Sidon (1 Kgs 16:21).

The boat itself was a little over 30 feet long, and about I 0 feet wide. Its sophisticated construction with its scarfing of the framing and the use of iron nails (instead of bronze) indicates superior boat-building abilities. I...

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