The Huntington is often asked about its connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The original Scrolls, discovered between 1947 and the early 1950s in caves near the Dead Sea, are housed in the Rockefeller Museum and the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.
In 1982, the Preservation Council headed by Mrs. Elizabeth Hay Bechtel gave
the Huntington a master set of Scroll microfilm negatives.
The Huntington’s expectation was that it would provide a secure and
stable environment for the preservation of the archival copy of the photographs
and not serve as the primary center for their study.
A duplicate set of negatives had been made for the Biblical Manuscript
Center in Claremont, CA, and it was assumed that Biblical scholars would be able
to satisfy their research needs there – especially since the Huntington does not have the specialized reference materials that Biblical scholars
need.
At the time the Huntington Library decided to make copies of the microfilm
available, access to the original Scrolls and fragments, believed to have
been written between 200 B.C. and A.D. 68, was limited to seven scholars, each
of whom were assigned some part to decipher, edit, and publish. Many qualified
scholars were therefore excluded from studying the Scrolls.
By 1990 an Israeli scholar, Emanuel Tov, was appointed editor, and he
moved to expand the editorial committee and liberalize access.
In early August of 1991, then Huntington Library Director William A. Moffett proposed to his colleagues that the Library make its photographs of the
Scrolls—the most extensive such resource not controlled by the official Scroll
editors—as accessible as possible to researchers, putting an end to the
question of limited scholarly access. On September 22, 1991, Dr. Moffett announced the Huntington would
make microfilm copies of the Scrolls available to scholars and the public around
the world through inter-library loan, which resulted in extensive media
coverage.
The Huntington Library has provided microfilm copies of the Scrolls on
indefinite loan to over 80 libraries in the United States and around the world.
However, there are now a number of facsimile editions and translations
(the Scrolls are written in Aramaic, Greek or Ancient Hebrew) that provide more
accessible means of studying these materials.
There are a number of websites devoted to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Among them the Israel Museum http://www.imj.org.il/shrine/, the Library of Congress http://metalab.unc.edu/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/.html, and The Field Museum in Chicago http://www.fmnh.org./exhibits/scrolls_tempexhib2.htm.
Microfilm copies of the Scrolls are not available to the general public, but can be requested through inter-library loan from a public or academic library near you. Libraries wishing copies of the microfilm for reference purposes should complete a standard ALA Inter-Library Loan Form and submit it along with a check for US$50 to cover the cost of duplication, handling, and postage. Please mail your request and payment to Donna Stromberg, Assistant to the Library Director, The Huntington Library, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, CA, 91108.
General inquiries may be directed to dstromberg@huntington.org