Dead Sea Scrolls Scholar John Trever Dies

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — John C. Trever, the American scholar who photographed the Dead Sea Scrolls in Jerusalem in 1948, has died, his family reported. He was 90.

Trever died Saturday at his home in Lake Forest in Orange County, said his son, Albuquerque Journal political cartoonist John Trever.

The younger Trever said it was by chance that his father happened to be in Jerusalem doing unrelated research when Father Boutros Sowmy brought several scrolls to the American School of Oriental Research in February 1948 that were said to have been found in a cave the year before by a Bedouin shepherd.

Although he [doing] postdoctorate studies on biblical flora, Trever was also experienced in photographing ancient scrolls and quickly took pictures of the finds. He had immediately recognized a similarity between the scrolls' script and that of the Nash Papyrus, at the time the oldest known biblical manuscript.

"Among them was the Isaiah Scroll, which was not a fragment but a complete scroll,'' Trever's son said. "His photos are the ones that really show the scroll in the original condition.''

Trever, who had earned his doctorate in Old Testament studies from Yale in 1943, was doing research while on sabbatical from Drake University.

He is credited as being the first American scholar to come in contact with the scrolls in the James VanderKam and Peter Flint book "The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance For Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity.''

Trever spent much of his life lecturing and writing books on the scrolls, as well as returning to the holy land from time to time to take part in archaeological digs.

Among his books were "Scrolls from Qumran Cave One,'' "The Untold Story of Qumran'' and "The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Personal Account.''

His son has been the political cartoonist for the Albuquerque Journal for over 20 years. Here is one of last weeks cartoons:

The Albuquerque Journal is now free once again though you have to watch a thirty-second ad before being linked to the article.

Dr. Trever was never part of the group that were considered part of this "conspiracy theory". Unfortunately, controversy makes money. Many books have been written about this subject. It was all a lack of understanding of the incredible amount of work and time required to publish the massive amounts of material, especially 40 thousand fragments of an average of one to two characters each left over from Qumran Cave 4 (later made availabel by the Huntington Library). The original scholars labored long hours on their own dime, for the most part to do what they did. The original team did not want 50 different translations coming out all at the same time and for good reason. Instead, the team was made up of highly competent scholars representing many faiths. The goal was to achieve an unbiased translation using sound scientific principles and being true to history of the time the scrolls were written. Although Dr. Trever wrote numerous professional journal articles and several books (1954-2004, the last being "The Dead Sea Scrolls a Personal Account") on the subject, he was not part of the original translation team by his own choice. Instead, he was involved with the RSV Bible and teaching. There are now at least 34 volumes of the DJD (Discoveries in the Judean Desert) published, the first of which was published in 1955. It takes a long time. All the materials have now been published or are wrapping up as this is written.

Dr. Trever was never part of the group that were considered part of this "conspiracy theory". Unfortunately, controversy makes money. Many books have been written about this subject. It was all a lack of understanding of the incredible amount of work and time required to publish the massive amounts of material, especially 40 thousand fragments of an average of one to two characters each left over from Qumran Cave 4 (later made availabel by the Huntington Library). The original scholars labored long hours on their own dime, for the most part to do what they did. The original team did not want 50 different translations coming out all at the same time and for good reason. Instead, the team was made up of highly competent scholars representing many faiths. The goal was to achieve an unbiased translation using sound scientific principles and being true to history of the time the scrolls were written. Although Dr. Trever wrote numerous professional journal articles and several books (1954-2004, the last being "The Dead Sea Scrolls in Perspective", Bibal 2004) on the subject, he was not part of the original translation team by his own choice. Instead, he was involved with the RSV Bible and teaching. There are now at least 34 volumes of the DJD (Discoveries in the Judean Desert) published, the first of which was published in 1955. It takes a long time. All the materials have now been published or are wrapping up as this is written.

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