In 1947 a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock into a cave near the Dead Sea and heard something break.
What broke was a clay jar. Inside it were ancient scrolls. Over the next several years more caves were found and more scrolls were recovered. Hundreds of documents dating back more than two thousand years. The oldest known manuscripts of nearly every book of the Hebrew Bible. Documents that predated any previously known biblical texts by a thousand years.
It was one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in history.
And for roughly 40 years a small group of scholars controlled almost all access to them.
What the Scrolls Contain
The Dead Sea Scrolls include early versions of biblical texts that differ in significant ways from the versions in modern Bibles. They include documents describing the beliefs and practices of a Jewish sect that most scholars identify as the Essenes. They provide a window into the diversity of Jewish religious thought during the period when Christianity was beginning to form.
The differences between the scroll texts and later biblical versions are not dramatic enough to shatter anyone's faith but they are historically significant. They show that the texts people now read as scripture went through a complex process of development and transmission. They show that early Jewish and Christian communities held a much wider range of beliefs than later institutions acknowledged.
That kind of information has implications for how religious history gets understood. And for decades the scholars who controlled the scrolls moved very slowly to share that information with the rest of the world.
The Problem With Controlling Historical Access
A small international team of scholars was given exclusive access to the scrolls after their discovery. For decades they published very little. Other researchers who wanted to study the documents were denied access. The photographs and transcriptions the team had made were not shared.
Critics argued the delay was not about careful scholarship. It was about controlling the narrative. About making sure that when the information came out it came out in a way that particular scholars and particular institutions preferred.
The scrolls were finally opened to broader access in the early 1990s when a library that held unauthorized photographs released them publicly. Essentially the information was forced into the open because people got tired of waiting for the gatekeepers to act.
The Lesson Here
No group of scholars, no religious institution, no government, and no archive should have permanent exclusive control over documents that are part of the shared historical record of humanity.
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the desert. They belong to human history. They do not belong to the scholars who happened to be first on the scene or to the political and religious institutions that had interests in controlling the story they told.
The same principle applies to the Vatican archive. To government classified documents. To any collection of historical materials that institutions are sitting on while the public waits for permission to understand its own past.
History is not a privilege. It is a right. And the people who have been hiding it have had enough time.
Robert Lee Beers III is a writer and digital preservation advocate based in North Charleston South Carolina.
