The original Scrolls Team of eight scholars was headed by the Dominican Priest, Roland DeVaux, the head of Ecole Biblique, a French Catholic theological seminary in East Jerusalem. DeVaux was widely criticized for withholding the scrolls from public scrutiny, by outside scholars as well as by members of his own team, and it was during his tenure that charges of academic scandal and theological bias were first leveled. Huh, imagine that – a priest allowing his religious convictions to prejudice his interpretation of scripture. Hard to imagine, cough, cough. Then, after the Six Day War in 1967, Israel expanded its borders to the Dead Sea and laid claim to the scrolls as well as to the archeological site of Khirbet Qumran. Over the next few years, the focus of the charges of academic scandal and theological bias switched from the Christian controllers to the new Jewish custodians. Roland DeVaux refused to work with the Israelis, but lost leadership over the scrolls project when he died unexpectedly (a little too unexpectedly, if you ask me) while undergoing minor surgery. The charges of obstructing full and unbiased disclosure of the scrolls’ content have remained upon Israeli shoulders to this day.
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