John C. Trever (November 26, 1916 – April 29, 2006) was a Biblical scholar and archaeologist, who was involved in the discovery of the

Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...

Education

Trever received a degree (B.D.) from

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

and a Ph.D. in Old Testament studies from

Yale Graduate School The Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences is the graduate school of Yale University. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest graduate school in North America, and was the first North American graduate school to confer a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D ...

. He did post-doctoral studies in archaeology through the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem.

Career

He became the first American scholar to see fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Spring of 1948. At the time Trever was filling in for William F. Albright, the director at the American Schools of Oriental Research. He was contacted by a representative of

Mar Samuel Metropolitan Mor Athanasius Yeshue Samuel (19091995), more often referred to as Mor Samuel, was a The First Metropolitan and Archbishop of the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch in the United States and Canada, the Metropolitan of Jerusalem of t ...

of St. Mark's Assyrian Orthodox Monastery who desired to authenticate three scrolls that we now know had been purchased from Kando, a Syrian-Christian antiquities dealer in

Bethlehem Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...

. Trever, an experienced photographer, photographed the scrolls, 1QIsaiahA, 1QpHabukkuk, and 1QS, and immediately sent copies to Near East scholar

William F. Albright William Foxwell Albright (May 24, 1891– September 19, 1971) was an American archaeologist, biblical scholar, philologist, and expert on ceramics. He is considered "one of the twentieth century's most influential American biblical scholars." ...

, who recognized them as the "greatest MS discovery of modern times!” Trever is the author of "The Untold Story of Qumran" (1965) and "The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Personal Account" (2003). He taught at several colleges: Baldwin-Wallace College in Ohio, Morris Harvey College in West Virginia (the University of Charleston), and

Claremont School of Theology Claremont School of Theology (CST) is an American graduate school focused on religion and theology and located in Claremont, California. CST is fully recognized and approved as one of thirteen official theological schools of the United Methodi ...

in California. The original negatives are in the collection of the Ancient Biblical Manuscript Center of the Claremont School of Theology in California.VanderKam, James, and Flint, Peter, ''The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls'' (HarperSanfrancisco, 2002), p.70.

Selected works

Book

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References

External links