ABSTRACT
And now let us return at last to the Metropolitan Samuel, who bought the first lot of scrolls and persisted in believing in their antiquity, who allowed them to be photographed by the scholars of the American School in Jerusalem and was encouraged by these Americans to come to the United States in January, 1949. The Metropolitan Samuel was hoping then to sell the scrolls to some institution of learning, but this turned out to be more difficult than the Americans had led him to believe. The publication of the texts by the School did not have the effect that had been predicted of exciting an interest in buying the manuscripts; on the contrary, it diminished their market value. Since the texts were available to scholars, there was no need to have the manuscripts in the library. The Metropolitan Samuel had signed an agreement that the American School should publish within three years the texts that had been photographed, and that he should receive, in return, fifty per cent of the profits from the published texts. But the process of publishing Hebrew texts along with photographic facsimiles is a very expensive one. The first volume of the Dead Sea manuscripts cost the American School $8000, and, though it has now gone into a second edition, it has been only in the last year that the Metropolitan Samuel has been able to collect any royalties: about $300. Before this, the only revenue he was able 225to derive from the scrolls consisted of a few small fees that had been paid him for exhibitions in museums.
