>John Trever, one of the first scholars who evaluated the Dead Sea Scrolls when they were discovered in 1948, has died at the age of 90.

The Los Angeles Times has published a detailed obituary of John Trever. Here is an excerpt:

John C. Trever, one of the first Americans to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 and whose photographs of the ancient texts also became important historical documents, has died. He was 90.
Trever, who was the last surviving member of the original group of Western scholars to study the scrolls, died Saturday at his home in Lake Forest, his family said. No cause of death was given.
As an American student in Jerusalem, Trever came face-to-face with the scrolls when Syrian monks brought them to be evaluated at what is now the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research

When Trever unrolled one of the scrolls on a cot in his living quarters, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The document — said to have been found in a cave by a Bedouin shepherd in 1947 — contained text from the biblical book of Isaiah

To read the complete obituary, click here.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary