Józef T. Milik (1922-2006), Polish-French scholar

Józef T. Milik

Józef Tadeusz Milik (1922-2006) was a Polish scholar, active mainly in France, one of the leading Qumran specialists of his generation, and the editor of the Aramaic fragments of the First Book of Enoch. Jozef Tadeusz (J.T.) Milik was born in Seroczyn, Poland (near Warsaw) on March 24, 1922. Milik was one of the first generation of Qumran scholars and perhaps the most brilliant. Educated at the Catholic University of Lublin, the Pontifical Oriental Institute and the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. His knowledge of language was vast. Ordained to the Catholic priesthood in 1946 in Warsaw. In 1951 Roland de Vaux invited Milik to work on the scrolls with his team in Jerusalem. Milik developed a reputation for efficiently organizing and identifying scroll fragments. Milik aggressively published the scrolls that were entrusted to him. He published more texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls than any other of the original DSS scholars, co-edited Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) in 1955, which published the Cave 1 scrolls, and published still more texts in the 1960’s in successive DJD volumes. In spite of this impressive publication record, Milik has received a large share of the blame for the delays in publication. Milik married in 1969, leaving the priesthood, and settled in Paris at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique until his retirement in 1987. Milik died in Paris on January 6, 2006.