Category:Qumran Studies--Polish

Overview

Two major international works on the Dead Sea Scrolls appeared in Polish language in the 1960s: the popular survey by American journalist Edmund Wilson in 1963 and the scholarly introduction by Polish-born specialist Józef T. Milik in 1968. Beside Milik, two other Polish-born scholars, Shemaryahu Talmon and Ben Zion Wacholder, were active internationally but neither had his works published in Polish language.

In Poland, in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Witold Tyloch was the major specialist of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In numerous articles he published the first translations into Polish of the Qumran text.

At the end of the 1980s, with the collapse of the Soviet rule, Polish scholars joined the international study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In 1987 Zdzislaw Jan Kapera organized at Mogilany near Cracow, Poland the first of a series of five biennial international Congresses of Qumran Studies. The second congress in 1989 was held "in memory of Jean Carmignac."

Kapera was very active in the 1990s. Three more international Congresses were organized at Mogilany in 1991, 1993, and 1995. At the Madrid Qumran Congress in 1991, Kapera presented a paper on "The present state of Polish Qumranology" (published the following year in the Proceedings of the Conference). Kapera was not only the author of works on the Dead Sea Scrolls but also the editor of the journal The Qumran Chronicle and director of the Publishing House, Enigma Press, where several works by international author such as Fitzmeyer and Benz were translated into Polish.

In the 2000s a new generation of Polish Qumran Scholars emerged with Piotr Muchowski and Henryk Drawnel.