Acknowledgements

When I first envisioned this project, I naively thought that I could finish it in a few years. Alas, it has now been nearly a dozen since I first sat down in a sunny courtyard to discuss the project with Mattie Kuiper and Suzanne Mekking from Brill, at the 2010 International Organization for Study of the Old Testament Congress in Helsinki. Mattie and Suzanne’s early, enthusiastic support of the project has continued unabated through the years since then, bolstered especially by the generous, expert guidance of George Brooke, editor of the Brill STDJ series in which this book is published. Another Brill house editor, Marjolein van Zuylen, has also been of great assistance with various aspects of producing this volume in its middle and later stages. The two anonymous reviewers of the manuscript for publication in the STDJ series gave excellent feedback, which led to a markedly better final, published version.

Thanks are also due to the Israel Antiquities Authority, and specifically to those working on the Dead Sea Scrolls Digitization Project. The openness, collegiality, and responsiveness of Joe Uziel, Head of the IAA’s Dead Sea Scrolls Projects, and Beatriz Riestra, Curator in the same area, resulted in clear improvements to numerous manuscript profiles at the core of this book. This was realized especially through the permission to use IAA digital images when they were not available as part of Brill’s Dead Sea Scrolls Electronic Library. The IAA’s collaboration led to a higher-quality, more consistent final product, and I gladly acknowledge their contributions here.

I am deeply grateful that several organizations in addition to Brill and the IAA supported my research. My home in the Department of Religious Studies at McMaster University provided an ideal context in which to do the research and writing for this book. This included a University Scholar award, which allowed me to fund several research assistants. An Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Postdoctoral Researcher grant made it possible to spend an extended period of research at the Theological Faculty of the Georg August University of Göttingen, in 2011–12, and a shorter stint at the Theological Faculty of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 2014. I extend my sincere thanks to my generous academic hosts, Reinhard Kratz in Göttingen and Loren Stuckenbruck in Munich, who made my stays productive and rewarding both professionally and personally. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) awarded me a Standard Research Grant, which helped tremendously in getting the project off the ground by travelling to international conferences, buying the necessary equipment, and hiring graduate student research assistants at an early stage. Important periods of research were also supported by a Lydie T. Shufro Summer Research Fellowship at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, and two research fellowships at the École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem, sponsored by the Canadian Friends of the École Biblique. Each of the grants and fellowships mentioned above contributed in important ways to completing this book.

Without the outstanding, diligent work of a very impressive team of research assistants – all of them doctoral students at McMaster – this book would still be little more than an exciting project proposal. Andy Perrin helped over the first few years with problem-solving and building platforms for core components of the manuscript profiles, especially the sample images and script samples. He also served as an excellent dialogue partner in developing the language section of the profiles. Rob Jones assisted in many of the same ways, and over an even longer period of time. He did important work contributing to the content synopses and bibliographies of the manuscript profiles, assisted me in their language sections, and helped to edit and improve drafts of the chapter on language. John Van Maaren assisted Rob in a number of his tasks, and did essential work on the bibliography and the chapter on scribal practices. Especially useful was his work on the figures, tables, and charts for that chapter. Finally, Kyle Schofield has been a jack-of-all-trades in the later stages of completing the book, doing a variety of tasks on almost every part of the book with eagerness, patience, skill, and good cheer. Andy, Rob, John, and Kyle, a profound “thank you” to you all.

My family is a constant source of support and encouragement, and my deepest debt of gratitude is to them. In the first instance this includes my wife, Jody, and my children, Micah, Sophia, and Gabe. However, an even longer commitment of love and support belongs to my parents, Sharon and Ken Machiela, who have given so much to put me in a position to write a book like this one. It is to them that I humbly and gratefully dedicate this book.