John Marco Allegro, The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

• Author: Tov, Emanuel
• Position: Book review

John Marco Allegro, The Maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls. By JUDITH ANNE BROWN. Grand Rapids, Mich.: WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING Co., 2005. Pp. xvi + 288, illus. $25.

This is an extremely exciting and fascinating book of the type one reads in a single sitting. It tells the story of John Marco Allegro, "the maverick of the Dead Sea Scrolls," not in the form of a conventional biographic essay, but primarily in the words of Allegro himself from his publications and the letters he received and sent. The book is authored by his daughter, freelance writer Judith Anne Brown, with the express purpose of "restoring the balance" (p. xvi) in favor of Allegro regarding the infamy surrounding his name.

The negative judgment he received was probably not unjustified, as Allegro himself admits that he was seeking fame, was an iconoclast, and was in favor of quick and therefore necessarily shallow text editions. In retrospect, it seems that he often had the wrong instincts. However, in another area he was ahead of his time, in criticizing the delay in the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls (pp. 153-56), the lack of an open approach towards them (pp. 158-64), and their inadequate conservation (p. 165).

The book is extremely well written. It is precise in its wording and quotations from the letters and other sources. The style is beautiful, at times even poetic. (See the description of the life of the Allegro family on the Isle of Man, pp. 213-15.) The reader will undoubtedly be amazed by the enormous energy expended by Allegro on his letter writing and by the professional quality of the Allegro archive that must contain hundreds or thousands of pieces of correspondence. The archive documents not only Allegro's work on the scrolls, but also his overseas posting as a young sailor in the Royal Navy during World War II, and the years of his courtship. While we don't hear Allegro's explanation as to why he actually held on to all these documents, he must have had an intuition (for which we are appreciative) that one day these letters would be significant. That the archive has remained intact is due to the efforts of his ex-wife, Joan.

Allegro's story is one of the meteoric rise and gradual descent of a scholar and scholarly entrepreneur. His star began its ascent when G. R. Driver of Oxford sent his aspiring young student to Jordanian Jerusalem in order to participate in the decipherment and publication of the newly discovered Cave 4 documents. When on the rise...