John M. Allegro

Common card · No. 486001

John Marco Allegro (17 February 1923 – 17 February 1988) was an English archaeologist and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar. He was a populariser of the Dead Sea Scrolls through his books and radio broadcasts. He was the editor of some of the most famous and controversial scrolls published, the pesharim. A number of Allegro's later books, including The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, brought him both popular fame and notoriety, and also complicated his career. Allegro served in the Royal Navy during World War II, began training for the Methodist ministry but shifted to Oriental Studies, earning degrees from Manchester and Oxford before joining the Dead Sea Scrolls research team in Jerusalem and becoming a lecturer in Semitic Philology in 1954. He played a pivotal role in the early study and popularization of the Copper Scroll by arranging its physical opening, producing the first translation, controversially publishing it ahead of the official edition, and promoting theories about its content that...

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