Abbé Jean Starcky (3 February 1909 – 9 October 1988) was a French priest who was one of the early editors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
As a specialist in Palmyrene Aramaic and Nabataean texts he joined the international Manuscrits de la mer Morte team in January 1954.
In 1936/37 he received a scholarship from the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres at the French Biblical and Archaeological School in Jerusalem.
In 1943 the 1st French Free Division (DFL), to which BM 11 belonged, crossed Cyrenaica and Tripolitania to reach southern Tunisia.
On 27 November 1943 Jean Starcky became chaplain of the BIMP, (the Marine and Pacific Infantry Battalion) which notably included Tahitians, Caledonians and Canaques.
The division moved up towards Lyon, then reached Burgundy, arrived in Dijon on 16 September, then left for Alsace via Ronchamp.
On 3 March 1945 it was sent to the south of the Alps, north of Nice, in the Authion massif, to reduce pockets of enemy resistance.
The quote of 20 November 1944, when he became a Companion of the Liberation, evokes a "military chaplain of high class, uniting on a much higher level the serenity of his evangelical faith with a quiet courage and boundless abnegation which made, during the fighting of 11, 12 and 16 May 1944, the admiration of the BIMP to which it was posted ”.
General Garbay, who commanded the 1st DFL, mentioned in a quotation: "a chaplain of the BIMP, legendary for his bravery, his tireless dedication and his kindness".
He returned to the Middle East where he was one of the first residents of the French Institute of Archeology in Beirut, founded in 1946 by Henri Seyrig.
John Starcky was entrusted with the decryption and publication of the papyri written in Nabataean, a language close to Palmyrenian Aramaic from this cave 4.
When he retired in 1977, he entrusted the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which he had not yet deciphered, to Abbots Maurice Baillet and Emile Puech.
Epigraphist, archaeologist, Aramaic specialist, exegete, mastering many languages, Jean Starcky was deputy director of the French Institute of Archeology in Beirut from 1968 to 1971.