This section is from the document '/obi/book/Rants/Dead.Sea.Scrolls.Update'. From ralphw@thebox.rain.com Sun Jun 16 02:17:30 1991 From: ralphw@thebox.rain.com (Ralph Winston) Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.politics.mideast,alt.activism,soc.history,soc.misc Subject: Dead Sea Scrolls Update! Date: 12 Jun 91 09:02:15 GMT Organization: TheBox - Public Access Xenix From the _IHR Newsletter_, January 1991: THE SCROLLS: THE PLOT THICKENS The _IHR Newsletter_ and _The Journal of Historical Review_ have reported on previous evidences that translation and publication of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in Palestine in 1947, has been delayed by Christian and Jewish authorities which have controlled access to them since their discovery. A growing chorus of criticism >from biblical scholars -- Jewish, Christian, and agnostic -- has echoed the charges that IHR Editorial Advisor Dr. Martin Larson first raised in his seminal paper delivered to the IHR's International Revisionist Conference in 1981, printed in the Summer 1982 issue of the _Journal of Historical Review_ and thereafter issued as a pamphlet, that there is in fact a "conspiracy to keep [the] Scrolls secret," as Hershel Shanks, editor of the _Biblical Archeology Review_, charged in that journal (July/August 1989). The latest and most bizarre fillip to the scandal of the Dead Sea Scrolls has been the dismissal of Dr. John Strugnell, the Harvard Divinity School professor who had been chief editor of the project, by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, which gained control of the Scrolls following the Zionist seizure of East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967. According to press reports, Strugnell told an Israeli reporter last November that he regarded "Judaism" as "originally racist" and "a horrible religion" and that the state of Israel "is founded on a lie." In the past, Dr. Strugnell, one of the original editors of the Scrolls, had himself been a target of critics of the snail's pace of the Scrolls' publication. In November, however, Strugnell told a reporter from the _Boston Herald_ that he had been confined to a mental hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts for a leg injury, because "various people here and in Israel are trying to get rid of me and keep me from publishing the Scrolls" ("Scrolls Prof: People Trying to Get Rid of Me," December 14, 1990). Allegations of "decades" of "mental health" and "drinking problems" attributed to his former colleagues ("Biblical Scholars Sort Issues behind Editor's Dismissal," _Orange County [CA] Register_, December 24, 1990) leave unanswered the question of how such a situation, if it existed, could be tolerated, particularly when Strugnell was so swiftly dispatched for voicing, however combatively, a few home truths about how certain influential Jewish opinion makers, ancient and modern, see their Gentile neighbors. The solution to the scandal of the Dead Sea Scrolls remains what Dr. Larson urged a decade ago: ". . .first, they must be removed from the custody of the Israeli government, and second, we must establish an intellectual climate in the western world in which scholars and ministers can discuss religious subjects without feear of reprisals. . ." [An updated version of Dr. Larson's 1982 article "Whatever Happened to the Dead Sea Scrolls?" is available in leaflet form. Order 10 copies for $2, 50 copies for $5, 100 or more copies for 8 cents each from: IHR, 1922 1/2 Newport Blvd., Suite 191, Costa Mesa, CA 92627.] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I hope this gives those who are interested some valuable and interesting information concerning the fate of the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. Ralph Winston -- TheBox Public Access Xenix - Gresham OR +1 503-669-7291 +1 503-669-7395