John Strugnell: Scholar Undone by His Slur, Dies at 77
John Strugnell, a respected biblical scholar at Harvard whose tenure as the chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls ended in controversy over anti-Semitic remarks he made in an interview, died on Nov. 30 in Cambridge, Mass. He was 77 and lived in nearby Arlington.
He died while hospitalized for an infection associated with treatment of cancer, said his daughter Anne-Christine Strugnell.
At 23, while still a student of languages at the University of Oxford, Mr. Strugnell joined the original team of scholars piecing together and translating the scrolls, one of the great ancient finds of the 20th century. About 900 documents in Hebrew and Aramaic, bearing on a critical period in the history of Judaism and the origins of Christianity, were uncovered from 1947 to 1956 in caves near the Dead Sea, in the West Bank.
Mr. Strugnell, who never completed his studies for a Ph.D. at Oxford, was appointed to the faculty of the Harvard Divinity School in 1966, becoming a professor of Christian origins. He was made editor in chief of the scrolls project in 1984.
Six years later, at a time when the scrolls team was coming under sharp criticism for its exclusive control over access to the documents and its sluggish pace of publication, Mr. Strugnell was in Jerusalem and gave an interview to the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha’aretz. As quoted by the newspaper, he said of Judaism: “It’s a horrible religion. It’s Christian heresy, and we deal with our heretics in different ways.”
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He died while hospitalized for an infection associated with treatment of cancer, said his daughter Anne-Christine Strugnell.
At 23, while still a student of languages at the University of Oxford, Mr. Strugnell joined the original team of scholars piecing together and translating the scrolls, one of the great ancient finds of the 20th century. About 900 documents in Hebrew and Aramaic, bearing on a critical period in the history of Judaism and the origins of Christianity, were uncovered from 1947 to 1956 in caves near the Dead Sea, in the West Bank.
Mr. Strugnell, who never completed his studies for a Ph.D. at Oxford, was appointed to the faculty of the Harvard Divinity School in 1966, becoming a professor of Christian origins. He was made editor in chief of the scrolls project in 1984.
Six years later, at a time when the scrolls team was coming under sharp criticism for its exclusive control over access to the documents and its sluggish pace of publication, Mr. Strugnell was in Jerusalem and gave an interview to the Tel Aviv newspaper Ha’aretz. As quoted by the newspaper, he said of Judaism: “It’s a horrible religion. It’s Christian heresy, and we deal with our heretics in different ways.”