Computers translate/reconstruct Dead Sea Scrolls
MUFONET-BBS NETWORK - MUTUAL UFO NETWORK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS - WIRE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
³=START= XMT: 16:18 Wed Sep 04 EXP: 16:00 Wed Sep 11 ³
³ ³
³AMERICAN PROFESSORS USE COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY TO "RECONSTRUCT"³
³DEAD SEA SCROLLS ³
³ ³
³NEW YORK (SEPT. 4) UPI - Two American professors Wednesday ³
³released a secret text of the Dead Sea scrolls, ending a ³
³four-decade monopoly by a small band of scholars who had ³
³jealously guarded the ancient parchments in a Jerusalem ³
³museum. ³
³ ³
³A majority of the 2,000-year-old scrolls had been ³
³languishing in unpublished form since their discovery in ³
³1947 by a bedouin in the caves of Qumran in what was then ³
³Jordan-occupied Palestine. ³
³ ³
³In publishing the first of five proposed volumes, two ³
³professors from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, broke ³
³the lock of the tightly-knit scholars who maintain the ³
³scrolls at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, said ³
³Hershel Shanks, the editor of ''Biblical Archaeology ³
³Review.'' ³
³ ³
³According to Shanks, 500 scrolls unearthed in Cave 4 of ³
³Qumram were turned over by Jordanian officials to the ³
³museum, then called the Palestine Archaeological Museum, ³
³with a stipulation that they not be turned over to ''anyone ³
³who is circumcised.'' ³
³ ³
³Shanks said a group of four scholars gained monopolistic ³
³access to the scrolls after they agreed to that stipulation ³
³and the scrolls were later bequeathed to a second generation³
³of scholars who for the most part agreed to the terms. ³
³ ³
³A separate set of scrolls found in Cave 1 were ³
³surreptitiously acquired by Israel and are now displayed in ³
³the Shrine of the Book in West Jerusalem. ³
³ ³
³Until the publication of the bootleg volume, only about 20 ³
³percent of the Dead Sea scrolls had been published with the ³
³rest remaining inaccessible to Biblical scholars at large. ³
³ ³
³But the American scholars, Dr. Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin³
³Abegg, found an ingenius way to reconstruct the text without³
³obtaining access to the original documents. ³
³ ³
³By acquiring a copy of the scrolls' concordances - a list of³
³words and phrases on file cards that describe where certain ³
³words appear in the original - the two scholars used a ³
³desktop computer to string a text together. ³
³ ³
³Some 50,000 of the file cards will eventually produce the ³
³five proposed volumes. ³
³ ³
³''No ancient text had ever been reconstructed by computer ³
³before,'' Wacholder said. ³
³ ³
³''We can assure the public that it is close to the original.³
³But we do not claim that it is a final edition,'' he said. ³
³''We are not saying this material is infallible. It is as ³
³reliable as it is faulty.'' ³
³ ³
³Abegg, who developed the idea of using word-processing ³
³software to recreate the text, said comparisons between this³
³volume and texts similar to the Dead Sea scrolls showed many³
³of the reconstructions to be exact. ³
³ ³
³Shanks, who for decades had lobbied for greater public ³
³access to the ancient scrolls, got additional ammunition ³
³last November when an Israeli newspaper published a ³
³virulently anti-Semitic interview with John Strugnell, a ³
³dean of the Harvard Divinity School and the scrolls' chief ³
³editor. ³
³ ³
³In the interview, Strugnell described Judaism as ''a ³
³horrible religion.'' When asked what it was about the ³
³religion that bothered him, he replied, ''The fact that it ³
³survived when it should have disappeared.'' ³
³ ³
³Shanks, at a news conference at a Manhattan hotel, blasted ³
³the ''anti-Semitism'' of the scholars who control the ³
³scrolls and described their work as ''marred by the ³
³scholarly attitude of secrecy.'' ³
³ ³
³''This secrecy is to my mind a breach of trust,'' Shanks ³
³said. ''These texts do not belong to these men. The time has³
³come for a little cultural Glasnost.'' ³
³ ³
³The first volume, which contains 23 ancient manuscripts, ³
³contains almanacs, fragments of ancient calendars and names ³
³of local rulers, said Wacholder, who is virtually blind and ³
³studies the Torah from memory. ³
³ ³
³Wacholder, 67, said what distinguished the ancient Jews from³
³the modern is a sense of ''millenialism,'' that a Messiah ³
³would arrive to save humanity. Thus, he said, the volume ³
³offers a glimpse into a social environment that bred early ³
³Christianity. ³
³ ³
³The text also offers glimpses into social legislation, ³
³describes rules on how to urinate and has a section on ³
³leprosy, he said. ³
³ ³
³''It shows how these people understood God, the Torah, the ³
³nation around them and who they were,'' Wacholder said. ³
³ ³
³The volume, which is in Hebrew but with an introduction in ³
³English, is available from the Hebrew Union College. ³
³ ³
³=END= ³
ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
Go back to Book and list reviews index page