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Ben-Gurion University professor Elisha Qimron, who is suing BAR in a Jerusalem court, is not the only scholar turning to the law for legal redress in connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls. According to the Washington Post, the recently deposed chief editor of the scrolls, John Strugnell, now on administrative leave from Harvard University, “is contemplating a lawsuit against [BAR editor Hershel] Shanks.”
The lawsuit would apparently be based on damage to Strugnell’s reputation resulting from BAR’s coverage of the Dead Sea Scroll imbroglio. Strugnell told the Post that the effect of BAR’s coverage has been “very grave … It’s not my scholarly work that I’m worried about, but my scholarly reputation.”
In the interview with the Post, Strugnell reaffirmed many of the statements he made in an earlier interview with Israeli journalist Avi Katzman that led to his dismissal as chief editor in December 1990. “I don’t deny many of the opinions, although I certainly regret 078some of the expressions of them.” In the Katzman interview, Strugnell called Judaism “a horrible religion.” As previously reported in BAR, Strugnell conceded that he was “an anti-Judaist, that’s what I am. There, I plead guilty. I plead guilty in the way the Church has pleaded guilty all along, because we’re right. Christianity presents itself as a religion which replaced the Jewish religion. The correct answer of Jews to Christianity is to become Christian.”
To the Washington Post reporter, Strugnell stated, “I don’t think that’s anti-Semitic, but [you] may well. It’s anti-Judaic, it’s against the religion of Judaism. Paul is, John is, go through the New Testament. One or two people try to modify this position nowadays, but that’s just a twitch in modern Christian dogmatics. I was more concerned with the majority position of Christianity through the centuries.”
Before being placed on leave, Strugnell was a professor of Christian origins at Harvard. Harvard has reportedly appointed a search committee for Strugnell’s replacement, a signal that he will not be permitted to return to Harvard. At the moment, he is barred even from the use of the university library. For five years he served as chief editor of the official scroll editing team.
Many have attributed Strugnell’s statements in the Katzman interview to his emotional condition at the time. Strugnell told the Post reporter that at the time of the Katzman interview, he was having a major bout of manic-depression for which, according to the Post, “he was later hospitalized (and not for the first time).”
Some have also suggested that the Katzman interview may have been influenced by Strugnell’s well-known drinking problem. In the Post interview, Strugnell denied that he ever had a drinking problem. He explained the fact that he kept his Dead Sea Scroll files in beer crates to the lack of funds supporting the editing team’s work.
Ben-Gurion University professor Elisha Qimron, who is suing BAR in a Jerusalem court, is not the only scholar turning to the law for legal redress in connection with the Dead Sea Scrolls. According to the Washington Post, the recently deposed chief editor of the scrolls, John Strugnell, now on administrative leave from Harvard University, “is contemplating a lawsuit against [BAR editor Hershel] Shanks.” The lawsuit would apparently be based on damage to Strugnell’s reputation resulting from BAR’s coverage of the Dead Sea Scroll imbroglio. Strugnell told the Post that the effect of BAR’s coverage has been “very grave … […]
