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Obituary

Morton Smith, Controversial Historian, Dies

Morton Smith, a member of BAR’s Editorial Advisory Board and a leading authority on ancient religions and magic, died of heart failure on July 11, 1991, at the age of 76. An outspoken critic of the Dead Sea Scroll editors who denied access to other scholars, Smith was a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, where he had taught since 1957.

Smith sparked a controversy in the world of Biblical scholarship with his 1958 discovery of the “secret” Gospel of Mark, a fragment of a letter believed to have been written by Clement of Alexandria, a second-century Christian teacher, for an inner circle of the Christian community. Smith had found the manuscript in the tower library of Mar Saba, a Greek Orthodox monastery in the Judean wilderness near Jerusalem. After years of research to establish its authenticity, he published his conclusions in a scholarly book, Clement of Alexandria and the Secret Gospel of Mark (Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), and in a popular book, The Secret Gospel: The Discovery and Interpretation of the Secret Gospel According to Mark (Harper & Row, 1973). His research on the manuscript led Smith to believe that Jesus may have been a magician, rather than a rabbi, and that magical rituals played a significant role in early Christianity. He further described these ideas in a popular book, Jesus the Magician (Harper & Row, 1978), which won Columbia’s Lionel Trilling Book Award. The Society of Biblical Literature honored Smith in 1980 with the Ralph Marcus Centennial Award for historical research supporting Biblical studies.

Roger Bagnall, dean of Columbia’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said of Smith: “It was hard to find a subject on which he was not both thoroughly informed and very opinionated. The sharpness and critical candor of his work became legendary.” As if to illustrate Bagnall’s description, Smith wrote a letter—perhaps the last letter he wrote—to BAR, questioning the excavator’s interpretation of the dog cemetery at Ashkelon (see Queries & Comments, in this issue). Shaye Cohen, Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University, praised Smith as “a devoted scholar who offered fresh perspectives on a wide range of topics on the history of religion.”

The author of hundreds of books, articles and reviews, Smith contributed two articles to BAR: “The Case of the Gilded Staircase,” BAR 10:05 and “The Differences Between Israelite Culture and Other Major Cultures of the Ancient Near East,” BAR 02:03.

His colleagues and students—and the world of Biblical scholarship—mourn the loss of a unique scholar and personality.

Lecture

BAR Author Thomas Levy Presents New Findings About Ancient Life in the Holy Land

In a public lecture, “Warfare and Religion: Archaeology in the Holy Land,” archaeologist Thomas E. Levy will describe new discoveries made during his excavations in Israel’s Negev Desert. The lecture will be given at the National Geographic Society’s Grosvenor Auditorium (1600 M St., N.W., Washington, DC), at 8 p.m. on November 12, 1991.

Levy’s recent finds shatter the long-held assumption that the Holy Land’s Chalcolithic period (c. 4500–3500 B.C.) was a time of peace and tranquility. In excavations at Shiqmim and Gilat, Levy uncovered numerous weapons and skeletons with marks indicating violent deaths. He also discovered a subterranean village at Shiqmim, apparently used for protection in times of war.

Levy, who is assistant director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at Hebrew Union College in Jerusalem, presented some of his earlier work at these sites in his BAR article, “How Ancient Man First Utilized Rivers in the Desert,” BAR 16:06. His lecture will also discuss other discoveries at the Negev sites, which include some of the earliest and most extensive metalwork in the region, an important religious center at Gilat (with hundreds of cult objects) and ritual dog burials complete with offerings (see Levy’s letter, Queries & Comments, in this issue).

Tickets for the lecture cost $7. They may be purchased at the society’s ticket office (at the above address) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., weekdays; by phone, with credit cards only (call 202–857-7133); or 45 minutes before the lecture, if still available.

Museum Guide

Centennial Celebration in Chicago and New Museum In Cincinnati

The University of Chicago is celebrating its centennial with an exhibit commemorating the distinguished history of its Oriental Institute. “Sifting the Sands of Time: The Oriental Institute and the Ancient Near East,” on view at the institute’s museum from October 6, 1991, to December 31, 1992, traces the accomplishments of the Oriental Institute from its first expedition through its current projects. Featuring ancient artifacts and historic photos, the exhibit profiles many of the institute’s famous excavations, including its work on the Giza pyramid plateau and at the palace complex of the Persian rulers at Persepolis.

Admission to the exhibit is free. The museum, at 1155 East 58th Street, is open every day of the week except Mondays.

The Skirball Museum Cincinnati Branch, the new museum at Hebrew Union College (HUC), will officially open with the inauguration of its core exhibition, “An Eternal People: The Jewish Experience,” at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, November 18, 1991. Display areas in the exhibit will illustrate themes in the cultural heritage of the Jewish people: Immigration, Archaeology, Torah, Jewish Festivals and Life Cycles, Cincinnati as a Microcosm of American Judaism, the Holocaust and Israel. A simulation of a typical home from the Biblical period contains artifacts that were discovered at HUC excavations in Israel.

The Skirball Museum is in Mayerson Hall on the HUC campus, 3101 Clifton Ave., Cincinnati, OH. Admission to the opening ceremony is free.

Obituary