Jots & Tittles

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David Flusser (1917–2000)

After a period of declining health, biblical scholar David Flusser succumbed to heart failure in Jerusalem on September 15, his 83rd birthday.

Flusser was a pioneer in the application of historical philology to the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Jewish literature of late antiquity. His lifelong research interest in the historical Jesus and Christian origins resulted from his friendship with a fellow student at the University of Prague who was a Bohemian Brethren pastor. Since 1967 Flusser’s influential German study, Jesus, which presents the life of Jesus in light of Jewish sources, has been translated into 11 languages. Magnes Press recently published a thoroughly revised and expanded English edition to reflect his research in the intervening years.

Flusser was born to a Jewish family in Vienna in 1917 but grew up in Prague, where he later studied classical philology at the University of Prague. In 1939 British authorities allowed him to immigrate to Palestine to teach Greek at Hebrew University. He would later remark that Greek had saved his life from the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Flusser was widely recognized for his erudition. He was a professor of comparative religion at Hebrew University and a member of the prestigious Israel Academy of Science and Humanities. In 1980 he was awarded the Israel Prize in literature for his critical edition of Josephus, and last May he received the Rothschild Prize for Jewish Sciences. On the night before his death, he received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew Union College on behalf of the rabbinate of the Reform movement.

The breadth of his knowledge and interests was immense. His command of languages was legendary. He once taught himself Spanish merely to read Don Quixote in the original. Flusser had an insatiable appetite for learning, from medieval Latin literature to American Negro spirituals. He was also a lover of animals. I once gave him a small copy of the Book of Kells—an eighth-century illuminated gospel book from the British Isles. A few days later he called to tell me that he had discovered a cat in the illustrations—thus indicating that cats were present in Britain four centuries earlier than historians had assumed. He promptly wrote a letter to the world’s authority on the history of cats to suggest that their history in Britain needed to be revised. Such was the breadth of his interests and his eye for historical detail. Less seen by the outside world was Flusser’s humanitarian impulse. He personally identified with developments within Judaism during the Second Temple Period that emphasized the intrinsic value of the human individual. In a recent eulogy before the Israel Academy, Flusser’s son Yohanan recounted stories of his father’s concern and actions on behalf of the poor and the helpless. His is the legacy of a man who felt that study of the past must make a difference in how we live our lives today.

Professor Flusser is survived by his wife, Chana; two sons, Yohanan and Uri; and seven grandchildren.

Who Reads the Bible?

Although 65 percent of Americans feel that the Bible answers all or most of the basic questions of life, a third of this group of believers never even reads the Bible, according to a recent Gallup poll.

The poll shows Americans deeply divided in their approaches to the Bible, with half of Americans reading the Good Book at least once a month, and 40 percent hardly ever cracking its spine. Women, older Americans, nonwhites, Republicans and political conservatives are the most likely to be found reading the Bible every week.

There’s also not much agreement about favorite books of the Bible: Psalms tops the list, but it received praise from only 13 percent of Americans. The second favorite is Genesis (9 percent), followed by the Gospel of Matthew (7 percent), the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation (6 percent each), Proverbs (3 percent), Job and the Gospel of Luke (2 percent each). So much for Marcan priority: This least favorite of the Gospels received only 1 percent of the vote. Curiously, a small portion of Americans (less than 1 percent) voted for a book that BR has never even heard of: the Book (or is it a Gospel?) of Joseph.

Meanwhile, Barna Research, a Christian polling company, has conducted its own research on the way Americans read—and misread—the Bible. According to their study, about 40 percent of Americans believe the entire Christian Bible—including the Old and New Testaments—was written several decades after Jesus’ death. (BR readers know that not even the group of Bible scholars known as the minimalists would dare go this far.)

Thirty percent of Americans aren’t sure which Testament the prophecies of Isaiah appear in; 10 percent are confident (but wrong) that it is a New Testament book. And 12 percent of adults (not children!) believe that Noah’s wife was named Joan of Arc.

Links to the results of both polls may be found on our Web site: www.biblereview.org.

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Just Published

With folks like David Noel Freedman churning out five books a year (see story, below), it can be difficult, if not impossible, to keep abreast of the latest writings in the field of biblical scholarship. To get a better sense of who’s publishing what (and how it’s being received by their colleagues), check out the on-line Review of Biblical Literature at www.bookreviews.org.

Published by the Society of Biblical Literature and edited by Marvin Sweeney of Claremont Graduate School, the digital journal aims to be the most comprehensive source for reviews of recent works of biblical scholarship. It covers research on the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, extrabiblical writings, the ancient Near East, early Judaism and Christianity. It includes reviews of monographs as well as reference works, commentaries, dictionaries and Bible translations. The database currently features hundreds of reviews written by academics for academics.

The database can be searched by author, title or subject. Readers may request to be informed by e-mail whenever reviews are added, which happens pretty often (about 40 reviews were submitted in one recent month). A print version of the magazine is available by contacting the Society of Biblical Literature, PO Box 2243, Williston, VT 05495–2243; phone: 877–725-3334; fax: 802–864-7626.

Can Bible Scholarship Beat Bodice Rippers?

At the time of her death at age 98 last May, the British romance novelist Dame Barbara Cartland was, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world’s top-selling author, with 723 published books and more than a billion sales. Cartland also had the somewhat dubious honor of having the longest listing in Who’s Who in America.

With her passing, who will receive this torch?

Cartland’s unlikely heir just might be David Noel Freedman, who has written, edited, cowritten or coedited somewhere between 250 and 300 books. A professor in the Judaic Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego, Freedman is editor in chief of the highly respected Anchor Bible commentary series and The Anchor Bible Dictionary. His current listing in Who’s Who stands at 108 lines, only 18 lines shorter than Dame Cartland’s, and at the young age of 78, Freedman is still going strong. In recent years, Freedman has produced on average one book every two and a half months.

Of course, Cartland’s is a tough act to follow. Will titles like Early Hebrew Orthography and The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll ever be able to compete with Cartland’s Love Pirate, Hell-cat and the King, and Bored Bridegroom?

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The Bible in the News

As reported in a recent issue of BR, the Bible is alive and well in the daily press.^a My admittedly unscientific and inexhaustive research indicates that the so-called liberal press is turning to the Bible in droves—especially when they need a catchy headline or metaphor. The following appeared last year in the New York Times:

Most Reassuring Reference to Exodus: An elderly couple from New York City, now living in Florida but visiting their old hometown, sought to persuade an unsympathetic Manhattan bus driver to let them off at an unscheduled stop. Success at last: “Like the Red Sea parting, the doors opened. We hopped off, then waved our thanks to the driver. He stared straight ahead, denying any complicity in the near miracle that had occurred.”

Best (or, Perhaps, Worst) News for Creationists: “Human Family Tree: 10 Adams and 18 Eves.”

Most Bizarre Comparison Between the Bible and the Cinema: “The movie [Dr. T and the Women, starring Richard Gere as the good gynecologist] is a frothy, slapdash riff on the biblical book of Job, with the garish opulence of modern Dallas standing in for ancient Uz. Sully [Gere’s character] has clearly been blessed by fortune.”

Most Overwrought Comparison Involving (But Not Limited to) the Bible: This describes the reaction of AOL’s president to the news that his on-line service had sold half a million subscriptions to Time Inc. magazines: “To an audience of magazine executives who privately spoke of their willingness to crawl on their naked bellies through the Gobi desert for a dozen paid subscribers, the news came like a long frosty drink of Evian. Relief-magazine subscribers via the Internet! 500,000 of them! Manna from heaven!—was in sight.”

David Flusser (1917–2000)

After a period of declining health, biblical scholar David Flusser succumbed to heart failure in Jerusalem on September 15, his 83rd birthday.