John Strugnell, former editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scroll project and emeritus Professor of Christian Origins at Harvard Divinity School and my father, died on November 30 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 77. His death came after a week of hospitalization for an infection.
Strugnell’s scholarship and command of ancient languages were recognized early. At age 23, while studying at Oxford, he was offered a position on the original team charged with piecing together and translating the Dead Sea Scrolls, approximately 900 documents found between 1947 and 1956 in caves near the Dead Sea. The texts have unique historical and religious significance because they include copies of Biblical documents made before 70 A.D., and because they provide evidence of diversity of beliefs in Judaism of the late Second Temple period. They also inform the Jewish roots of Christianity.
Strugnell became editor-in-chief of the Scroll project in 1984. He held the post until 1990, when his earlier achievements were overshadowed by the publication in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz (republished in English in BARa) of negative comments he made about Judaism. The project’s backers, already frustrated with the slow progress of the Scroll team and restricted access to the texts, removed Strugnell from his position.
Strugnell later denied allegations of anti-Semitism. He was the first editor-in-chief to bring Jewish scholars— Elisha Qimron and Emanuel Tov— to work on the Scroll project. He had close working relationships with many Jewish scholars, some of whom signed a letter of support in the aftermath of the publication of his comments.b He claimed his comments did not truly represent his beliefs, but were made during an acute episode of manic-depressive illness, for which he was hospitalized in early 1991.
Strugnell spent his last years doing scholarly reading and writing and visiting with colleagues and former graduate students. “My students are my legacy,” he would say. Throughout his career, he was generous in helping other scholars and students, many of whom regarded with great respect and affection the man one called, “the most human of professors.”
The texts Strugnell personally pieced together and translated are important for understanding the sect of the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They include “The Angelic Liturgy,” later published as “Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifices” (Shirot ‘olat ha-Shabbat); “An Unpublished Halakhic Letter from Qumran,” later known as MMT (from the Hebrew Miqtsat Ma’asei ha-Torah) with Elisha Qimron; and a large wisdom (sapiential) text known as “4Q Instruction” with Daniel J. Harrington.
Strugnell claimed that the original schedule for publication of the scrolls was too ambitious and failed to take into account the translators’ other academic and familial responsibilities. As editor-in-chief, Strugnell resisted mounting pressure to open up the scrolls for broader access and to take away exclusive rights from scholars who did not meet their deadlines. Instead, he brought in more scholars and reorganized the project to bring texts to publication more quickly.
Born in Barnet, England, Strugnell was fascinated by Semitic languages and religious traditions from a young age. One of his school-age contemporaries remembers he would read as he walked, 015carrying a Bible in Hebrew in one hand and occasionally referring to a dictionary in the other.
He taught at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago from 1956 to 1957, where he met his future wife, Cécile Pierlot. They lived in Jerusalem until he took a position at Duke University in 1960. In 1966 he accepted a position at Harvard, where he remained until his retirement.
Strugnell is survived by his sister Jean McMeeking, his former wife, Cécile, sons David and Andrew, daughters Anne-Christine, Claire and Monique, and five grandchildren.— Anne-Christine Strugnell
John Strugnell, former editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scroll project and emeritus Professor of Christian Origins at Harvard Divinity School and my father, died on November 30 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 77. His death came after a week of hospitalization for an infection.
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