The American Jewish Archives Journal, Volume LXI 2009, Number 1

173Samuel Sandmel, “Judaism, Jesus and Paul: Some Problems of Method in Scholarly Research,”
in Vanderbilt Studies in the Humanities Volume 1, ed. Richmond C. Beatty, J. Philip Hyatt, and
Monroe K. Spears (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1951), 220–250.
174Professor Norman Golb indicated in a conversation on 25 May 2008 that when he arrived
at the College as a new faculty member in 1958 no courses on the scrolls were offered, and he
volunteered to fill the lacuna.
175For Sandmel’s declaration of the antiquity of the scrolls see, for example, A Jewish Understanding
of the New Testament (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1956), 201, and “The Jewish Scholar and Early
Christianity” (1967), reprinted in his Two Living Traditions (Detroit: Wayne State, 1972), 17.
176In more sober terms he published a similar idea the same year: “The Dead Sea Scrolls serve
conspicuously in undermining the limitations on, and the uncertainties in, our knowledge [of
first century Judaism]; they do not materially increase our specific knowledge, but only offer
some corroboration of what was already known.” Samuel Sandmel, A Jewish Understanding of
the New Testament (Cincinnati: HUC Press, 1957), 201.
177 “Dead Sea Scrolls: Sharp Divergences in Scholarly Views,” The Montreal Star (9 February
1956): 12; and, Douglas J. Wilson, “Biblical Study Intensified: Debate Goes on About the Dead
Sea Scrolls,” The Montreal Star (11 February 1956): 10.
178 “Dead Sea Scrolls Held Overvalued,” The New York Times (6 February 1956): 25. The same
article was reprinted in the Canadian national press as, “Caution Urged by Theologians,” The
Globe and Mail (7 February 1956): 10. Sandmel was not the only HUC-JIR faculty member
to publicly criticize Wilson. In reviewing Wilson’s book, Harry Orlinsky noted, “If you want
to know the whole truth about how, when, where and by whom the Dead Sea Scrolls were
discovered, Wilson’s Chapter I … is not recommended; it is incomplete and misleading in several
important matters. If you want to know what Jewish group, or groups, wrote these scrolls, you
had better not rely on what he has to say in his chapter II.” He continues chapter by chapter,
liking only chapter III on the monastery at Qumran “because Wilson knows how to describe
men and things and nature.” Harry Orlinsky, “Author Wilson Played the Role of Advocate,”
In Jewish Bookland (May 1956): 2.
179Edmond Wilson, “A Reporter at Large: The Scrolls from the Dead Sea,” The New Yorker 31,
no.13 (14 May 1955): 45–121.
180Edmund Wilson, The Scrolls from the Dead Sea (New York: Oxford University Press,
1955).
181Lawrence Schiffman, “Inverting Reality: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Popular Media,” Dead
Sea Discoveries 12, no.1 (2005): 27. On the volumes’ reception by scholars see Shalom Goldman,
“A Long Affair: Edmund Wilson on Judaism, the Hebrew Language, and the American Jewish
Community,” Modern Judaism 12, no.2 (2001): 119–120.
182On 6 February 1956, references appeared in The Des Moines Tribune, The Baltimore Sun,
The New York Times, and The Rochester Times Union. In the days following they were reported
in The Springfield Ohio News, The Omaha Morning World-Herald, The Two-Rivers Wisconsin
Reporter, Canada’s Globe and Mail, The Worcester Massachusetts Gazette, The Flint, Michigan
Journal, The Montreal Jewish Chronicle, Cincinnati’s The American Israelite, Philadelphia’s Jewish
Exponent, and Baltimore’s The Jewish Times.
183John Hillaby, “Christian Bases Seen in Scrolls,” The New York Times (5 February 1956): 2.
184On McGill’s purchase see Jason Kalman and Jaqueline Du Toit, Canada’s Big Biblical Bargain:
A History of McGill University’s Purchase of the Dead Sea Scrolls (forthcoming).
185Until recently the only preserved copy of the lecture was found in the library of Christ the
King Seminary in East Aurora, New York. I am grateful to the seminary for making a copy of
the lecture available to me.
186 “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament,” 2.
187 Ibid., 2–3.
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