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

On 30 December The New York Times reported on the scroll sessions that had
had taken place the day before:
Disagreement among Bible scholars on the age of Old Testament manuscripts
found in 1947 in the Dead Sea area arose anew here [yesterday] at a meeting
of the Society of Biblical Literature and [E]xegesis. The meeting is being held
at Hebrew Union College. 58
According to the report, Lacheman suggested the scrolls dated between the
fourth and eighth centuries, Zeitlin placed them between the sixth and ninth
centuries, Sonne maintained a second century date, and Orlinsky to between
the fourth and eighth centuries. This last point, however, was in error. In contrast
to the others at the conference, Orlinsky refused to take a clear position
on the date of the material. Although the Times reporter was certain to note,
“Drs. Orlinski [sic] and Sonne are of the Hebrew Union College,” 59 the error in
reporting meant that the following month the College received coverage once
again, when Orlinsky responded to the Times article:
This statement constitutes fiction pure and simple! What I did say was
essentially this: The St. Mark’s Isaiah Scroll comes from a manuscript which
was copied from memory. The text of St. Mark’s agrees overwhelmingly with
the traditional Hebrew text of Isaiah. Where the text of St. Mark’s deviates
from the traditional text, it is not merely because of the carelessness of the
scribe but even more because of the faulty memory of the person responsible
for its coming into being … Some scholars have been premature in attributing
to the text of St. Mark’s an importance equal to the traditional text. In
my judgment, the Hebrew text of St. Mark’s is of negligible value so far as
reconstructing the original Hebrew text of Isaiah is concerned. The argument
of date is not involved in this study. 60
The AOS met at HUC in Cincinnati from 4 to 6 April 1950. Orlinsky
returned and gave a similar paper to the one he presented at the SBL meeting,
“The Orthography and Grammar of the St. Mark’s Isaiah Scroll.” 61 Burrows
of Yale University presented the only other paper on the scrolls. In “The Dead
Sea Discipline Scroll,” Burrows provided “a brief sketch of the contents of
this document and a few observations concerning its literary and historical
relationships, with special reference to the Damascus Covenanter’s Document.” 62
This conference did not receive the attention of the previous year’s meeting, but
collectively they indicate the activity of HUC-JIR and its faculty in supporting
Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship in its earliest stages. Additionally, the academics
who visited the College during these two conferences proved particularly
helpful to the library staff, who had compiled prior to 22 December 1949 a
bibliography of material relating to the scrolls. The staff was able to distribute
the bibliography to those visiting scholars with the hope that they would help
Optimistic, Even with the Negatives: HUC-JIR and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1948–1993 • 9