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

acquisition of a set of negatives of the scrolls in 1969, remained largely secret
until the 1990s and is discussed in greater detail below.
In May 1955 Edmund Wilson boosted public awareness and interest in the
scrolls in an unprecedented way. As is clear from Sandmel’s response, a more
balanced view of the scrolls was needed. In November 1955 Glueck suggested
in a New York Times review that more balanced scholarship could be found.
The review, “New Light on the Dim Past,” discusses Burrows’s The Dead Sea
Scrolls and Eleazar Sukenik’s posthumous The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew
University. 238 That Glueck chose to discuss the books of the two men between
whom he had been asked to mediate years before is somewhat ironic. In the
case of Burrows, whose second book Glueck also reviewed in The New York
Times, these published statements suggest Glueck’s loyalty to a friend as well to
Burrows’s interpretation of the material. In the first review Glueck attempted
to increase public interest in the book—but even more so in the scrolls, by
pushing the adventure story aspect of the discovery and the early scholarship.
Glueck described the story as one of
[c]hance discovery, rich rewards, high intrigue, intemperate accusations
and flaming defense, ingenious hypotheses and illuminating facts, carbon
14 tests and laboratory examinations of leather and linen and ink, religious
pride and prejudice. 239
For Glueck, archaeology was a dangerous adventure, and he knew this aspect
would appeal to the public. Toward the end of the review he notes that Sukenik
risked life and limb to cross the border in Jerusalem to acquire the scrolls:
At the literal risk of his life, during the days and weeks of hectic negotiating
with Syrian monks and Arab merchants … Sukenik managed to secure three
of [the scrolls] … for the Hebrew University.… In the midst of [the] modern
Jewish War of Liberation, when it was worth a man’s life to attempt to cross
certain lines or be in certain areas in Jerusalem, this brave scholar ignored
shot and shell to obtain these scrolls.
The drain on his energies and heart may well have contributed to his early
death a few years thereafter. 240
In many ways, this depiction of archaeology and scroll adventures foreshadowed
Glueck’s own adventures as an archaeologist in the Negev, as reported in Time
Magazine in 1963. Noting that Glueck sometimes got shot at while searching
the desert for sites, the journalist asked Glueck why he kept returning. Glueck
replied, “There is something there … not just things to find, but the threads
of history to tie up. That is the great reward of my kind of exploring.… What
the explorer is after … is more important than his life.” 241
Optimistic, Even with the Negatives: HUC-JIR and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1948–1993 • 37