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

to publish two articles on the scrolls. 288 He also traveled to speak at Reform
congregations to share his findings with the community. In 1961 he spoke in
the same forum in Montreal, where five years previously Sandmel declared the
scrolls inconsequential for reconstructing early Jewish and Christian history.
In contrast to Sandmel, Golb noted:
I would say that for the students of Jewish history the scrolls from Wadi
Qumran have considerable value indeed.… They show that medieval sectarianism,
while arising in response to the changing social and religious
climate of medieval Iraq and Iran, at the same time incorporated within its
midst the surviving remnants of a once-active sectarian movement which
in Talmudic times had almost faded entirely away.… With regard to the
history of religion in general: we may say that these discoveries are of considerable
importance for our knowledge of many aspects of religious life in
late Hellenistic Palestine. 289
The contrast between Golb and his faculty colleagues regarding the issue of
the scrolls was quite sharp. Golb suggests that after giving his 1959 SBL paper
on the Damscus Document, his reception from Rivkin, Sandmel, and Jacob
Rader Marcus was less than positive, although Sheldon Blank, who had attended
the meeting, was quite pleased with it. The relationship with Rivkin was damaged
further when Golb was appointed to substitute teach his history surveys,
including ancient Jewish history, while he was on leave with a Guggenheim
fellowship in 1962. 290 Whether Glueck had any influence on Golb’s choice to
teach Rivkin’s courses is impossible to say. As provost, Sandmel controlled course
assignments. The only alternative instructor for this course on ancient Jewish
history would have been Sandmel himself, and administrative affairs likely kept
him too busy to take on more teaching. Given that he already disagreed with
Rivkin on so many issues concerning ancient Jewish history, replacing him with
another colleague with whom he disagreed likely was not a terrible concern;
the core course needed to be taught. However, for a brief moment HUC-JIR
had a scholar thoroughly engrossed in scroll scholarship who used the scrolls
as reliable historical sources while teaching rabbinical students. 291
The situation was not to last. In 1963 Rivkin returned to his regular teaching,
and in mid-1963 Golb left for the University of Chicago. In his letter of
resignation, Golb suggested to Glueck that he had considered the new offer
“in view of the various circumstances prevailing at the time.” 292 At least part
of those circumstances, according to Golb, was the discontent of some of his
colleagues with his choice of research interests. 293
To replace Golb, Glueck moved Ben Zion Wacholder from the Los Angeles
campus to Cincinnati as professor of Talmud and rabbinics. Although he
published and offered courses on the scrolls as early as the 1960s, his major contributions
to scroll research and teaching came in the late 1970s and 1980s. His
Optimistic, Even with the Negatives: HUC-JIR and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1948–1993 • 45