Christian Scholar Joins Dr. Solomon Zeitlin
In Denying Antiquity of Dead Sea Scrolls

cording to Hippolytus, the Es-
(Continued from Page 1)
Archbishop became desperate as senes did not • handle any coin
-there were no buyers. The in- -of the country . . . Josephus sup-
surance premiums on the scrolls ports this view when he says
had become a burden to him, and there was no buying or selling
he had to resort to advertising among them. The subject of
thein for sale in the Wall Street money is often mentioned in the
scrolls. Again, accordtng to Jo-
.Journal.
sephus 'they considered oil defil-
"Since the scrolls are not of ing, and anyone who accidentally
great antiquity, but of the Middle comes in contact with it scours
Ages, the price paid was not. a his person.' Hippolytus is even
-`bargain' but excessive. I believe more specific. 'They do not use
that ten or fifteen thousand dol- oil, regarding it as a defilement
lars would have been a high to be anointed.' According to the
price."
scroll, 'The War Between the
Sons of Light and the Sons of
The Jewish News presents the Darkness,' the priests were
accumulated opinions of 'those anointed. Josephus and Philo and
who deny the antiquity of the later Hippolytus state that they
+64. Hebrew Scrolls and the view- laid stress upon belief in im-
points of Dr. Zeitlin in order to mortality of the soul and in re-
stimulate further research so that ward after death. There is no
the truth may be arrived at mention whatsoever in the scrolls
through additional' study. Surely, of these two points of belief,
Prof. Zeitlin is entitled to his which were cardinal among the"
day in court. It has happened be- Essenes. Again, the idea of the
fore, in the search for truth, that Messiah occurs in the scrolls,
a single person propagated it, be- whereas theEssenes did not be-
fore the world accepted his ideas. lieve in a Messiah. Josephus and
If Dr. Zeitlin is right, and not Philo state that they opposed
the Hebrew University authori-. marriage. -There is no mention of
ties and those who accept the this in the scrolls. Hence it . is
Scrolls as having been written crystal clear that the ideas in
.in antiquity, the truth must come the scrolls have no affinity what-
out eventually.
soever with those held by the
In his October ,JQR article, Dr. Essenes. The conclusion of the
Zeitlin refers to the Zadokite scholars who connect the scrolls
Fragments found in the Geniza with the Essenes is not only
Collection in Egypt and published baseless but a distortion of his-
by the late Dr. Solomon Schech- torical . facts."
• * .*
ter. He recalls that A. Buechler
was the only one who had the
Dr. Zeitlin refutes the state-
courage to say that these Frag- ments made in the New Yorker
ments were of the Middle Ages Magazine article' by Edmund
and the work of the Karaites, an Wilson. He charges that the title
opinion that was upheld by Dr. of the article by Mr. Wilson
Zeitlin. The JQR editor now re- ("wird- is neither a Strnitist, a
iterates that "the Halaka found student of old or medieval He-
in. these Fragments . . could brew, nor a =, student of the Old
pot have been written in the pre- or New Testament, but a literary
Christian period." Dr. Zeitlin critic and journalist"), "A Re-
states with reference to the use, porter at Large," is "a mis-
in the Fragments, of the term nomer, He presented only one
"Covenant of Abraham" for cir- viewpoint. His article is biased
cumcision:
and full Of distortions and falsifi-
"This term came into vogue in cations of facts. Propaganda is a
the second century CE. Resort to powerful weapon in spreading
the words 'Covenant of Abra- faulty doctrines, and it must be
ham' was in opposition to Paul combatted."
Pointing to the widespread be-
who denied the necessity of cir-
cumcision. He maintained that lief in the antiquity of the He-
God had made a covenant with brew Scrolls and to the view that
Abraham before the latter was since a majority believes it
circumcized. The first person must be right, Dr. Zeitlin quoted
who applied the term 'Covenant Professor Lacheman who said,
of Abraham' to circumcision was "Scholarship is not counted by
R. Eleazar of Modin. Hence the noses." He calls attention to other
words Brith Abraham—`Coven- historical misrepresentations, to
ant of Abraham' — as synony- the hoax of the "Piltdown Man"
mous with circumcision show in England which was exposed
clearly that the Fragments had in 1953 by the paleonthologist
been written much later than the Franz Weidenreich, to the false-
hood in the days of Shabbetai
destruction of the Temple."
* *- *
Zevi, to distortions and emenda-
Prof. Zeitlin makes these tions made in documents to ren-
points: "If one assigned to der ancient texts into modern
Shakespeare the authorship of a language.
newly found manuscript wherein • Use made by Mr. Wilson of
there were words like telephone, the Dupont-Sommer reference to
automobile, Reds, Pinks, etc. and the "Teacher of Righteousness
reference was made to laws who was executed by the Jews"
which were enacted in the time is especially resented by • Prof.
of Victoria, would any student of Zeitlin who insists "there was no•
'English literature regard the such" teacher, that he was a fic-
'manuscript as authentic? A simi- titious invention. He declares:
lar reason applies with respect to
"This passage was unquestion-
' our scrolls. Also, the modern ably interpolated by a Christian
method of punctuation, such as and refers to Jesus. Dupont--
a line drawn over a word to in- Sommer invented a Messiah and
dicate that the author omitted a libeled the Jews accusing them
word; a connecting line between of committing a crime in killing
two words to indicate that there a godly man; and Wilson re-
is to be no space between the peated this - falsification. Unfor-
two words, show that the scrolls tunately, many readers might ac
are of the medieval. period. Ideas, cept his statement as a historical
words, phrases and the halakot fact and believe that the Jews
are parallel to those in karaitic were murderers during the Sec-
literature; hence it is evident ond Commonwealth ' and killed
that these scrolls were written Mqssiahs, Christs: Mr. Wilson and
by some group of the Karaites.- the editors of the New Yorker
We may even say they were rep- owe an apology to their readers
resentative of a seceding group and a retraction for repeating
of the karaitic sect, and the time such a libelous story."
could be from the seventh cen-
Dr. Zeitlin adds: "Mr. Wilson
tury and down."
did not render a service in the
The matter of the Essenes, cause of good. journalism. He did
about whom much has been not give a report but indulged in
written in relation to the scrolls propaganda and presented only
(a series of articles on he sub- one side of the picture . . . He
ject has just been published in did not interview Professor
Christian Century), again is Driver while he was in England.
raised by Prof. Zeitlin in his When he was in Jerusalem he
October JQR article. Let us did not interview those who dis-
quote him again:
counted the antiquity of the
"According to the Zadokite scrolls . . . Wilson gives a de-
Fragments it was prohibited to tailed description of the Bedouin
sell beasts or birds to gentiles. who supposedly discovered the
According to Josephus, the mem- scrolls. Incidentally, who related
bers of the Essene Order had 'no the whole story to him of the
private property . . . Further, ac- discovery? T h e contrabandist
cording to Philo they had no himself or someone in his name?
slaves, but according to the Z. F. He, however, never mentions the
• there was a prohibition against letter by Mr. Harding to Mr.
selling to the gentiles a slave Hamilton wherein he stated that
who , had been circumcized. Ac- Dr. Trever told him of three

scrolls which had been in the
possession of the Convent of St.
Mark for about twenty years.
This letter is very important for
solving the enigma of the dis-
coveries of the scrolls. Wilson
ignored it because it did not fall
in with his tendentious article."
Wilson's quotation from Haber-
mann of the "fear of impairing
the authority of the Masoretic
text, and also a resistance to ad-
mitting that the religion of Jestis
could have grown in an organic
way, the product of traceable
sequence of pressures and in-
spirations out of one branch of
Judaism," is answered by Dr.
Zeitlin: "Both assertions are
totally wrong: He particularly
Mentioned me as one of those
who oppose the antiquity of the
scrolls for these reasons. I have
never upheld the sanctity of the
so called Masora; on the con-
trary, I ha -ve- maintained that
many of the biblical readings
'found. in the rabbinic literature
are preferable. As to the religion
of Jesus, I have shown in my
writings that Christianity is the
outgrowth of views held by the
apocalyptic Pharisaic sect."
Blasting at the propaganda to
prove that the scrolls belong to
antiquity, Prof.• Zeitlin declares:
"I have endeavored to show
that the scrolls are not of the
pre-Christian era and I have
asked my opponents to refute
me. A • prominent biblical
scholar told me that my argu-
ments as well as my questions
will be ignored: This is under-
standable; it is an easy way
out, but we have to 'bear in
mind that truth cannot be sup-
pressed for long. Propaganda
cannot fool the people all • the
time." .
Perhaps the most important
Christian refutation of the claims
of the antiquity of the scrolls is
Dr. Driver's. ,.. In his pamphlet
"The Hebrew Scrolls," he offers
a thorough analysis,' lists many.
facts to substantiate his doubts
and makes these assertions:
"All the evidence here adduced
apears to show that the 'terminus
post quem' for the state of the
Scrolls must be sought: after the
Tannaitic period, when the Vul-
gaertexte had not yet been alto-
gether eliminated and a single
official text approaching that of
the eventual Maioretic text was
emerging; this suggests a period
between the Mishnah and the
T a 1-m u d, somewhere between
A. D. 200 and A. D. 500. A date
towards the end rather than -the
beginning of this period is indi-
cated especially by the late forms
of the pronomial suffixes of the
singular second person and by
the division of the text into
longer and shorter paragraphs;
and nothing in the Scrolls is in-
consistent with such a date. This
period was one of great scholarly
activity, but it was also one when
classical words and expressions
might be misunderstood and
when. Rabbinic terms might be
used by an author imitating. the
ancient language. The 'terminus
ante quem', if the story of Ori-
gen's manuscripts found at or
near Bethlehem is discounted and
if the collection of manuscripts
discovered in the cave of which
Tomotheus speaks is identical
with the present collection, will
be c. A. D. 800. (If such a date
should come to k disproved by
external evidence, it would com-
pel a drastic reconsideration of
current views of the develop-
ment of the Hebrew language
and the growth of the canonical
text of the Old Testament). Such
a date, though itself too late,
would allow the Scrolls to be
brought into line with the other
earliest-known Hebrew docu-
ments, which' are papyri of the
sixth. and se v enth centuries A. D.
and -would leave time for the
final elimination of all variant
texts before the oldest Biblical
manuscripts hitherto know n;
these are a codex of the Prophets
of A. D. 895 at Aleppo and an-
other of A. D. 916 at Leningrad,
while the earliest complete man-
uscript of the Hebrew Old Testa-
ment, also . at .,leppo, is dated
A. D. 1008."
Taking up the question of the
jars in which the scrolls are said
to, have been found, Dr. Driver
dismisses . claims of their • an-
tiquity as "devoid of evidence"
and states that "if the jars were

-

Einstein College of Medicine Starts
Classes Sept. 12; Dedication Oct. 23

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The Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University
opens this month as America's newest medical college and the
first under Jewish auspices to be established in Amercia. Its first
class drawn from every racial and religious group and from all
parts of the country and abroad, begins its studies on Sept. 12.
The college will be formally dedicated at ceremonies Sunday,
Oct..23. This photograph is a portion of the model of the college.
Classes will be held in the teaching-research building (right), now
nearing completion. Library-auditorium wing, (left) is still to be
constructed.

Community Schools Resume
Jewish Studies This Month

Summer vacation ended this
week for youngsters in. the corn-
.munity when they began the
march back to public schools.
Our -• community schools, like-
wise, are ending their recesses,
and will begin studieS in the near
future.
Some of the community and
congregational schools which will
open shortly are listed in the
paragraphs below:
Temple Israel School
Almost..- 1,200 boys and girls
between -four and 18 will return
to classes of the Temple Israel
Religious School this Sunday.
The school occupies three
buildings: the Hampton School,
Warrington at Pickford; Bagley
School, Curtis and Greenlawn;
and the temple building, itself.
All previously enrolled pu-
- pits have been assigned class-
rooms by mail. Parents regis-
tering new students are asked
to join them Sunday morning,.
at any of the school buildings.
Parents may enroll themselves
as .members of Temple Israel at
the same time they register their
children.
The confirmation class will
meet at 9:30 'a.m., Saturday, in
the temple's main building.
Ahavas Achim School
Registration for the new He-
brew school of Ahavas Achim are
being taken from 10 a.m. to 10
p.m., daily, at the synagogue of-
fice, 19190 Schaefer.
Four main divisions are
planned for the daily school: be-
ginners, advanced, - Bar Mitzvah
group and special classes for
seventh grade and confirmation
girls.
Rabbi Joseph Hirsch, of the
United Hebrew Schools staff,
heads the faculty of 13 teachers
who will instruct pupils in the
congregation's religious school,

which opens Sept. 27.
The latter classes are held at
Vernor Public School, Pembroke
and Tracey, and are open to non-
members of the synagogue. -
United Jewish Folk Schools- -
Classes of the Folk Schools
have moved to the Northwest
section, and will be held in the
MacDowell Public School, 4201
W. Outer Dr'., until the comple-
tion of the new Labor Zionist
Bldg., Schaefer and 7 Mile.
Classes will begin at 4 p.m.,
Monday. Transportation is pro-
vided. Information on registra
tion may be obtained by callidg
TO. 8-9280, from 12 noon to 4
p.m., daily.
Temple Beth El School
Dr. Norman Drachler, educa-
tional direCtor of Temple Beth
El, announces that an• education
workshop for school faculty mem-
bers will be held from 9:15 a.m.
to 12:30 p.m., Sunday.
The sessions, which will in-
clude discussions on "The Uses
of Audio-Visual Materials in
Classrooms," "Jewish Current
Events," "Lesson Planning" and
"Objectives of Jewish History,"
will be in preparation for the
religious school opening on
Sept. 24 and 25.
Primary, intermediate, confir-
mation and high school instruc-
tors will be briefed -on teaching
methods at the workshop. Dr:
Richard C. Hertz will speak on
"Today's Challenge to the Jewish
Teacher."
Mrs. Allen Bernstein and
Ruben Selitsky, supervisors in
the religious school, will conduct
orientation sessions. Rabbi Min-
andKlein will meet with high
school teachers. Burton Fried-
man, chairman of the religious
school committee, and. Benjamin
Wilk, Beth El president, will
greet the teachers.

specially made for the safe cus-
tody of manuscripts, they might
have served this purpose not in
a cave where fugitives were con-
cealing their greatest treasures
. . . but as book-cases in some
'synagogue or school. If so, they
might have lasted in use for cen-
turies, and old manuscripts as
they wore out might have been
replaced by new copies not once
•but often as time went on; this
suggestion would incidentally ex-
plain why the Scroll could be
reasonably assigned to different
dates."

B. C., A. D. 70 and 135) nor even
from those of the Persians (A.D.
614) or, of the Arabs (A. D. 637)
but perhaps merely from some
local tumult caused by racial or
religious hatred of which history
has preserved no record."
* * *
_
Presentation of all the facts
concerning the scrolls is essen-
tial, in order to prevent giving
undue status to records that may,
if Drs. Zeitlin and Driver and
their suporters are right, really
be hoaxes and falsifications. Let
us search for the truth — and
insist upon its acceptance!
—P• S.

In his conclusion, Dr. Driver
speaks of ancient caves which
were used by . Jews as hiding
places for their persons and man-
uscripts, in times of invasions .of
Palestine or during persecutions,
and he offers this additional in-
teresting viewpoint:

"Palestine has had a long and
troubled history, and the fugi-
tives who hid these Scrolls in
the case near Jericho might be
fleeing not from the persecution
which Antiochus Epiphanes set
in' motion (165 B. C.) nor from
the invasions of the Romans (63

,

.

Israel Makes 13th Payment
U.S. Loan of $135,000,000
WASHINGTON (JTA)
government of Israel made its
13th installment payment of
$3,180,000 to the Export-Import
Bank on account of principal and -
interest on the Bank's loans of
$135,000,000 made to Israel in
1949 and 1950.

28—DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Friday, September 9, 1955