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noted, is that a 13.1 percent with-
drawal would be a tremendous victory
for the right-wing Israeli coalition —
and Arafat was signaling his readiness
to grasp it as the best available offer.
Yet, during Ross's latest shuttle,
Netanyahu haggled over fractions of
percentage points as if Israel's very life
hinged on them. The government
offered 9 percent, well short of the
Americans' promise to the Palestinians
of a "low teens" evacuation. The
Prime Minister insisted that each one
percent of occupied land was equiva-
lent to the area of Tel-Aviv. "So,"
quipped the skeptical Labor opposi-
tion leader and former army comman-
der, Ehud Barak, "he's ready to give
up nine Tel-Avivs, but not 13."
If Barak is right and such figures do
not threaten Israel's existence, then
Netanyahu is either putting the sur-
vival of his government before the
Oslo peace — which he promised the
voters he would pursue — or he is
working to demolish the process while
blaming Arafat for failing to keep his
•
side of the bargain. The "Land of
Israel Front" of 17 coalition parlia-
mentarians threatened to bring
Netanyahu down if he relinquished
even 1 percent. The Prime Minister
was reluctant to call their bluff, even
though left-wing opposition legislators
were preparing to spread a safety net

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son
e shall be hailed as
of God, and they shall call
him the son of the most
high." It sounds like a pas-
sage from the New Testament describ-
ing Jesus Christ, but it comes from a
Dead Sea Scroll that scholars say was
written a generation before Christ was
born.
Written in Aramaic on a piece of
leather about the size of a business
envelope, the•Son of God text con-
tains language almost identical to the
New Testament account of the angel

YOUR LARGEST SOURCE OF PATAGONIA
JUST GOT BIGGER! NOW ON THE
CORNER OF LINCOLN AND ADAMS

ririr 1Pr

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MOVED
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4/3
1998

36

pjtagonia

Neil Altman is a Philadelphia-based

writer who specializes in the Dead Sea
Scrolls. David Crowder is an inves-
tigative reporter and former editorial
page editor with the El Paso Times.

®

"

`Son Of God'
In Dead Sea Scrolls

NEIL ALTMAN AND DAVID
CROWDER
Special to The Jewish News

1105 S. Adams • Birmingham, MI
248 • 723 • 9838

under any advance towards a compro-
mise peace.
Although the Likud leader's hold
on power seems more stable than ever
before, he can hardly claim to repre-
sent a national consensus. A recent
newspaper poll logged 75 percent of
Israelis wanting to continue the Oslo
process and 62 percent ready to evacu-
ate more than the government's 9 per-.
cent.
There were hints before and during
the Ross visit that Netanyahu was
putting together a more generous
package. The bait for Arafat was said
to be territorial contiguity, yielding
the Palestinians blocks of land that
would form a more credible basis for a
state (though Netanyahu would rather
have it called an "entity"). The empha- -
sis, the spin doctors explained, would
be on quality rather than quantity. But
either Arafat was not forthcoming
enough on Israel's security demands,
or Netanyahu was looking for a pre-
text to do nothing.
All may not be lost, however. The
United Nations Secretary-General,
Kofi Annan, a more tactful visitor
than Robin Cook, told the French
daily Le Figaro: "Netanyahti is prag-
matic and realistic. He will surprise
the whole world, for the better.
Perhaps he knows something we
don't. ❑

Gabriel's words to Mary in the book
of Luke.
Some scholars say the text bolsters
an increasingly popular theory that
there was little original about the
divine claims by the carpenter from
Nazareth.
But overlooked for decades is evi-
dence that the scholars are wrong and
that this little-known document —
along with other Dead Sea Scrolls —
could not have been written until well
after the rise of Christianity.
The Son of God text contains long-
ignored Hebrew vowel marks and
words written in tiny letters, neither
of which came into use until centuries.
after 25 BCE, the year that scroll
scholars speculate the Son of God text
was written.
And just as important as the physi-
cal evidence attesting to the scroll's age
are the ideas it contains and the way
they are expressed.