MUFONET-BBS NETWORK - MUTUAL UFO NETWORK ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

MUFONET-BBS NETWORK - MUTUAL UFO NETWORK ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS - WIRE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄż ł=START= XMT: 16:18 Wed Sep 04 EXP: 16:00 Wed Sep 11 ł ł ł łAMERICAN PROFESSORS USE COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY TO "RECONSTRUCT"ł łDEAD SEA SCROLLS ł ł ł łNEW YORK (SEPT. 4) UPI - Two American professors Wednesday ł łreleased a secret text of the Dead Sea scrolls, ending a ł łfour-decade monopoly by a small band of scholars who had ł łjealously guarded the ancient parchments in a Jerusalem ł łmuseum. ł ł ł łA majority of the 2,000-year-old scrolls had been ł łlanguishing in unpublished form since their discovery in ł ł1947 by a bedouin in the caves of Qumran in what was then ł łJordan-occupied Palestine. ł ł ł łIn publishing the first of five proposed volumes, two ł łprofessors from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, broke ł łthe lock of the tightly-knit scholars who maintain the ł łscrolls at the Rockefeller Museum in East Jerusalem, said ł łHershel Shanks, the editor of ''Biblical Archaeology ł łReview.'' ł ł ł łAccording to Shanks, 500 scrolls unearthed in Cave 4 of ł łQumram were turned over by Jordanian officials to the ł łmuseum, then called the Palestine Archaeological Museum, ł łwith a stipulation that they not be turned over to ''anyone ł łwho is circumcised.'' ł ł ł łShanks said a group of four scholars gained monopolistic ł łaccess to the scrolls after they agreed to that stipulation ł łand the scrolls were later bequeathed to a second generationł łof scholars who for the most part agreed to the terms. ł ł ł łA separate set of scrolls found in Cave 1 were ł łsurreptitiously acquired by Israel and are now displayed in ł łthe Shrine of the Book in West Jerusalem. ł ł ł łUntil the publication of the bootleg volume, only about 20 ł łpercent of the Dead Sea scrolls had been published with the ł łrest remaining inaccessible to Biblical scholars at large. ł ł ł łBut the American scholars, Dr. Ben Zion Wacholder and Martinł łAbegg, found an ingenius way to reconstruct the text withoutł łobtaining access to the original documents. ł ł ł łBy acquiring a copy of the scrolls' concordances - a list ofł łwords and phrases on file cards that describe where certain ł łwords appear in the original - the two scholars used a ł łdesktop computer to string a text together. ł ł ł łSome 50,000 of the file cards will eventually produce the ł łfive proposed volumes. ł ł ł ł''No ancient text had ever been reconstructed by computer ł łbefore,'' Wacholder said. ł ł ł ł''We can assure the public that it is close to the original.ł łBut we do not claim that it is a final edition,'' he said. ł ł''We are not saying this material is infallible. It is as ł łreliable as it is faulty.'' ł ł ł łAbegg, who developed the idea of using word-processing ł łsoftware to recreate the text, said comparisons between thisł łvolume and texts similar to the Dead Sea scrolls showed manył łof the reconstructions to be exact. ł ł ł łShanks, who for decades had lobbied for greater public ł łaccess to the ancient scrolls, got additional ammunition ł łlast November when an Israeli newspaper published a ł łvirulently anti-Semitic interview with John Strugnell, a ł łdean of the Harvard Divinity School and the scrolls' chief ł łeditor. ł ł ł łIn the interview, Strugnell described Judaism as ''a ł łhorrible religion.'' When asked what it was about the ł łreligion that bothered him, he replied, ''The fact that it ł łsurvived when it should have disappeared.'' ł ł ł łShanks, at a news conference at a Manhattan hotel, blasted ł łthe ''anti-Semitism'' of the scholars who control the ł łscrolls and described their work as ''marred by the ł łscholarly attitude of secrecy.'' ł ł ł ł''This secrecy is to my mind a breach of trust,'' Shanks ł łsaid. ''These texts do not belong to these men. The time hasł łcome for a little cultural Glasnost.'' ł ł ł łThe first volume, which contains 23 ancient manuscripts, ł łcontains almanacs, fragments of ancient calendars and names ł łof local rulers, said Wacholder, who is virtually blind and ł łstudies the Torah from memory. ł ł ł łWacholder, 67, said what distinguished the ancient Jews fromł łthe modern is a sense of ''millenialism,'' that a Messiah ł łwould arrive to save humanity. Thus, he said, the volume ł łoffers a glimpse into a social environment that bred early ł łChristianity. ł ł ł łThe text also offers glimpses into social legislation, ł łdescribes rules on how to urinate and has a section on ł łleprosy, he said. ł ł ł ł''It shows how these people understood God, the Torah, the ł łnation around them and who they were,'' Wacholder said. ł ł ł łThe volume, which is in Hebrew but with an introduction in ł łEnglish, is available from the Hebrew Union College. ł ł ł ł=END= ł