John Strugnell; NY Times obit (bibllical scholar undone by anti-Semitic remarks)
Hyfler/Rosner
John Strugnell Dies at 77; Scholar Undone by His Slur
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
NY Times
John Strugnell, a respected biblical scholar at Harvard
whose tenure as the chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls
ended in controversy over anti-Semitic remarks he made in an
interview, died on Nov. 30 in Cambridge, Mass. He was 77 and
lived in nearby Arlington.
He died while hospitalized for an infection associated with
treatment of cancer, said his daughter Anne-Christine
Strugnell.
At 23, while still a student of languages at the University
of Oxford, Mr. Strugnell joined the original team of
scholars piecing together and translating the scrolls, one
of the great ancient finds of the 20th century. About 900
documents in Hebrew and Aramaic, bearing on a critical
period in the history of Judaism and the origins of
Christianity, were uncovered from 1947 to 1956 in caves near
the Dead Sea, in the West Bank.
Mr. Strugnell, who never completed his studies for a Ph.D.
at Oxford, was appointed to the faculty of the Harvard
Divinity School in 1966, becoming a professor of Christian
origins. He was made editor in chief of the scrolls project
in 1984.
Six years later, at a time when the scrolls team was coming
under sharp criticism for its exclusive control over access
to the documents and its sluggish pace of publication, Mr.
Strugnell was in Jerusalem and gave an interview to the Tel
Aviv newspaper Ha'aretz. As quoted by the newspaper, he said
of Judaism: "It's a horrible religion. It's Christian
heresy, and we deal with our heretics in different ways."
Mr. Strugnell later denied accusations of anti-Semitism,
noting that he was the first editor to have included Jewish
scholars in the project, which had been dominated by
Christians. Further, his family and colleagues disclosed
that he had been treated for manic depression and was
struggling with alcoholism.
But the damage was irreparable. He was replaced as the
scrolls editor and forced to retire from Harvard. Soon, the
project was opened to a broader spectrum of scholars and
reorganized to speed up the publication of the texts. By
2001, nearly all the scrolls had been published.
"He was horrified when he realized what he had done," said
Ms. Strugnell, his daughter in San Rafael, Calif. "His
career with the scrolls was his life."
Scholars consider the Dead Sea Scrolls a reflection of the
thinking of Jews during the turbulent period of the
beginnings of Rabbinic Judaism and the emergence of
Christianity. In his research, Mr. Strugnell personally
translated several notable texts of Jewish religious
literature, including one important document that he
completed with a former student, the Rev. Daniel J.
Harrington of the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in
Cambridge, in the years after his downfall.
Krister Stendahl, a former dean of the divinity school,
described Mr. Strugnell as "a linguistic prodigy" in
classical and Semitic languages and "a scholar's scholar,
one you would go to when you knew your own knowledge was not
enough to solve a problem."
Dr. Stendahl said that Mr. Strugnell had been plagued with
depression for much of his life and that particularly given
that struggle, it "was amazing how much research he managed
to accomplish and the large number of students he prepared
to be biblical scholars."
John Strugnell was born in Barnet, England, a suburb of
London, and became fluent in ancient and modern languages at
an early age. He graduated from St. Paul's School and earned
bachelor's and master's degrees from Jesus College at
Oxford. He was raised in the Church of England, his family
said, but later converted to Roman Catholicism. Before
joining the Harvard faculty, he taught at the Oriental
Institute of the University of Chicago and at Duke
University.
Besides his daughter in California, he is survived by his
former wife, Cecile Strugnell of Winchester, Mass.; two
other daughters, Claire Strugnell of Billerica, Mass., and
Monique O'Connell of Medford, Mass.; two sons, David, of
Billerica, and Andrew, of Arlington; a sister, Jean
McMeeking of Nottinghamshire, England; and five
grandchildren.
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