05-14-2004, 10:40 AM
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Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Los Angeles area
Posts: 40,549
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Samuel Iwry, Dead Sea Scrolls translator, dead at 93
Samuel Iwry Dies at 93; Scholar Helped Decode Dead Sea Scrolls
Quote:
Samuel Iwry, 93, a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls whose life story could rival the plot of an international adventure novel, died of a stroke May 8 at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.
. . .
Mr. Iwry made his mark as a scholar when he was a graduate student studying under the renowned archaeologist William Foxwell Albright at Johns Hopkins. His Hebrew language skills helped identify and verify the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
His traditional Jewish education trained him well for the task. He was born in Bialystok, Poland, and graduated from Warsaw University's Higher Institute for Judaic Studies in 1937, with accolades for his facility with Hebrew. His surname means "Hebrew" in the language, and family history says Mr. Iwry was a direct descendant of the founder of the Hasidic movement, Rebbe Israel Baal Shem Tov, who died in 1760.
<snip World War II heroics>
Albright assigned him to work on the Damascus document, a medieval Hebrew text that required someone who had a familiarity and ease with classical Hebrew.
When the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, beginning in 1948, the language in the Damascus document turned out to be so crucial to verifying the scrolls' authenticity that scholars consider its study to be the beginning of scroll scholarship.
. . .
His autobiography, "To Wear the Dust of War: From Warsaw to Shanghai to the Promised Land," will be published in August.
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