06-04-2013, 07:09 PM
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Contributor
Join Date: Jun 2000
Location: Los Angeles area
Posts: 40,549
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Dead Sea Scrolls in Tax Court
An interesting footnote to the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls, from Forbes' tax blog:
A Bit Of Ancient History Dead Sea Scrolls In Tax Court
Quote:
... A trader in one of the bazaars was a Syriac Orthodox Christian and he thought that Archbishop Samuel would know what they were. One of the kids showed up at the Monastery of St. Mark and was sent on his way. The Archbishop was told that a tough looking Arab with some dirty old rolls had been looking for him. He decided to look into it further and ended up with four of the scrolls.
Archbishop Samuel was sent by the Church to help it grow in the United States. There were only three Syriac Orthodox parishes in the United States, one of them in Worcester, which is why the Archbishop, who became known as Mar Samuel, spent so much time in Worcester. The Manoog family, which was active in the parish, had a bedroom reserved for him in their home and that is where the four scrolls were stored for most of the period from 1949 to 1954. Mar Samuel would be appointed Patriarchal Vicar to the United States and Canada and, in 1957, Archbishop of the newly created Archdiocese of the United States and Canada. He did such a good job of growing the Church, that after his death in 1995, the Archdiocese was divided into three. The proceeds from the sale of the Dead Sea Scrolls played a role.
The Archbishop did not have a lot of luck in getting institutions interested in the scrolls. It was his co-trustee, Charles Manoog who hit on the idea of advertising the scrolls in the Wall Street Journal. ...
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