Lunch and Learn // The Dead Sea Scrolls Discovery and its Resonance in American Popular Culture
Thursday, February 18, 2027 @ 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm
// a talk by Shalom Goldman, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Middlebury College
The discovery of Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judean Desert between 1947 and 1952, was one of the great archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century. Found in the cache were fragments of 23 of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible. Also found was a vast Jewish sectarian literature dated to the final centuries of the pre-Christian era.
Once the scrolls and fragments were collated, deciphered, and translated, the scholarly and public interest in them grew — especially in the United States. Goldman’s lecture will survey that scholarly interest and then describe two (very different!) American literary figures who wrote about the Scrolls: literary critic Edmund Wilson and popular culture visionary Philip K Dick.
— for photo of Dead Sea Scrolls: Portion of the Temple Scroll, labeled 11Q19, one of the longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Israel Museum. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
— for photo of Philip K Dick: Philip K. Dick in 1962 or earlier. Photo by Arthur Knight. Public domain via Wikimedia.
— for photo of Edmund Wilson: Edmund Wilson in 1936. Public domain via Wikimedia.
