Adolfo Roitman on the Early Life of Abraham

[maklelan]

I just returned from a lecture given by Adolfo Roitman, the curator of the Shrine of the Book, where the Dead Sea Scrolls are housed. Dr. Roitman is an excellent speaker and a wonderful scholar, and something gave me a chuckle that I thought was worth sharing. He gave us a handout that had on it his entire Powerpoint presentation, wherein he discusses the origin and development of certain ideas about Abraham's early life (such as the notion that he was the first monotheist, that he was an active missionary, that he was an iconoclast, that he suffered for his monotheism, etc.). The last page of his handout was a brief bibliography. There were only about five or six titles on the bibliography, but the name Tvedtnes jumped out at me. Sure enough, Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham, out of Provo, UT, was one of the few books he put on the bib. I had to laugh. I thought to myself, "If only he knew what non-scholars knew about the academic worthlessness of FARMS publications." He, of course, knows very well a particular BYU professor who has been very closely associated with Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship. I'm having dinner with Dr. Roitman tomorrow and look forward to an enjoyable and lively discussion. Just thought I'd share that.

[volgadon]

Lovely.

[WalkerW]

Return and report.

[Joseph Antley]

You must be mistaken. No real scholar would even give a second glance to a FARMS publication.

[maklelan]

Return and report.

He's an incredibly fun guy, and he's from Argentina, so I got to us some Castellano. He basically has free reign of the Dead Sea Scrolls and is currently interested in distance learning (online conferencing and stuff like that) to disseminate information on the scrolls. He gave a nice lecture that night on the development of Satan from the serpent in Genesis and on down in literature and art.

[Ron Beron]

He's an incredibly fun guy, and he's from Argentina, so I got to us some Castellano. He basically has free reign of the Dead Sea Scrolls and is currently interested in distance learning (online conferencing and stuff like that) to disseminate information on the scrolls. He gave a nice lecture that night on the development of Satan from the serpent in Genesis and on down in literature and art.

I would have loved to have heard that. Does he have any publications written on the subject?

[maklelan]

I would have loved to have heard that. Does he have any publications written on the subject?

Not that I'm aware of. He's presented this paper at a few different places, but I've not seen it published anywhere.