Frank Moore Cross

[View from Here]

According to a comment posted at http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/christian-fundamentalism-and-dead-sea-scrolls-san-diego?page=1 (see Comment of Dec. 30 by gfsomsel and response by Charles Gadda), Dr. Cross has passed away.  Is this true? I wasn't able to find anything about it on-line, but I did hear he didn't make it to San Diego this year.

[GeoffHudson]

I am also concerned about the so-called Charles Gadda who writes as though Sherlock Holmes in the cited article.  While he claims to speak authoritatively about the Scrolls, and that others are not properly qualified to do so, I am not sure that he is a real person with real qualifications himself.  In fact the citation of this article seems to be of more concern than the topic.

Secondly, there is one 'slipped-in' statement in the Gadda article that I would question -  "The scrolls were written by many different groups within ancient Judaism."  This I suggest is a smokescreen for the opposite.  And in any case what is really important is the group who lovingly deposited the scrolls, and even more important for the history, when?

[archaeologist]

i am having trouble getting the article on my computer, haditonce but it disappeared for what ever reason windows offered.

i can't find any uptodat information on him.  his website says nothing

[Admin1]

I surfed and surfed and found no evidence that FMC has passed away.

[Admin1]

I wonder if there was a mixup on the names.  FMC's former colleague John Strugnall passed away 11/30 of this year.

[archaeologist]

the same announcement is also on the BAS website:

John Strugnell, former editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls project and Professor of Christian Origins emeritus at Harvard Divinity School, died on November 30 at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Mass after a brief illness

i didn't copy the link but i am sure you can find it.

[View from Here]

"gfsomsel" has now posted another comment on the same site:

An update regarding Frank Moore Cross.  I may well have confused him in my mind with another OT scholar who died within the last year or so.  I also find no obituary and SBL has a page for donations "in memory of" or "in honor of" with Cross under "in honor of."

and Gadda has responded:

I'm very glad Dr. Cross has been resurrected, and I'm only dismayed that my piece was the occasion for his premature demise.  Perhaps you were confusing him with John Strugnell, whose death I discussed in my other article on "Peddling religious sensationalism in America"? (Incidentally, thank you again for your comments there on Thomas Jefferson.)

[I omit two other paragraphs in which Gadda attacks Cross for making false claims about an ostracon and for assenting to the (apparently illegible) word "Jesus" purportedly found on an ossuary in Jerusalem.  Out of curiosity, I went and found the remarks on Thomas Jefferson, they are really quite hilarious.  http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/jesus-judas-and-dead-sea-scrolls-peddling-religious-sensationalism-america (another back-and-forth between "gfsomsel" and Gadda at the bottom of the page).]