The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (1958)
Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973)
Frank Moore Cross Jr. (July 13, 1921 – October 16, 2012) was the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, notable for his work in the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls, his 1973 magnum opusCanaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and his work in Northwest Semiticepigraphy. Many of his essays on the latter topic have since been collected in Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook.
Cross was appointed associate professor in Old Testament at Harvard Divinity School in 1957. One year later, he was appointed Harvard University's Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages, the third oldest university chair in the United States. He would hold this position from 1958 to 1992, then becoming Hancock Professor Emeritus. Cross was curator of the Harvard Semitic Museum from 1958 to 1961 and director of the museum from 1974 to 1987.
Beginning June 1953, Cross was a member of the international committee responsible for editing the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had been discovered at Qumran. Cross first heard of the scrolls in late 1948 while a student at Johns Hopkins University, when he was shown pictures of the Isaiah Scroll by Albright, who would later nominate Cross to the Scrolls' editorial team.[5] On joining the team he was immediately allocated 61 biblical manuscripts from Cave 4 at Qumran to prepare for publication. Initially, this involved cleaning the manuscripts in the Palestine Archaeological Museum where they were being worked on in the "Scrollery". As with several others on the team, Cross was financially supported between 1954 and 1960 by a John D Rockefeller subsidy. Cross was one of only two American scholars on the scroll-publication team, and he has since been recognized as a founder of Qumran studies. His general introduction to the topic is The Ancient Library of Qumran, the third edition of which was published in 1995.
Death
Cross died in Rochester, New York, in October 2012 after a long illness. He was 91.[6]
Cross, Frank Moore; Freedman, David Noel (1952). Early Hebrew Orthograph: A Study of the Epigraphic Evidence (Joint PhD.). American Oriental Series. Vol. 36. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society / Johns Hopkins University. OCLC1179572.
Books
Cross, Frank Moore (1973). Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN978-0-674-09175-7. OCLC671934.
———; Freedman, David Noel (1975). Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry. Dissertation series (Society of Biblical Literature). Vol. 21. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN978-0-891-30014-4. OCLC1622259.
———; Lemke, Werner E.; Miller, Patrick D., eds. (1976). Magnalia Dei, the Mighty Acts of God: Essays On the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN978-0-385-05257-3. OCLC1975958.
———, ed. (1979). Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900-1975). Occasional publications – Zion Research Foundation. Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research. ISBN978-0-897-57503-4. OCLC4775395.
——— (1995). The Ancient Library of Qumran. Haskell lectures, Oberlin College, 1956-1957 (3rd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. ISBN978-0-800-62807-9. OCLC32719999.
——— (1998). From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN978-0-801-85982-3. OCLC38966035.
——— (2003). Leaves from an Epigrapher's Notebook: Collected Papers in Hebrew and West Semitic Palaeography and Epigraphy. Harvard Semitic Studies. Vol. 51. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. ISBN978-1-575-06911-1. OCLC50476904.
———; et al., eds. (2005). Qumran cave 4. XII, 1–2 Samuel. Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. Vol. 17. Oxford; New York: Clarendon Press. ISBN978-0-199-24923-7. OCLC48754179.
Chapters
——— (1976). "Exile and Restoration: The 'Olden gods' in ancient near eastern creation myths". In ———; Lemke, Werner E.; Miller, Patrick D. (eds.). Magnalia Dei, the Mighty Acts of God: Essays On the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN978-0-385-05257-3. OCLC1975958.
——— (1979). "The Development of the Jewish scripts". In Wright, G. Ernest (ed.). The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. ISBN978-0-931-46403-4. OCLC4964210.
——— (1979). "Early Alphabetic Scripts". In ——— (ed.). Symposia Celebrating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding of the American Schools of Oriental Research (1900-1975). Occasional publications – Zion Research Foundation. Cambridge, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research. ISBN978-0-897-57503-4. OCLC4775395.