Summary of Harlow Lecture

Professor Daniel Harlow of Calvin College lectured on the Dead Sea Scrolls at Central Michigan University yesterday. Central Michigan Life gives a summary:

Dead Sea Scrolls offer insight into Judaism

By Ryan Loftis
Central Michigan Life

February 16, 2005

Daniel Harlow, Calvin College associate professor of religion, spoke Tuesday evening at the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium about the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls offer proof Christians did not invent the term “Son of God,” visiting speaker Daniel Harlow said Tuesday.

“The text offers pre-Christian Jewish use of the term ‘Son of God,’” Harlow said. “Son of God is not a title for Jesus that Christians invented.”

A well-known expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Harlow gave a public lecture in the Charles V. Park Library Auditorium. His appearance was co-sponsored by the philosophy and religion department and the College of Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences.

[...]

Unfortunately, the following howler made it into the article:

About 100,000 scroll manuscripts varying in size were discovered intact. While only a dozen are readable, Harlow said they created a better understanding of the Jewish faith.

I think what Harlow actually said was that about 100,000 scroll fragments of varying sizes were found at Qumran, whereas only about a dozen manuscripts survived as reasonably intact scrolls.