Returning in an urn

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The story of the urn begins at the prestigious École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem. On March 31 I was privileged to attend part of their Qumran Day, a day of lectures in memory of John Strugnell.
Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls the scholars at the School of Biblical and Archeological Studies have been deeply involved in the translation and interpretation of the texts. The original Scrolls team was appointed in the early 1950s by Jordan. (The Ecole is on Nablus Road in East Jerusalem, formerly Jordanian territory.) Young Strugnell came to the Scrolls Project in 1955 from Oxford. By 1987 he was editor-in-chief.

Photo courtesy of Fr. Jean-Michel de Tarragon

Strugnell taught at Harvard School of Divinity, but he spent his summers working on the scroll fragments at the Ecole Biblique. So it seemed right that after his death, late in 2007, his ashes would be brought from the United States to Jerusalem.
The Ecole is with the Priory of St. Stephen. Its monks are the teachers. The Dominicans are the Order of Preachers.
Here in the photo (courtesy of Fr. Jean-Michel) the brothers sing from the rite (in Latin and French) as a schola (choir) in the burial place.

Photo by Fr. Jean-Michel

Holy water was sprinkled toward the place of the entombment.

Photo by Fr. Jean-Michel

In the urn--John Strugnell's ashes.

Inside the wall in the crypt are the mortal remains of the deceased Brothers. The body is placed in a simple wooden casket. The marble marker bears the Brother's name, date of birth, date of monastic profession of vows, and date of death.

The present Dominican monastery (from the late 19th century) is built over remains of a 5th century Byzantine monastic complex. Back then the dead were buried in these ancient tombs cut in the rock. The body was buried. Cremation is not and was not allowed in Judaism and it took centuries for Christianity to begin to allow it.

You photo bloggers will enjoy meeting Brother Jean-Michel de Tarragon, here shooting with the big camera.

After getting his PhD (on Ugaritic Religious Cuneiforms Texts) at the Sorbonne, he came here and made Jerusalem his home. Until recently he served as the Prior of St. Stephen's Priory.

When he is not in a class teaching, he does photography for the institute.

He is also very enthusiastic about his project of converting between 15,000 and 18,000 glass plate negatives (from the really old-fashioned cameras) into digital pictures on compact disc.

St. Stephen's has accumulated the world's biggest private collection of old photos of Israel.

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Amazing to see the 19th and early 20th century photos of life here in this land! The country is lucky to have Frere Jean-Michel in Jerusalem.
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Interesting stuff:

A Jerusalem Post article about Professor Father Tarragon and the monastery

Ecole Biblique website in French and English
A new critique by Geza Vermes on the controversy surrounding both Strugnell and the handling of the translation and publication of the DSS
Photo of Qumran caves where the scrolls were discovered

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