THE "DEAD SEA SCROLLS" OF CHINA:

Grinnell professor studies ancient Chinese texts

By CHUCK SCHOFFNER, Associated Press Writer

GRINNELL, ---- Working among scholars from the likes of Harvard, UCLA and Yale, Grinnell College professor Scott Cook helps to interpret the earliest known versions of some of China's most important philosophical texts.

Cook is one of only a handful of Western scholars to be given access to the fragile strips of bamboo, unearthed in 1993 from a tomb that dates back to 300 B.C.

"We've seen a number of tombs that had texts buried within them, but this is the first time we've had philosophical texts," Cook said.

The mostly Confucian texts have been compared to the Dead Sea scrolls in their historical and philosophical significance, and their discovery has brought together scholars from both mainland China and Taiwan, as well as Ivy League schools in the United States and even Grinnell, a small school of 1,500 students about 60 miles from Des Moines.

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As Danny Zacharias has observed over at Deinde, the Dead Sea Scrolls have become a cultural icon. Calling other manuscript discoveries "the Dead Sea Scrolls of" is one of the more serious applications one finds in the media.