A GRINNELL PROFESSOR'S WORK ON THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS is profiled in the Des Moines Register:

Teacher gives tools to explore meaning

By MARY CHALLENDER • REGISTER STAFF WRITER • December 26, 2007

Grinnell, Ia. - There's no one else quite like Henry Wolfgang Morisada Rietz.

The Grinnell College professor of religious studies, scholar of ancient languages and member of an international team studying the Dead Sea Scrolls would no doubt consider that the ultimate compliment.

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Rietz's work with the Dead Sea Scrolls began in 1990 when he was a graduate student at Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned his master's degree in divinity and a doctorate in New Testament biblical studies.

Among his instructors was James Charlesworth, a professor of New Testament language and literature and founder of the Dead Sea Scrolls project.

Charlesworth quickly tapped Rietz to join his select team, which includes paleographers, archaeologists, chemists, imaging specialists, anthropologists and philologers from around the world.

"He was extremely gifted academically, especially with languages and Hebrew theology," Charlesworth said. "I saw an outstanding, wonderful personality who was willing to do hard work. He's the most important person to me on the team."

Rietz clearly views being involved in the project with the same excitement a UFO buff would have in winning an all-access pass to Area 51.

The scrolls have been a source of fascination and controversy among biblical scholars since 1947, when the first fragile leather and papyrus documents - which date before the time of Jesus - were discovered in caves around Qumran, about 20 miles east of Jerusalem.

Comprising tens of thousands of fragments of 800 or so works, including the oldest-known versions of the Hebrew Bible, the scrolls offer a window into life in ancient Israel at a time when Judaism was in transition and a new religion - Christianity - was being born.

The goal of the Dead Sea Scrolls project is to publish all the nonbiblical texts in 12 volumes, with the original language on one side of each page and the English translation on the other.

Twenty-two years into the effort, they're halfway there.

Serving as associate editor under Charlesworth, Rietz's main duty is to ensure consistency in the original-language texts and the translations, a task that pulls on his knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Aramaic and Syriac.

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