Biographical Memoirs Volume 91 (2009) / Chapter Skim
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WILLIAM FOXWELL ALBRIGHT
WILLIAM FOXWELL ALBRIGHT
Pages 2-29
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Photo Courtesy of Ferdinand Hamburger Jr. Archives, Johns Hopkins University.
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The word "genius" is not used lightly here. Albright was a master of so many disciplines linked to the study of the ancient Near East, in particular the world of the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)
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and was published as a book by the American Schools of Oriental Research. Albright wrote with authority on the then developing field of ancient Near Eastern studies at a time when some of the most important discoveries were being made in the Holy Land (today's Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, southern Syria, and the Sinai peninsula)
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It is ironic that Albright chose to be a member of its Anthropology Section, since his quarrels with anthropologists of different schools were well known at the time. Albright's scholarly authority in ancient Near Eastern studies was so profound that the intellectual paradigm that he helped create, biblical archaeology rooted in a fairly literal interpretation of the history embedded in the Old Testament, was unchallenged during his lifetime.
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YOUTH AND EDUCATION William Foxwell Albright was born in Coquimbo, Chile, on May 24, 1891. Albright's parents, Wilbur and Zephine, were earnest Christians and strict Methodists who before having children applied to the Methodist Episcopal Mission Board to work as missionaries on behalf of the church.
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Haupt's home in Baltimore writing terrifying exams for the Thayer Fellowship on Syriac, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and German; Hebrew Bible Literature and Criticism; geography; archaeology; history; and epigraphy. By the summer of 1916 Albright passed his oral exam and was awarded the Ph.D.
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Instead of rushing off to Palestine (ever since Albright was a boy he had worried that all the archaeological sites would be discovered before he arrived in the Holy Land) , he held off for another half year and was made a Johnston scholar from Hopkins -- an additional $1,200 to help the young scholar embark on what would become his life's intimate connection with Palestine.
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BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY Albright's most enduring legacy is his contribution to the establishment of a new paradigm of ancient Near Eastern studies called biblical archaeology. More than any other scholar Albright's astounding corpus of books, articles, and public lectures defined a new relationship between
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His 50-year odyssey of scholarly activity that resulted in a well-conceived and powerful scholarly paradigm began when Albright challenged the then dominant paradigm of Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) studies established by Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918)
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Albright's definition of biblical archaeology reflects his intellectual approach to investigating the historical underpinnings of the Hebrew Bible: to situate ancient Israel in the broad traditions of the ancient Near East based on a comparative approach using both ancient texts and material culture. Albright and his students, such as Nelson Glueck, had a significant influence during the inter-war years on American culture that included helping to shape the structure of curricula (theological, biblical, and ancient Near Eastern studies)
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There is no consensus on why Albright chose this site and not one of the more famous ancient mounds that retain clear links to the Hebrew Bible: places like Hazor, Gezer, and Dan. Early on, Albright proposed identifying Tell Beit Mirsim with biblical Debir (Kiriath-Sepher)
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While scholars continue to debate whether Tell Beit Mirsim is indeed biblical Debir, the importance of Albright's research at the site stems from his studies of the ceramic material from the Middle Bronze through Iron Ages that made it the type site for Palestinian archaeology for more than 60 years. Albright built his ceramic analysis of the material from Tell Beit Mirsim on the 1890 work of the great British archaeologist Sir Flinders Petrie at Tell el-Hesi located on the edge of the Negev coastal plain.
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These studies, presented in four volumes, became the foundation for the ceramic typology and chronology for the Holy Land still utilized today. Albright's typological study collection of Tel Beit Mirsim is still housed in the basement at the American Schools of Oriental Research facility in Jerusalem that now bears his name: the W
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As these two regions are part of the same geographic territory where so much of the Hebrew Bible narrative takes place, Albright's ceramic work at Tell Beit Mirsim was the single most important research tool enabling the historical archaeology of the Holy Land to take on even more importance than it previously held. During Albright's tenure as director of the American School of Oriental Studies in Jerusalem from 1921 to 1929 (and semiannually from 1932 to 1935)
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Albright studied the Proto-Canaanite inscriptions found by Petrie in the southwestern Sinai Peninsula and first published by Alan Gardiner in 1916 as well as a small number of examples found in Palestine. ALBRIGHT AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947-1948, Albright was the first scholar to authoritatively assess them as "the most momentous discovery in modern times pertaining to the Bible." Like the discovery of the early East African
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100 CE. It was his prowess as an epigrapher specialized in Northwest Semitic scripts, especially all the known variants of ancient Hebrew, that "pre-adapted" Albright to immediately understand the great significance of the scrolls shortly after their discovery by some Ta'mireh Bedouin shepherds in caves around the western shore of the Dead Sea.
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As editor of the Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research, Albright published an article in the April 1948 volume announcing the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the October 1949 volume Albright himself published one of the first scholarly articles on the scrolls' discovery, entitled "On the Date of the Scrolls from Ain Feshkha and the Nash Papyrus," that included a good infrared photograph of the Nash Papyrus for comparison.
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Albright's early assessment of the antiquity of the Dead Sea Scrolls played a critical role in determining the authenticity of this remarkable discovery, their importance for future scholarly research as well as their rapid purchase for museums in Israel and Jordan and their ultimate conservation for future generations. IN CONCLUSION While Albright made very few scholarly mistakes in his life, he himself described one or another admitted errors as beauties.
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Albright deeply influenced the development of archaeology in the newly founded state of Israel, where his biblical archaeology paradigm continues to play a role in shaping research directions and the study of historical archaeology at the major institutions, such as the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv University, Bar Ilan University, Ben Gurion University, and other organizations where the aim is to situate biblical history in the greater context of the ancient Near East by taking an interdisciplinary approach as first advocated by Albright. Similarly, in the United States and a number of European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Norway, the United Kingdom, and others)
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W Spence Professor of Oriental Languages, Johns Hopkins University 1930-1968 Editor, Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research 1932-1935 Director, semiannual basis, American School of Oriental Research, Jerusalem 1937 Publishes study of Nash Papyrus establishing basis for authenticating Dead Sea Scrolls 1946 Visiting professor, University of Chicago 1947-1948 Authenticates the Dead Sea Scrolls 1947-1948 University of California African Expedition to Sinai Peninsula with Wendell Phillips 1949-1950 Expedition to Saudi Arabia with Wendell Phillips 1955 Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 1956 Establishes the Anchor Bible commentary series with D
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American School of Oriental Research International Organization of Old Testament Scholars (president, 1956-1957) Palestine Exploration Society (president, 1921-1922, 1934-1935)
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1987. New light on the Early Iron Age at Tell Beit Mirsim.
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2-3:1-46. 1924 Contributions to biblical archaeology and philology.
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48:10-13. The Excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim.
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Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 1943 The excavation of Tell Beit Mirsim.
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The chronology of the Dead Sea Scrolls, postscript. In The Dead Sea Manual of Discipline, Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Supplementary Studies, ed.
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1955 Some Canaanite-Phoenician sources of Hebrew wisdom. In Wisdom in Israel and in the Ancient Near East (Rowley Festschrift)
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In Cambridge Ancient History, vol.
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