Theodor Herzl Gaster; Published English Version of Dead Sea Scrolls

Theodor Herzl Gaster, 85, a renowned scholar who published the first English translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Gaster published “The Dead Sea Scriptures,” the first translation of the ancient scrolls, in 1957. The book sold more than 200,000 copies. The scrolls, written by a Jewish sect around the time Christianity was founded, were discovered in a cave in 1947. His other books included “Myth, Legend and Custom in the Old Testament” and “The Oldest Stories in the World.” Gaster taught at Philadelphia’s Dropsie College (now the Annenberg Research Institute) for 30 years. He also taught at Yale University, Barnard College, Columbia University, Fairleigh Dickinson, City College of New York and the University of Florida. In Philadelphia on Feb. 2.