FLUSSER, DAVID

FLUSSER, DAVID (1917–2000), scholar of comparative religion; professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem beginning in 1962. Flusser's researches were devoted to Christianity, with a special interest in the New Testament; to Judaism of the Second Temple Period, and in particular to the dead sea scrolls ; to the josippon Chronicle, and certain associated areas. Of great prominence were his researches into the Dead Sea Scrolls and the sect which produced them, especially as the Scrolls relate to the New Testament. His article "The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity" (Scripta Hierosolymitana, 1958. is central to any consideration of these problems. He has published over 1,000 articles in Hebrew, English, German, and other languages, distinguished by a great sensitivity to currents and types of religious thought as well as by their philological analysis. His published work also includes "Blessed are the Poor in Spirit," in: IEJ, 10 (1960), 1–12; Die konsequente Philologie und die Worte Jesu (1963); De joodse oorsprong van het Christendom (1964); Yosippon: Kunteres le-Dugma (1947); Jesus in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten (1968) and Jesus (1969, 20013); and translations into French and Dutch as well as "Jesus in the Context of History" (in: The Crucible of Christianity (1969), 225–34, ed. A. Toynbee). Later books include Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (1988) and Judaism of the Second Temple Period (2 vols., 2002). In 1980 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Jewish studies.