BARlines

Obituary

Morton Smith, Controversial Historian, Dies

Morton Smith, a member of BAR’s Editorial Advisory Board and a leading authority on ancient religions and magic, died of heart failure on July 11, 1991, at the age of 76. An outspoken critic of the Dead Sea Scroll editors who denied access to other scholars, Smith was a professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, where he had taught since 1957.