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C. S. ANDERSON
New York City
The Old Testament as News
Sir:
Your July 31 story regarding Jerusalem Chronicles, edited by Polly Van Leer, was especially interesting to me because of a similar experiment I conducted in 1914. It was, I believe, the first attempt at a portrayal of historical events as though they were current happenings reported by a modern press . . .
Some newspaper men were discussing how certain great stories of the past would have been handled had there been a press with modern facilities. I decided to toy with the idea. The result was seven editions of the Jerusalem Herald, a daily newspaper supposedly published in Jerusalem at the time of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and subsequently up to the death of Herod the Great. It covered not only the feature story, but current happenings, society and sports news, advertising, weather reports, editorials, etc., as they supposedly occurred at the time . . . Although only 5,000 sets (seven papers to the set) were published, the publicity it received in newspapers and magazines indicated an interest far beyond expectations . . .
Every line was written by myself, and none of the material was checked by an authority for accuracy. On the other hand, Mrs. Van Leer, in telling Old Testament history, has the aid of students and professors at Jerusalem's Hebrew University in research work, and of Israeli journalists as rewrite men. That should make her publication very authentic for educational purposes, as well as interesting reading. I hope she has great success with it ...
TOLBERT R. INGRAM Hot Springs, N. Mex.