Max Leopold Margolis: a Scholar's Scholar (Biblical Scholarship in North America)

From Preface: "Writing in the 'B'nai B'rith News' of June 1915, Max L. Margolis offered one of his favorite descriptions of the relationship between a scholar and his scholarship: 'Scholarship is made up of two assets; a prerequisite knowledge of where to look for things and a ready acquaintance with the things to be looked for. A moneyed man may have a fat bank account; but to buy groceries you have to have ready change. In the region of learning, the knowledge of sources is a valuable bank account; but the possession of the knowledge drawn from many obscure sources is the ready cash. And that knowledge is found only in men of experience, who have behind them and not ahead of them the preparation.' When Margolis wrote of this ideal scholar, who possessed both 'ready cash' and a 'fat bank account', he was not describing any particular individual. On the contrary, he was bemoaning the scarcity of such scholars in the world where far too many were willing to draw upon the bank accounts of others instead of building up their own assets through firsthand acquaintance with the sources themselves. (And is it all that different in the 1980's) In my opinion, Max Margolis exemplifies the ideal. Moreover, his contributions are to be measured by the qualities he displayed as much as by the quantities he produces. Margolis possessed a rare integrity that impelled him to expose the counterfeit and debased products that were accepted so facilely by others as the unalloyed 'coin of the realm'. At the same time, he scrupulously assessed his own assets and liabilities according to the same exacting standards he imposed on others. It is for these reasons that I feel that Max Leopold Margolis is, in the words of this book's subtitle, truly 'a scholar's scholar'."