"But for the wise, the Copper Scroll is little more than what scholars have claimed since the beginning: an anomaly discovered among the otherwise informative manuscripts comprising the Dead Sea Scrolls." So Cargill considers himself wise. The Copper Scroll was no anomaly but a Scroll of the priests which they considered precious.
Well, well well! Our relatively newly qualified expert tells us that the Copper Scroll is an anomaly. This is what comes of doing your archaeology in front of a computer, and not having an appreciation of the writings attributed to Josephus. Added to that he just couldn't wait to have a go at amateurs like Robert Feather who I am sure has tried in all sincerity to come up with a plausible and researched case for the Copper Scroll even if I can't accept it. And why does our expert have to even mention the ridiculous Jimmy Barfield? Robert Cargill must think like Jim West, that the general public are idiots.
This is what Cargill wrote about various people including one very wise Scholar, Norman Golb. Cargill reveals his sensitivies:
"But it is not just wannabe archaeologists that prey on the Copper Scroll. Some scholars holding to fringe theories about the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls regularly make the Copper Scroll a central pillar of their unlikely arguments. The University of Chicago’s Norman Golb has made a name for himself in part by appealing to the Copper Scroll to argue in support of his version of Karl Rengstorf’s theory that none of the Dead Sea Scrolls were produced at Qumran. Others, like author Robert Feather, have written several books touting the Copper Scroll’s connection to treasures from Egypt. The fact that most scholars have wholly dismissed claims by the Barfields, Golbs, and Feathers of the world has not stopped the latter from publishing books and raking in money from a public more than willing to entertain speculation and sensationalist claims over scholarly consensus and sound academic research."
And never mind about the money Cargill hopes to rake in for his little virtual reality project.
WHAT ABOUT THE MONEY CARGILL IS RAKING IN FOR HIS LATEST FILM, "BIBLE SECRETS REVEALED". YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HIS HYPOCRISY.
So Cargill claims he follows scholarship concesus and sound academic reasearch. But most Scholars have NOT dismissed claims made by Norman Golb.
The Copper Scroll was deposited in a cave near Qumran around the same time as all the rest of the Scrolls, by the same people, the priests. They were certainly NOT deposited by people fleeing from a fallen Jerusalem, OR by various groups such as Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots and Sadducees, as proposed by Cargill in the multi-party theory of Pfann. The Scrolls were taken from Agrippa I's library, by the priests shortly before the Romans arrived. The priests were about to be destroyed by the fifth and tenth legions of Neros army who were to come from Alexandria. These legions were led by Nero himself. At the time Jerusalem, Masada, Machaerus, and Qumran had been captured by the rebel priests. The priests kept many of the prophets locked in the temple. Nero's forces were let into Jerualem by the prophets.
When was the Copper Scroll Written?
The extant Copper Scroll was inscribed (crudely) at the time of Judas Maccabeus when the priests were first kicked out of the Temple. The priests of the time had inscribed the Copper Scroll (along with a second more detailed copy referred to in the extant Copper Scroll, see column 12) around 164 BCE. It recorded the places where they buried temple treasure which they took and hid before fleeing Judas's forces. Judas captured the extant Copper Scroll along with most of the other Scrolls, and probably most of the treasure. The other more detailed copy (probably not copper) has never been found. The Scrolls (including the one copper scroll) were preserved by a succession of Hasmonean and Herodian rulers. Until the reign of king Aristobulus, Agrippa's father, the priests lived in exile in . After Aristobulus and Agrippa had ruled a good number of years, the priests rebelled, killed king, ransacked the king's archives, set fire to them, and took the Scrolls to the Judean desert. Among the Scrolls the rebel priests took was the extant Copper Scroll.
In Ant.20.9.1;20.200, the Church Fathers have a supposed high priest Ananus the younger murdering a supposed James the brother of a supposed Jesus. In reality the priest Eleazar the son of Caiaphas murdered the prophet king Agrippa (not the fictitious James). The priests proceeded to ransack and burn Agrippa's and Bernice's palaces, and raided Agrippa's archives where their scrolls going back two hundred years were kept. The Church Fathers have the ridiculous story of rebels destroying evidence of debts. (War 2.17.6; 2.426-427). The rebel priests took their Scrolls from the archives. In War 2.17.9;2.441, the Church Fathers dissembled again by having the rebels murder a supposed high priest Ananias. They actually found Agrippa in an aqueduct and murdered him. This was the way ancient writers, the Church Fathers wrote, adapting the real murder of Agrippa to falsely created multiple situations. The priests took valuables from Agrippa I's treasury to fund the building of defences, but this was not the treasure that the Copper Scroll spoke about. The Copper Scroll was a real document, about a real treasure.
Two professionals, de Vaux and Harding, made light of the Copper Scroll, a genuine autograph. (Page 126 of Golb's book Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls). In 1956 they wrote an official statement from Jerusalem about the Copper Scroll. Dupont-Sommer received that statement in London and subsequently wrote: "At all events, this guide to hidden treasure is the most ancient document of its kind to have been found, and is of interest to the historian of folklore". (Page 121 of Golb's book).
ReplyDeleteAnd on the same page (121) Golb wrote: "Dupont-Sommer also quotes de Vaux as having stated that the Copper Scroll was the 'whimsical product of a deranged mind.'
ReplyDeleteIf de Vaux had listened to Rengstorf in 1959 then Scrolls research might well have been entirely different. Golb wrote (page 158): "Rengstorf had come close to batting a very big home run."
ReplyDeleteOh my, who's attacking a museum exhibit now? See Ph.D.'s website. How interesting that a "coordinator of digital humanities" should refer to his own film to support his claim that previous exhibits "discussed" - and misrepresented and belittled, a point he doesn't mention - "other theories." This film, of course, is precisely the one critiqued in the article that the same "coordinator of digital humanities" tried to get the University of Chicago to take down, in violation of basic principles of free and open debate. Apparently, he has also failed to comprehend that the descriptive term "two salient theories" stems not from a self-promoting article by a University of Chicago scholar as he would have it, but from the decision by the editors of the Cambridge History of Judaism to publish precisely two essays on the issue, one by a representative of each side in the debate. It is that editorial decision, and the reality it reflects, that the curators in St. Paul confronted and replicated, after it was ignored in San Diego and eight other exhibits.
ReplyDeleteI have my doubts about Robert Cargill's competence. I asked him a question here: http://robertcargill.com/2010/05/13/n-is-for-numismatist/#comments
ReplyDeleteHe was giving a class on Bar-Kokba Revolt Coins. I asked him, "Have you studied the coins of the first revolt." "Yep", he replied.
So then I asked him two questions:
Geoff Hudson, on May 15, 2010 at 3:30 pm Said:
1. Were there any coins of the first revolt coins found at Qumran? If so, what were the years?
2. Were there any coins minted by Romans during the first revolt and found at Qumran? If so, what were the years?
He replied: bobcargill, on May 18, 2010 at 9:32am Said
1. sure. for example, a coin of year 2 of the revolt was discovered.
2. not sure. i’ll have to check. there are roman coins there, some from pretty late.
These are not the answers of a person who knows his stuff. I found the answers later in my copy of the book The Dead Sea Scrolls Today by VanderKam, page 22, where it says, for example, that 83 year 2 coins of the revolt were reported by de Vaux.
The trouble is that the year 2 coins were not coins minted during the so-called revolt. Year 2 signified the second year of the release of Jewish people, and in particular the prophets, from the persecution by the priests.
DeleteHere he is, ranting about Golb's family and the St. Paul DSS exhibit:
ReplyDeletehttp://robertcargill.com/2010/03/15/on-recent-erroneous-claims-made-by-the-minnesota-dead-sea-scrolls-exhibition/
It really does take all sorts to make a world.
It is the mark of a person who feels he must cover-up his lack of knowledge by such outbursts. He doth protest too loudly.
ReplyDelete