The trio of Cargill, Schiffman and Goranson get stung. They have only themselves to blame for the pain they have inflicted on the Golb family and upon themselves. And they are supposed to be intelligent academics.
John Bandler, attorney for the people, doesn't know what he has walked into. It is nothing short of scholarly rough and tumble, claim and counter-claim, now conducted largely by the internet. The focus is the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and their origins. No subject arouses the emotions more than this. All scholars in the field are just about as guilty as each other, if guilty is the right word. What may be considered 'normal' behaviour in any other field, is a world away from 'normal' when it comes to Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls.
For an experienced scholar such as Lawrence Schiffman, it should be "water off a ducks back". He has complained to the Courts. There are plenty of others who could have done exactly the same, but haven't. Lawrence Schiffman is quite capable of fending for himself. John Bandler's talk of 'victims' in his Preliminary Statement is a total misrepresentation. The so-called 'victims' are well and truly hardened academics, and that goes for Robert Cargill too, even though he has come late to the Dead Sea Scrolls. As for John Bandler saying that the defendant's motions are a 'bully pulpit', this is pathetic. They are simply to be expected as par for the course.
And it isn't just professional specialists in the subject who like to get involved. Why else do academics write books? Non-specialists, like myself, join-in too with this maelstrom. And believe me, the 'unqualified' come-in for far more stick from the academics. But we have to take it on the chin, personal criticisms, sarcastic comments from aliases, sarcastic anonymous comments, and anything you care to mention. There is no bleating to the courts for the likes of ourselves. Neither would I and most others dream of doing so. You see its OK for the academics to say what they like, but some academics believe it isn't OK for non-professionals to have an opinion, even about something which the academics can't agree on amongst themselves, like the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Raphael Golb is a non-specialist, non-professional, in the subject, like me.
The two together side by side, the Jew and the 'Christian', Lawrence Schiffman and Robert Cargill, at SBL New Orleans, November 2009. I wonder what they discussed! Methinks that Robert Cargill doth protest too loudly everywhere on the internet, on both his and Schiffman's behalf. Cargill floods the internet with all sorts of irrelevancies, anything to smother the fact of his betrayal of Norman Golb and his son.
Did Lawrence Shiffman file his complaint to the courts because he feared that New York University would conduct an investigation into his alleged plagiarism of Norman Golb? Were the e-mails too pointed for comfort? Has Lawrence Schiffman ever given credit to Norman Golb for anything? Has he ever apologised to Norman Golb? He should. Israeli journalist Avi Katzman (Haaretz, Jan. 29, 1993) asked Schiffman: “in different articles you have published, you have not hesitated to take over portions of Golb’s theory without acknowledging as much, and without giving him appropriate credit?” Shiffman replied “This isn’t the issue. There’s no innovation in Golb’s theory. He can say what he wants. The idea that we’re not dealing with a sect is self-evident. Does he think that he wrote the Bible?” Well, the idea that the scrolls were not about a sect was NOT self-evident, to most scholars and at least for a long time to Schiffman. Even then he managed to confuse the issue.
Why didn't NYU investigate the plagiarism of Norman Golb's work by Lawrence Schiffman? A child could recognise it. Is Lawrence Schiffman such an influential figure that he can bluster his way out? In the words of a recent comment, Lawrence Schiffman "should retract the misrepresentations, publicly acknowledge the failure to credit the originator of various arguments, and arrange for proper footnoting to be inserted in future editions", as well as apologizing to Norman Golb.
The National Post has an article on "The Curse of the Scrolls" in which Larry Schiffman is interviewed: "I don't know what caused the transition from the proper intellectual discourse," professor Schiffman said (hypocritically) in an interview with the National Post. It began, professor Schiffman, when you ignored Norman Golb's original work of 1980. Schiffman is a liar. He knows very well what caused "the transition from the proper intellectual discourse". It seems the Norman Golb has been bashing his head against a brick wall ever since. There has been no way through the thick skin of Lawrence Schiffman.
In his blog of March 07, 2009, James Davila (ratty) of St. Andrews, adds his voice to a chorus of other cronies gleefully crowing in agreement with Risa Levitt Kohn , “I ASSUME WE’LL GET LESS MAIL NOW” - sounds like a Salem witch trial. http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html.
What Davila meant to say was, it was so blindingly obvious that the e-mails were from an alias, we knew Lawrence Schiffman would realise exactly the same, so we didn’t bother to inform him. This proves the opposite to what Risa Levitt Kohn said in her National Post interview, "This is not an academic dispute". The dispute is an academic issue. Davila quotes, among others, Mark Goodacre of Duke, as having received e-mails, who, apparently did nothing. They saw nothing out of the ordinary about receiving messages from someone with an unusual name, that were worth reporting to Lawrence Schiffman, except Robert Cargill. James Davila, Mark Goodacre, and Robert Cargill are friends of Jeffrey Gibson, who positively promotes the use of aliases. These academics meet every year at SBL, so they knew what it was all about.
Lawrence Schiffman and Robert Cargill, who wrote this in 1980? The manuscripts "are remnants of a literature showing a wide variety of practices, beliefs and opinions.... removed from Jerusalem before or during the seige.... Determination of the nature of their concepts and practices.... may best be achieved not by pressing them into the single sectarian bed of Essenism, but by separating them out from one another, through analysis, into various SPIRITUAL CURRENTS which appear to have characterized Palestinian Judaism of the intertestamental period."
So Robert Cargill has indicated that he was subject to anonymous harrassment through the internet and that before the Schiffman complaint, but while he was working for a Ph.D. Bandler gives the court the impression that we are dealing with a young student just about to embark on his career. But what do we find? Cargill is 37 years of age. After 1992, it seems he had a mind to become a medical doctor, and did a pre-medical degree in human physiology at California State University, Fresno. He then did a Master of Science degree in Ministry (master of science in Ministry?) at Pepperdine University, which was followed by a Master of Divinity degree. From 2002 until 2004, he was teaching courses at Pepperdine in biblical subjects (and incidentally, in 2004 was private tutor to Nicole Kidman). He then went to UCLA where he did his Ph.D in Second-Temple archaeology and biblical studies, with a dissertation on the remains of Qumran. This man is no longer a tender chicken. He is at present Coordinator for the UCLA Center for Digital Humanities, and is also Chief Architect and Designer of the Qumran Visualization Project, a real-time virtual reconstruction of the site of Qumran. It goes without saying, Robert Cargill has a great knowledge of computers. I wonder if that knowledge came from when he did his Master of Science degree in Ministry!
ReplyDeleteRobert Cargill "conducted extensive internet research" to identify some aliases who had been critical of his work. (9) Now it doesn't take a genius to do that. One can buy software to track computer ID's. But it does take take time and fanatical dedication, and it seems that Robert Cargill had plenty of both. He also had his friends Jeffrey Gibson (also a computer expert and very familiar with the use of aliases) and Jim West to help.
ReplyDeleteSo, "preliminary investigation revealed a suspect" (10). Who did the preliminary investigation (they are unnamed in 10)? And whose analysis made a connection with a computer at NYU? Bandler does not say who did the investigations outlined in (10). I suggest they were the deliberate actions of Robert Cargill and others. This was not the work of anyone feeling persecuted, or harassed or victimised, or even threatened in any way. It was seen as a way to stitch-up the Golb family.
Robert Cargill likes to put himself around a bit. He endulges in self-promotion, something a scholar would not normally stoop to doing, by linking his name with other Dead Sea Scrolls scholars.
ReplyDeleteThus he wrote (see http://robertcargill.com):
"Who really wrote the dead sea scrolls? that is the subject of a forthcoming documentary produced by ctvc in london for the national geographic channel. i was asked to be among the interviewees which include (in alphapetical order): robert cargill
rachel elior
shimon gibson
jan gunneweg
gideon hadas
jean-baptiste humbert
jodi magness
yuval peleg
stephen pfann
ronny reich
adolfo roitman
lawrence schiffman
orit shamir
pnina shor
the documentary is designed to take ALL evidence into account....."
What, no Norman Golb? And Robert Cargill top of the list.
Then he rushes around Israel being photographed with yet more scholars. Its all about Robert Cargill. We have self-promoting name-dropping photos (see http://robertcargill.com):
ReplyDelete1.Dr. Robert Cargill viewing the copy of the Great Isaiah Scroll at the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem's Israel Museum.
2.Robert Cargill and Jean-Baptiste Humbert with the Dead Sea Scrolls collection at the École Biblique in Jerusalem.
3.Robert Cargill and Jean-Baptiste Humbert reviewing photographs and Roland de Vaux's actual field notes at the École Biblique in Jerusalem.
4.Robert Cargill and Ronny Reich in the drainage tunnels leading from the Jerusalem Temple Mount to the Kidron Valley.
5.Robert Cargill and Pnina Shor in the Dead Sea Scrolls Conservation Lab of the Israel Antiquities Authority in Jerusalem.
6.Adolfo Roitman, Curator of the Shrine of the Book, reads from a portion of the Isaiah-a Scroll discovered in Cave 1 at Qumran. The Isaiah-a scroll is presently housed in the vault of the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem.
7.Robert Cargill and Adolfo Roitman viewing a portion of the Great Isaiah Scroll in the vault of the Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem's Israel Museum.
8.Robert Cargill and Orit Shamir at the organic materials lab of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
9.Robert Cargill and Shimon Gibson at the Wall of the Old City of Jerusalem.
10.Robert Cargill and Yuval Peleg in the locus 138 miqveh (ritual bath) at Qumran.
11.Yuval Peleg shows Robert Cargill parts of his excavation at Qumran.
12.Robert Cargill and Stephen Pfann in Cave 11 near Qumran.
So what does this tell us about Robert Cargill? That he is humble?
Not only that. He continues in the same article to name-drop.
"on my trip, i visited the kidron and og wadis. i walked through ronny reich’s excavation in the drainage tunnels leading from the temple mount to the kidron valley. i dug the destruction layers at en gedi with gideon hadas and climbed atop masada to ask what copies of genesis, deuteronomy, leviticus, psalms, ezekiel, and most importantly, songs of sabbath sacrifice (fragments of which were also found in qumran caves 4 and 11) would be doing on top of the mountain fortress. i walked around qumran with yuval peleg and had him interpret the site for me based upon his ten seasons of excavations there. we later had a drink at the american colony and discussed the various interpretations of qumran and a couple of recent scandals surrounding the study of the scrolls. i read from the actual isaiah scroll in the basement vault of the shrine of the book with curator adolfo roitman. i held actual scroll jars and viewed roland de vaux’s actual field notes at the école biblique with jean-baptiste humbert. i walked around the walls of jerusalem to what shimon gibson believes to be the gate of the essenes. i visited cave 11 with stephen pfann and listened while he explained his multiple cave theory. i visited the israel antiquities authority’s organic materials lab and had orit shamir show me the scroll linens, the tefillin (phylacteries), wooden bowls, and other domestic items from the caves like combs and sandals. i visited the iaa’s restoration lab with pnina shor and watched as her crew restored fragments of the dss and prepared others for travel abroad for exhibition in the united states."
The man is desperate for attention, seeking to make a name for himself. May be that was why he has stalked Raphael Golb.
And John Bandler expects one to believe that Robert Cargill is a "victim".
"But those of us who seek to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God, will learn to approach the Bible as we do those whom we serve: with patience, forgiveness, empathy, and the kind of service and support that cares for the person, and not for the political position."
ReplyDeleteGuess who wrote that! Why, it was Robert Cargill of course. And not much went Raphael Golb's way.
John Bandler, here is your helpless "victim" Robert Cargill writing. He surely destroys himself as a credible witness.
ReplyDelete"n.b. i’m imagining raphael choking down hard drives and notepads with aliases and passwords on it as the nypd is searching his apartment. in hindsight, it would have probably been better than letting the ny da’s office get into his emails. then again, digestion probably wouldn’t have helped in raphael’s case. what he was writing was already crap on the way in."
And here John Bandler, Robert Cargill goes off on a long-whinded, mentally unbalanced rant -just the sort of thing you want to hear from a scholar in court:
ReplyDelete"where does one begin? we knew golb and his defense would attempt to turn this into a soapbox for a referendum on his father’s views. we knew that he would attempt to prove his ridiculous accusations were ‘true’ by trying to drag up a bunch of conspiracy nonsense in a trial. we even knew that he would attempt to argue that identity theft and impersonation were protected under the first amendment right to free speech. we expected all this. what we didn’t expect was for golb’s defense to use a ‘it was a joke’ defense. how would that even sound? how does one claim that a two-year campaign of harassment and defamation ultimately resulting in impersonation, forgery, and identity theft was just a ‘prank’? well, perhaps the defense would sound something like this:[and yes, the following is a parody of what a 'just kidding' or 'intellectual prank' defense might sound like. the actual defense may differ, and the following parody in no way purports to be the actual words of raphael golb or his attorney]
you thought i was serious?? ha ha ha ha! oh man, aaahhhh, sorry. i was just kidding. it was just a prank. i was just foolin’.sorry about impersonating you, dr. schiffman. i was just kidding. man, you should have seen the expression on your face. lol. boy, did you get punk’d. when i wrote to your grad students and wrote in the first person and pretended to be you from an email address i created that bore your name, dude, i was totally joking. when i confessed to a crime you didn’t commit on your behalf, i wasn’t bein’ serious. everyone knew i was totally kidding. dude, all those nyu administrators and your colleagues that i spammed accusing you of plagiarizing my daddy, i was so totally just kidding. i wasn’t serious. you had to know it was just an intellectual joke. i just know we’re all gonna just look back at this whole thing and just laugh. and sorry about that cargill. when i wrote to your faculty and questioned whether you should receive your phd, i was just joshin’. my bad. you had to know that my criticisms weren’t serious. i was just playin’. all those times i accused you of plagiarism and all those times i made fun of you for being a christian, and all those times i wrote to museums like toronto and tried to keep your research from ending up in museum exhibitions, dude, i was just kidding. i wasn’t trying to cause you actual fiscal damage. not at all! it was more like an episode of punk’d. me and ashton kutcher, we’re like this. and when my dad asked for a copy of your unpublished movie script, and you actually agreed to send it to him out of a sense of professionalism, even though he was a known critic?? boy, i could have warned you on that one, dude! you were so naïve! and when you put those warnings on the top of the script and in the email accompanying the script stating that absolutely no portion of your unpublished script could be reproduced, and dad still reproduced several passages online in a critique, dude, you should have totally seen that comin’. you can’t take dad’s criticisms seriously – for crying out loud, he can only ‘publish’ (and i use the term loosely) by self-publishing some rant he wrote and then slappin’ it up on the oriental institute website. no one ever publishes his nonsense anymore. besides, dad was only kidding! and when the oi lawyers removed his critique of your movie from the oi website, he knew you and your legal advisors were just kidding too. see, we were both just kidding around. but seriously cargill, it was all just a joke. i was just playin’ a prank. why are you harshin’ my mellow??"
John Bandler, your chief witness Cargill loses his head completely in the folowing diatribe. He lumps Norman Golb together with 'others' who hold fringe theories. In these comparisons, Cargill carelessly describes Golb as: holding to fringe theories about the copper scroll; that most scholars have dismissed claims by Golb; and that he has written books that make sensationalist claims over scholarly concensus and sound academic research. This is disgusting treatment of a scholar. A scholar would not make these comparisons. Even Schiffman would not be so stupid. Cargill has taken the wrong approach.
ReplyDelete"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."
Robert Cargill wrote:
ReplyDelete"As more and more scholars, universities, museums, and organizations were attacked by the puppet master and his aliases, several individuals began to track the campaign. (This how I came to begin tracking the puppet master and the aliases.)"
Robert Cargill seems to be saying that it was because others started doing the tracking, he started doing the same.
So John Bandler, who was being secretive? Robert Cargill doesn't say who the several individuals are who began tracking the source of e-mails, before him. Why did Robert Cargill want to keep the names of those indivuals secret? There was obviously some skullduggery going-on here, some unscroupulous behaviour. Robert Cargill got the idea of tracing the source of e-mails from someone else who had a vested interest in the denigration of the Golb family. And he was aided and abetted by that person.
ReplyDeleteJohn Bandler, the names of Jeffrey Gibson and Jim West should be ringing in your ears.
ReplyDeleteJohn Bandler, you should note that Jim West occasionally ‘loses’ his blog and it is never seen again, thus anything he has written is no longer available to incriminate him. The first occasion was when Pastor West said that someone had hacked into his weblog so he used the excuse to take it down. His weblog appeared again, but without the original material. On a second occasion he announced he was retiring from blogging, and he took his blog down again. And guess what!. Jim West is back blogging again. See http://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/ This is his third blog. But I did copy the following from the second blog. http://jwest.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/beating-a-dead-horse-the-golb-ian-circle/ before it was deleted. You will see that West is a supporter of Cargill. His animosity towards Golb is completely out of order.
ReplyDeletePastor Jim West wrote:
For years Norman Golb has been proclaiming his theories regarding the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is not only fair and right, but proper and good. Every academic deserves to say what they think- and think they must. But there’s a difference between saying what one thinks and grinding one’s teeth against one’s colleagues who find themselves in disagreement. Sadly, however, some of Golb’s adherents (and in some respects sycophants) have taken the debate to a much lower level with constant, unremitting, and unjustified attacks against those who disagree with master Golb. Most recently their targets have been William Schniedewind and Robert Cargill. In a posting on ANE-2 today one ‘Paul Kessler’ writes
Some of the members of this group may be interested in a developing debate. Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/2kd6ew Apparently, (1) in 2006, the Righteous Persons Foundation (i.e., Stephen Spielberg) gave $100,000 to Robert Cargill (at the time a graduate student at UCLA) to produce the “Virtual Qumran” film that was shown to around half a million people in San Diego a few months ago; (2) yet a similar film dated 2002 has been available on the University of the Holy Land website for several years (”Copyright 2004″ is marked on the UHL page); but (3) an article on the UCLA website describes “Virtual Qumran” as the “world’s first” film of its type, while Robert and his professor Bill Schniedewind don’t refer to the 2002 film at all on their UCLA “Virtual Qumran” site. This seems to require some clarification from Bill and Bob. Did Spielberg know of the 2002 film when he approved the 2006 grant? Why didn’t Bill and Bob correct the UCLA article or mention the previous film on their site?
Paul Kessler (NY)
The facts are simple- there is no ‘controversy’ except among the Golb-ians who simply wish to keep their master’s voice heard loudly in the public square. Golb’s theories have been widely challenged and debunked and only he and a tiny minority cling to them. Hence, from his follower’s point of view, it is absolutely essential that the attack be joined as frequently as possible in order to keep the boat afloat. The ‘required clarification’ is just another one of the red herring’s produced by this small circle in order to stir up controversy.
And here's the link to the 2002 UHL film
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uhl.ac/Qumran3D/Q3DM.html
Cargill's idea of a 3-D reconstruction film of Qumran was not so original. He had the advantage of more advanced software. So John Bandler, who is the deceiver?
Hey, Jimmys done it again. He's taken down his weblog archives from before January 2010. He has got the wind-up. I obtained the photo of Schiffman and Cargill from those archives.
ReplyDeletehttp://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/
The following message marks the beginning of Jeffrey B Gibson's tracking activities, the results of which he passed on to Robert Cargill. It was related to the former message from Paul Kessler. This was taken from the Yahoo ANE 2discussion list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANE-2/message/7749
ReplyDeleteMessage 7749–Wed.Mar 12 2008 11;27 AM
Re: "Virtual Qumran" film controversy
The first copyrighted simulation, Chirbet Qumran - Simulation (loc.4)
V 0.1, produced by Prof. F. Rohrhirsch, Katholische Universität
Eichstaett, dates back to 2000/2001.Consequently, we have to understand all electronic stuff after 2001 just as a sequel to the discontinued German program, and the actual studentic discussion as almost trivial.
Dierk van den Berg
Nijmegen - Holland
DIERK VAN DEN BERG IS AN ALIAS FOR JEFFREY B GIBSON (He "took a bullet in Iraq" - remember Jeffrey).
And here at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANE-2/message/2403 Sept 1, 2006, Jeffrey B Gibson writes under another alias of Russell Gmirkin. Under this name he has published a book Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus, for which Stephen Goranson of Duke Stacks once wrote a book review.
ReplyDeleteRe: [ANE-2] No Sadducees at Qumran (was Qumran inkwells)
Apologies for not responding earlier. Briefly, Stephen, you fail to establish any real factual basis for your assertion that Qumran texts oppose the
Hasmonean temple administration and that Sadducees consequently cannot have been located at Qumran.......
The following is a copy of an e-mail sent to me by Jeffrey Gibson. It shows he was interested in computer IP addresses back in 2003. I had previously accused him of writing as one George Brooks running a Yahoo list Ancient Bible History.http://aliasesofjeffreygibson.blogspot.com/2005/08/george-brooks-here-on-ancient-bible.html
ReplyDelete-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey B. Gibson [mailto:jgibson000@comcast.net]
Sent: 30 September 2003 18:04
To: geoff.hudson@ntlworld.com
Subject: pseudonym?
Interesting. Old message from George brooks identified as:
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218)
Message from Geoff Hudson identified as:
Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218)
Then there's the tell tale appeal to "natural reading" and to
Rechabites.
What do you have to say, Geoff?
JG
Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
1500 W. Pratt Blvd. #1
Chicago, IL 60626
jgibson000@comcast.net
The following message was taken from the Yahoo ANE 2 List. It shows that Jeffrey Gibson was up to his neck in gathering computer IP addresses.
ReplyDeleteMessage 10113 Fri Mar 6 2009
FYI -- in case list members have wondered if they've been victimized by RG, here is a list of the IP addresses and the aloases he has used.
Jeffrey
******
* 9 Confirmed IP Addresses
o 9.1 69.86.34.90
o 9.2 128.122.88.28
o 9.3 128.122.88.131
o 9.4 128.122.89.50
o 9.5 128.122.89.83
o 9.6 128.122.89.93
o 9.7 128.122.89.191
o 9.8 216.165.95.64
* 10 Confirmed Aliases
Jim West interviewed N T Wrong, an alias for Jeffrey Gibson. This is one part of the interview.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=14512636&postID=6172822540578777926
JW: Why blog anonymously?
NTW: It gives you a degree of freedom to say what you really think, without worrying about what those who might employ you think. I ENCOURAGE EVERYBODY TO DO IT. IN FACT, MOST BOOKS SHOULD BE PUBLISHED PSEUDONYMOUSLY, TOO.
Isn't it strange that Jim West has never interviewed Jeffrey Gibson, under his own name.
Jeffrey Gibson wrote to the members of his list ANE 2:
ReplyDeleteFYI -- in case list members have wondered if they've been
"victimized"....
What he should have written is: I apologize to my "victims" for writing under so many false names.
How many people start a message with the word "Interesting."? I have never seen it used before, except in the above e-mail sent to me by Jeffrey Gibson and Anonymous on this list. Now that's a strange coincidence!
ReplyDeleteJeffrey Gibson, well known for his interest in Tarzan, and his Tarzan yell, derived the pseudonym Russel Gmirkin from the name of the Tarzan illustrator Russell George Manning.
ReplyDeleteA brilliant piece.
ReplyDeleteThose who are persecuting Norman Golb's son hide many facts. This is a sordid prosecution that will rest upon many consciences.
You suggest that Schiffman should apologize to Norman Golb. He should also (a) retract the misrepresentations, (b) publicly acknowledge the failure to credit the originator of various arguments, and (c) arrange for proper footnoting to be inserted in future editions. The academic community still awaits these basic actions; for fifteen years we have seen nothing but crap posturing and hypocrisy.
ReplyDeleteThe "various spiritual currents" quote is from Norman Golb's 1980 article "The Problem of Origin and Identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls."
ReplyDeleteHere are a few quotes from the introduction to Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (1994):
The scrolls “shed light on a variety of trends in ancient Judaism.” (xxi). They give us "a glimpse of an era characterized by several competing approaches to Judaism." (xxv). The author’s book is “revolutionary,” because “it is revolutionary to argue that only by reading and examining a wide variety of texts from the scrolls collection can one even begin to discuss this topic.” (xxiv).
The view that the scrolls are "the library of the Jerusalem Temple" is attributed to Golb in the endnote accompanying p. xxi. This is the only place in the chapters or endnotes of the book in which Golb's name seems to be mentioned. I cannot find any mention of Golb's 1980 article, but the bibliography lists a number of Golb's other articles.
I guess the question that comes to mind is whether the terms "spiritual currents," "trends," and "competing approaches" have different technical meanings, or is it the same idea being paraphrased by the later author.
My interpretation of "spiritual currents" is here, for what its worth:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14521325&postID=8227057904408413461
Ah yes, the "transition" from the proper intellectual discourse; that delicate moment at which a "career is at stake" is, I gather, precisely what Raphael Golb was making fun of in his writings. It seems that a good deal of scholarship has become so imbued with hypocrisy that it depends on not saying what everyone knows; that's why this particular messenger needed to be silenced.
ReplyDeleteit's good to see that you are completely lacking in ethics and heisted a photo of mine without either permission or attribution.
ReplyDeletethat tells me everything i need to know about you.
You published the photo, Jim, and it's a matter of public concern, isn't it. And Geoff did attribute the photo to you. In fact, he pointed out that you removed the photo from your website after he posted it, see his comments. But you wouldn't actually read Geoff's interesting comments, would you.
ReplyDeleteAnd here is question for you, Reverend West: Did you or did you not remove the photo from your website, and if you did remove it, why?
You published the photo, Jim, and it's a matter of public concern, isn't it. And Geoff did attribute the photo to you. In fact, he pointed out that you removed the photo from your website after he posted it, see his comments. But you wouldn't actually read Geoff's interesting comments, would you.
ReplyDeleteAnd here is question for you, Reverend West: Did you or did you not remove the photo from your website, and if you did remove it, why?
The photo illustrates the actual case quite well, don't you think Jim? - Robert Cargill hanging on to the apron strings of Schiffman. What did they discuss in private at SBL? Now lets see, when did this particular SBL take place? November 2009, was it? I'll bet Cargill was very pleased that you were so careless.
ReplyDeleteMr. Hudson, I thought you might want to know that your piece is mentioned in a discussion about fundamentalism at SBL, at
ReplyDeletehttp://freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=288568
The discussion points out that a "Charles Gadda" article raised these concerns about SBL nearly three years ago, and refers readers to the statements by you and Dr. Zahavy about the Raphael Golb case.
"XKV8R
ReplyDeleteRegular Member
Join Date: March 2008
Location: ucla, southern california
Posts: 123
logged and forwarded (6/23/2010)."
What kind of mentality does Robert Cargill have that causes him to do this?
Do you think that Dr Steve Mason's Christian belief gets in the way of his scholarship? He has very little to say in criticism about the writings attributed to Josephus, like all the rest of the scholars of Josephus who are mostly from a Christian background.
ReplyDeleteThe works attributed to Josephus are the major source used to back-up the history of second temple Judaism. Get their interpretation wrong, and you finish with a false picture of history, which is what I believe happens. These works have been heavily edited.
It seems quite possible, given his effort to defend SBL. One would hope that he might publicly comment on the New York prosecution the way Dr. Zahavy has, and on Dr. Hendel's demand that SBL resign from the Council of Learned Societies. Comment # 4 on this page is interesting:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.sbl-site.org/membership/farewell.aspx
Robert Cargill wrote
ReplyDelete"all,
i’ll provide more thoughtful responses to your three questions after fiscal year close ;-)
i did want to say that i’m proud of you (the sbl leadership) today, and proud to be a member."
We all wait with bated breath for Robert Cargill's response to questions. Meanwhile, he does have time to fill his blog with rubbish. So he has time to answer simply as all the others have done.
His second sentence above is entirely in keeping with his character. This "victim" is not your timid person who is afraid to put himself about, thinking he is right, and 'crawling' to his friends for support.
Have you seen this?
ReplyDeletehttp://asorblog.org/?p=71#comments
Thanks for posting this link. The title of the page could almost (almost) be the same as that of Josephus' work...
ReplyDeleteDr. Magness states: “For me archaeology is not a means of validating (or negating) personal faith and beliefs.”
Well then, does she plan to remain a member of SBL, or will she follow Dr. Hendel in resigning from that organization? See his explanation here:
http://www.bib-arch.org/bar/article.asp?PubID=BSBA&Volume=36&Issue=04&ArticleID=09&Page=0&UserID=0&