THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK AGAINST RAPHAEL GOLB (AND THE APPEAL)

THE APPEAL - http://raphaelgolbtrial.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/raphael-golb-brief-new-york-court-of-appeals.pdf

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."

Robert R Cargill, Ph.D UCLA - On the Insignificance of the Copper Scroll? Really!

Robert R. Cargill (for the Center for Digital Humanities, UCLA, Jul. 2009, http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/copper.shtml )  wrote:


"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.  

The Scrolls Deposited After the Fall of Jerusalem? (The Heritage Key, Monday 07/06/2009)

http://heritage-key.com/blogs/owenjarus/exclusive-interview-yuval-peleg-dead-sea-scrolls

Owen Jarus interviewed Yuval Peleg, and wrote:  "I also questioned him on his idea that the Dead Sea Scrolls were deposited in the Qumran caves by refugees who were fleeing the Roman army after the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD."

Peleg's idea:
OJ: One question that I had about the idea that people were depositing these scrolls on the way out is why didn’t they just carry them with them so to speak?
YP: Beyond Qumran?
OJ: Beyond Qumran
YP: You to have to see the area - Qumran is the last station. The water came to the cliffs after Qumran. You have to go through the water, through the Dead Sea, in order to go south. Or climb the cliffs. Continuing to go with scrolls and stuff? Just put it in the caves.

Its a ridiculous idea.  If the Roman army was surrounding Jerusalem, hoards of people carrying scrolls (on donkeys or by foot) would hardly have gone unnoticed.  The Scrolls were deposited in the few months before the invasion of Nero's armies, and that means before 66 CE.  This was a massive operation by anyone's standards.  The priests knew that Nero was coming for them because they had killed Agrippa I and James the prophet. Now Nero was going to eliminate the priests.

But what danger would the Scrolls have been in if left in Jerusalem?  It has struck me as incredible that the Romans were not aware of the existence of the Scrolls.  You can bet they would have have been greatly interested in the War Scroll. 

The Scrolls were originally under the control of the king, Agrippa I.  From the king's (and the Roman's) point of view, some of the documents (the War Scroll is a good example) would have been extremely sensitive.  War 2.17.6 looks highly suspicious. It was probably originally as follows: "The priests set fire to the palace: after which they made haste to where the archives were reposited. The keepers of the records fled away. Some of the high priests went into the vaults, under ground."  As night follows day, the burning of the palace was followed by retrieval of the archives. This would agree with Rengstorf: the Scrolls came from one library, Agrippa 1's library.  The priests would certainly not have wanted their scrolls burned. The burning of contracts belonging to creditors was pure obfuscation.   

In the the garbled text of Life 8, we have something very close to this: "But he told them, that now they had been so unfortunate as to be made a 'present' by Nero to Agrippa...that the archives were now removed." This was in a speech of one 'Justus' (possibly Ananus the leader of Jerusalem) who was encouraging the priests (people) to revolt out of the hatred they bore for the prophets of Ein Gedi (the people of Sepphoris). 

So now we have a motive for taking and hiding the Scrolls.  The priests wanted to revive the old warrior priesthood. 

Thanks Robert Cargill for deleting my posts to your blog.  

The Official Blog of Dr Robert R. Cargill UCLA (March 17, 2010)

Robert Cargill wrote:

"question for review: who first proposed a theory stating that the dead sea scrolls had nothing to do with qumran, but were part of a library that came from jerusalem?" 

Here Cargill is pointing out the inconsistency in that Norman Golb accuses Lawrence Schiffman of plagiarising his ideas while Golb himself has plagiarised Rengstorf who (it appears) first suggested that the Scrolls were of Jerusalem origin. Why should'nt one scholar borrow another's ideas?  Its not as though the idea was patented. And you Robert Cargill do it all the time. Does Golb give credit to Rengstorf?  Surely he did.  What exactly has Lawrence Schiffman done?  And does he give credit to Golb?


But what Cargill really wanted to do was to draw attention to the case which he is pursuing against Raphael Golb.  He subsequently wrote in a seeming aside:

"in related news, the son of norman golb has accused a nyu scholar of plagiarizing the thoughts and ideas of norman golb and passing them off as his own. golb’s son, raphael, has since been arrested. have a nice day".


The sooner you Robert Cargill, get back to scholarship, the better.

The Official Blog of Dr Robert R. Cargill UCLA (March 15, 2010)

Robert Cargill wrote:

"if after reading the scrolls, we read about a community of initiates (that is, not born into the sect, but joining from the outside) that sought to remove itself from what it considered a corrupt temple and into the desert,"

This does not mean the priests wanted to remove themselves from Jerusalem. Nor does it mean that they went into the desert.  This was figurative language.   At a certain stage of their history, they were barred from the temple, but not from Jerusalem.  There were priests in every city, town and village. Damascus was a symbol to every priest.  and "This is the rule for the assembly of the CAMPS".

And the big question: who was making the temple corrupt?  It was the 'seekers of smooth things' who some mistakenly believe were Pharisees (who were non-existent).  They were the prophets, "the congregation of those who seek smooth things in Jerusalem...[who despise the] law and do not [trust in God] ... As robbers lie in wait for a man...they have despised [the words] of the law." 4Q163.  Ever since Judas Maccabeus they had tried to ban animal sacrifices.

And where does Cargill get the idea that initiates could join this community from 'outside'?  

The Official Blog of Dr Robert R. Cargill UCLA (Doomed to Digging the Earth)

Robert is so dependent on others for his theories. He can't begin to think for himself.  I wrote the following two posts to his blog:

Geoff Hudson, on March 15, 2010 at 3:05 pm Said: Your comment is awaiting moderation.

The Scrolls were evidently a mixed bunch, too complicated to sort through in the time which the then priests in-power had. There was no choice but to take the lot. They knew Nero was coming for them – they had killed Agrippa I. The priests took the temple treasure as well to fund their defence. This was NOT to be a war against ALL Jews. It was a war against the priests, who were to be eliminated. It was a war that lasted no more than about 6 months.


Robert Cargill wrote:
"specifically, there is a third ’salient’ theory that essentially blends the two polar opposite approaches. it is a theory that has been researched and advanced by scholars like stephen pfann (see his articles here, where i first encountered the theory). the theory works well with the research of lawrence schiffman (nyu) and john collins (yale). i adopted this approach in my recent book, qumran through (real) time. this theory is alternatively called the ‘multi-cave’ theory, the ‘cave cluster’ theory, or the ‘multi-party’ theory (or make up your own name). but in the long run, i am convinced it will be known as the dominant theory concerning the origin of the dead sea scrolls: that different groups (including essenes, priests, zadokites, sadducees, zealots, pharisees, and/or other unknown jewish groups) hid different scrolls (including the damascus rule, the serekhs (1qs, 1qsa, and 1qsb), biblical literature, and extra-biblical/pseudepigraphical literature) in different caves or cave clusters (caves 4-5 and 7-9 immediately surrounding the qumran settlement vs. cave 1 and 2 farther away vs. cave 11 vs. cave 3, etc.) near qumran. the cave cluster theory (as pfann has dubbed it) allows for a small sectarian group (perhaps the essenes or a sub-group identifying with the essenes) at qumran to have hidden scrolls in caves 4, 5, and 7-9, while a different group (like zealots) to have hidden their scrolls in cave 11, priests (of some origin) to have hidden scrolls in caves 1 and 6, while still other unknown jewish groups to have hidden completely different scrolls in cave 3 (for example, no copies or fragments from the serekhs or the damascus rule were discovered in cave 3 with the copper scroll)."

Geoff Hudson, on March 16, 2010 at 1:59 am Said: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
The multi-party, multi-cave theory is irrelevant. There were no ‘Essenes’, Sadducees, Zealots, Pharisees, and/or other unknown Jewish groups. These groups did not exist at the time. Jacob Neusner has more or less proved that. They are not mentioned in the very DSS nor in Philo. But the priests did exist and so did the prophets (called ‘Essenes’ in Josephus). And the priests were led by the controlling Hanan family. The war was against such priests.

For a laugh: So a party of Essenes comes out of Jerusalem riding their skinny donkeys in a mule train carrying their scrolls heading for cave allocated to them near Qumran.  Then comes the Sadducees only their donkeys looked very well fed. They too had their own allocated cave to deposit their scrolls. These were followed by the zealots, looking very furtive, who thought they were the only ones going to heaven. They had their own scrolls to deposit in their own special cave.  Then finally, comes the Pharisees,  the untouchables.  They kept well away from all the rest in their own separate cave with their scrolls. 

But hang on a minute!  None of the above are mentioned anywhere in any of the documents they were supposed to be depositing. There were no Essenes, no Sadducees, no zealots, and no Pharisees.  They were all priestly documents.

The high priests now had control of all the Scrolls, after burning Agrippa 1's palace and taking them from Agrippa 1's archives. (War 2.17.6)  So the high priests had removed them from where they had been kept  safe, and hid them in caves (a risky environment), no matter what shade of opinion they represented.  

The Hanan family that suposedly had control of the temple treasure which they took from the public treasury to make sure it could be used for the defence of Jerusalem (War 2.20.3) and other cities.   

Raphael Golb, Robert Carghill, Rod of Alexandria

All things bright and beautiful.


Robert Cargill, on the one hand you condemn Raphael Golb, on the other you correspond with the master of aliases 'Rod of Alexandria'.
http://politicaljesus.com/2010/02/26/qumrancontroversy2/


You wrote: // February 26, 2010 at 10:35 AM
rod,
good post. thanx for the summary.  quick question: did jodi really reveal to the class that she was the peer-reviewer on a number of my article submissions and that she rejected each of them?
thanx. -bc


You also wrote: // February 26, 2010 at 10:39 AM
thank you, rod. again, good summary. it’s essentially what she said at my book review session. you’re welcome to chat me offline if you want to discuss further. btw – i’ve added you to my blogroll.
thx again – bc


It's interesting that Jodi Magness rejected all your submissions that she peer-reviewed.

Robert Cargill wrote:
"UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE DO I DIALOG, BLOG, OR RESPOND TO ANONYMOUS PEOPLES HIDING IN THE SHADOWS, NOT HERE, NOT ANYWHERE. THANK YOU."
Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:XKV8R
Not even 'Rod of Alexandria'?

Robert Cargill wrote:
"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."


Patience, forgiveness, empathy, care for the person!  Robert Cargill, does this apply to Raphael Golb?

N T Wrong (er i_am_really_JG) Sinks to New Low with Jim West (The Confessions of Bishop NTW to Pastor, Dr., and a junk Professor Jim West) (An Interview Taken from Jim West's Blog)

So who do you think NT Wrong is?  He's Jim West's 'best mate'. NT Wrong's blog at http://ntwrong.wordpress.com/ is now off-line (he's now replaced it with a summary). Jim West's blog is also off-line at http://jwest.wordpress.com/ (replaced with a page).  They are both cowards.


Jim West interviews Bishop N. T. Wrong (A take-off of Bishop N T Wright)
JW: Bishop- thanks for agreeing to subject yourself to our questions. The first, because it's top of everyone's mind, is, why are you quitting blogging?
NTW: Well, let me first say that blogging has been tremendous fun — and I have enjoyed meeting and interacting with a wide range of personalities in the biblioblogging world. When I first began blogging under the somewhat satirical moniker of ‘N T Wrong’, I didn’t really expect it would last the nine months that it did. I almost stopped a couple of times, but then felt that I had a bit more to offer as ‘N T Wrong’. So my cessation of this blog was something I’d always planned. In addition, I have some other plans to busy myself with over the next year or so — some writing of an altogether more serious sort. And I can now reveal that I have a particular scandalous new internet project bubbling away, which I have been thinking about for a few months now, and which I’m rather excited about. Blogs tend to react, very quickly (which is their great advantage), to events in reality. The obvious development of this would be to ’speed up’ the process even further, to create a reality of biblical proportions in a website’s very creation. The project I am envisaging is precisely that of the map which precedes the territory, with thanks to Baudrillard (obviously) and (oddly enough) Balfour. I’ll be sending out invitations in a few months time which will include my biblioblogging pals, and which will make all of this quite clear.

JW: Now that that's out of the way, what got you into blogging in the first place?
NTW: I started off by discovering and then regularly reading a bunch of biblioblogs, due to my interest in all matters concerning biblical studies. There’s one thing about biblioblogs — they keep you up to date. And as I also like to express my own opinion to anybody willing to listen, I thought I’d give it a whirl myself. As I had only been interested in the biblioblogs whose commentary or style kept me entertained, I thought I’d go for an overtly comical angle. Although, if truth be told, this angle is actually just a façade. I’m one of the most deeply serious people I know, and keep bringing up deeply serious issues even when people around me just want to talk shit. In fact, I constantly try to talk shit and also be serious at the same time. (SO HOW CAN ONE TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY).  Humor is merely the Trojan Horse, so as to get in under people’s radar.

JW: Which blogs keep you entertained?
NTW: Ones which are informative, discerning, innovative, eloquent, humorous, honest, quirky, human, regularly updated, and exciting. In some or all of those categories are Jim West’s, James Crossley’s (Earliest Christian History), Roland Boer’s (Stalin’s Moustache), James McGrath’s (Exploring Our Matrix), April DeConick’s (Forbidden Gospels Blog), Antonio Lombatti’s (Pseudoscienze cristiane antiche e medievali), and Duane Smith’s (Abnormal Interests), off the top of my head. And there are some that I visit for specific reasons, too, such as Ekaterini Tsalampouni’s valuable Biblical Studies Blog for checking out the latest journal contents and conference announcements. I’ll still be reading these blogs, even if you don’t hear from me.

JW: You seem very knowledgeable about biblical studies. Might we presume that you have training in the field, or are you an amateur?
NTW: You can correctly presume that I have training in the field. (Wank wank wank!)

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.  (HE WOULD WRITE ANYTHING FOR MONEY). Who doesn’t want to write a scathing refutation of what they wrote ten years ago? I think it could encourage more open writing. It might also make it easier for people to approach works without bias against the author. It wouldn’t help with The Man’s academic publishing requirements — but you know what they can do.

JW: I'm certain you're aware of the recent attempt to discover the 'Historical Wrong'. What did you think of it?
NTW: This was one of the most absurd things I’ve seen in a long time. There were dozens of posts dedicated to discovering N. T. Wrong’s identity, thousands of words written, with greater or lesser degrees of seriousness. I loved it. I felt like I was watching from the box-seat at the theatre of the absurd. It was pure pathos at its most Pythonesque. Like waiting for Godot — who you deep down know will never come, but that’s not the point. Brilliant. Thanks to all who orchestrated it, and to those — even more absurdly — who took it seriously.
It also made me wonder whether this is how the Historical Jesus quest got started — as a joke which some slightly anal fellow didn’t quite get, and then it sort of snowballed from there, gradually gathering momentum until everybody thought it was actually very serious. Kind of Emperor’s New Clothes. I mean — why else would you exert effort for such a patently ridiculous endeavour, if not for the pure absurdity of it all?

                                         Is this N T Wrong?

JW: Now, why 'NT Wrong'? Obviously it's a swipe at NT Wright. So, I'm forced to ask, why portray yourself as the anti-Wright?
NTW: It’s a strange ‘discipline’, isn’t it, in which one of the most well-known practitioners of biblical studies ends up quite high up in the hierarchy of the group which should really be the object of his study. Now, there are a few anthropologists and sociologists who do something similar as a form of total immersion or for some reason (I’m thinking, say, of Barbara Tedlock, both academic anthropologist of mysticism and practising shaman). But the difference is that these people not only use the emic experience to inform the etic conception, but continue to recognize the benefit of an etic conception to inform the emic experience. In the case of so many biblical scholars today — and N. T. Wright is merely just one of the most visible ones (and not only because he’s wearing a bright purple frock) — the academic-religious mix only goes, tendentiously, in one direction. Biblical studies is considered to ultimately be a mere tool for the service of the Church, so that everything done within the discipline is not primarily for the sake of knowledge itself, but for constructing new apologetics.
It goes without saying that I continue to see a valid distinction between ‘use’ and ‘interpretation’ (and I like Umberto Eco’s theoretical approach here), and I place scholars whom I encounter somewhere along the continuum between them. Frustratingly, in reading the publications of biblical studies, there are too many of these scholars far closer to the ‘use’ end of the continuum, so much so that it is just annoying to have to continually second guess whether a particular biblical scholar is interested in discovering what is true or only has an interest in defending what is already believed to be true. The state of biblical commentaries — a ‘primary secondary’ source for biblical studies — is a simply appalling example of this. I genuinely struggled to think of a single biblical commentary which was not, at least in part, apologetic, despite the fact that many are published for an academic audience. I’m not saying that biblical studies has a monopoly on this, and I know that it is to some extent unavoidable for a human being to be self-interested. But there are, likewise, better and worse approaches to texts — along the same continuum I outlined — and this also goes for interests such as postcolonialism, feminism, racism, ecology, or queer studies. In addition, there are also very good grounds for jumping right in and (ab) using the Bible for your own ends — as long as you’re clear that’s what you’re doing.
There is already a place for apologetic biblical studies: theological seminaries.

JW: What do you really think of Bishop Wright's work?
NTW: It’s too long. You might have guessed that I thought this, but so much of it is constructed from an attempt to make apologetic responses to moral and exegetical problems within the biblical text. And so much of the resulting product strikes me as contrived. For example, the entire idea behind his ‘New Perspective’ is transparently an attempt to resurrect a logic within Paul’s soteriology where earlier scholars had challenged the presence of any logic after the ’shocking’ discovery that all Jewish opponents weren’t really soulless legalists, Paul was in fact a Jew, and Paul didn’t have a sixteenth century mindset. But instead of the straightforward option of reassessing the nature of Paul’s concerns by beginning with a close reading of his own writings, you get this 1980s- Apartheid-Protestor approach which interprets everything in light of some externally imposed idea of Paul’s concern with what has become known as ‘boundary markers’.
And in that we see the basic problem of the apologetic approach to biblical studies. It’s motivated by apologetic concerns, and it’s necessarily contrived as a result. The same apologetic motivation is there for liberal humanists, incidentally, and the same contrived outcomes result there too.
If there is anything that is a testimony to the failure of the New Perspective, it’s the unbelievably contrived stretches which result when Wright tries to apply his ideas in a full commentary on Romans (in the New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary). It’s like watching a defender of the Ptolemaic view of the universe adding epicycle upon epicycle. His very defence of the New Perspective shows something must be wrong with it. Talk about hoist with your own petard.
The same trajectory from apologetic response to contrived results can be seen in his approach to eschatology: the Bible sounds a bit nasty, doesn’t it?; let’s interpret it so it goes away (and after a brief period somebody like Edward Adams comes along and points out that the problem hasn’t gone away… and then the whole apologetic edifice is constructed anew by another generation of apologetic biblical scholars).
Although the Bishop of Durham claims to take a critical approach to the Gospels, in actual fact he would go so far as to defend the historicity of the most patently unhistorical events, such as — as a random example — Matthew’s zombie-saints.

JW: Have you ever benefited from it?
NTW: Yes. For example, I quite like his focus on symbolic meanings in the Gospels, which rightly counters a modern overemphasis on the written text. Some of the examples he gives are very good.
Although I have many complaints, I still read evangelical biblical scholars alongside non-evangelical ones. It would be foolish to ignore them. Somebody always makes a correct observation that you’ve missed. There’s treasure in some funny places. Remember the lesson shown to the prophet Balaam: God sometimes chooses to speak out of His ass.

JW: If you were asked to co-author a volume with Wright, would you do it?
NTW: Of course!

JW: Why?
NTW: I genuinely enjoy and gain from exchanges with most people. And think of the naming opportunities! ‘The Battle of Wright and Wrong’; ‘The Wrights and Wrongs of the New Perspective’; ‘Wrong for all the Wright Reasons’…

JW: If Wright isn't your 'cup of tea', which scholars, ancient or modern, do you consider your models?
NTW: Hmmmmm… who would I have on ‘America’s Next Top Model Scholar’? (Now there’s a ratings flop waiting to happen.) Assuming we can bring some of them back from the dead, I’d tend to favour the ones who weren’t constrained by prevailing paradigms or who have inspired me to work harder. In no particular order: Albie Schweizer, Nic Wyatt, Philip Davies, Wilhelm Martin Leberecht de Wette, Julius Wellhausen, Emmanuel Tov, Slavojiek, and James Crossley (the latter not only for the piss-up afterwards).

JW: What, may I ask, are your professional goals?
NTW: To reconfigure the manner in which biblical studies is carried out in the entire world.

JW: What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
NTW: I read fiction. I recently quite enjoyed Darkmans by Nicola Barker. I quite like music such as Nick Cave, Conor Oberst, Iron & Wine, and Lily Allen. I like a good movie, too — I recently blahed out on Tom Tykwer movies on DVD. I do a bit of gardening, and aim to create a self-sufficient vegetable garden, and am currently preparing soil for the upcoming season. I also enjoy the occasional subversive art attack on cityscapes.

JW: Do you have any secret hobbies or interests that our readers might find surprising?
NTW: Fisting.

JW: I’ll presume you have some typing disorder and meant to type ‘fishing’. So, do you have a family?
NTW: No, I’m sui generis and arrived here ex nihilo… Okay, you got me, I do in fact have a family. I’m married, too.

JW: Does your wife read your blog?
NTW: She has, but she wasn’t that interested. She’s very indulging of my foibles, though.

JW: If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what single book would you take to read until you were rescued?
NTW: Charlesworth’s OTP. Unless Davila’s updated version had come out before my shipwreck, and I’d take that.

JW: One last question, and of course you're free to 'take the fifth' - who are you?
NTW: A biblical scholar. Thank you for the interview, Jim. And I’ll see some of you at SBL New Orleans, which is less than 10 months away now.