Originally Posted by Charles Gadda

Come now Jeffrey, do you really think "Solitary Man" didn't inform Robert?

This is just another rhetorical diversion on your part -- if you're so concerned, all you have to do is send Robert an email yourself to make sure. In fact, it's your moral obligation to do so, because (1) you don't believe me and (2) Robert should have the opportunity to respond. If you don't tell him, how can you ever be sure he knows? How could you tolerate such a terrible injustice, of post 5261492 appearing and him possibly not knowing it?

Shall we split this thread off too?

Originally Posted by Charles Gadda

Like others have said, perhaps you have a substantive contribution to make to the discussion. Various issues have been raised, including:

(1) Scroll exhibitions and international conferences: legitimate, or rigged?

(2) Qumran-Essene v. Jerusalem theories; "Christological" element; whether religious beliefs of scholars involved

(3) Pliny and Josephus, did Essenes go and live in desert?

Originally Posted by spin

Rubbish, Jeffrey Gibson. If you were more interested in the content than the package, you would have noticed over the years that the scrolls industry has been manipulated, including the repression of dissent through ostracism and the financing of projects that foster particular unquestioned positions that are accepted without sufficient evidence to justify them.

Look into these and try to find any substance in any of them:

1. the scrolls are minor sectarian;
2. the Essenes wrote the (bulk of the) scrolls;
3. the sectarians responsible for the scrolls lived at Qumran;
4. the various scribal fonts can be ordered basically to form a single sequence which can supply approximate dating indications;
5. the eastern graveyards feature a male only population supporting the notion of a monastic-like organization living at Qumran;
6. etc.

Try it. You might understand why one might seem to be in the state you parody above when facing this wall of unreasonableness.

And please stop wasting people's time with perennial griping about trappings. Try to handle something tangible for a while. It's alright to make mistakes. They are, as you know, a learning experience.


spin

Originally Posted by Charles Gadda

I haven't read anyone's mind. I've pointed to specific actions, and asked whether they are connected with the fact that many of these people strongly assert their Christian identity and beliefs in one way or another. There may be other motives, but titles like "Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls" and specific statements I've cited (e.g., "I wouldn't view these as Jewish texts" coming from Presbyterian minister Freedman's student) seem to point towards a disturbing religious element.

"Holding on to, accepting, and promoting," is a mild-mannered euphemism for what has actually happened -- you have bracketed the smearing, the exclusion and the sensationalism. The scholars we're talking about are perfectly entitled to believe the Scrolls were written by Essenes at Qumran; they might even be right for all I know. But from their shoddy tactics -- above all, their refusal to debate their opponents -- I'm led to believe they have something to be afraid of, and hence to conclude that the other theory is probably a much more rational explanation of the evidence. So let's be clear about one thing: it's their tactics I excoriate, not their views on the Scrolls.

I did, of course, "read" Robert Cargill's "mind" in that I offered a variety of hypotheses as to what his secret "third reason" might be. But I never claimed to know what the reason is. This may have escaped you, but my point was ironical: when one violates basic principles of science and intellectual integrity by "never writing down" a certain reason, others can only speculate as to what that reason might be.

Originally Posted by spin

Rubbish, Jeffrey Gibson.

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Are you saying that what I noted above is not, and has not been, a (if not the) prominent feature in, and theme of, CG's posts in this thread?