howardfredrics

Following upon my previous posting of links to the Prof. Schiffman's letter to NYU and trial transcripts, I'm posting a link to Prof. Schiffman's Grand Jury Testimony, which may fill in some further pieces of the puzzle for forum members.

DCHindley

Your link did not work. Try this one:
http://raphaelgolbtrialtranscripts.f...-testimony.pdf I think you accidentally added a period after "pdf" before the final quotation mark that ends the quote.

DCH

howardfredrics

Thanks, DCH -- Mea culpa for the typo. :redface:

DCHindley

You may be referring to Norman Golb's October 24, 2007 Jewish Daily Forward op-ed article that can be found here. (Thanks to Raphael Golb aka Ignorant Gnostic in this post). The article seemed to suggest that one or more of these tunnels were probably used to transport sacred scrolls out of a city that was heading for capture. However, in this post I give the passage of Josephus War that appears to be the the one referenced by Prof. Golb:

Schiffman seems to think that Norman Golb is simply expanding on the, as he considers them, debunked theory of Rengsdorf.

It was in Norman Golb's response to points made by Schiffman in the NYU confidential letter:

My analyses of the exhibits have always taken, and will continue to take, the form of discussions whose language is perfectly ordinary in the context of critical academic debate. Cf. the various articles so far published at
http://oi.uchicago.edu/research/projects/scr

While over the years I have published several items in the press pointing to erroneous claims in certain of the American exhibitions of the Scrolls, I’m unaware of conducting a “sustained attack in the media.” When Dr. Schiffman adds the revelation that I have written “a series of letters,” he does not specify what he means by this remark. I infer, however, that he is in fact alluding not to “attacks” but to correspondence of mine in which I have signaled errors and misleading statements made in museum exhibits. If Dr. Schiffman wished to suggest to his colleagues that it is inappropriate of me to correspond with museums regarding errors in their exhibits, then he might have said so directly.

That is what I mean by "admit", which is only a statement of fact on Norman Golb's part. Don't read too much into it.

DCH

Anonymous_

D.C.,

Thanks for clarifying, partially, one of your statements. The term "admit" seems to suggest something inappropriate that needs to be admitted. It seems to suggest a particular perspective on your part. No further comment.

On the tunnels, so much for poor Simon bar Giora. Interesting editorial, which confirms my recollection of Golb's book, which is what I was referring to and which I've now verified. See pp. 145-146, where he discusses Josephus, 7.215 and 5.496-97. You might want to refresh your recollection of those passages since I'm sure you've read Golb's book.

manwithdream

Howard,

It is interesting that you said that what my neighbor did is just annoying but not criminal harassment because one of the definitions of criminal harassment according to the state law in New York and other states is to annoy another person.

Kenneth Greifer

howardfredrics

From a motion filed by Golb lawyer, Ron Kuby to dismiss charges of aggravated harrasment:

"[NYS] Penal Law §240.30(l)(a). On its face, it criminalizes anyone who intends to annoy someone and does so by distributing a written communication that is likely to annoy. The reason that every editorial writer in New York is not in prison, however, is due to the fact that the courts have consistently limited the range of §240.30(1) to those communications that convey actual threats, obscenity, or fighting words that have never been protected by the First Amendment....

In People v. Smith, 89 Misc.2d 789 (App. Term, 2d Dept. 1977), the
Appellate Term held that the criminalized speech must be obscene,
unequivocally threatening, invasive of substantial privacy interests in an
"essentially intolerable manner," or tending to "incite an immediate breach
of the peace." Id. at 791-792. In Smith, the defendant contacted the police to complain of a dispute he was having with another. He was told that his
dispute was civil in nature and that the police could take no action. Id. at
790. The defendant then called another 27 times with the exact same
complaint, despite being informed that he should stop calling and tying up
the telephone lines. Id. The court in Smith held that this conduct fell within
the "hard core" of the statute's reach, and accordingly deferred for another
day the issue of whether the statute was void for vagueness. Id. at 791.

That day came in 1985, when the First Department, in People v.
Dupont, 107 A.D.2d 247 (1st Dept. 1985), faced a case remarkably similar
to the one here. In Dupont, the defendant had hand-published a magazine
which was devoted to criticizing his former attorney. The defendant's
magazine, through the use of cartoons and articles, accused the attorney of
dishonest real estate dealings with the defendant, used pejorative terms to
describe the attorney and some of his clients, purported to "out" the attorney as a homosexual using particularly ugly language, and accused the attorney of dishonesty. rd. at 249. The defendant distributed the magazine outside the attorney's office, in restaurants frequented by the attorney, outside the homes of the attorney's friends and clients, at a bar mitzvah that the attorney attended, and at a charity event where he was being honored. rd. at 249-250. The defendant was charged with a violation of 240.30(1)(a) [aggravated harassment], tried, and convicted. The First Department reversed."

In other words, NYS courts have consistently ruled that the part of the harassment statute dealing with so called "annoyance"--(i.e. lacking in threats of violence, obscenity, or breaching the peace) is overly broad, breaches the First Amendment, and is therefore unconstitutional. And any lower court convictions resulting from this aspect of the law have been without exception thrown out.

manwithdream

Howard,

Based on the case law you cited, I guess you feel confident Golb will win his appeal on the harassment charges. I am surprised they even charged him with harassment since they know the case law also. I don't know what the case law in my state is for harassment, but it doesn't really matter right now. I have tried to be friendly to my neighbor and we are no longer having problems. Unless, of course, he ever reads this and it starts over again.

Kenneth Greifer

manwithdream

Howard,

Reading this helped me understand what you are saying.

http://scrollmotions.files.wordpress...ess-motion.pdf

Kenneth Greifer

DCHindley

To be honest, I've never read Prof. Golb's book. Now I used to spend a lot of time in the library reading through DJD volumes and the works of Millar Burroughs (The DSS, 1956 & More Light on the DSS, 1958), etc., have all the well known translations of biblical and non biblical texts from the 80's and 90's, and have a grab bag of books on the subject of where they come from and who wrote them:

Davies, The Meaning of the DSS, 1956 (journalist who first questioned the motives of scholars who marginalized importance of the scrolls)
Roth, Cecil, The Dead Sea scrolls: a new historical approach, 1965 (1958)
Allegro, The DSS & the Christian Myth, 2nd Rev ed 1992 (1979)
Baigent & Leigh, The DSS Deception, 1991 (Golb is cited by way of personal correspondence)
Charlesworth (ed), Jesus & the DSS, 1992 (relegated to 2 footnotes)
Eisenman & Wise, The DSS Uncovered, 1992 (I got it for the translations, but did note the commentary)
Shanks (ed), Understanding the DSS, 1992 (marginalized, all mention is referred back to chapter by Schiffman, who is dismissive)
Thiering, Jesus & the Riddle of the DSS, 1992 (no mention of Golb or Schiffman, but who cares? Oops! There I go marginalizing poor Barbara)
VanderKam, The DSS Today, 1994 (Golb's theories acknowledged but dismissed as rudimentary, done before all the scrolls were published)
Schiffman, Reclaiming the DSS, 1994-5 (needless to say, dismissive)

These books, I must admit, tend to marginalize Norman Golb's POV, if they mention them at all. Some, of course, predate Golb vs. Schiffman.

I'll have to either buy or secure copies of a few books:

Dupont-Sommer, The Jewish Sect of Qumran and the Essenes, E.T. 1954-55 (French 1950-1952)
Dupont-Sommer, The Essene writings from Qumran, E.T. 1961 (French 1959)
Rengstorf, Karl Heinrich, Hirbet Qumrân and the problem of the library of the Dead Sea caves, E.T. 1963 (German 1960)
Golb, "The Problem of Origin and Identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls" in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society held at Philadelphia, 1980
Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the DSS, 1983
Golb, "Who Hid the DSS?", Biblical Archeologist 48,2 (June 1985)
Golb, Norman, "The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Perspective", The American scholar, 1989
Golb, Norman, "Khirbet Qumran and the Manuscripts of the Judaean Wilderness" Journal of Near Eastern studies (1990)
Golb, Norman, "The Freeing of the Scrolls and Its Aftermath" The Qumran chronicle, 1992
Golb, Norman, "The Qumran-Essene Hypothesis: A Fiction of Scholarship" The Christian century, 1992
Golb, Norman, "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ethics of Museology" in The Aspen Institute quarterly (AQ), 1994
Golb, Who Wrote the DSS?, 1995
Magen & Peleg, in Qumran in Context, ed Hirschfeld, 2006

I am seriously considering going through as much of this mess as is relevant to determine, when it comes to the relationship of the scrolls to Judaism and Qumran, who was saying what and when, and directly quote the relevant passages of the secondary literature. This should be interesting.

One thing I have learned from following academic literature, is that you cannot always trust the objectivity of an author's description, either positive or negative, of another scholar's position on a matter. They often range anywhere from reading more into them than one might see reading the same book oneself, to flip caricaturization.

DCH

PS: I just noticed that Lawrence Schiffman's page at NYU is not active. I cannot even find his CV online. Does anyone have a link?