meow

And what exactly is your point, Toto? That Golb must be controlling tweets sent from the Oriental Institute? The article you link contains a whole assortment of claims that clearly reflect arguments made by Golb over the years (including, e.g., in his Forward piece on the Jerusalem tunnels, which emphasized the way they come out in the Kidron valley), and his name is not even mentioned. Does this strike you as appropriate? Mr. Hudson has posted some intelligent comments on this, along with the following quote from Golb:

The National Geographic article also contains the following:

What's the appropriate term to describe these statements? Is "since the 1950's" a mere slip of the tongue, or an inaccurate quote? Does "virtually everyone in the field" include Magen and Peleg, and many others I could name?

And yet, someone at the Oriental Institute sent a tweet.

meow

Here is what Golb said in the Forward article, dated Oct. 26, 2007:

Golb pointed this out, of course, because the news reports about the tunnel made no connection with Qumran. He continued:

No mention of Norman Golb, of course, in the National Geographic article. Here is what the article says:

Are the people who produced this trash proud of themselves for their discovery? Did they use the vague phrase "experts believe"? I wouldn't know, because I don't watch junk.

Toto

a few posts were split off to here

spin

Umm, with Robert Cargill as the scholarly consultant on the program what do you expect? Please stop being melodramatic.


Rengstorff actually wrote in 1960, if I remember correctly.

It's obvious that you are not well aware of the actual situation over the past several decades, for I'm sure Golb himself would agree that the vast majority of punters in the field squawk the Essene squawk. Over the last ten years there has been a small movement away from the usual claptrap. But when you say "many others" percentage-wise you are certainly wrong.

You're working too hard on this. The content is obvious. You mightn't like it, but as soon as you knew that Cargill had a large part to do with the flick you could rest assured that Golb wouldn't get any air-time.

If the subject itself interests you, then you watch it anyway, because you will find something of interest. The fly-overs of the site are quite important to see, for example. That the subject is being aired without spewing Essenism is useful. Your interest here is not Qumran or the scrolls, so you aren't free to find use in it. In fact you give the impression you haven't watched it for a priori reasons.

Why the stalwart defense of all things Golb?


spin

meow

In response to Spin:

This strikes me as a "Realpolitik" argument. Forgive me if I thought we were talking about scholarship here rather than politics. The producers of the program were responsible for deciding who would be included, and also for deciding who would be excluded from participating in violation of the basic principle of free and open debate, as opposed to hit-and-run scholarship. (And it's the same with museum directors, incidentally: see chapter 9 of the code of ethics of the Museums Association.)

Apparently you haven't read Rengstorf. He never argued that the Dead Sea scrolls were written by "multiple Jewish groups from Jerusalem." That argument was first made in the 1980 PAPS article by Norman Golb that I cited above. Rengstorf argued that all of the scrolls were written by Temple priests who had an outlying retreat of sorts at Qumran. His views were formulated when only a small portion of the scrolls had been published and before the Masada texts (identical in part to ones found at Qumran) were discovered.

On the contrary, it is you who appear to be unaware of the situation. There has been, particularly in Europe, a broad movement away from the Essene squawk. In France, virtually no one believes in the Qumran-sectarian theory anymore, which is why the National Library in Paris has largely rejected that theory in its current exhibition. In America, a good number of evangelical "Bible bloggers" do most of the squawking, perhaps that is what you base your appraisal on?

Even if what you say were true, however, percentages should be measured in terms of the younger generation of scholars, not the older "heirs of the monopolists" who simply stick to their guns, silence their opponents, and indoctrinate their students into a culture of vicious academic politics and unethical silencing techniques.

No harder than others. I've followed the conflict carefully and believe I have enough of a grasp on it to point out what is quite obvious to anyone who has actually taken the time to read the material.

No, it is perfectly legitimate and indeed necessary to point out that National Geographic is participating in an unethical scheme based on a policy of exclusion and unsourced cribbing of the primary excluded scholar. Did certain scholars agree to participate under the condition that others be excluded? This has been reported on before, in The New York Times. Did it happen again here?

I don't see how it is useful to distort the history of scholarship, misleadingly advertise a program as an example of a joint effort of scholars who disagree, and engage in a speculative, pseudo-scientific effort to demonstrate that one-third of the scrolls might have been produced at Qumran even though not a single scrap of vellum was found in the site. If I am repelled by the publicity campaign surrounding a film that claims to represent current scholarship, I simply won't watch it.

On the contrary, my position is a principled one (which yours does not appear to be). The DSS community will not be able to determine the truth about Qumran and the scrolls without engaging in free and open debate about the matter.

Because he is obviously the principle excluded voice, who has been smeared, misrepresented, plagiarized and excluded for a good part of the past thirty years. As Geoff Hudson said, where would scrolls scholarship be today without Norman Golb?

spin

It's American television. That explains it all and all your rationalizations won't change the notion of grubby money.

Ultimately, the players aren't important. That a television program can now propose that the scrolls were from various groups is reflective of a change in the status quo. Repressive tolerance allowed "nutters" to talk about whatever they wanted as long as it never made it into the mainstream consciousness -- lone voices crying in the wilderness. It's no longer wilderness. It doesn't matter greatly that the sources of the notions aren't credited, when a paradigm shift comes along. If James Watt hadn't invented the steam engine, someone else would have. Someone invented the television, but who exactly? One school says it was R.L. Baird, another says Antonio Meucci, but who remembers? who cares? Lasting scholarship is about ideas, not personalities. Scholars can usually look back and have a better perspective than those of the period looked back to.

The ideas that make it to TV have been mediated by many hands. That is the nature of the beast.

I'm only using Golb in footnote 80 of his 1980 article (Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 124:1, p.24, when he refers to Rengstorf's view that "the scrolls were writings of priestly circles and other writings of Palestinian Judaism at large".

And though I never claimed it, no, I haven't read Rengstorf.

Sorry, bro, hand waving doesn't change anything.

I'm not condoning the situation, just understanding it. You should try it.

I'll let the readers here decide.

There are more urgent abuses of the media that you could tilt at. Embedded journalism for a start: the total abnegation of a journalist's responsibility.

Having lived with this bias for decades, I am used to extracting meaning from the dominant literature.

One doesn't live on principles alone. If they did they'd have great difficulty even walking down the street. One deals with what exists and works around it.

Ivory towers don't exist. There has been progress in the community, whether you admit it or not and that was while the Essene hypothesis held almost complete sway and all other views were actively stifled. It's not an ideal situation, but your proposition doesn't reflect what has been happening.

Scholarship has been filled with underdog positions surviving to displace dominant ones.

One could ask where would scrolls research be without Robert Donceel (and Pauline Donceel-Voute)? -- for without this different perspective the archaeology of the scrolls would still be in the hands of people like Jodi Magness. It is the archaeology which has most undermined the Essene hypothesis. Golb, I believe, has played an important role, as other scholars have. Playing my scholar is better than yours isn't very rewarding. Be happy that the ideas are getting to a wider audience. I can easily imagine that in other contexts they are not getting out and that is to our detriment.


spin

meow

Spin,

I agree with much of what you say. In particular, I agree about the Donceels. The point is not "my scholar is better than yours." There has been, and continues to be, a class of excluded, pivotal figures. Your point about principles not sufficing is certainly true, but they are nonetheless necessary (necessary but not sufficient). As for rationalization, I believe we are both rationalizing things in different ways. I persist in my view that the (implicit) characterization of Rengstorf's theory as one of "multiple Jewish groups from Jerusalem" is a distortion, one that fits quite nicely both with the statement reported in Haaretz in 1993, that "there is no innovation in Golb's theory," and with the repeated dissemination, by at least three different authors, of false characterizations of Golb's theory as being that the scrolls are from the Temple library. One can choose to see this type of thing as a casual academic game if he wishes; but I think there are strong reasons not to see it that way.

Meow

spin

Below is a Cargill gem I forgot to post earlier (~13:50 in).

"This period 2000 years ago, I would argue, gave rise to western civilization as we know it today," adding, "and the Dead Sea Scrolls are our unique looking glass back into that time."




spin

meow

The folks at Nat Geo certainly do know where their bread is buttered.

meow

See now N. Golb's comments on National Geographic and this "new research."