Rick Sumner

This was intended to be an appendix to an almost finished response to Sid Green's essay on Qumran and Christianity (which is essentially done, I tend to edit too much)

http://didjesusexist.com/qumran.html

So observes Sid Green. Several questions must be raised in the light of these sentiments. First and foremost, by what standard could Allegro possibly be judged the best qualified, if not the only qualified?

The only thing separating John Allegro from the remainder of the team from the outset was his agnosticism. Both Cross and Milik were equally published, Cross, Milik, Starcky and Skehan all held greater academic esteeem. So what, exactly, distinguished Allegro?

I suppose the only standard we can really use, considering the relative inexperience of the entire team when the project commenced, was the quality of the work they subsequently put out.

As I have already observed in another post, it is generally held, by everyone from TIME magazine, to Joseph Fitzmyer, to G. Vermes and back, that J T Milik's work was by far the most impressive. As Hershel Shanks wrote, quoting a discussion with John Strugnell

Fitzmyer confirmed this uncanny skill, in a passage I recently quoted on another thread:

"Academic standing," used as a marker at the start of this post, is a rather subjective term, and one could argue it either way. Quality and quantity of work put out regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls isn't. Scholar X did Y and Y was regarded by his peers as competent handlinig. This is an objective standard by which the observer can judge ones qualifications in dealing with the task at hand--handling the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is a standard that Allegro falls well short of the marker on.

But it is not enough, for my purposes, to simply observe that Allegro was not the most qualified. That makes Green's observations incorrect, but it does not adequately explain the situation, and it would be irresponsible to go no further. Because Allegro was not simply not the best qualified, he was arguably not qualified at all. Without looking at his subsequent interpretations (See, for example, The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross), his work on the scrolls themselves--his identification and translation of the documents--was at best negligent, at worst incompetent.

In 1968 Allegro published his corpus in DJD V. His volume consisted of the entire corpus of work assigned to him, excluding 4QPBless (which was published in JBL 75, 174-176), and 4QTherapeutae, which was published in The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth. This latter, significantly, he misnamed and misunderstood. He considered it a medical text. It was later identified as a writing excercise. An identification that, to my knowledge, stands uncontested.

Allegro's DJD V was 111 pages. The subsequent corrections by John Strugnell (Revue Qumran, 7, 163-276) was 113 pages. Those familiar with the sprawling layout of the DJD volumes in comparison with the decidedly more compact Revue Qumran will realize that simple page numbers do not do this justice. It would not be a great stretch to suggest that Strugnell's corrections (and an additional twelve pages by Joseph Fitzmyer, CBQ 31, 59-71) tripled the volume of Allegro's work. Perhaps even more than that.

Accusations of bias and blindly following establishment consensus are raised at once by Allegro apologists when one observes Allegro's incompetent handling of DJD V. This has all the backing of a Fundamentalist's claim to inerrancy. The reality of the situation is that a great many people have come to Allegro's defence over the years, with varying levels of competence. Nobody has ever defended DJD V. Nobody bothered to respond to Strugnell. Rather the Allegro apologist would seemingly run on the hope that the reader is not familiar with it. As Strugnell himself quipped in Latin: "'R' habet italicum liber hic, habet atque pelasgum, Necnon hebraeum, praeteraque nihil." That is 'This contains an Italian R (er), a Greek R (rho), a Hebrew R (res), and nothing else."(Rev.Q. 7, p.276).

Combine those Rs, and then spell it phoenetically, and you get Strugnell's meaning. Erroris. And nothing else.

Green goes on to contend that Allegro went "too far too quickly," which caused "great offense to the Church," which subsequently led to his academic demise. This is partially true. What it neglects to mention is that Allegro flat out lied on BBC radio. Other members of the international team subsequently issued the following letter to the Times of London (March 16, 1956, p.11)

The signees were Strugnell, de Vaux, Milik, Skehan and Starcky. 20 March, 1956, Allegro subsequently sent a reply. In which he substantially toned down his claims. Later that year he published The Dead Sea Scrolls. Time observed that he "prudently plays down this wild surmise."(October, 1956, p.44) Good choice, but not enough to compensate for earlier dishonesty, I'm afraid.

Observed Frank Moore Cross of Allegro's comments:

Cross also described Allegro as "One of the few amoral people I have known."(ibid, 142)

The suggestion that Allegro was thus a rogue maverick, daring to do what no one else did, but just a little too rash, is wholly unfounded, and certainly does not spring from the available evidence. Allegro was an opportunistic liar.

Green goes on to observe that Allegro's comments led to the subsequent shroud of secret that enveloped the "Academic scandal par excellence of the twentieth century" (to steal Vermes' apt description). This can only be described as fantastic imaginings. Allegro first started making noise, as we've just observed, in 1956. This was over a decade before the scrollery became enveloped in a shroud of silence. It is also, as we have observed, twelve years before Allegro himself published the vast majority of his corpus.

But while "making noise" may reflect the inaccuracy of Green's observation, it hardly does justice to the true irony of Allegro's sentiments. In a series of letters in 1957, following the publication of his book, Allegro began not just making noise, but making noise specifically implying a Vatican cover-up, and intentional delay on publication.

The irony, of course, is that Allegro still hadn't published his manuscripts. If there was an intentional vow of silence, Allegro must have partaken, as it would be another decade before he finished his work, albeit, as noted, incompetently.

In summation, I think I shall steal Strugnell's quip to describe Green's sentiments on John Allegro: "'R' habet italicum liber hic, habet atque pelasgum, Necnon hebraeum, praeteraque nihil."

Erroris. And nothing else.

Regards,
Rick

[ed. to fix error in the London Times citation]

Vorkosigan

Excellent post, Rick.

Layman

Rick,

Nice work. Thanks much.

offa

John Allegro's problem was that he was not an atheist. Fundies believe and athiests know. The problem is my statement disqualifies people that want to be atheist because they lack knowledge. Allegro's mushroom book was a waste. He did have possibilities with "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth".

Rick Sumner

John Allegro would fall under the category of atheist. He lacked belief in deities. Agnostic is generally used in place of "weak atheist," which is where Allegro would be categorized.

John Allegro's problem was that he was an incompetent, lying, opportunistic scumbag. No better--and no differently motivated--than Oded Golan.

Regards,
Rick

Toto

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth by John Allegro

Frank Moore Cross: Conversations With a Bible Scholar by Hershel Shanks, Frank Moore Cross (Editor)

The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Hershel Shanks

Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls by Joseph A. Fitzmyer

offa

I don't like to click on the blue,
I would like to know more about you.

Don't waste my time. I want YOUR opinion.

Peter Kirby

Hi Rick,

Have you put together an article including the above? Please e-mail the piece to me (even if you have attempted to send it already). It will be published on Christian Origins.

best,
Peter Kirby

spin

Rick Sumner is responsible for a sad and misinformed analysis on the great John Marco Allegro.

I would refer Rick to Allegro's original academic publications regarding the scrolls he had under his control in journals such as the Palestine Exploration Quarterly and other peer controlled journals to understand his academic acumen, not rehash the sentiments of men who proved incapable of publishing the texts under their tutelage for decades.

I don't support Allegro's later sorry efforts to make money after his career had been destroyed by the incompetents who had control of the texts, people some of whom died before publishing their official scrolls volumes. Milik for example had to get rid of many of his texts. Strugnell's only work to come out on time was his dubious critique on Allegro's volume (DJD #5). De Vaux, through his straightjacket control of the work on the scrolls is responsible for the sorry state of scrolls studies today, with numerous insidiously unsupported and unsupportable crank ideas prevalent in the field today.

Just think that it took Allegro five years wait after he had transcribed the copper scroll and sent his efforts to Milik, the official editor, to conclude that Milik was not living up to his academic responsibilities and publishing the text for the world's scholars, so Allegro published his original transcription. He was first and foremost a responsible and conservative scholar while pursuing his academic direction. (He also was a sly shit-stirrer, who got under the others' goat, and advocated some rather unjustified secondary analyses, but I would prefer to stick to what he was primarily about, for he was the best of the textual scholars involved.

After the publication of the texts which were not under the scroll team's control, Allegro was the only editor of scrolls material from the international team (beside Milik who was forced to publish the copper scroll by Allegro DJD3) to publish official volumes of scrolls material for twenty years. Allegro believed that it was better to publish the texts for other scholars to make analyses, than hide like the mice of the international team.

Brilliant results in his post-WW2 studies. Glowing recommendation from one of the greatest scholars of the period, H.H.Rowley. Seriousness in his approach to his academic responsibilities, unlike any of the others.

Which official scrolls volumes did they produce? Milik the copper scroll only because of Allegro. Cross, nothing.

On this ingenuousness later.

Read what Baumgartner, a fine Jewish scholar (forced to work only indirectly on the scrolls because of the ridiculous exclusivist policies of those who had control of the scrolls), wrote about Milik's "intuitions" concerning the copper scroll in his critique of DJD3. Look at how many texts he officially published that were in his hands. Look at how many scholars follow his beliefs on the Enochic books. Milik was clearly better than most of the guys.

Doh, to a bunch of ineffectual bumblers who couldn't publish anything they didn't want to change immediately -- and so didn't publish --, Milik must have been a leading luminary.

There is no point in citing the cotery of conspirators who hid their lack of lustre by not publishing. It's like getting testimonials from Sharon's cabinet for Yasser Arafat. At least one should go to some independent analysis, an analysis from someone who was not committed against Allegro, don't you think, Rick?

I don't think you have shown the expertise to comment, Rick. And I don't agree with you on scholarly grounds. If you would like to point out any problems with his purely academic work, I'll be happy to debate you on it.

This is scurrilous and ill-informed. I think you should apologize for libelling the dead.

When Allegro's career was destroyed by the likes of the wanna-be scholars around him -- and it is worthwhile wading through the awfully unfounded presuppositions of many of his colleagues to understand what we are really dealing with and what the thought processes of those you are defending were like -- such awful books as the Mushroom book I think can be overlooked. Dealing with his scholarship efforts, he just cannot be faulted by any independent scholar. You certainly won't get many faults from those people who revised his DJD5 volume for modern republication.

The process of editing these texts was clear to Allegro. Pioneers are bound to make mistakes, but one has to set out and this Allegro did and gave the world the biggest body of scrolls for decades. He clearly made mistakes. You must accept this fact. Einstein made mistakes. Your logic is non-existent here. The other guys made just as many mistakes, but they didn't publish formally, just passed the stuff around to their followers and refused access to anyone else. The rest of the world got to work on Allegro's texts and made the best of them, while getting next to nothing from Allegro's fellow scroll workers. Many scrolls were misnamed -- remember for example the "Manual of Discipline"? {grin} --, so what? These things can be, and have been, corrected by peer analysis.

Quality does not imply length.

Allegro published one volume (in collaboration with another English scholar A.A.Anderson). What is sprawling about it in your learned opinion?

Strugnell (and the rest who wrote the article with him as a planned attack on Allegro) was just more long-winded than Allegro. The latter preferred to err on the conservative side, by being stingy with his restorations and difficult letter readings. This is what a better scholar does. When he or she is publishing a standard edition, one provides a work that all scholars have to use and therefore one doesn't tend to theorize too much. From what I gleaned from those who were revising DJD5 at U. Copenhagen, they opted minimally more times for Allegro than for Strugnell. Remember, Strugnell had his own texts from the same time as Allegro had his. Who published? Allegro. What did Strugnell publish officially at the same time? Nothing. What happened to most of the texts that Strugnell had? They were farmed off to other scholars. There is no doubt in my mind about the difference in scholarship here. Allegro proves himself hands down, giving scholars the opportunity to work for decades on texts, while Strugnell gave them no chance whatsoever.

Pure scholarly politics. Understand that both Michael Wise and Robert Eisenman have given Allegro the recognition he deserves. These are two modern day scrolls scholars who were amongst other things responsible for forcing more scrolls to be published.

I'll spare you another trashing of Strugnell. Shanks has done an easy job.

Thus far, we are dealing with Allegro the scrolls scholar, the philologist. I have no intention to defend his contextualising assertions. He made as many as his peers and therefore came as many unfounded conclusions. Milik for example convinced himself that the copper scroll was a work of fantasy, incredibly silly. De Vaux decided that Qumran ended in a conflagration caused by an earthquake, because that was simpler for his analysis. Cross thought he could just put basically all the different scribal hands in a single sequence and then chop the sequence up uniformly to get some magical dating system, n\based partly on the assumptions of De Vaux's archaeology. People are quick to attack Allegro, yet hang on the others' whims.

On a condemnatory letter regarding Allegro,

Whoelse would you expect, some well-known scholar of the time or something?

Tell me, what did Skehan or Starcky ever produce officially?

This coming from the "scholar" who has sat on the Wadi ed-Daliyeh texts all his life, giving them piecemeal to his own students.

Contrary to your opinion, he certainly was a maverick. He didn't knuckle down to the others' flight from responsibility. He did his philological work and we can truly be thankful to him for doing so.

Please publish this in print and his heirs will sue you.

Rick, all you have done seems to me to show that you need to read Allegro's scholarly work in context and not just read what other people, the ones who basically were unable to publish and were clearly antagonistic to Allegro, wrote in their ineffectuality.

If you look at what the majority of published views on the scrolls are based on you'll see it will be DJD1 - 5, principally 1 and 5. Allegro provided about half the material that people are still using today, despite the fact that all scrolls have now been published (except for very, very small fragments).

Those who didn't publish their texts were responsible for the sorry state of scroll study today.

Allegro published some crap after his expulsion from the scrollery. He was also a provocateur and wanted to make a buck when he could. But give him a break. Analyse his academic work fairly and don't seek easy recourse in slander and aspersion. I think you have merely done injustice to someone who has given the world important work. He was a pioneer and should be regarded highly for his pioneering. One doesn't detract from Freud because of his errors. Many pioneers made mistakes, but they made it possible for others to follow them and improve on the pioneering efforts.


spin

spin

Sorry, Toto, but these are all old and outdated texts on the subject.

(I guess the Cross book is a bit more recent from memory, but the best he could do was make a farce over the first Qumran ostracon, willfully reading yachad into the text where it patently isn't.)

Try the introductory works of Schiffman, VanderKam, and use the Martinez translations (especially that with Tigchelaar, though this has the Hebrew text as well and comes in two volumes). There is no substitute for reading the texts themselves. A lot of crap has been written about them.

spin