In Their Own Words
In the last issue, the editor’s First Person was devoted to some recent praise for BAR. It is therefore only fair that we balance this with some recent criticism—by a leading English scholar, Lester L. Grabbe:
As an ex-fundamentalist I am rather sensitive to arguments by conservative evangelicals which use the trappings of scholarship but which in my opinion cloak fundamentalist motives. But I think John Emerton was quite right when I once heard him say that even in such cases we should answer the actual argument and not just dismiss it because of the presumed motive.
Sadly, there is a convenient catalyst for personal attacks, the magazine The Biblical Archaeology Review. When BAR first appeared in the 1970s, I welcomed it. There was and is room in the market for a well-done popular journal of archaeology. Like many I subscribe and read it regularly. But in recent years it seems to have lent itself to those wanting to make person[al] attacks on other scholars, and some have found the opportunity too tempting to ignore and ended up saying things they would not dream of saying in an academic journal.
A BAR article early in 2005 appeared to report on a conference on the history of ancient Israel, organized in Rome by the well-respected scholar of the ancient Near East, Mario Liverani.1 There were widespread differences in point of view and a robust debate took place. You would not know this from Shanks’s article which was along the lines of, “Isn’t it awful the terrible things they are saying about the Bible?” His knowledge was of course entirely based on paper drafts placed on a website, not from anyone of his staff being present at the conference (the conference had in fact taken place two years earlier in March 2003). And it was a case of selective quotation, without any attempt to present context or full argumentation. The impression left on any readers without background knowledge was completely unfair and distorted.
Such articles have me completely puzzled by the editorial policy of BAR. I understand the editor is not himself particularly religious, yet he seems at times to pursue an almost fundamentalist agenda. I once thought this might have to do with his audience, which seems to contain a significant conservative evangelical contingent. The editorial policy could then be seen as a way of appealing to this audience. But as time has gone by I have wondered if there is not something much more personal to it all. The trouble is, personal agendas do not usually make good editorial policy.