Queries & Comments

008

Will Cline Sue Shanks? Will Shanks Sue Cline?

It’s a shame that Hershel Shanks didn’t do his research and fact-checking properly before he wrote his First Person editorial (“In Defense of Eilat Mazar,” March/April 2008) dragging people’s names through the mud. Had he really paid attention to what was said on the National Geographic blog to which he refers in his column, he would have noticed that my comment—about being wary of anyone claiming on a Web site or in multiple publications to have found more than one thing from the Bible was not made in connection with Eilat Mazar and her discoveries, but in connection with the various amateur enthusiasts who have claimed to find Noah’s Ark, the Ark of the Covenant, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. That is one of the major points of my book From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible (National Geographic, 2007).

My comment appeared on the National Geographic blog as part of an invited response on the Shroud of Turin. I never mentioned Eilat Mazar in my response, since there was no reason to do so. That is why there was “No discussion of the evidence” and “No consideration of Mazar’s qualifications”—because my comment had nothing to do with Eilat Mazar, as the original context makes perfectly clear. It was only in later comments, written by others, that mention of Eilat Mazar was first made. And it was only in a completely different blog entry, the entry about the finds of Professor Mazar, which Hershel cites, that the editor of the blog, Chris Sloan, subsequently quoted me when wondering—for the purposes of discussion—whether my comment about enthusiastic amateurs should or could be applied to Professor Mazar as well. Alert readers will note that I did not participate in that discussion, for good reason. And, alert readers will also note that Hershel should have kept scrolling down, for Chris Sloan subsequently added a comment to the blog entry two days later in which he wrote: “I’m testing to see if there are some criteria the average person can use to evaluate ‘sensational’ Biblical claims. It is just by coincidence that Dr. Mazar’s claim fit two criteria suggested by Eric Cline and Philip Davies.”

While I am actively campaigning against the misdeeds of certain amateur enthusiasts, I have not (yet) cast stones at any of my colleagues, least of all Eilat Mazar.

Hershel, I know that you want to sell magazines, but sowing discord and creating dissension between professional colleagues is not the way to do it.

I demand a retraction and a public apology from you for (1) wrongfully creating the illusion that I attacked Eilat Mazar and (2) creating potential conflict between colleagues where none had existed previously.

Hershel Shanks responds:

My piece was not about what Eric Cline did to Eilat Mazar, but about what National Geographic did to Eilat Mazar. Read my piece carefully. It is about National Geographic. It is not about Eric Cline. It only quotes what National Geographic said, including a quotation from Eric Cline that National Geographic used to flog Eilat Mazar. If Cline has a complaint, it is against National Geographic. He should have complained to National Geographic when its piece went up, charging that National Geographic had misused what he said when it applied his words to Eilat Mazar’s discovery of Nehemiah’s wall.

Indeed, the National Geographic editor responsible for the piece now says “I can understand where [Shanks] is coming from.”¹

Finally, I must add that I deeply resent Eric Cline’s repulsive charge that I sow discord and dissension between professional colleagues in order to sell magazines. I demand a retraction and a public apology from Professor Cline.

Palms Not Only for Festivals

I was interested in Bruce Chilton’s recent Biblical Views column (“Should Palm Sunday Be Celebrated in the Fall?” March/April 2008), in which he identifies Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem with the 010fall holiday of Sukkoth, in which palm branches figure prominently. He bases this connection on the gospel description of people laying palm branches at the feet of their Savior.

It should be noted, however, that similar displays of affection and enthusiasm on the part of crowds are recorded elsewhere: “Thus they cried to Simon … he cleansed the Temple from pollutions, and entered into it on the third and twentieth day of the second month … with thanksgiving, and branches of palm trees (waving), and with harps and cymbals, and with viols and hymns and songs …” (1Maccabees 13:50, 51; emphasis added).

And Philo, in his “Letter to Gaius,” records that Marcus Agrippa was escorted to the coast and it seemed that the whole of the countryside turned out for him, strewing branches in his path in gratitude for the respect and honor he had shown to the Temple and to the people’s faith.

Palm branches may have less to do with festival timing than with simple national acclamation.

Should I Cancel My Subscription?

I received my first copy of BAR, and I would like a question answered before I jump to conclusions and cancel my subscription. Upon reading through the magazine, I came across an article titled “The Life of the Dead Sea” (January/February 2008). The article begins with “Millions of years ago.”

Does your magazine hold to a creation view or an evolutionary view? Evolution goes against the Bible. God created everything in six days.

You will probably be more comfortable canceling your subscription.—Ed.

Orthodox Interpretation Makes No Apologies

Don’t Butcher the Text

Regarding Richard Elliott Friedman’s review essay of James Kugel’s recent book How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture Then and Now (“Ancient Biblical Interpreters vs. Archaeology & Modern Scholars,” January/February 2008): Kugel identifies himself as an Orthodox Jew, but he also subscribes unequivocally to the Documentary Hypothesis and the Wellhausen school of Biblical criticism. Kugel tries to reconcile his critical views with his purported Orthodox faith and, as Friedman points out correctly, he is not successful. The two points of view are irreconcilable by definition. Orthodox Judaism, or rather Classical Judaism, as I prefer to call it, is predicated on the divine authorship of the Bible. That is the red line that divides Classical Judaism from the modern streams, and by crossing that line, Kugel effectively removes himself from it.

In the article, Friedman gloats that at long last the Orthodox wall has been breached. “In the past,” he writes, “Orthodox Jews have steadfastly rejected modern scholarship, but what are they to do now? They cannot say that Kugel is a secular scholar or that he is antireligious or anti-Orthodox. They cannot say that his 012book is by someone less learned than they, because Kugel is the most learned Orthodox scholar of the Bible on the earth.”

I find this offensive. Kugel may perhaps be categorized as a scholar of the 19th-century German Protestant school of Biblical criticism who considers himself a practicing Orthodox Jew, but he is certainly not an Orthodox scholar by any means, let alone the most learned one on the face of the earth.

Apparently, Friedman is not content to pursue his chosen path of investigation without taunting the many thousands of Orthodox scholars, including me, who believe that he and all his colleagues are wasting their time. In an article for Moment (August 2003) Friedman wrote, “Orthodoxy needs no defense. It is a matter of faith, and one may choose to adhere to that faith even if one is familiar with the data of science, archaeology and contemporary Biblical scholarship that call that faith into question in the minds of others … Personally, I think they would be better off taking a position of unquestioning faith. I do not think they will be able to respond to the mass of evidence.” How patronizing and offensive.

Actually, Friedman is of little interest to me. I am more disturbed by the possible public perception that James Kugel is Orthodox and that it is somehow acceptable for Orthodox Jews to read the Bible as he does. I feel a responsibility, therefore, to demonstrate that the traditional understanding of the Bible is perfectly valid and far superior to the new recipes.

The ideas of Biblical criticism have been so solidly injected into academia and popular culture that people accept them as axiomatic. The general public has been conditioned to believe that rejecting these ideas is like believing in a flat earth. But that is because most people have never seen the butchery of the text up close.

Rabbi Reinman goes on to reject the Documentary Hypothesis, which holds that the Bible was composed by different authors whose work was interwoven by editors known as redactors. Here are some highlights from his article:

“Never in the history of the world has a book been spliced together from multiple documents by the kind of elaborate surgery that the critics perform on the Bible text. Most amazing of all is that after all the analysis and the identification of different documents and subdocuments and subsubdocuments, after all the deletions and emendations and claims of scribal errors, numerous anomalies and difficulties remain.

“How is it possible that these mythical redactors who allegedly managed to pull off one of the most colossal hoaxes in the history of the world were not careful enough to avoid the red flags that drew the attention of the critics? If the first creation story is followed by a second creation story that contradicts the first, why didn’t the redactors fix it? If in one place Esau’s wives are identified by one set of names and elsewhere by another set of names, why didn’t the redactors fix it?

“After all, these people were brilliant. They supposedly put together a 014masterpiece of deception that gave rise to the religions that dominate the world to this day. Why weren’t they more careful with their editing and proofreading?”

Rabbi Reinman also writes critically of archaeologists’ excavation of ancient graves:

“Why was it morally acceptable to open the tomb of King Tut—a king, no less—and remove his funerary treasures for display in the British Museum? Why is it morally acceptable to show his mummified face to hundreds of tourists daily when he would surely protest violently if only he could? Where is respect for the dead? Where is respect for their rights? Why should we be allowed to disturb them in their eternal rest?

“Some might say that it is acceptable because such a long time has passed. Thousands of years. So when does the statute of limitations for grave robbery run out? Are the dead allowed one hundred years of undisturbed peace? One thousand years? At which point do the dead become fair game?

“Others may argue that the violation of King Tut’s tomb was not motivated by greed. Rather, it was done in the interests of science and history. It was to enrich our society’s understanding of the ancient world. But that is also a spurious argument. How many lives were saved by opening King Tut’s tomb? Did we come closer to a cure for cancer? Is academic curiosity about ancient times a valid excuse for violating the sanctity of the grave?”

Get Thee to a Yeshiva

As an Orthodox Jew, I was amused by Professor Friedman’s review of James Kugel’s latest book. It would seem that Friedman thinks that we Orthodox should be collectively collapsing in shame over our primitive beliefs, especially in the light of powerful evidence from the latest secular (and therefore objective) Biblical scholarship. All the more so since one of our own has confessed his sins and proceeded to apologize for his belief. I, for one, wear this badge of shame with honor. The Torah is a unique and special document despite its dissection from critics.

At the most basic level, Bible criticism is a flawed method not because we can learn nothing from archaeology itself or linguistic analysis; rather because it is very much about people and their often subjective way of seeing things. Most of us see what we want to see by dint of such factors as personality, intelligence, social, economic or even political status. Who is really ready to let the chips fall where they may?

I am not necessarily denigrating those who honestly feel they cannot believe in the divine-origin approach. My point is rather that they put on colored lenses to continually justify their assumptions much as they accuse believers of doing. We who believe in divine origin see astounding things by sticking with the theory that the Scriptures are a basically unified body of knowledge. This does not mean believers are without bias, just that secularists are not less so, their scientific protestations notwithstanding.

Professor Friedman, if you are really concerned for the truth about the Bible, perhaps you should go off to a yeshiva for a few years and see what you learn. That’s exactly what happened to this former secularist. At the very least it would prove your love of truth and somewhat vindicate your objectivity.

Critical Scholars Deaf to Subtleties in Texts

The fascinating article on Biblical interpretation nevertheless missed an intriguing and significant strand of interpretation. Modern literary analysis is beginning to show that the degree of subversion in Hebrew narrative texts is largely underestimated. Much Hebrew narrative employs a strong layer of irony, often intentionally humorous, often using deliberate verbal ambiguity eminently suitable for oral delivery but not conducive to translation. Scholarly analysis is often based on a misunderstanding of subversive authorial intentions, of the subtlety of Hebrew humor and the conscious wordplay employed for deliberate comic effect. Humor permeates these texts.

The Deuteronomic History, for example, is continually questioning its own assumptions by such devices. The text is 016continually asking the reader questions, rather than necessarily supplying didactic answers, as assumed by liberals and fundamentalists alike.

Following Robert Alter’s books, there has been a fresh appreciation of literary techniques that allow for narrative cohesion and subtlety of authorial intent. It may even be that eventually the whole J, E, D, P construct will one day fail before the techniques of literary analysis. Perhaps a root problem is that the heavy Germanic seriousness on which the 19th-century liberal critical edifice was founded was profoundly deaf to a Jewish sense of humor.

Jezebel Post-Postscript

Who’s Condescending?

Professor Christopher Rollston has responded online to Hershel Shanks’s Editor’s Postscript (“Is It Tenable?” March/April 2008). We print below the relevant parts of his response. His entire response is in our Debates section at www.biblicalarchaeology.org.

I read with great disappointment the polemical and condescending statements of Hershel Shanks about my research in general …

Regarding the yzbl seal: (a) There is no patronymic. (b) There is no title. (c) Korpel restores a letter to get the reading she wants, in spite of the fact that there are other good options (see my article at www.asor.org). (d) I would not be inclined to date the script to the ninth century. (e) I am aware of no epigraphic Old Hebrew seal or bulla from a scientific expedition that was found in a ninth-century context. Helene Sader has stated that she is not aware of any epigraphic Phoenician seal or bulla that has been found in a ninth-century context in Lebanon …

The most disappointing aspect of Hershel’s statements was the condescending components of it, which were many. I am not surprised, of course. He has done the same thing to many people, including my dear friend Yuval Goren. It is regrettable that a non-academic such as Hershel uses his magazine for such purposes. Surely the standard should be higher than he sets it.

Hershel Shanks responds:

Professor Rollston twice charges me with “condescension.” In the matter of condescension, however, he takes a backseat to no one. Indeed, it was his condescension—not to me, but to Professor Marjo Korpel, a distinguished academic at the University of Utrecht who wrote our article on Jezebel’s seal—that occasioned my BAR discussion in which Professor Rollston finds me condescending.

Professor Rollston did not simply criticize Professor Korpel; he condescendingly charged her with an absolutely baseless argument, bordering on kookiness. In his own words, her argument was not even “tenable.” Is this the kind of argumentation that academics use toward one another?

To make it absolutely clear what he 077thought of Korpel’s scholarship, Professor Rollston added that the Jezebel seal “must be later” than the period of the Bible’s Queen Jezebel.

I suppose if Korpel’s position were really so kooky, this kind of criticism might be OK. But when I checked out what other scholars thought about Korpel’s dating, they seemed to say it was quite reasonable. In these circumstances, Professor Rollston’s harsh words came across as condescending. I thought Professor Korpel had to be defended, especially because Professor Rollston’s dismissive ipse dixit was unaccompanied by any paleographic discussion.

In his response to me, Professor Rollston now states that “I would not be inclined to date the script [on the seal] to the ninth century.” If he had used this kind of language in his original criticism of Korpel, there would have been no need for my BAR discussion. Professor Rollston has clearly now moved; instead of calling Korpel’s argument “not … tenable” and saying the inscription “must” date later than the ninth century, he is now only “inclined” to think so.

That is certainly a legitimate argument—and made respectfully. This is the same tone properly taken by Professor Ami Mazar in the letter that follows. It is also the same kind of civil argument made by Professor Ryan Byrne in a paleographical discussion of the “Jezebel” seal in which he disagrees with her dating. Professor Byrne’s discussion appears in our Debates section at www.biblicalarchaeology.org.

Finally, I must also say that I am offended by the condescending attitude that Professor Rollston takes toward me. I have been editing this archaeology magazine, which publishes contributions by the most distinguished academics in the world, for almost 35 years. I have three degrees from the finest academic institutions in the country. I have written numerous books on Biblical archaeology, a number of them with leading academics, and edited others including textbooks widely used in first-rate academic institutions. To have Professor Rollston condescendingly refer to “a non-academic such as Hershel” is a bit much. I close with the same sentence that Professor 078Rollston closed with: “Surely the standard should be higher than he sets it.”

Too Late for Jezebel

Marjo Korpel’s identification of the name on the seal published by Nahman Avigad in 1964 as that of Queen Jezebel is, in my view, very doubtful. Jezebel lived during the first half of the ninth century B.C.E. We don’t have a single example of an inscribed seal found in a reliable archaeological context dating to that century. All the inscribed seals from reliable contexts are dated to the eighth century B.C.E. and later. Seals and seal impressions from ninth-century B.C.E. contexts are always uninscribed. Such are about 20 seals and seal impressions from the tenth and ninth centuries at Tel Rehov, about 150 seal impressions and a few actual seals from the excavations directed by Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron in the City of David (Jerusalem) dated to the late ninth century B.C.E., as well as sporadic seals found at Jezreel and other sites that can be dated securely to the ninth century B.C.E. If Korpel is right, this seal would be unique and the oldest of its kind.

The only way to accept Korpel’s interpretation would be to claim that the seal was produced in Phoenicia, and that the Phoenicians started to produce inscribed seals already in the ninth century B.C.E., earlier than their appearance in Israel, Judah and Transjordan. Yet we have no proof for such an assumption.

“A” Not “E”

How could someone transliterate the Hebrew word for “salt” as melech (which sounds a lot like the word for “king”) instead of melach (“How Many?” January/February 2008)? Surely the “e” rather than “a” is quite wrong.

You’re right.—Ed.

Correction

Please accept my apologies, but I noticed only when my article on the Nea was published (“The Nea Church,” January/February 2008) that I referred to the same work under different titles, with different references. The Capture of Jerusalem (Expugnationis Hierosolymae) (note 15) and “the eyewitness account by Antiochus Strategos” (note 21) are the same.

Also, may I just add my thanks to Sean Kingsley, whose book God’s Gold (2007) I found so fascinating that it made me think about the Nea as a location for the Temple treasure: Dr. Kingsley suggested the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and points to the Monastery of Theodosius as the treasure’s final resting place. Even though we disagree on a Jerusalem location, he was very helpful in the writing of this article, and he deserves better credit than I gave him.

Will Cline Sue Shanks? Will Shanks Sue Cline?