Queries & Comments

014

Honest, We Were Only Kidding!

What the devil is “Hell Found Under Siberia” (BARlines, BAR 16:06), doing in BAR? I read your magazine to learn more about a subject that is already sadly filled with myths and misconceptions, not to read an article that would be refused by the National Enquirer as too ridiculous.

I could not believe my eyes when I read the item in BARlines entitled “Hell Found Under Siberia: Screams Scare Scientists” (BARlines, BAR 16:06). I used to say to my students that BAR was to archaeology what the National Enquirer was to responsible journalism. In more recent years I had begun to change my opinion—that is, until this item appeared.

The late classical scholar Sir Moses Finley once wrote that the first thing to ask of a document was who wrote it, and for what purpose? Documents never stand as objective witnesses to the truth, but are products of minds that are set in particular contexts and with special agendas. This goes for the most boring bureaucratic prose as well as the most sensational yellow journalism. Surely you appreciate this!

To take at face value the report from the Midnight Cry as though it were reliable and free from prejudice and bias is naive in the extreme. Then to report it without comment giving it an air of respectability is irresponsible.

The article entitled “Hell Found Under Siberia: Screams Scare Scientists,” BARlines, BAR 16:06, quotes a “Dr. Azzacov” who supposedly let down “super-sensitive microphones” through a hole in the earth and could hear the sounds of screaming voices from the center of the earth. Actually, what Dr. Azzacov heard was the sounds of screaming laughter coming from the millions of people who read the article.

I hope you will stop printing such nonsensical third- and fourth-hand information (“Hell Found Under Siberia: Screams Scare Scientists,” BARlines, BAR 16:06) and stick to straightforward factual reporting on serious and helpful finds, instead of promoting such ludicrous claims.

When I saw the lead story in BARlines, I did not know whether to cry or to laugh.

Obviously, the story is a fake, but how could anyone with an ounce of sense believe such nonsense to begin with? Surely you know you have just given credence to all of the horror movies about the living dead and suggested an invasion from hell.

Christians have been taken in by many frauds over the years who cleverly make money at the expense of truth. Such is one of the shames Christians must bear, but one would expect more from a scholarly journal.

Please do not insult the intelligence of your readers with any more of these ghost stories.

How could a responsible scholarly journal such as yours print such a story (“Hell Found Under Siberia: Screams Scare Scientists,” BARlines, BAR 16:06) without comment?

You have, however inadvertently, contributed to the difficulties of those of us who have to deal with such “reports” with some frequency in our parishes. Now BAR will be referred to as one of the reference sources for this “news” story: “It was in BAR, so it must be true!”

In regard to the report on the discovery of hell:

Hell? No!
It just isn’t so!
Its existence I won’t dispute
But its discovery I will refute.

Perhaps you occasionally publish tongue-in-cheek articles in order to have a little humor with your subscribers or to satisfy die-hard fundamentalists. If this is so, I can accept this and you can disregard this letter. However, if not, I would like to see BAR follow up and see if a Dr. Azzacov even exists.

Surely you jest! (“Hell Found Under Siberia: Screams Scare Scientists,” BARlines, BAR 16:06). Unfortunately, I could find no tongue-in-cheek disclaimer for this article. It may have passed completely over my head, but surely a periodical with a scientific middle name could not seriously report this incident without some comment.

We apologize. We thought the claim that hell was discovered—with millions of people screaming nine miles below the earth’s surface—was so inherently ridiculous that our readers would get a laugh over the story, just as we did. To make sure no one took it seriously, we signaled at the outset: It was, we said, like the stories of the discovery of Noah’s Ark and the Ark of the Covenant; we even cited BAR articles that debunked claims regarding the discovery of these two arks. But apparently some of our readers nevertheless believed the story, and to them we apologize.

If hell is ever actually discovered, you may be sure we will not confine our announcement to an item in BARlines. We’ll give it a 72-point head across a spread—with the first color pictures of the place!

Incidentally, enterprising radio talk show host Rich Bubler has traced the source of the report of hell’s discovery. It was all made up by a man from Norway who simply fabricated the entire story. Buhler gives an account of his successful effort to trace the source of the hoax in the July 16, 1990, issue of Christianity Today, 465 Gunderson Drive, Carol Stream, IL 60188.—Ed.

015

No Evidence of Anti-Judaism in Strugnell’s Work

As friends and colleagues of John Strugnell we were dismayed to read the reports of the Ha’aretz interview in which he made grossly insensitive and reprehensible statements about Jews and Judaism. While we find these remarks abhorrent, it is our understanding that they were made at a time when he was seriously ill. We cannot know how much his illness influenced what he said. We can say that such statements stand in contrast to his actions over the past 25 years.

We have known John Strugnell as a man who is extraordinarily generous with his vast knowledge and warm friendship. His classes and home have always been meeting places where Jewish and Christian scholars could gather to discuss their common heritage without prejudice or rancor. He is a scholar’s scholar, who has been a never-ending source of encouragement and advice to a generation of students and to colleagues studying the scrolls and the entire range of Jewish literature of the Greco-Roman period. His immense learning, freely and eagerly dispensed, stands behind many of the most important contributions to the field.

As chief editor of the Dead Sea Scrolls publication team, he moved quickly to include American Jews and Israelis among those responsible for editing the documents. At Harvard Divinity School he was instrumental in the movement to create a position for a Professor of Jewish Studies. In his scholarship and in his teaching he has always stressed the importance of understanding the richly diverse Jewish world out of which Christianity arose. He has also insisted that ancient Judaism be understood on its own terms and in its own right, not simply as a foil or backdrop to the early church.

As those who have worked closely with him in the study of ancient Judaism and early Jewish-Christian relations, we have never read or heard any evidence of anti-Judaism in his scholarship or teaching. His work represents the highest standard of professionalism in the interpretation of ancient Judaism and Christianity.

We ask then that those who know John Strugnell only through recent news reports not judge him on that basis alone. As friends and colleagues we remain deeply grateful to a man who has contributed so much to the study of ancient Judaism.

It is not difficult to sympathize with—and even to share—the loyalty and devotion reflected in this letter from grateful students and colleagues for a wonderful teacher and generous and caring mentor. We are pleased to publish it.

We can also understand the desire of the signatories to avoid, if possible, the question as to whether their beloved teacher is and has been an anti-Semite.

Their letter avoids the issue in two steps. First, it suggests that the anti-Semitism reflected in Strugnell’s interview with Israeli journalist Avi Katzman and reprinted in BAR (“Chief Dead Sea Scroll Editor Denounces Judaism,” BAR 17:01) may have been the result of his mental illness (“We cannot know how much his illness influenced what he said”). Second, and in any event, it didn’t affect his work (“we have never read or heard any evidence of anti-Judaism in his scholarship or teaching”).

As a responsible journal, we cannot avoid the anti-Semitism issue and its ramifications. It has been avoided too long. (See “Silence, Anti-Semitism and the Scrolls,” in this issue.) We hope that with the passage of time, the signatories to this letter will also discuss these issues. For example, one signatory to this letter told a reporter that when John Strugnell would make derogatory remarks, the person would call Strugnell on it and he would laugh and back down. This, apparently, was not considered anti-Semitism. Another signatory said Strugnell has long been known for his “slurs.” Still another affirmed that Strugnell believed in Christian supersessionism, but neither is that, in the signatory’s view, anti-Semitism.

We need to talk about these things. At the same time we express our compassion for John Strugnell and celebrate his accomplishments and his fine qualities as scholar, teacher and friend, we need to stop for a moment to discuss some things we have avoided. We hope the distinguished signatories to this letter will take part in this discussion.—Ed.

Anti-Semitic Pastor Decides Not to Renew

We occasionally receive hate mail of various kinds, including anti-Semitic mail. We simply pitch it where it belongs. The following anti-Semitic letter we print, however, because it comes from a man of the cloth who should know better and because we decided to let our readers see for themselves some of the thinking that still permeates segments of our society. Needless to say, we deplore the sentiments expressed in this letter.—Ed.

I am still disturbed by your use of B.C.E. and C.E. as substitutes for B.C. and A.D. Your identifying them as scholarly alternatives only compounds the problem for me. Calling the Christian Era the Common Era is not a scholarly alternative. It is a Jewish alternative, and a particularly insulting one at that. Perhaps, if Christians are too stupid 016to realize this, they deserve to be insulted, but our Savior does not. He has established a new Covenant Community made up of those who have been made clean by God because of the Son. Unfortunately, the Jewish nation has never been spiritually sensitive enough to accept, or even see, this. People of Jewish heritage have had to do what those of every other heritage have done, leave their own “community” to become part of the new covenant because their own community, or congregation, has refused to accept the cleansing God has given in the Christ. I can understand that an unconverted Jew would think Jesus and his work unclean; after all, that is what they said about him when he was in the flesh. I have no intention, however, of paying for the dubious priviledge [sic] of reading that insult in print.

The Failure to Publish Final Excavations Reports

Now that you seem to be making progress with the “reexcavation” of the Dead Sea Scrolls, perhaps you would like to take up another matter, one that was partially addressed by Donald Wiseman’s article, “The Bottleneck of Archaeological Publication,” BAR 16:05—the slow pace of publication of excavation reports.

Irreplaceable material is being dug up, but not written up. Delays of over 20 years are commonplace and many sites seem likely never to be published at all except as preliminary articles. Some sites may not warrant the expense of a full excavation report; an article may be sufficient. But many major sites are not being properly published. Some of the problems seem to be: lack of time (university commitments, etc.), lack of finance (easier to fund the dig than the publication), disagreement between excavators, loss of interest by the excavators and, eventually, the death of the excavators.

To give a few examples (and this is not to imply that those involved are worse than many of their colleagues): Shechem, excavated in the 1950s and 1960s—we have only Volume 1, “The Middle Bronze IIB Pottery”; Taanach, excavated in the 1960s—only Volume 1, “Studies in the Iron Age Pottery”; Beth-Shean, excavated in the 1920s and 1930s—four volumes published before the war, one in 1966 and another due out next year. Some of the sites for which no final reports have appeared are: Jaffa, excavated in the 1950s and 1960s; Dothan, excavated in the 1950s; and Tell Dan, excavated from the 1960s and still continuing.

I suggest that leaders of excavations that have not yet been published should be prevented from undertaking further excavations, at least until they have produced a timetable for publication of their work.

The Wrong Pyramid

Please excuse my glee in pointing out a huge error in “How I Almost Climbed Cheops’ Pyramid,” BAR 16:06 by Carey A. Moore. That lovely two-page picture is a photo of Chephren’s pyramid, not Cheops’. Chephren’s is the second-largest pyramid, and is also at Giza. The difference between the two is obvious because Chephren’s summit still has some of its exterior casing stones, while Cheops’ is bare.

As an avid pyramid-o-phile, I have sometimes noticed the same error elsewhere and wonder why that should be. Maybe it is because Chephren photographs better, with the Sphinx in the foreground.

Even High School Students Caught the Error

I am a high school history teacher and enjoy your magazine very much. I teach an elective course called “Ancient History” to freshmen; it is one of the most popular electives we have at Willits High School. Students are fascinated with ancient civilizations, especially the Egyptians. I often use articles from your magazine to promote discussions among my students.

It was, therefore, with a great deal of excitement that I took your BAR 16:06 issue into my classroom to show them the excellent article written by Carey Moore entitled “How I Almost Climbed Cheops’ Pyramid,” BAR 16:06. Unfortunately, I taught them too well. They immediately spotted the rather large error in identifying Chephren’s pyramid as that of Cheops. According to tradition, Chephren had an unsightly pile of rubble left from the building of his pyramid so he had it transformed into the Great Sphinx, which is part of the Chephren complex. The Chephren pyramid is about 10 feet shorter than the Great Pyramid of Cheops, although it looks taller because it was built on higher ground.

This teacher, now 46 years old, shares the author’s dream, and hopes someday to be able to afford the trip to the pyramids and to be able to climb to the summit. Hopefully, if I someday am able to reach the Great Pyramid, my wife will not become “the voice of reason” and the watchmen will look the other way.

How to Tell the Difference

Had Carey Moore felt like climbing Chephren’s pyramid, which you mistakenly pictured in your story (“How I Almost Climbed Cheops’ Pyramid,” BAR 16:06), it would indeed have been difficult; Chephren’s pyramid still holds several courses of its original white casing stones at the top. In Cheops’ pyramid all casing stones have been removed except for a few at the very bottom. The present exterior now is stair-stepped, and easily climbed at its northeast corner. This leads up to a now-truncated top, leaving a flat platform.

Although it had been “forbidden” in 1976 and 1978 when I spent several weeks there, many people still climbed Cheops’ pyramid, my son among them.

The Wrong Height

Carey Moore states that the Great Pyramid of Cheops is “the tallest of the pyramids, at 449 feet (about 10 feet below its original height).” But in his authoritative book The Pyramids of Egypt, Dr. I. E. S. Edwards comments that the Great Pyramid, when complete, “rose to a 018height of 481.4 feet, the top 31 feet of which are now missing.”

Sympathizes with Moore

I enjoyed reading Carey Moore’s article, “How I Almost Climbed Cheops’ Pyramid,” BAR 16:06. It reminded me of the trip my wife Lucile and I took to Egypt in 1986, two years before I retired. I, too, would have dearly loved to climb the Cheops pyramid but had to be satisfied with the less strenuous climb inside the monument up the Grand Hallway to the pharaoh’s tomb chamber in the very center of the pyramid. My wife too insisted on doing this, even though she suffers from mild claustrophobia. Nevertheless, she felt the ordeal was well worth it, despite the ominous darkness and antics of Egyptian boys inside the monument.

He Made It

I joined the Cheops Club in 1985 when a buddy and I stood on its zenith and watched the sunrise over Cairo. It was a breathtaking experience—emotionally and physically!

She Climbed It Too

When the BAR 16:06 arrived, as usual I dropped everything to read my favorite magazine cover to cover. First, I read the article by my Johns Hopkins classmate of 1957–1959, Carey A. Moore, “How I Almost Climbed Cheops’ Pyramid,” BAR 16:06. I was in Dr. Siegfried Horn’s first Guided Tour to Europe and the Bible Lands in the summer of 1957. While the rest of our group went off to climb the Great Pyramid, I remained behind, swimming in the Mena House pool; I didn’t want to be a drag on the fellows, many of whom were my Hebrew students and helpful to me.

When they resumed, “Texas” (Morris Lewis) said to me, “Oh, Leona, you could have pushed a baby buggy all the way to the top!”

I hated myself all that night for missing what was undoubtedly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Next morning at breakfast in our Cairo hotel, I found several other tour members in the same state. Having a free morning, we hired a taxi and drove across the Nile to the pyramid field, hired our individual Arab guides and climbed the Great Pyramid! It took us about 20 minutes with several rest stops. The top 30 feet had been removed so it had a large flat top. We took pictures from there all around, and marveled as we looked down to see that one could literally stand with one foot in the green Nile Valley and the other in the yellow desert.

What bothered me, however, was how I was ever going to get down. It was steeper than any stairway, with no handrails. I was not about to let my guide swing me from narrow ledge to ledge. And he would not let me go down backwards. But I could not face the great open nothingness that the climb down represented! On the way up, our guides had gathered up their long skirts, made it up to the next level and reached their hands down to help us up as we put our toes in crevices in the stone blocks. But going down frontwards there were no toeholds.

I quickly devised my personal method: I sat on the edge and slid down till my feet touched the ledge below. I sat-and-slid all the way down the Great Pyramid! At the bottom, my black jeans were largely white in the rear, but fortunately still whole, not holey!

Even if that climb is now forbidden, a trip to the Bible Lands, including Egypt, is a tremendous experience for any person interested in the Bible. It really comes alive and means so much more for the rest of one’s life. Save your money and join a tour group.

Death at the Pyramids

Chephren’s pyramid, which you mistakenly pictured in Carey Moore’s article “How I Almost Climbed Cheops’ Pyramid,” BAR 16:06 is really difficult to climb. In a fall from this pyramid the American mountaineer Rand Herron was killed in 1932 when returning from a Himalayan expedition. I have myself climbed both the Great Pyramid of Cheops and the Second Pyramid of Chephren. My photograph of the Great Pyramid in my Light from the Ancient Past was taken from the summit of the Second Pyramid.

More Info on Computers and the Bible

It was a pleasure to see John J. Hughes’ typically readable and helpful introduction to “Computers and the Bible,” BAR 16:06. I was startled, however, to note that the address for CCAT (from which various Biblical texts and utilities are available) had been somewhat garbled in transmission: It should be: CCAT, College Hall Box 36, 020University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104–6303.

The addition of a Computer Corner as a regular feature of BAR is most welcome. For some reason, the “traditional” journals have been very slow to treat the important new developments of electronic texts and tools in the careful and systematic manner they deserve. The appearance of my own OFFLINE column in the Bulletin of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion and in the Religious Studies News has been a rather modest attempt to help meet that need for the more academically oriented students of religions.

Back copies of OFFLINE, which began in 1984, are available on diskette (IBM, Mac or IBYCUS) as a token of appreciation for gifts of $10 or more to the CATSS project (Computer Assisted Tools for Septuagint Studies) at the above address. Such gifts, if made before August 1991, will release an equivalent amount in NEH matching funds toward the continuance of the production of scholarly electronic texts and tools for study of the ancient Biblical materials. An updated CD-ROM of CATSS/CCAT materials is planned for the fall of 1991.

How a Scholarly Monopoly Was Broken

“How to Break a Scholarly Monopoly,” BAR 16:06, speaks of the Claremont team headed by James M. Robinson as replacing the French team of scholars that had intended to publish the Nag Hammadi codices.

I am astonished that no mention is made of the French-language team at Laval University in Quebec, which since 1977 has published 19 volumes of the Bibliotheque Copte de Nag Hammadi. These contain an introduction, critical edition, French translation and commentary for each of the Nag Hammadi treatises—25 so far.

Professor James Robinson replies:

Part of the way in which the French monopoly was broken was by aiding the team of the University of Laval, both by providing them with our transcriptions of the texts and by submitting a rebuttal to the Canada Council that succeeded in overcoming the Paris veto that had sought to block their funding. The Laval and the Claremont projects continue to cooperate closely with each other.

Is Noah’s Ark Encased in Ice?

In your BAR 16:03 issue is an ad for a book entitled Discovered, Noah’s Ark.

The short ad leads one to believe the ark has not only been discovered (which is not new) but uncovered (this is new) from its bed of ice and can be viewed in late 1990. The illustration on the book cover also gives this message.

I have seen nothing in BAR or in the public media about the Ark being “open to the public in late 1990.” Since uncovering the ark would be of worldwide interest, I am surprised your magazine has been silent on the matter.

My question is: Is the Ark to be sufficiently free from its ice encasement for all to view this year?

Noah’s Ark has not been found, encased in ice or otherwise. For another false report of its discovery see BARlines, in this issue.—Ed.

Our Objectionable Ads

Writing this letter is something out of the norm for me.

I want you to know I am not criticizing your magazine. I enjoy it very much. But I was under the impression it was a Christian-centered magazine.

In the BAR 16:05 issue is an advertisement entitled “Archaeology Proves the Bible.” Not knowing what I was heading for, I sent for their free booklet. The booklet they sent was a list of other books and material that they offered at a reasonable price, so I sent for several of these books.

When I received them I was very excited and eager to launch into a good study of the Scriptures, which is something we all need to do.

Little did I know what was hidden within the covers of these books. I praise God for the guidance of the Holy Spirit who shall lead us into all truth.

Before I had finished the first book the writer had denied the trinity of the Godhead and reduced our Lord Jesus Christ to a lesser god. Needless to say, I stopped reading.

The big problem is not with a mature Christian or one versed in the Scripture, but with the new babes in Christ who are still on milk but hoping to cut their teeth on some meat. They could be led astray.

My question is, do you screen those who place ads in your magazine?

If not, why not?

075

If you did this in ignorance, that is one thing, but now that you know better you will be held accountable.

In the BAR 16:06 issue is an ad that begins “Babylon’s great masquerade—666—the Christian connection.” That sounds totally unreasonable to be in a Biblical magazine. Are your ads screened before they’re published? Do you have the right to turn an ad down? That’s what you should have done in this case. People selling trash like that should have their own magazine.

P.S. No hard feelings against you though. I still love BAR.

I do not know where your organization stands doctrinally, but if you knowingly advertise for people who distort the Biblical doctrine of Christ, I could never subscribe to your magazine or support your ministry.

Our policy regarding ads is set forth in a statement entitled “Should You Patronize Our Advertisers?” BAR 16:05.—Ed.

Talking Out of Both Sides of Our Mouth

I have delayed renewing my subscription for BAR because I am offended by your attitude—on ads for antiquities (“Should You Patronize Our Advertisers?” BAR 16:05).

In the first paragraph you state that “BAR wants you to patronize our advertisers.” Yet later you state “We nevertheless advise you not to patronize these [antiquities dealers] advertisers.”

Come on, now, you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Telling your readers “don’t patronize” antiquities dealers and “don’t collect” antiquities neatly places all responsibility on your readers, doesn’t it? And supposedly washes your hands of all blame? But it doesn’t wash your hands of the money and encouragement these plunderers are receiving from international exposure, thanks to BAR. Obviously you are making it well worth their advertising dollars.

My prayer is that you will decide to stand up and be counted for what you say you believe.

Honest, We Were Only Kidding!