The cover of the March/April 2008 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review bore a huge photograph of the seal that some scholars have linked with the biblical queen Jezebel. Most recently, Marjo Korpel has published both scholarly (Journal for Semitics 15/2 [2006]) and popular (BAR) articles arguing in favor of this identification. Ha’aretz also reported a brief form of Korpel’s argument in October 2007—in between the Journal of Semitics and BAR articles. As I noted in a previous post (one of several on the topic of this seal), Maarav editor Chris Rollston criticized Korpel’s argument in the wake of the Ha’aretz article, before the BAR article appeared. In response, BAR editor Hershel Shanks ran a long sidebar to Korpel’s BAR article, in which Shanks sharply criticized Rollston.

Chris’s response to Shanks’s sidebar appeared on Jim West’s web site, and I reproduced it here on Higgaion as well (and subsequently confirmed with Chris, a personal friend, that he had no objection to this). In the same post, I wrote a long analysis of some of the problems with Shanks’s criticisms; I invite you to re-read that analysis before continuing with the present post, if you want the full background to the comments I’m about to make.

Fast-forward to the May/June issue of BAR. The “Debates” section of the BAR web site includes Chris’s response to Shanks’s sidebar—the same response that I quoted in full in my February 21 post. (Referring to all these different posts and articles starts to get a little confusing.) Shanks himself responds in the May/June “Queries & Comments” section of BAR by quoting parts of Chris’s online letter, and then comments as follows:

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 thought 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 Rollston closed with: “Surely the standard should be higher than he sets it.”

As I read Shanks’s retort, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. Was Shanks reading the same Rollston essay—published on the American Schools of Oriental Research web site—that I had read back in October?

Follow the link below to keep reading and find out.
Continue Reading »

Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you’re stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there’s nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there’s a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they’re gone too fast and the taste is … fleeting. So, you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts. And if you’re desperate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers.

— the Cigarette-Smoking Man
The X-Files, “Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man”

Back in February, I discussed the misguided criticism of archaeologist Eric Cline (best known to the general public for his recent book From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible [National Geographic, 2007]) leveled by Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks in the March/April 2008 issue of that magazine. Shanks has now responded—in the May/June 2008 issue—to Clines’s own objections to the treatment Shanks gave him in the aforementioned column.

If you don’t remember the issues involved, you might want to go back and read my earlier post, which quotes extensively from both Shanks’s March/April “First Person” column and Eric Cline’s e-mail reply thereto. To summarize: Shanks criticized Cline for criticizing Eilat Mazar’s identification of a particular structure in Jerusalem as “Nehemiah’s wall.” However, Cline had issued no such criticism. Cline wrote the statement that Shanks had—“Be wary of anyone with a Web site or multiple publications who claims to have been able to ’solve’ more than one Biblical mystery or locate more than one of the missing Biblical objects or places”—as part of an invited response to a National Geographic blog post on the Shroud of Turin. (Shanks actually begins the quotation in the middle of the sentence, without indicating such; Cline’s actual sentence read, “Therefore, as a general rule of thumb, I would also say that it would be prudent to be wary of …”) In an e-mail posted on the ANE-2 discussion list and one worded slightly differently, sent to BAR directly, Clines complained about Shanks’s misrepresentation of his statement as a criticism of Eilat Mazar, with whom the statement had nothing to do.

At the end of his letter, Cline wrote:

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.

Shanks responds as follows in the May/June 2008 BAR:

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.

Here’s the relevant paragraph from Shanks’s March/April column:

In no time, bloggers were feverishly discussing the finding of Nehemiah’s wall. Then an item appeared on the widely read Web site of the National Geographic Society. First, it quoted Professor Eric Cline of the George Washington University, whose book the National Geographic Society had just published and was heavily promoting; Professor Cline said, “Be wary of anyone with a Web site or multiple publications who claims to have been able to ‘solve’ more than one Biblical mystery or locate more than one of the missing Biblical objects or places.” No discussion of the evidence. No consideration of Mazar’s qualifications. Just the casting of an aspersion because she had made two important Biblical identifications. And no consideration of the fact that she was digging in the heart of Biblical Jerusalem, just where such Bible-related places and objects can be expected.

If Shanks wrote this consciously intending not to leave the impression that Eric Cline had criticized Eilat Mazar, he did an exceptionally poor job (especially for such an experienced editorialist!) of making that clear. Shanks certainly didn’t tell his readers that the National Geographic writer, Chris Sloan, was reapplying what Cline had written about different issues. The explanation also rings a little hollow when one compares Cline’s statement as it appears in the three sources:

Cline: Therefore, as a general rule of thumb, I would also say that it would be prudent to be wary of anyone with a web site or multiple publications who claims to have been able to “solve” more than one biblical mystery or locate more than one of the missing biblical objects or places.

Sloan:In an earlier blog, Eric Cline provided some guidance. One of his comments was: “… as a general rule of thumb, I would also say that it would be prudent to be wary of anyone with a web site or multiple publications who claims to have been able to “solve” more than one biblical mystery or locate more than one of the missing biblical objects or places.”

Shanks: First, [the National Geographic web site] quoted Professor Eric Cline of the George Washington University, whose book the National Geographic Society had just published and was heavily promoting; Professor Cline said, “Be wary of anyone with a Web site or multiple publications who claims to have been able to ‘solve’ more than one Biblical mystery or locate more than one of the missing Biblical objects or places.”

At the very least, Shanks fails to represent either Cline’s original statement or Sloan’s quotation of Cline accurately. Shanks—who elsewhere (see the “strike two” continuation of this post, coming soon) crows about his own achievements in publishing—declines to use either ellipses or the convention of placing the first letter of a word in brackets when you’re changing the case to fit a quotation into your own sentence structure. Sloan carefully used ellipses to show that he had skipped the single word “Therefore.” Shanks omits the words “Therefore, as a general rule of thumb, I would also say that it would be prudent to”—without any indication of having done so. Why, if not to give BAR readers the impression that Cline had sharply criticized Eilat Mazar? We have here either an intentional misrepresentation or sloppy writing—and as Shanks’s primary response is “read my piece carefully,” he seems to disclaim the latter possibility.

And since Shanks avers such an interest in careful reading, perhaps he should have read Chris Sloan’s National Geographic blog post of November 13, 2007 more carefully! In the first paragraph of the blog post, just a few lines before the quotation from Cline, Sloan wrote:

Today the World Net Daily reported that Dr. Eilat Mazar claims to have discovered Nehemiah’s tower. This blog has addressed the question of how a non-expert might evaluate such claims of biblical discoveries. If one reads the news report carefully, it is not clear whether Dr. Mazar is making the inferential leap between finding Persian era pottery at the site and the site being Nehemiah’s tower or if it is the media that is presenting it this way. Whatever the case (and I will try to find out) this is a good example of a sensational find that it is hard for a non-expert to evaluate. So, let’s put it to the test.

That is the entire first paragraph of Sloan’s post. By Shanks’s logic, Shanks should be apologizing to and printing retractions concerning National Geographic, and Chris Sloan in particular—after all, the post was about World Net Daily, not about Eilat Mazar. But the more important thing is to see what Sloan was actually saying. Please read Sloan’s post in its entirety before making up your mind on this issue, but here’s the short form: Sloan did not “flog” Eilat Mazar. As you can see from the paragraph quoted above, Sloan carefully noted that at the time of writing he did not know whether Mazar herself or the media had liked Mazar’s excavation specifically to Nehemiah. In his “First Person” column of March/April, Shanks certainly does not quote the final two paragraphs of Sloan’s post:

So, what are we to think? Is Dr. Mazar just an incredibly lucky archaeologist? How much of what we are hearing is the media and how much is Dr. Mazar? Is she motivated to make what appear to be sensational announcements because of her funding affiliation?

If we take the advice of Dr. Cline and Dr. Davies, a nonexpert would have to be cautious regarding the idea that Nehemiah’s Tower has been found. What do you think?

Overall, Sloan’s post asks a perfectly reasonable question, as he made perfectly clear in a comment posted on November 15, 2007 (remember that Shanks’s editorial appeared in the March/April 2008 issue, so Shanks had plenty of time to see this comment):

Remember this is not about whether Dr. Mazar’s claim is fact or fiction. 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. See above.

This hardly constitutes “flogging.”

Further, on March 11, 2008, after seeing Shanks’s “First Person” editorial, Sloan responded as follows in a comment to his own November 13, 2007 blog post:

I’m sorry Shanks had such a strong negative reaction to this discussion, but I can understand where he is coming from.

Now let me reiterate the purpose of this discussion. It is an exploration of what factors a lay person can use to evaluate a sensational biblical find. The purpose here is NOT to besmirch Dr. Mazar or to evaluate the merits of her find. We’re simply looking for clues to how the average person reading the media can evaluate what they hear.

The Nehemiah’s Tower announcement was the first such claim to come along after this blog idea started. In my mind it was a particularly interesting case, since the claim did not come from a crackpot, but from a bona fide archaeologist. One can see cleary from the discussion above that there are many views as to whether this has been a useful discussion or not.

Dr. Mazar was very courteous to National Geographic when we visited her dig in Jerusalem and we remain very interested in her work. We have no interest in judging her actions or her work. We’ll leave that to scholars. And if Dr. Mazar feels offended by this blog, I am sorry. That was certainly not my intention.

We can know for certain that Shanks read the just-quoted comment before writing his response in the May/June 2008 BAR, because he quotes from it in that response! In the second paragraph of his response, Shanks writes:

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

You can see that line (also a partial sentence) in its context in my quotation from Sloan directly above the quotation from Shanks. Yet in the May/June 2008 BAR, Shanks continues to claim that “National Geographic used [a quotation from Cline] to flog Eilat Mazar”! He has the audacity to actually quote Sloan saying “I can understand where [Shanks] is coming from,” but he ignores Sloan’s larger point, including his statement, “The purpose here is NOT to besmirch Dr. Mazar or to evaluate the merits of her find”!

In that same comment, Sloan also reproduces an e-mail that he sent to Mazar on November 13, 2007:

I am one of the editors here at National Geographic responsible for our archaeology coverage. I have a blog where I cover many things, but the current topic is “how does a non-exert evaluate sensational biblical archaeology claims.” The Nehemiah’s Tower story came to my attention as one that would be interesting to explore from this perspective. Since I was not at your announcement, all I have are the reports from World News Daily, etc… The big question I have is this: Are YOU saying this is Nehemiah’s Tower, or is it the media that is making that leap? All I can find from your comments is that the Persian era pottery suggests the tower dates from the right period to be the tower. I would very interested to hear your thoughts, either here, or directly in the blog at http://ngm.typepad.com/stones_bones_things/

The blog entry as it stands comes out advising people to be cautious about the claim. I’m trying to keep the discussion focused more on “how can the nonexpert evaluate for themselves” rather than challenge any particular find. Do you have any advice to add to the Cline or Davies comments?

Very best regards, Chris

As far as I know, Mazar did not reply to Sloan’s e-mail; to date, she certainly has not posted any comments on his blog entry.

I am not one of those people who loves to bash BAR at every opportunity, particularly because I quite like some of the people that work for the publication. (You know who you are.) But I can’t help being very disappointed, even angry, by Shanks’s evasive sidestepping on this particular issue. Even if we grant Shanks’s point that his March/April “First Person” column criticized National Geographic—Chris Sloan in particular—rather than Eric Cline, that criticism was as misguided as the apparent criticism of Cline. That the May/June defense of the March/April column quotes so selectively from Sloan’s own statement of his motives and goals presents a serious challenge to any attempt to regard Shanks’s behavior in this matter charitably. At least as regards this particular discussion, Shanks has shown himself either to be an incredibly poor reader or he has knowingly misrepresented Cline’s and/or Sloan’s comments. Neither speaks well for him or his magazine.

In April 2008, iTanakh added links in the following categories:

Archaeology
Archaeology > Sites
Context > History > Israel, Judah, and Yehud
Context > Religions > Israel, Judah, and Yehud
Context > Social World
Methods
Methods > Christian Contextual Interpretation
Methods > Comparative Studies
Methods > Exegesis
Methods > Historiography
Methods > Theology
Texts > Dead Sea Scrolls
Texts > Tanakh
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Genesis
Texts > Tanakh > Torah/Pentateuch > Leviticus
Texts > Tanakh >Torah/Pentateuch > Deuteronomy
Texts > Tanakh > Former Prophets > Joshua
Texts > Tanakh > Former Prophets > Kings
Texts > Tanakh > Latter Prophets > Isaiah
Texts > Tanakh > Latter Prophets > Jeremiah
Texts > Tanakh > Latter Prophets > Nahum
Texts > Tanakh > Writings
Texts > Tanakh > Writings > Job
Texts > Tanakh > Writings > Psalms
Texts > Tanakh > Writings > Proverbs
Texts > Tanakh > Writings > Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes
Texts > Tanakh > Writings > Daniel
Texts > Ugaritic
Topics > Angels
Topics > Canon
Topics > Covenant
Topics > Election
Topics > Sacrifice

The incredibly-punctual Jim West has done an exceptional job putting together the monthly Biblical Studies Carnival for May 2008. Give it a read and see what you might have missed in the merry, merry month of April—a busy month in the biblicablogosphere, as Jim’s carnival entry more than amply attests.

Young-earth creationist organization Answers in Genesis has begun selling an “Expelled Action Kit“:

Have you seen Ben Stein’s new movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed? If not, click the Expelled banner at right to find the nearest theater showing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Then, take a friend (or better yet, a whole group of friends!) to watch and then discuss it together over pizza or dessert! Do this as soon as possible to help ensure that Ben Stine’s [sic] amazing, much-discredited (by evolutionists!) documentary stays in theaters as long as possible. We urge you to use Expelled as a tool for outreach. We’ve viewed it and agree that it will be a very popular “evolution-busting” tool to expose the lack of academic freedom in America’s schools today. Once you’ve seen Ben Stein you’ll want to equip yourself and help your friends. That’s why we’ve assembled this incredibly low-priced value pack of Creator-affirming materials, plus you’ll even receive an exclusive coupon good for $5 off Expelled here at AnswersBookstore.com as soon as the film is available to us on DVD!

Now here’s the really weird thing about this. Expelled promotes the intelligent design movement. In the movie, Stein interviews several prominent intelligent design advocates, who insist that intelligent design springs from science, not religion, and especially that intelligent design does not depend on or even affirm a historico-scientific reading of the biblical book of Genesis. Prominent design advocates like Michael Behe even explicitly affirm biological evolution except for certain “irreducibly complex” biochemical processes and microbiological structures. Stein et al. devote a whole segment of the movie to arguing that intelligent design is much different from creationism.

Meanwhile, AiG’s “Expelled Action Kit” includes an “Origins Belief Chart,” which AiG describes as follows on the “Action Kit” page:

This 11 x 17 inch wall chart will help you understand how the four most popular origins beliefs—biblical creation, intelligent design, old-earth creation, and molecules-to-man evolution—handle 16 different topics like dinosaurs, fossils, the age of the earth, origin of man, and moral authority.

Note that “biblical creation,” as AiG styles its particular version of young-earth creationism, stands apart from “intelligent design” on AiG’s wall chart. If you follow the link for more information about the “Origins Belief Chart,” you can learn why:

Everyone has a worldview that is shaped by what they believe, but very few people view life from the biblical worldview. What about you? What is the foundation for your worldview?

This chart outlines the four most popular origins beliefs—biblical creation, intelligent design, old-earth creation, and molecules-to-man evolution—and how they view 16 different topics like dinosaurs, fossils, death/disease, and moral authority. Is your worldview based on anything other than the inerrant and authoritative Word of God? Find out today!

In AiG’s “worldview,” only “biblical creation” is truly Christian. Everything else, including “intelligent design,” is some degree of rubbish.

So it boils down to this: if you hurry on over to AiG today, you can buy a wall chart that shows in brief why intelligent design is wrong from a YEC viewpoint, and you get a coupon for $5 off an ID PR movie which AiG plans to sell when available.

Curioser and curioser.

Two years ago, Jeremy Smoak—a Ph.D. candidate at UCLA—presented at WECSOR an interesting paper about “an ancient Israelite wartime curse” exhibited, for example, in Amos 5:11:

Therefore because you trample on the poor
and take from them levies of grain,
you have built houses of hewn stone,
but you shall not live in them;
you have planted pleasant vineyards,
but you shall not drink their wine. (NRSV)

I was delighted to see that Jeremy’s paper has now appeared in the latest Journal of Biblical Literature. I commend the article to your reading—please note that I am not a “prophets guy,” so I’m not entirely well-equipped to assess the argument in full—and remember that “you heard it here first“!

I’m delighted that Pepperdine University has appointed my senior colleague Rick Marrs to be dean of Pepperdine’s undergraduate school, Seaver College. Rick will succeed outgoing dean David Baird, who chose to retire effective the end of this school year. Rick chaired the Religion Division for many years, and in fact Rick’s promotion several years ago to Associate Dean occasioned my appointment to the Seaver College faculty. Rick earned his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from the Johns Hopkins University in 1982 and came to Pepperdine in 1987. Pepperdine’s PR folks have put out a press release with a few additional details.

“Mark Johnson, producer of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, told SCI FI Wire that the upcoming sequel to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will remain very faithful to author C.S. Lewis’ original book.” Johnson also told Sci Fi Wire that the biggest change from book to movie was the structure: “If you remember, in the book the story of Caspian is told in flashback by Trumpkin [Peter Dinklage] to the four Pevensie kids. We rearranged that. At one point, we have three parallel stories that take us though the first 45 minutes.”

So we now know that Peter Jackson will produce The Hobbit for New Line Cinema, but who will direct? Persistent rumors point to Guillermo del Toro, but no official statement has yet been forthcoming, says Sci Fi Wire.

Sci Fi Wire also reports that a new Dark Knight trailer was shown at the NYC Comic Con on April 19, but it doesn’t appear to be available online yet—that I can find.

I don’t often link to content on Richard Dawkins’s web site, although I read it frequently. However, a post from this past Sunday deserves wide attention. Here’s the background to the story:

On 18th April, the day Ben Stein’s infamous film was released, Michael Shermer received the following letter from a Jew (referencing a past article that Shermer had written debunking the Holocaust deniers) whose identity I shall conceal as “David J”.

Now I truly understand who you atheists and darwinists really are! You people believe that it was okay for my great-grandparents to die in the Holocaust! How disgusting. Your past article about the Holocaust was just window dressing. We Jews will fight to keep people like you out of the United States!

Shermer wrote to Mr J to ask if he had by any chance just seen Expelled, and he received this reply:

Yes I have. You know, I respect you as a human being and you have done great work exposing psychics and frauds, but this is a very touchy issue that affects me and family emotionally. Our family business was affected because of Auschwitz because now, our family has nothing. It is gone. Things began to make sense once I saw the movie and I am just appalled. I have learned a lot from Ben Stein, a Jewish brother, who has opened my eyes up a bit.

It seemed to me that Ben Stein and his lying crew were more to blame than Mr J himself for his revolting letter. I therefore decided to write him a personal letter and try to explain a few things to him. It then occurred to me (indeed, Michael Shermer suggested as much) that there are probably many others like him, whose minds have been twisted in this evil way by the man Stein, and that it would be a good idea to publish the letter. I decided to wait 24 hours to see if he would reply, although I didn’t expect him to. I am now publishing my letter to him, exactly as I sent it to him except that I have removed his name.

Richard

Dawkins’s “open letter” to this “Mr J” discusses in some detail—and with some forcefulness—the entire “Darwinism enables Naziism” claim in Expelled. I encourage everyone to read Dawkins’s “open letter” and suggest that discussion thereof take place in the comments thread there—which already stands at 377 comments.