The People against Raphael Golb
New York Supreme Court, from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_York_Supreme_Court_at_60_Centre_Street.jpg
The arguments in the case People of the State of New York vs. Raphael Golb are a matter of public record. The lawyer for the State of New York chronicles the entire story of harassment of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars online. It describes how Golb repeatedly attempted to convince my colleagues and students that I had committed acts of plagiarism, ultimately culminating in his sending out an e-mail in my name “admitting” to plagiarism.
Luckily, those in the field didn’t give any credence to such nonsense. And on November 18, 2010, Raphael Golb was sentenced to 6 months in jail and 5 years probation after being found guilty of identity theft, criminal impersonation, forgery, aggravated harassment, and the unauthorized use of a computer.
To read the entire story, click here: People of the State of New York vs. Raphael Golb
Sukenik and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Part IV Sekirah Aleph
War Scroll
We shall now look at views of Sukenik on the individual scrolls that he discussed.
In Sekirah Aleph he presented some discussion and sample facts from the War Scroll. He first discussed technical details of the physical state of the scroll. He dated its compositions to the pre-Hasmonean period, but dated the copy to some time before the destruction of the temple in 70 C.E. He understood the phrases Kittim of Egypt and of Assyria to refer to the Ptolemies and Seleucids, but the use of כוהן בראש led him to date the composition of the text to pre-Hasmonean times.
Sukenik, in considering the War Scroll, turned at the same time to some similarities with the Zadokite Fragments. He thought that this “Damascus Covenant” (ברית דמשק) had apparently been copied in Damascus. After surveying the arguments that had taken place regarding this text, Sukenik indicated that in working on the War Scroll, he immediately realized the similarities between the texts. One of his examples was ף in the sense of period, known to us as a regular feature of Qumran lexicography. He quoted similar usage in Ezekiel 7:6, Job 16:3, and… Continue reading
History of Dead Sea Scrolls Scholarship
As Emanuel Tov wrote in his foreword to my book, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls:
Soon after their discovery in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls took the world by storm, and ever since scholars and general readers alike have studied them, read them, or at least talked about them. The first scrolls were published in 1950 in what we now consider primitive editions, but at least they were released; the delay in the publication process occurred only at a later stage. Together with these text editions we have been blessed, usually, by a veritable flood of studies on the Qumran community and individual scrolls. These studies elucidated the content of the scrolls and placed them in the context of the Jewish society and multifaceted literatures of the late Second Temple period.
Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship has been plagued by publication delays, uncertainties about the authors of the scrolls and difficulties in deciphering the text.
In a radio interview from last year, I discuss the history of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship, from their discovery in 1947 and up until contemporary theories on the identity of the Qumran community. The interview can be listened to at: Indiana Jones: Myth, Reality and… Continue reading
