Dear list readers,
If I may respond on the subject in the heading; I suggest that "response to
Goranson" is an unfortunate ad hominem change of the subject line. Of course I
address the list including Greg Doudna and Dierk van den Berg, though I
confess I do not understand the latter's text.
Doudna's response to me misses the main points. As I wrote, this is not the
first time. Previous discussions--for instance, explicitly on the locus 2 jar!-
-are indeed relevant. As are previous inkwell discussions, and previous
pointings out that Doudna (and e.g. in this case N. Golb and Y. Hirschfeld)
require different levels of evidence for Qumran and Jerusalem text production.
It is fair for people (including de Vaux) to change their minds, but to
quickly disown an elaborate years-long series of self-contradictory attempts,
by hook or crook, to redate the scrolls to exclude any in first century (an
arbitrary cutoff?) is to exclude from our perview a subject that Copenhagen
Dr. Doudna himself raised in his online text: psychology. (Or we might say
epistemology or methodology.)
Indeed part of the history of scholarship concerns what they, de Vaux et al.,
thought. That is why, for instance, the 33 AD + or - C14 linen date certainly
matters: to them surely a first century indication (however we might see it
now). And there were many such evidence indications. The article confuses one
jar as the "basis" of a dating with the decades of evidence as the dating
basis. It is to de Vaux's credit that he reevaluated. And de Vaux's dates have
been effectively revised; that revision makes the Period II continuity even
more ineluctable. Yet even still now, Doudna did not respond to de Vaux on the
continuity of usage in Period II, rather wrongly dismissing this weighty
matter as merely irrelevant. The audience is misled by omitting evidence.
Changing a mind is one thing. But to seek to forget years of self-
contradictory determination to redate mss and misrepresent so as to exclude
any in first century is to miss something. Repeating, by itself, without
disowning the past, of course, is something I do myself. ("Essenes," via one
of the many Greek spellings, came from the Hebrew root 'asah, as is
increasingly realised--do spread the word :) )
Here is another example of heedlessness to evidence which does not fit a
preconceived conviction. Doudna asserted that no one had challenged Avigad's
work on Alexander Jannaeus bronze coin dating. I offered to provide the
reference to a basic work that Doudna should have consulted before making such
a bold sweeping declaration, a work which precisely dismissed one of Avigad's
two dates. But no interest was manifested. Ya'akov Meshorer, Ancient Jewish
Coinage, v.1 p.80.
I can understand why Dr. Doudna wishes to prevent me (he has attempted to
silence me before) from noting past discussions and publications. I could
provide other data and bibliography (on misrepresenting Essenes, on dating,
and so on), but what's the point if there is no interest in unwelcome
information? Many respondents and reviewers---not just me--have been
disregarded.
The "one generation" hypothesis is quite unscientific as applied by Doudna to
the C14 data, omitting evidence, misleading. I understand that Doudna wishes
me to disregard previous discussions (even while presenting an article on
previous discussions!). Not only I pointed out Doudna's unscientific dismissal
of C14 evidence, but so did, for example--despite repeated denials and
obliviousness--the Radiocarbon expert Dr. Jull.
Not to end on a negative note, I have read over the years some observations by
Geg Doudna that I found worthwhile. And, in my opinion, we all have
opportunity to research Qumran history further than has been so far realised.
Stephen Goranson
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