Just to try to be helpful, Justin (in case you
do not have access to the 1998 article by me
that Goranson wishes you to read), below is both 
the full footnote and the paragraph to which the 
footnote is attached.

According to Goranson, in this paragraph and footnote, 
which appear below, I analogized all c. 900 Qumran texts 
to a "shotgun blast". Goranson has not exactly said he 
does not accept my latest protest that I neither said 
nor meant that--that's because after one non-answer, he 
simply hasn't answered at all my second attempt to get a 
straight answer.

So here is the text from my article that Goranson cites
from me. 

In this text that appears below I think I was
referring to about a dozen-and-a-half radiocarbon dates, 
and applying the "shotgun blast" analogy to how the
distribution of radiocarbon dates would look that
WERE contemporary within the same generation.
The shotgun blast analogy for the radicoarbon dates
applies only to however large or small number of texts 
being radiocarbon dated actually ARE contemporary in
their true dates. Can everyone follow me here?

(Even here, I had in mind an unknown "many"--the
"larger pool"--from among that dozen-and-a-half, not 
100 percent of the dozen-and-a-half radiocarbon dates, 
though I concede that point could possibly be ambiguous 
in my wording.)

Goranson thinks, and more to the point, has been saying
and continues to say in all seriousness through various
scholarly media, something quite different: that in these 
quoted words below that I am likening ALL c. 900 Qumran texts (!) 
to a single shotgun blast (which of course would be ridiculous 
for anyone to say). (Since it is so ridiculous, did Goranson
seriously think I meant that?? Seriously?)

In this manner the actual content and argument of my article 
can almost not be heard or discussed, because of this 
sustained repetition of this straw man.

Stephen, you have promised in the past to attempt
to represent others accurately. Perhaps to some extent you
cannot help it, but there is a history of getting other scholars 
wrong, and you damage people when you do this. This is just basic.
I must say, what you are doing is unacceptable. Do you intend to 
correct your representation of me on this point?

Greg Doudna

 

--------
(G. Doudna in Flint/VanderKam 1998, DSS after 50 Yrs, p. 461)

<full text of top-level paragraph follows> 

"Since 4QpPsA has the youngest radiocarbon date for
Qumran texts in either battery, its results are _a priori_
of less secure confidence than the dates for the others.
In addition to this general observation there is a
specific reason for questioning the radiocarbon date
of 4QpPsA, i.e. the older radiocarbon date for 1QpHab,
with which the scribal copy 4QpPsA ought to be
contemporaneous. If 4QpPsA is an outlier, the remaining
dates in both batteries become in principle explicable
as 'measurement scatter'[fn] of a larger pool of
radiocarbon dates that converge in the first century
BCE, and which are contemporaneous with the date of the
Cave 4 linen."


<full text of footnote follows, noted after words
"measurement scatter" above> 

"'Measurement scatter' denotes a statistical spread
around a 'true date'. A useful analogy is the blast from
a shotgun at a target and the spread of the individual
shotgun pellets."

-------
_______________________________________________
g-Megillot mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot

Reply via email to