I had hoped that the errors in Edna Ullmann-Margalit's article, "Writings, Ruins, and Their Reading: The Dead Sea Scrolls as a Case Study in Theory Formation and Scientific Interpretation," Social Research 65.4 (Winter 1998) 839-70 would have been corrected in her new book, Out of the Cave: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Dead Sea Scrolls Research (Harvard U.P. 2006; ISBN 0-674-02223-8, list price $45). But, though some errors were corrected, others were not; and she added new ones. For example, the article repeatedly stated that Roland de Vaux, who dug Kh. Qumran, called it a "motherhouse." He did not. The new book also repeatedly makes this false claim. Such a word is found, say, in Jerusalem Post secondary view journalism (is that where she got it?), but a history of scholarship should first be acquainted with the basic original materials; in this case the scrolls, archaeology, and the history of scholarship. This book offers a grabbag of incomensurate philosophical fragments, including mentions of Kuhn and Popper--as if they agreed, and cites Golb's nonfalsifiable claim that, if the caves had been discovered in another order, scholars would have come to his views. But the book is quite uninformed or misinformed about the scrolls, the archaeology, the classical texts, and the history of scholarship. Garbage in, garbage out.
The dust cover sports a nice photograph and quotations from two scholars whose writings I often admire, but in this case they merely baffle. Prof. VanderKam's text is so artfully understated that it is difficult to address. I assume Jim VanderKam read the book. He has published that the scrolls contain the Hebrew original form of the word the comes to English via various Greek spellings as "Essenes." Presumably he would have noted that fact to Prof. Ullmann-Margalit (U-M below). Dozens of scholars, scores of publications, hold this view, as anyone familiar with history of scholarship would well know. Yet U-M wrote that the name "Essenes" appears nowhere in the scrolls, without even noting the other view! Surely the Modern Hebrew spelling does not appear there, nor should it. Scholars treat ancient texts as ancient texts. The text by Prof. Harrington begins with a mistaken turn: "There is a lull in Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship now." What can one reply to this editor of both Qumran scrolls and New Testament Abstracts other than: no? U-M objects to the designation of some DSS as belonging to a sect. This, even though, to join, one was required to live by its strict rules, contrary to rules of others, and, if accepted, to give all property to the group, as the scrolls and Josephus on the Essenes agree. The book appears not alive to the fact of how the Greek-based words for heresy and orthodoxy and Hebrew minut changed over time, largely after the second temple period. Sectarianism, evidently, is an issue to U-M, because she fears sectarianism would imply an orthodoxy. U-M prefers that that not be the case. U-M works to diminish special privileges given to Orthodoxy, today. This is mere projection of current concerns onto past history, as should be clear even from passing familiarity with 19th-century Wissenschaft des Judenthums debates (see e.g. S. Wagner, Die Essener in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion, 1960, absent from the book's bibliography). This is a book against tendentiousness that is tendentious. And it relies on haphazardly-chosen secondary sources. The book is woefully unaware of--or at least tacitly passes over--much of the best work already done on Qumran history of scholarship. The bibliography lacks many of the best sources--the list of vital absences is long. Many claims appear (e.g., as to why Qumran was dug and with what questions in mind) without footnotes--did she read de Vaux's RB articles, for instance? The book is based largely on hearsay and myth rather than basic research. The book characterizes the "inner logic" of scrolls research, as if it were a linear progression, rather than one of the most vigorously contested and ineluctably variegated subjects in history. The book proposes to have us learn more by analysing history of scholarship on Dead Sea Scrolls. Yes, let us do that. If buying the book will spur that, fine. U-M and all are welcome to bring philosophic learning to bear; but first learn the facts; read the literature. To do such research and passing of reliable information, we will need more well-informed and coherent texts than this book offers. Stephen Goranson http://www.duke.edu/~goranson _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
