orion Re: misrepresentation

[Greg Doudna <GD@teol.ku.dk>]

Stephen Goranson wrote today:
   "Though I've been corrected before (at times justifiably), to the 
   best of my knowledge, I had never been accused (unfairly, in this 
   case) of anti-Jewish intentions.  (Anyone who knows me may correct 
   me.)  It is hard to know how to respond to such an accusation, which 
   came in posts from Copenhagen (1 to 4 list members, depending on 
   interpretation) . . ."

This is absolutely false.  I am the one who criticized Stephen in a 
post of 2 Sept for his unjustified rhetoric in regard to N. Golb (a 
beloved former teacher, or rather adviser, of mine at UChi).  I spoke 
for myself, only for myself, and am fully responsible for that post.  
List members who wish may check the archives or their files for that 
post and see for themselves whether I accused Stephen of anti-Jewish 
intentions.  I never did, and neither did I read any other post from 
Copenhagen doing so.  I might add that it would not occur to me to 
charge Stephen of such a thing, then or now.  But I did not so charge 
him.  I beg the moderator to note this kind of misrepresentation.

Greg Doudna 

 
My post of 2 Sept read:

> > 	Prof. Golb has been denying the link of Qumran with Essene Jews
> > with a tenacity not seen since the era of the learned Solomon Zeitlin,
> > editor of JQR, as Golb well knows. I suggest to the University of Chicago
> > Professor of Jewish History and Civilization that it is unseemly, writing
> > in late twentieth century, to encourage people to deny occurances in Jewish
> > history for which there is abundant evidence.
> 
> I must earnestly protest this rhetoric, particularly that of the 
> last line.  I was hit with a similar line from SG directed at me and 
> did not know how to react.  To react is to flame, not to react is to 
> leave in the air a connotation.  Notice the subtext . . . "Essene Jews" 
> (not simply "Essenes") . . . "the late twentieth century" (i.e. 
> post-Holocaust) . . . "to deny occurrences in Jewish history for 
> which there is abundant evidence" (sort of like Holocaust deniers) . 
> . . SG, it is totally inappropriate to link your views on the Essene 
> connection to an issue of antisemitism and historical revisionism.  
> S. Talmon has been questioning the Essene assumption for decades as 
> unnecessarily filtering perception of what may really have been going 
> on.  Schiffmann has a point in suggesting the Essene connection has 
> served Christian ideological interests in interpreting the scrolls.  
> I imagine Golb could perceive the denial of the Jerusalem origin of the 
> Qumran cache of literary texts as a denial or marginalization of a 
> major event in Jewish history.  You might also consider that the 
> Essene claim implies a negation of other Jewish groups' connection to 
> the yachad of the only first century BCE Judean manuscripts 
> in existence.  (Do you know that the texts and the yachad do not 
> precede the naming of the groups?  I don't.)  So there are different 
> ways this Essene emphasis can be interpreted.  Please SG, no more 
> of this kind of rhetoric.  Return to discussion on the basis of data, 
> as you often do.  That is productive discussion--not this other 
> rhetoric.
> 
> Greg Doudna
> Research Associate
> University of Copenhagen Dead Sea Scrolls Initiative
>

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