[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
orion Chinese connection heist
[The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set]
[Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set]
[Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]
This is my third attempt to get this posted on Orion. Third time's the
charm, or is it three strikes and you're out? Well ... here goes.
I read with interest Dr. Kraft's "copyrighted" post extensively quoting
private reports prepared for and addressed to Neil Altman in 1990 and this
month, and I can't help but wonder if that is really kosher? Certainly, as
an early member of this list, I do not recall having seen this done before.
While Dr. Kraft represents Dr. Victor Mair's conclusions far more
ambivalently than Dr. Mair himself ever has, I am gratified nonetheless
that after 50 years, these Chinese-looking characters may finally be
regarded as more than musical notes or scribal accidents in the margins.
What I find hard to believe here is the suggestion that the scholar's
treatment of discovery is to deny the existence of hard evidence, whether
in the margins of a scroll or the floor of a cave, until its presence can
be explained to everyone's satisfaction. So, the gun on the floor is not a
gun at all until we can agree who left it there, when and how. This is
absurd.
Victor Mair himself has said, according to Dr. Kraft's "copyrighted"
post quoting Dr. Mair's as-yet unpublished report for Neil Altman: "In
general, my position regarding all of the mysterious hitherto inadequately
identified symbols on the DSS, especially those in the margins, is that it
is the duty of Hebrew epigraphers and paleographers to study them more
seriously. If these symbols are puzzling, I cannot comprehend why more
effort has not been expended on their study. Surely they are of great
importance and should not simply be ignored!"
There is a great deal more to be said about the disinformation
concerning Dr. Mair's reports on "mysterious symbols" and other reports on
unexplained letters, words, marginalia, etc. in various texts but, perhaps,
we had better copyright it all first.
David Crowder
El Paso