I believe you go to the heart of the matter in speaking of education. That is the primary role of a museum, is it not?

With respect to Jewish scholars and the scrolls, I believe you may wish to take a look at these articles:

http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/did-christian-agenda-lead-biased-dead-sea-scrolls-exhibit-san-diego

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2008/11/12/rom-s-dead-sea-scrolls-2-000-years-old-always-controversial.aspx

They reveal that the defenders of the San Diego and Raleigh exhibits (who happen, for the most part, to be Christian scholars) are arguing that there is only one principal theory of scroll origins, while the New York Jewish Museum has taken the opposing stance that there are two basic theories. This is because if the Christian scholars acknowledge that there are two theories and not one, they will have lost the interpretive hegemony (or monopoly) they have been exercising over the scrolls for the past 60 years.

Remember, the Jordanian government originally possessed the scrolls (until 1967), and they appointed a team of “editors” from which Jewish scholars were entirely excluded. This was the famous Dead Sea Scrolls monopoly group, which collapsed in disgrace following the antisemitic statements of its director John Strugnell, but whose influential surviving members have continued, from behind the scenes, to control the manner in which the scrolls are being presented in most of the museum exhibits. Behind this entire story there is an academic power struggle going on, with political and financial dealings apparently keeping the status quo in place.

It is astonishing that there has been so little coverage of this museum controversy in the mainstream media (the National Post article is the first I have seen of its kind). Instead, we have a large amount of personal invective (including paranoid accusations of “sock-puppetry” and the like) being spewed out at critics of the museum exhibits by scholars associated with the traditional theory. I urge you and anyone else who finds this topic interesting to send out information on it to your acquaintances.

Best, Tim Fishbane

Thanks for your input. I do not have a “personal vendetta against the Scrolls or any organization that tries to bring them to the public.” The scrolls are precious manuscripts, and the Jewish Museum in New York has announced an exhibit from which the bias we’ve seen in Raleigh will apparently be absent. It is certainly not unreasonable, however, for critics of the Raleigh exhibit to be “angry” (as you put it) about the exclusion of voices, grotesque scientific incompetence, and slanting of evidence to serve a particular agenda — call it the hijacking of the scrolls or whatever you like. Allow me also to point out that the Raleigh exhibit is being held in a natural sciences museum, while the “introspective and pensive mood” you describe as your reaction is something one would rather associate with a visit to church or some other religious institution.

Best, Tim Fishbane

Keep up the good work!

Thanks for your comment.

From what I hear, there are quite a few such errors in the exhibit. Might one not have expected a better performance from the self-anointed “Dead Sea Scrolls scholar” who served as the museum’s “scientific consultant”? Golb’s “Fact and Fiction” article (p. 4) mentions a wall text in the Kansas City version of exhibit (perhaps corrected in the San Diego and Raleigh versions?) asserting

that “Jerusalem and the Second Temple were destroyed by Titus, and the people were again sent into exile, marking the end of the Second Temple period.”

And Golb comments:

It is impossible to understand how the curators could allow such a misleading statement to appear in the exhibitions. While Jews taken captive during the war were indeed enslaved and sent to Rome, the great majority of the Jewish population of both Galilee and Judaea remained in Palestine and after a brief period were once again allowed their internal autonomy. The process of rebuilding both their commerce and culture has been detailed by many historians who invariably describe the role of the several generations of early rabbinic figures (Tannaim) in establishing academies of learning and stabilizing the study of Jewish law in Palestine during this period.

However, instead of describing this remarkable sociocultural phenomenon of the first three centuries of the Common Era, the curators appear to nullify it. A graphic time-line is presented in the exhibit that makes no mention of Palestinian Judaism’s survival and reconstruction, but instead leaves blank this entire part of the history of the Palestinian Jews, including even the Bar Kokhba revolt and the establishment of the Palestinian Patriarchate, and offering only the casual statement (3rd century CE timeline box) that “Rabbi Judah the Prince edits the Mishnah.” How many viewers of these exhibitions can derive even the barest understanding of the Palestinian Jewish history of this period from such a sorry presentation — particularly when it is accompanied by an accurately presented time-line of general historical events during the same period?

So the “Herod-was-a-Jew” error you point out certainly does seem to fit in with a general pattern of amateurism and neglect. Perhaps the North Carolina Department of the Environment can be prevailed upon to consult with its “scientific consultant” and correct such errors as they are pointed out by members of the public who happen to spot them?