Review of The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception

Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception:

In 1947, many old scrolls were found in several caves near Qumran along the shores of the Dead Sea. They were very old, but their significance was not immediately recognized. Eventually, most of them found their way into the hands of the Ecole Biblique, a Dominican-owned-and-operated research institution in what was then part of Jordan. The scrolls appeared to date from around 200 B.C. to 70 A.D. and were originally thought to be the work of the Essenes, a monastic group of pacifistic Jews who retreated to the desert to live a communal and impoverished existence.

The Ecole Biblique was headed by an anti-Semitic monk named Father de Vaux. He and a small group of scholars (whose credentials have been disputed) jealously guarded the scrolls from any outside (particularly Jewish) examination. Meanwhile, the world waited to discover what these scrolls might contain. Only small portions leaked out. John Allegro, one of the early members of the team, suggested that the contents of the scrolls indicated that much of the Christian "myth," to use his phrase, was already recorded in the scrolls, which had been written many years before the birth of Jesus. Allegro, (The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth) insisted that the Christian orthodox creed survived by ruthlessly suppressing any deviant beliefs, and by institutionalizing the beliefs of the early Essenes. Allegro was drummed out of the Ecole for such speculations and refused further access to the documents. Admittedly some of his later writings were quite fantastic and peculiar.

By the late 1980s the failure of the international team, as it was now called, to release the scrolls for examination by scholars other than those approved by the team, had become an academic scandal. The Biblical Archaeology Review and major biblical scholars around the world finally created great pressure on the Ecole to make the documents available. They consistently refused to do so, arguing that they wanted to prevent "shoddy" scholarship.

Only recently have the documents become available through other means. The Huntington Library in California, which had come into possession of a microfilm copy of the scroll photographs, decided to make the material public on interlibrary loan to any interested scholar, and a text was published of the scrolls which had been created from a published concordance.

But let's return to my original premise. Because of the Ecole's reluctance to permit outsiders to view any of the scrolls, and the Ecole's very close ties to the Catholic church (de Vaux and his successors have all sat on the Pontifical Biblical Commission, whose job it is to monitor and supervise all biblical studies of the church), naturally it was only a matter of time before someone decided that a conspiracy existed to suppress the scrolls because they contained information that threatened the very existence of the Christian Church.
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh have done just that in a recent book entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. Baigent is previously known for his collaboration on another book, Holy Blood Holy Grail, which, according to reviews, purported to discover a plot by the Prieure de Sion, a secret French society. This group derived its raison d'etre from a legend that claims Jesus did not die on the cross, but married Mary Magdalene, and together they sired a line of Merovingian kings (which doesn't say much for their blood line). Anyway, the authors predicted that believers in this Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ and emphasized his humanity, would place one of the Merovingian descendants on the throne of Europe. Baigent and Leigh admit to having no evidence for this little theory, only a hypothesis. They make it sound plausible, but that doesn't cut it. Ockham's Razor, or the third rule of history, states that in the absence of evidence, what most likely happened is probably the simplest solution; that which requires the fewest assumptions.

As in the Merovingian plot book, their "Deception" book is very short on evidence. Suggesting that the Catholic Church would want to suppress evidence that Jesus' beliefs predated his birth might be plausible, but it's irresponsible to present a thesis based simply on conjecture. An eminent theologian and scholar I consulted confirmed my suspicions that the mystery surrounding the scrolls, while indeed a scandal from the standpoint of scholars in the field, represents nothing more than a case of little men guarding a tremendous find for themselves and their friends. Still, the book is fun to read and does disclose a fascinating account of an academic embarrassment. 

Another, more scholarly work, albeit early (1955), is by Millar Burrows and entitled The Dead Sea Scrolls . Fortunately, now that the Ecole and the international team have been suitably humiliated, one can hope that we will see more accurate and less speculative studies on the archaeological find of the century.

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Review of Dead Watch

Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Dead Watch:

Listened to this as an audiobook.  Read by a favorite: Richard Ferrone who seems to make a specialty of John Sandford's books.

A refreshing change from the increasingly redundant Lucas Davenport series. In this case we follow Jacob, "Jake,"  Winter, a "forensic bureaucracy specialist."  He works for the president's chief of staff as a fixer who uses his knowledge of the bureaucracy to solve problems. He has one "Rule":  who benefits? Answer that question and most every problem becomes easily solvable. Shades of Mike Lawson's Joe DeMarco, another very good series.

Madeline Bowe's husband, Lincoln, an ex-Senator has disappeared.  He was becoming a thorn in the side of the "Watchman" a nebulous group reminiscent of the Brown Shirts and Ku Klux Klan all rolled into one. Jake's "research" soon uncovers a much larger plot related to the presidential election.  To reveal any more might spoil it.

All that being said, my one complaint is that some of Jake's more extreme actions in the end of the book (endings are not a Sandford strong suit,) seem out of character and occur only because it gets the author off the hook.  I much prefer conclusions that use the protagonist's intelligence to turn the evil-doer's actions back on themselves without the seemingly inevitable reliance on bullets, to my way of thinking, the dummies' way out.  I suppose many authors feel the necessity to appeal to the large segment who complain if there's no "action." Action is cheap.

Great for traveling, mowing, doing chores.

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Review of The Bombmaker

Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of The Bombmaker:

Every parent's nightmare. A child is kidnapped and held under threat of death to force the parent to do something that may result in the deaths of hundreds of people.

Andy is a former IRA bomb-maker. Retired from the IRA after a bomb accidentally kills some children who were not the targets, she has another secret that we only learn mid-way through the book, but which has profound implications for everyone's actions. Martin, her husband, knows nothing of her past. Katie, their daughter, has been taken by a group of ostensible terrorists who want her to construct a massive fertilizer bomb, a la Timothy McVeigh, the kind of bomb that had been Andy's specialty. (Their ultimate motivation stretches credulity, but never mind.) In return they will keep Katie safe, they promise, but if Andy fails to follow instructions precisely, her daughter will die. Andy soon realizes that part of their plan is to tag the IRA for the bombing. Why, remains a mystery until almost the end.

Neither Andy nor the readers know the motivations of the "terrorist" cell, composed of a mix of true-believers (but in what?) and common criminals. We learn early on it's related to a shadowy Chinese general, whose motivations are equally suspect. That makes for a volatile mix but Andy and Katie are not without their own resources. Then throw in MI-5 to spice things up.

The actions and feelings of the participants struck me as very realistic, and one gets the feeling that these are real people dealing with what could be a very real situation (except for the Chinese motivation) and that ratchets up the tension considerably.

Great mowing/traveling listen.

Review of Every Precious Thing

Goodreads | Eric_W Welch (Forreston, IL)'s review of Every Precious Thing:

Logan, in his second outing, is asked to locate Alan's wife, Sara, who disappeared into Mexico, leaving only a note and their child. After Alan returns home, he discovers that every trace of Sara has been removed from their home, including pictures stored on their computer. Alan, worried for her safety, contacts his lawyer who hires Logan.  Soon, it becomes apparent that others are looking for her, too. Questions arise.  Is Diana really operating in Sara's best interest. And who is the doctor who hires thugs (relatively incompetent) to track her down and along the way eliminate the competition?

There is a side plot involving Logan's father and his long-lost brother who had been killed in World War II. It seemed irrelevant and continually interrupted the story.  Contrary to many other reviewers, I didn't think it expanded on the relationship between Logan and his father at all.  Harp's brother (Logan's uncle) had been missing for sixty+ years and his Logan and his father haven't developed much of a relationship by that time, well....

I read the first Logan Harper and while the first part of that book (Little Girl Gone) was a good mystery, the last half, when he was in Thailand and Burma bordered on ridiculous (of course my credibility is strained here since I liked most of the Bond movies.)  On a more general note, I think I prefer Battles' Jonathan Quinn "cleaner" books a bit better even if they tend to even more fantastical.

We all have different expectations for books we read (or listen to.)  Those expectations can be met or destroyed by any combination of things: are we reading for information?  entertainment? to be challenged? is the narrator competent?, etc.  Sometimes when I read negative -- or positive -- reviews of books like this, I wonder whether the reviewer might have forgotten this basic premise.

This book more than met my expectations for a good light read/listen that kept my interest while mowing and driving to work.  Three instead of four stars (ridiculous rating system) because the ending leaned toward action rather than a more cerebral solution which I prefer.

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Antonin Scalia, Bleeding-Heart Liberal - Reason.com

Antonin Scalia, Bleeding-Heart Liberal - Reason.com:

""If the Court’s identification theory is not wrong," Scalia writes, "there is no such thing as error." And since "the Fourth Amendment forbids searching a person for evidence of a crime when there is no basis for believing the person is guilty of the crime or is in possession of incrimi­nating evidence," he concludes, Maryland's law is unconstitutional."

and In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the 2004 case involving an American citizen detained in the United States as an "enemy combatant," Scalia took the most radical position against the Bush administration, saying the government had to try Hamdi in civilian court or let him go. That is hardly the position of an authoritarian.

"Sentencing is another area where Scalia has shown concern for the rights of criminal defendants. He and Thomas led the charge against mandatory federal sentencing guidelines, insisting that the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury means judges may not determine facts that automatically trigger harsher punishment."

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