New article exposes Qumran "virtual reality" film scam
View from Here
tour" of Qumran created by Dr. William Schniedewind of UCLA and his
graduate student Robert Cargill (who received $100,000 from Steven
Spielberg to make the film) and being shown to thousands of people at
the San Diego Natural History Museum.
http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/san_diego_virtual_reality_2007.pdf
Apparently, the film contains the usual false assertions and
misleading arguments designed to defend the old Qumran-Essene theory.
For example, the script states that the three (possibly four) inkwells
found in a locus at Qumran are greater in number than those found
anywhere else in Israel, without mentioning that FIVE inkwells were
excavated a few years ago "together on a floor" in Shu'afat, a site of
the Second Temple period just a few kilometers from Jerusalem. No one
has suggested that the Shu'afat inkwells belonged to a scriptorium.
One surprising detail that emerges is a statement made by the film's
author (apparently Mr. Cargill) in the margin of the draft of the
script that Golb obtained from the museum. The comment provides a
list of "reasons" to mention Yizhar Hirschfeld in connection with the
"theory" that Qumran was a fortress. These "reasons" are (1) that
"Hirschfeld developed Golb's suggestion into a theory"; (2) that
mentioning his name "will shield us from criticism"; and then
continues: "There's a third reason, but I never write it down."
This seems to imply that the makers of the film had a policy of not
keeping a written record of certain "reasons" for their actions. It
is already difficult to comprehend the assertion that Golb's fortress
theory was a mere "suggestion." But what on earth would motive the
makers of such a film to conceal their "reasons" for various choices
by not writing them down? Is this what they train graduate students to
do at UCLA?