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1. TG Versus Yair Davidiy, Alistair Williams and Bill Rasmussen.
Re Brit-Am Now no. 1771.
#1. Alistair Williams: Complexity is not an Iron Rule.
#3. Bill Rasmussen: TG Criticism of Brit-Am Not Justified!
TG says:
Would I be correct to say that neither Alistair Williams or Bill Rasmussen are Jewish?
Do they learn from Jewish sources?
Alistair's quip that "At the end of creation [Creation] week, the world was perfect, Adam walked with G-d." clearly contradicts the pshat [simple-meaning] of the Torah, and this is more clear when considering many statements by HaZa"L [the Sages] in the midrashim.
However, I refer to the subject with which you choose to devote your time to, the history of the "lost tribes", and not to Creation.
If history in general is complex, something accepted by all historians, than how much more so where it is dealing with societies that have lost knowledge in the continuity of their identity? The process is therefore not unlike that of the police finding an individual suffering from amnesia, and trying to identify this person and his/her circumstances which led to the point of them being found. Most police forces consider amnesia cases complex, and some remain unsolved for years even in our information-rich Western society.
As for Bill, thanks for the abuse. It seems to me that the greater absurdity is one of Bill being able to judge me based on 0 information provided in the brief statement.
Instead of calling me intellectually dishonest, I suppose he could have asked what I base my assertions on? However, this would require you Yair to publish my assertion in full, which you refused to do years ago, right?' And why? Because they challenge your own hypotheses. And, if someone challenges your hypotheses, they may be proven wrong, and remove you form the position you built for yourself over the years.
This is because "The contribution of research findings, whether quantitative or qualitative, to the development of scientific knowledge about the social world depends on the quality of their interpretation and explanation. Interpretation and explanation of research findings are, in turn, largely dependent on an understanding of the philosophical foundations of social research." Long before the emergence of the scientific method and philosophy Mishnaic rules provided for challenging statements in the quest for establishing the quality of facts and their interpretation and explanation, and hence halakha (the way to proceed).
Clearly an intellectual himself, Bill then deduces based on the few lines of my comment that I "act immature and speak to you offensively", and this gives you "a right to put them in their place." wherever that means. A right according to which law Bill?
As for contradicting the Sages (not of blessed memory to Bill), Bill thinks that "this guy is very misguided." not having heard the evidence that guided me to make the statement in the first place, but advises to "Take no heed to what he says." How very Christian of you Bill. Shoot the messenger BEFORE he delivers the message;) God forbid you should hear something that may challenge your current belief in Yair's hypotheses.
Of course Bill you do "fail to see where TG sees Brit Am research as being simplistic.", because you have never heard anything I had to say! And, you only regard Yair's "research ...provided over the years [as] very deep and challenging intellectually" because no other voices are allowed to be heard by Yair to challenge the shallowness of his research. This, is why it fails to attract support from the more recognised authorities in the related disciplines, or a wider public following.
Here is an introduction to Jewish thinking 101 for you Bill - we don't make speculative statements unsupported by facts like "Could it be that maybe" because YOU DON'T KNOW if my own understanding of the Tribes of Israel is fallacious or not. In the Jewish learning there is no such thing as to attack the person (as you suggest), but attacking his ideas and evidence is a common form of challenging them in the search for truth (halakha). So you can reject my comments, because this will allow Yair and his supporters to keep building a case for something that doesn't stand up to the slightest whiff of rational inquiry, which is what the vast majority of people on this planet expect as a prerequisite for being convinced. If I am "just plain wrong.", why is it that there are so few supporters of Brit Am, with Yair having to constantly plead for financial support. Could it be "your work" lacks quality control?
And, of course there is the degree of censorship by Yair in that there is no open public forum where ideas and information can be freely shared and scrutinized, because Yair doesn't want to let go the control he thinks he has over the whole subject. For example I can't contact individuals directly and discuss concepts and evidence proposed by Yair, because Yair fears that if I prove him wrong, it may remove their financial support from his 'research'. The Brit-Am membership is not allowed to interact among themselves in such a public forum, which to many opens the question of impartiality. It rather resembles a cabal.
In fact Bill's comments only strengthen my conviction that Yair's research has long ago become narcissistic, and those that so unquestioningly support it exhibit all the characteristics of collective narcissism.
In fact the resistance to change is a common issue in society, in this case it is the resistance to accepting the challenges to 'research' which affects how it became received truth. This has led Yair to confirmation bias which is a tendency for people to favor information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses regardless of whether the information is true. A distinguishing feature of scientific (i.e. Jewish) thinking is the search for falsifying as well as confirming evidence. This is missing in Yair's 'work'.
I now challenge you Yair to post this unedited.
TG
TG Versus Steven Collins.
Re Brit-Am Now no. 1771.
#4. Steve Collins: New Article.
Saxon Treasure and the Scythians.
Regarding Steve Collins and his blog article.
TG says:
I hope Steve has a speedy recovery form his concussion.
In the first place the unearthed items in UK he refers to are called "The Staffordshire Hoard", to differentiate from other finds in the UK.
I find his statement that "I was instantly struck when reading this article that the Saxon gold artifacts were strikingly Scythian in nature. Many of the artifacts exhibited clearly Scythian art themes and patterns. Indeed, some were so remarkably Scythian in nature that they look like they could have been unearthed from an Asian Scythian burial site." to be ill considered.
Scythians traded rather widely, and their handicraft has been found equally widely. Moreover, personal items used to be preserved in possession and inherited for many generations spanning hundreds of years. This included reproducing style of workmanship. A Saxon copying the style of his Scythian slave goldsmith would hand the skills down to his children unchanged, and very little stylistic change is recorded in all ancient cultures for hundreds of years. This persisted into the mid-19th century where for example rope making methods went unchanged since the Roman times until the introduction of steam-driven machinery that made hand-roping obsolete.
Secondly, his statements that "It is my view that the source of this gold is hardly a mystery. It was fashioned and used by Saxons, who were the direct descendants of the Scythians who migrated out of Asia with much gold about three centuries before this gold hoard was buried in mid-England. The Saxon gold was almost certainly Scythian/Sacae gold brought out of Asia, especially since the gold artifacts exhibit clear Scythian/Sacae artwork patterns." is also ill considered.
When the National Geographic article states the source of the Saxons gold hoard 'is a mystery,' and opines it may have been originally Roman gold, it doesn't refer to the style of the workmanship, but ot the identiy of the gold's mined source. All ancient gold can be traced to its source through chemical/molecular analysis to identify specific mines, or in the case where it was an alloy. For example the Shekel, a coin originally weighing 11.3 grams of gold, become a standard unit of measure in Israel. It contained a naturally occurring alloy called electrum by the Greeks which was approximately two-thirds gold and one-third silver. Other gold currencies over the centuries in other parts of the World can be traced by identifying the precise electrum 'signature'. So, the gold may have been from the Roman mines, obtained by Saxons during trade via other tribes to the south, and made by Britanii slave goldsmiths in England after being taught by a Saxon goldsmith who received the Scythian goldsmithing tradition which was centuries old. Pure (24 karat) gold only became available relatively recently.
...apart from the touchstone another way of expressing the purity of gold was developed, the carat-weight (134). This unit of 200 mgrs has by tradition been derived from the seeds in the pod of the Ceratonia aliqua L., the carob (Arab, barrub or burntib).
The word "carat" comes from the Greek ktration, which is both the seed of the carob, and the equivalent of the Latin siliquay carat. keraiion is in its turn derived from keras, a horn, from the crescent-shaped pods of the tree, usually called St. John's Bread. The Assyrian unit of weight kisal (ki-sa-al) is the seed of the carob-pod. The carat as a standard of purity indicates "a twenty-fourth part". Studies in Ancient Technology, Volume 3; Volume 1965 by R. J. Forbes, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1971, p.176
At present a considerable percentage of the world's gold production is produced from copper or silver ores as the by-product from lead or
copper mines. This production of gold as a by-product from other ores was probably started by the Romans who in the first century B.C.
began to work pyrites and other sulphides for gold. Studies in Ancient Technology, Volume 3; Volume 1965 by R. J. Forbes, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1971, p.159
For further reading I suggest Elizabeth Coatsworth's "The Art of the Anglo-Saxon Goldsmith: Fine Metalwork in Anglo-Saxon England", Boydell Press, 2002
Lastly, yet another rash statement is made when Steve says "A tiny portion of the gold hoard exhibits Christian themes (one has Bible verses) so it is evident that there were some Christians among the Saxons of the 6th century AD." However, in fact the hoard includes only one strip of gold which bears a Torah inscription in Latin. It quotes chapter 10 verse 35 of the Bamidbar [Book of Numbers]:
Whenever the ark set out, Moses would say, Arise, [ALMIGHTY] let your enemies be scattered, and your foes flee before you." [And whenever it came to rest, he would say, Return, [ALMIGHTY] of the ten thousand thousands of Israel."]
