Queries & Comments

Neusner

BAR Will Prove the Pope Is Catholic

I find it my unpleasant but necessary duty to comment on your nasty and sarcastic “Editor’s Response” entitled “Neusner’s Attacks Create Happy Band of Brothers,” BAR 20:05. Apparently Professor Neusner wrote a lengthy and serious but negative review of a book that you published. You then decided to distribute this review as a way of showing your disdain for it. When this failed to elicit the response you expected from Professor Neusner, you spewed forth a diatribe dripping with derision in an attempt to ridicule your adversary. Shame on you for engaging in the worst example of “sour grapes” denigration that I have ever read.

I keep wondering what you could have had in mind when you sent this drivel off to press. Were you trying to show that Mr. Neusner is argumentative and critical? That he does not suffer fools with patience? That he upholds high standards of scholarly accomplishment beyond the reach of most in his field? But these are the most obvious facts that every beginning student of Jewish studies knows. What is the point of your angst?