Queries & Comments

High Tempers, Low Stakes

Kudos (plural!) to BAR for publishing Anson F. Rainey’s response to Adam Zertal, especially for its entertainment value (Queries & Comments, BAR 28:05). It is not often that we are treated to such a display of scholarly decorum (“Save your readership from linguistic nonsense perpetrated by archaeologists who have no proper… training” or “Even more comical is Zertal’s attempt at a scholarly linguistic discussion…”). Indeed, Zertal’s thesis is something of a long shot and, granted, Professor Rainey’s erudition is impressive (he could probably order a pizza in Ugaritic), but for all his recondite linguistic arguments, we do not, and probably never will, know where exactly Haroshet Hagoyim is—and is the issue worth all that invective? Rainey’s foaming at the mouth reminds me of a famous characterization of academic disputes, which says that tempers run so high because the stakes are so low.