Some of what has come out since yesterday:
NY Times Angers Historians, Archaeologists Over Article Questioning Jewish Link to Temple Mount (Sharona Schwartz, The Blaze). Archaeologist Gabriel Barkay adds his voice:
“It was based on ignorance, simple ignorance; you cannot ignore all the literary evidence” of the existence of Jewish temples on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount site, Prof. Gabriel Barkay, codirector of the Temple Mount Sifting Project, told TheBlaze by phone Sunday.I think "ignorance" is generous. It is clear that the writer had the correct information available and presented the story the way he did nonetheless.
New York Times Amends Article Questioning Jewish Temples’ Existence on Temple Mount (JTA)
Jerusalem Through the Lens of the New York Times (Yarden Frankl, HonestReporting.com)
Also, the Irish Times has reprinted the NYT article, but it has reprinted the original, uncorrected version. The third paragraph appears as follows:
The question, which many books and scholarly treatises have never definitively answered, is whether the 37-acre site, home to Islam’s sacred Dome of the Rock shrine and al-Aqsa Mosque, was also the precise location of two ancient Jewish temples, one built on the remains of the other, and both long since gone.(My bold emphasis.) And just in case readers miss the point, the IT has added its own very unhelpful subtitle to the article: "Did Temple Mount really contain King Solomon’s temple? No one really knows." I have a screen shot, in case any of this is changed. The damage of the New York Times article continues to propagate.
Then one Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss adds his take: Hectored by Zionist wannabe archaeologists, ‘NYT’ recasts article on Jewish temples. Yep, "wannabe archaeologists" like Leen Ritmeyer, Jodi Magness, and Gabriel Barkay. Oh, and mere experts in Second Temple Judaism like Michael Satlow and myself. In his essay Mr. Weiss makes the following very interesting observation: "But the crazy part– as many of Gladstone’s Zionist critics are also pointing out on twitter– is that the original question is the only one the article really deals with." He had earlier indicated that this original questions was "whether the temples were on the Temple Mount" (his emphasis).
He cites the quotations from Matthew J. Adams, Rivka Gonen, Wendy Pullan, and Jane Cahill and says, "Gladstone then cites several other authorities, questioning whether the temples were even on the site." He then adds:
Too bad the Times didn’t stick to its guns on the question. The appearance that it folded under pressure is confirmed by the fact that Gladstone tweeted his changes out to his assailants, Liebovitz and Goldberg. They are just performing a traditional Zionist role, in the tradition of Yigael Yadin and Moshe Dayan– archaeologists.He has no idea where the temples stood, yet on the basis of his lack of knowledge of the whole subject he is sure the Times succumbed to political pressure. It doesn't seem to occur to him that the Times might have made the alteration because the article did not correctly reflect what specialists in the area actually think.
I have no idea where the temples stood; the issue is why the NYT would raise a question, presumably based on reporting, and then withdraw it under pressure from Zionists who hector you as a “truther.” And if it was really wrong, why not take down the whole article?
I do not know why the New York Times did not take down the article. They might have been wise to do so, because the problems with it just keep getting worse. Keep reading.
I cite Mr. Weiss not because his uninformed opinion counts for anything, but because it illustrates the harm the article has done. Note that he cites the quotations from Matthew J. Adams to demonstrate that the article cites experts "questioning whether the temples were even on the site."
With that as context, I can report that I received the following e-mail from Dr. Matthew J. Adams, Director of the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. (In my earlier post I referred to him as "Mr.," following the usage of the NYT article. I give his correct title here.) I reproduce his communication with his permission:
Dear Jim,So, I was correct in my inference in my original post. Indeed, Dr. Adams's comments were reordered out of context in the New York Times article contrary to his intentions. He was not saying that it was an academically complex question whether Jewish temples ever stood on the Temple Mount. He was saying that the source material for the First Temple is an academically complex issue, a correct point that I also made in considerable detail in my earlier posts, especially the one on the evidence for the First Temple.
I saw your blog post from yesterday concerning the NYT article. Thanks for your good detective work!
Indeed, my comments had been separated from their context and redistributed into the NYT article according the author's intentions, not mine.
The academically complex question to which I referred was concerning the "First Temple" and the sources related to it. My first comment following "It's an academically complex question" was:
"First, it's pretty clear that the temple built (or restored) by Herod stood on the Haram/Temple Mount. Archaeological and Textual sources make this fairly certain."
I then proceeded to discuss the complexities of the source material for the "First Temple".
Thanks again for the hard work on this!
Matthew
This is turning into a real embarrassment to the New York Times. I don't think the story is quite over yet, so watch this space.
UPDATE (14 October): More here and here.
