Friday, March 06, 2009

The Arrest of Raphael Golb

This has to be one of the most remarkable stories to break in our area in recent times, and there are plenty to choose from. Jim Davila reports on the "strange and sad" story over on Paleojudaica, with a follow-up this morning, the Golb Arrest, as Raphael Golb, son of the Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Norman Golb, is arrested "for creating multiple aliases to engage in a campaign of impersonation and harassment relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls and scholars of opposing viewpoints" (News Release). Jim West is on top of the story over on his blog, The Arrest of Raphael Golb, with regular updates.

The arrest came hot on the heels of Robert Cargill's "Who is Charles Gadda" website. Its URL http://www.who-is-charles-gadda.com now redirects to the news release about the arrest of Golb, but Cargill's fascinating site can still be read over in his sandbox at Wikipedia, Who is Charles Gadda?, and he continues to update the page with all the latest information.

One of the aliases mentioned by Robert Cargill is "Robert Dworkin", and I now recall that this person corresponded with me on several occasions in 2007, to the same effect as that mentioned by Cargill. He wrote to me at my old blog address with links to material written by or defending Norman Golb. I replied briefly to each message but did not blog any of it because it is outside my area of expertise, and I prefer to rely on those like Jim Davila who understand the issues.

The alias "Charles Gadda" has also commented on my blog; similarly Suzanne Shapiro (after the previous comment). I notice too that I have received an email from another of the aliases on Bob Cargill's list, Sam Edelstein. After finding that I have had connections with all these aliases, I have stopped looking, but there are bound to be more. It is remarkable to think that I have been receiving multiple emails and comments over the last couple of years from different aliases of the same person. But I suppose that this also shows how ineffective the campaign was since I didn't blog on this on a single occasion.

However this story continues to pan out, now Norman Golb really does have some publicity for his theory of the origin of the scrolls.
at

4 comments:

  1. Jim6 March 2009 at 17:04

    hey mark,
    your last sentence... that's exactly the sort of observation that you're rightly famous for. golb could never have bought the amount of publicity this arrest has generated. shanks is probably envious.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark Goodacre6 March 2009 at 17:16

    Thanks, Jim. This story is not just a sad curiosity; it also contains within it a good number of morals. We'll be talking about it for years to come.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Robert R. Cargill6 March 2009 at 19:49

    mark,

    you are welcome to send me anything you have via email.

    i only have documented a fraction of the aliases used by the puppet master, so there are bound to be more. i think what i have documented made the point strongly enough, no?

    no worries. hope all is well. i appreciate your work here on your blog.

    shalom - bobcargill

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mark Goodacre6 March 2009 at 22:42

    Thanks, Bob. You have done a remarkable job. I am quite taken aback at just how much this person appears to have attempted to impinge on my small world but without success.

    ReplyDelete