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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

When a Revision of Ancient History Meets Conservative Academia


 
by
 
Damien F. Mackey
 
 
In all honesty I would have to say that, generally speaking, I was fairly and helpfully served during my experience of writing two post-graduate theses at the University of Sydney (Australia) for the purpose of exposing the problems with the conventional system of ancient history and chronology. It was only at the end that matters become most unsatisfactory, as one can read further on.
 
- In the case of the first thesis completed in 1993, The Sothic Star Theory of the Egyptian Calendar, an MA by Research that was intended by me to be a critical and searching examination of the very foundations of the conventional chronology, I encountered only one case of blatant bias from an examiner. This was when the thesis was first submitted for marking. At the urging of a non-University colleague, I wrote a strong letter of complaint to the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, then Paul J. Crittenden, which was effective, as the latter informed me (letter of 23 December 1992) that the offending marker would no longer have any further part in the process. Moreover, my supervisor from the University’s History Department, Dr. Noel Weeks - though he was of an entirely conventionalist persuasion - persisted patiently throughout the entire writing of the thesis, ever offering his good advice and encouragement.
But it also needs to be said that all of the impetus, and the best ideas, for this thesis, originated outside the University.
Eventually the thesis was passed on both historical and scientific (archaeo-astronomical) grounds and I was buoyed by examiners’ comments that my “… critical analysis [was successful] when examining the opposite points of view. Indeed, most get a thrashing …”, and that the way now lay open for “a more acceptable alternative” model of history to be presented.
It was the latter task that really held the more interest for me.
However, as I had been again well advised by the non-University colleague, one needed first of all to come to grips with, and to refute, the text-book system. In relation to this notion of refutation, I was also boosted by my supervisor’s description of my thesis, in the end, as “irrefutable”.
 
But, as there was no further interest shown by the University after that, I looked elsewhere for getting my thesis and articles publicised, especially the Internet, where my articles began to be picked up by Johnny Zwick at the California Institute for Ancient Studies (www.specialtyinterests.net/).
I was also a co-founder of the Australian Marian Academy (name later enlarged by Cardinal Andrzej Maria Deskur, President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, in the Vatican, to Australian Marian Academy of the Immaculate Conception), that had its own publications and Newsletter. And, although this Academy’s interests ranged far beyond a revision of ancient history, this latter study - particularly with its ramifications for biblical history - still held great fascination for all of the Academy’s members.
 
- The opportunity to write that “more acceptable alternative” model at post-graduate level came in the year 2000, when Professor Rifaat Ebied of the Department of Semitic Studies (later Hebrew, Biblical and Jewish Studies), invited me to write a PhD thesis on the era of king Hezekiah of Judah (c. 700 BC, conventional dating). I eagerly took up this opportunity because a pet project of mine, on which I had been working for many years, namely to establish the historicity of the pseudepigraphal Book of Judith, had resolved itself in this very era of Hezekiah. In other words the Judith incident, which I firmly considered to be historical, had occurred - as far as I was concerned - late in the reign of king Hezekiah. I now envisaged a huge project:-
 
Volume One of this new thesis would be a reconstruction of ancient history from c. 2000 BC down to the era of king Hezekiah of Judah in 700 BC; whilst-
Volume Two would show how the Book of Judith integrated into the era of this same king Hezekiah.
 
The results of this “truly Herculean synthesizing effort,” as one examiner called it, were mixed. As with the first submission of the previous thesis, this one too was
 
(a) passed by one examiner,
(b) given a mixed reception by another one, who insisted that much more work needed to be done, and
(c) failed by a third, who called it “a disaster and a sad one”.
 
Thankfully, for me, this last examiner would not be involved in the second marking of the thesis.
It was generally considered that my Judith material (Volume Two) was workable and that perhaps I should concentrate on that in its relationship to the era of king Hezekiah.
But I had initially intended to offer a new model of ancient history, as well as to establish the Book of Judith as historical. So, in the re-writing of the thesis, though this time I based myself far more firmly upon the era of king Hezekiah, I also deliberately included in the thesis title the “background” to Hezekiah’s era (thus A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background), thereby enabling for me to fan out, and to include history going back some two centuries or so prior to Hezekiah’s reign. This span also allowed me to tackle probably the three most knotty problems that the revision of history has so far encountered: namely,
 
(i) “The Assuruballit Problem” of the el Amarna period;
(ii) where to locate the long-reigning Ramses II in the revision; and
(iii) the almost unresolvable Third Intermediate Period.
 
All three problems (i-iii) were, as it happens, in range of the reign of king Hezekiah of Judah in my revised context.
In fact, I never ceased to be amazed, during my writing of this particular thesis, just how much important history, when revised, converges in this approximate era.
Now, it was with the second marking of this new thesis that my problems with the University of Sydney really began to become manifest. Despite two international examiners passing the thesis at Doctorate level, and also recommending that it, or parts thereof, be published, the Doctorate was not awarded due to the entirely negative (from the point of view of approval) marking of the “in-house” 3rd examiner, as well as the Assessor (4th examiner), who was later called in, and who completely took the side of the 3rd examiner.
A fuller treatment of this matter can be read in:
 
Damien F. Mackey's Defence of Post-Graduate Thesis
Against 3rd Examiner's Criticisms
 
 
 
This defence was allowed by the Faculty of Arts (though, in the end - and I had fully anticipated this - it made not the slightest difference whatsoever).
Was the whole experiment worth while of running two theses of radical historical revision through conservative academia?
Yes, definitely, because it enabled me to write, at the highest level (the second at the most demanding PhD level), a brace of theses that rigorously tested the conventional system and found it wanting, and that then proceeded to create the basis for a new model.
However, because conventional academia moves so slowly as to be quite imperceptible, at least in this subject area, then I should advise fellow revisionists who might also be contemplating a University thesis on the subject to look elsewhere, to work independently of any conservative institutions.
 
An Interesting Additional Note:
 
Here is the furious reaction by the US examiner, art historian Professor Lewis M. Greenberg, to the assessment of my thesis by the Arts Faculty of the University of Sydney:
 
"I am distressed over your latest news [thesis result], except to say how sorry and angry I am over your plight. …. I would also say that [the University of Sydney’s Arts Faculty’s] behavior is unprecedented and unprofessional and you may quote me. Their actions are totally unacceptable to me and go beyond the groundrules for judging your degree worthiness. Once a majority of your examiners have approved the thesis, that should be it!! The University of Sydney will never be taken seriously so long as it continues this kind of nonsense. If there had been a tie, then I might understand the need to bring in an additional reader – but NOT under these circumstances! By their actions, the University of Sydney has impugned my reputation as well as that of the [other examiner, at Cambridge University]. UACCEPTABLE! – and you may quote me. At the least, both I and the [Cambridge examiner] should have been consulted and advised re the need to bring in an outside individual. Since this was not done, this “unofficial” individual [4th examiner] should carry no weight …. This is discrimination and a violation of the department’s fiduciary scholastic responsibility. The University of Sydney has made a mockery of the entire thesis process and turned your Ph.D doctorate into a farce. …. The Ph.D process has been sullied and all of this is only one more horrific footnote to that process. The fact that all this has been done AFTER A SECOND version of your thesis was submitted and judged makes this whole situation that much more odious. Why didn’t they do this after the first version was judged?…. I read and re-read the examiners’ comments (including my own). The negative [3rd] examiner was vile! He was merely showing off what HE knew. His comments were so pompous and arrogant that they were insulting to the two other readers as well. The graduate committee [University of Sydney Arts Faculty] is a farce as far as I am concerned. They don’t want you to get the degree, plain and simple. The rest is all shadow play …. Professor Ebied [thesis supervisor] is totally unprofessional. From day one, he has handled this entire matter (including your first go round) as some kind of novice. He never communicated with me even though he was here in Princeton and acts totally spineless. What an advisor he is! …".
 

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