Robert K. G. Temple’s Trenchant Criticisms of “the Academic World”



 

by



 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

“If it were not for the activities of a few polite and genteel 'trouble-makers' like Nibbi and O'Mara, Egyptology would become totally petrified and incapable of ever generating a new insight”.

 

Robert K. G. Temple

 

 

Although I do not necessarily agree with the spectacular conclusions arrived at in his books by the outspoken professor Robert Temple (e.g. on Atlantis), I would almost fully concur with his descriptions of crusty academics – his experiences being also mine.  

For example (taken from Egyptian Dawn. Exposing the Real Truth Behind Ancient Egypt, Century 2010).

 

Pp. 399-400 [my emphasis]:

 

"[On the Atlantic Culture] …. Countless authors, ancient and modern, have commented upon the Atlantic cultures, but these remarks have rarely been given proper attention. Perhaps the reason for this is that there is no academic discipline or academic department concerned with 'Atlantic culture'. As soon as the archaeologists of one region of the world begin to discuss it, they feel uncomfortable, because they are 'straying beyond their boundaries'. There is nothing that makes an academic more nervous than that, because it opens him up to criticism by his colleagues. The academic world is a vicious world, where no mercy is ever shown, and where the slightest slip from 'consensus behaviour' can endanger an academic's entire career. It is only people like myself, who do not depend upon the favour and approval of peers for a livelihood, who can say what they like and stray over as many boundaries as they please. With every passing year, the competition for jobs within the academic community becomes more intense, the level of fear rises and the timidity of discourse increases. One of these days, the academic world will just seize up like a sea of ice, with no movement at all, and all opinions will remain perfectly rigid. Then everybody will be safe. …".

 

Pp. 430 [my emphasis]:

 

"…. Alessandra Nibbi's ideas are so extraordinarily interesting and relevant that at one point I considered attempting an extended survey of them here, and compiling a comprehensive bibliography for her as I have done for Patrick O'Mara (whom she frequently published in her journal). If it were not for the activities of a few polite and genteel 'trouble-makers' like Nibbi and O'Mara, Egyptology would become totally petrified and incapable of ever generating a new insight. Thus, people like Nibbi and O'Mara should be encouraged enthusiastically, because they poke the corpses of the 'walking dead', the orthodox scholars who never deviate by a hair's-breadth from consensus opinions, and make them awaken from their sleepwalking and stir slightly. However, I have had to abandon my noble idea of surveying Nibbi's ideas, however important they are in terms of what I have been discussing, because the task would be too vast, and this book would never end. I shall content myself therefore with quoting only one of her many, many articles, which appeared in her own journal in 1995, as her comments are so shocking in the light of what we have been considering: ... we are given [in a book she has just quoted] a resume from the Egyptological textbooks on the 'Libyans' without considering the fact that there is a great deal of uncertainty and assumption in piecing together the Egyptological material, and no clarity at all concerning the geographical background of these people, which cannot have been the desert.... We must accept the Roman use of this term which applied to all the area immediately to the west of the Nile . . . Thus the term westerner is more appropriate than Libyan for the people we are discussing. . . More recent studies of 'Libyan' people have been reluctant to separate them from the area that is Libya today and rarely attempt to identify them from any evidence. We even find references to 'ethnically Libyan pharaohs', whatever that may imply: At the seminar which formed the basis of Anthony Leahy's Libya and Egypt c. 1300)-750 B.C. (1990), no attempt was made to define 'Libyan'. Scholars depended considerably on Leahy's earlier article on the Libyan period in Egypt which attempts to identity the foreign ‘Libyan' Dynasty in Egypt as rule by men of 'Libyan extraction', even though 'the retention of their ethnic identity is obscured by the evidence’. …".

Part Two:

Friedman on ‘failure of nerve’

 

 

 

 

“As leaders we tend to rely more on expertise of “experts” and better technique

rather than our own ability to be decisive and leadership instincts”.

Todd Hiestand

 

 

In Part One (https://www.academia.edu/35925085/Robert_K._G._Temples_Trenchant_Criti)

I quoted professor Temple’s perfectly true (from my experiences) observation: “If it were not for the activities of a few polite and genteel ‘troublemakers’ … Egyptology would become totally petrified and incapable of ever generating a new insight”.

 

And, back in 2011, a reader ‘prophesied’ about the petrified conventional Egyptology:

 

To Damien:

 

Your thesis on the Revised History of Hezekiah was brilliantly argued and should have resulted in a PHD so that your gift in complicated historical revisionism could have been more further developed. In this thesis, you covered an incredible amount of data but unfortunately one examiner has prevented you from achieving your full academic potential. The university will be poorer for not having awarded you a well deserved PHD for I surmise that you would have made hundreds of other connections in ancient history that would have shed more light in a field that is strewn with a great deal of confusion. Those holding to the old orthodoxy of Egyptian History will soon vanish and out of the mists will arise a new historical chronology that will again dramatically shorten the length of Egyptian chronology. I think the works of Velikovsky, Courville and Mackey and others will eventually unseat the modern Pharisees and Sadduccees who hold sway over the old orthodoxy which is dying as the revisionists get their ideas out in the internet. I hope that you are actively engaged in further research and I suspect you realize that the Hebrew Chronology which influenced three of the major religions in history is more critical than the Egyptian documents that are carved in stone as almost nothing in the Egyptian Chronology matches that of the Hebrews. Keep up the great research.

 

However, whilst that thesis:

 

A Revised History of the Era of King Hezekiah of Judah and its Background

 

https://www.academia.edu/3822220/Thesis_2_A_Revised_History_of_the_Era_of_King_Hezekiah_of_Judah_and_its_Background

 

indeed broke a lot of new ground, and, I think, paved the way for further fruitful research amongst various disciplines, I actually bit off more than I could chew then, and, hence, parts of the thesis were badly flawed.

Much of it has since been up-dated and improved upon in later articles.

 

 

Another reader has just offered the following suggestion, to assist with the revision:

 

Damien, one of my primary teachers was the late Rabbi Edwin Friedman. His book Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix explains the anxious planet on which we live. I commen[d] it to you in its second edition ….

 

Here follows a brief review of this highly influential book: https://www.toddhiestand.com/edwin-friedman-failure-of-nerve-in-five-minutes/

 

Edwin Friedman – Failure of Nerve – in Five Minutes

 

I prepared this for a leadership call I did with some close friends in the Ecclesia Network. Many of us have found Edwin Friedman’s book, The Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix (Soft Cover / Kindle)  exceptionally helpful.  I’d say its one of the most influential books I’ve ever read on leadership. As I read it, I was confronted over and over again with habits and patterns for self-preservation that I’ve created for myself over good leadership.

Here is my short, executive summary of the book:

 

The Reality:

 

• We live in chronically anxious society.
• This society is oriented towards safety rather than adventure.
• In this anxious society, resistance to leadership often has less to do with the “issue” that ensues than with the fact that the leader took initiative.
  This anxiety can be dissipated by clear, decisive, well-defined leadership. 
   
  The Problem:
   

• We often leverage power to the extremists.
• We often obsess about data over making a decision
• Technique over stamina
• Giving Empathy over calling for personal responsibility
   
  The Results:
   

• The most dependent members of our churches set the agendas and drive the institution rather than the most energetic, visionary imaginative and motivated.
  After all, our job is to make everyone happy, right? (sarcasm)
   
• As leaders we tend to rely more on expertise of “experts” and better technique rather than our own ability to be decisive and leadership instincts.
  If we could just read one more missional leadership book and go to one more conference, we’d finally be successful!

 

·         Obsession with data and technique that allows us to spend all our time researching and never making decisions.
FYI, no one should spend 6 weeks and three leadership meetings researching and making a decision about a water cooler. 

 

·         Leaders assume that we can convince our most toxic members through reasonableness, love, insight, role-modeling, striving for consensus.
I’m so pastorally gifted that I can reason and love the most anxious and unhealthy people to perfect harmony. Right?

 

·         The Way Forward,

We Need Leaders Who:

 

• Focus on their own integrity in the midst of crazies.
  Are you sure you’ve walked with integrity? 
   
• Maintain a healthy, steady, non-anxious presence in the midst of the storms.
  We need more Tim Tebows!

 

• Give more voice to the … healthy, creative, energetic, motivated voices.
  This isn’t a call to ignore the fringe!

 

• Grow into becoming a well-differentiated leader
  No one does this easily, most leaders can improve their capacity.
   
• Who can remain separate while still remaining connected.
  We aren’t emotionless and unattached. 
   
• Able to manage own reactivity to the automatic reactivity of others and take stands at the risk of displeasing. ….