A curious hybrid: part history of the American university during the Cold War years, part memoir of the elder (Jacob) Neusner's five decades as perhaps America's leading Judaica scholar. Neither part works. Neusner Sr. is the hyperprolific author of hundreds of works on the nature and evolution of talmudic Judaism; son Noam is a reporter for the Tampa Tribune; together, they provide a brief and rather superficial history of the postWW II American university that is informed by a distinctly neoconservative bias: Recently, faculties supposedly have become radicalized; teachers pander to student wishes, curricula are standardless and rigidly politically correct; students are pampered and left intellectually unchallenged. At times, their tone deteriorates into Rush Limbaughlike rhetoric, such as a reference to academic ``fascist feminism.'' Meanwhile, in describing a supposedly pre-'60s ``golden age'' of academia, the Neusners somehow forget to mention the influence of McCarthyism or the CIA's efforts to infiltrate campus faculty. The memoir sections are no better. While Jacob Neusner has some interesting things to say about his own pedagogic ideals, particularly the desirability and necessity of balancing good teaching with good scholarship, his tone often is grandiose, as if he were the only one doing important work in Jewish studies. He writes about numerous colleagues with transparent contempt (about named and unnamed ``scholars of Judaism'' at the Jewish Theological Seminary, he claims, ``They confused their opinions with facts, cultivated obscurity, and practiced obfuscation''). At the end of his career, isolated after almost three decades at Brown University (he is now at the Univ. of South Florida) in part because of his abrasive personal and rhetorical style, Neusner sounds kvetchy, self-pitying, and bitter; one of his chapter subheadings reads ``A Career Concludes, The Ostracism Continues.'' Poor Jacob Neusner, poor reader this is dreary stuff from an admirably productive, often insightful scholar.
A lot of reviewers seem to have felt what I did looking at the book - the title seems to be saying Neusner's departure (dismissal?) from Brown was the (unmentioned) price of being excellent.
I am starting to wonder if Neusner is the source for the 'motivation' that hoaxers sometimes give to Smith for allegedly forging the Mar Saba document. In other words, they projected Neusner's anger over his departure from a particular school. Neusner must be their 'window' into Smith's personality (see Evans's reference in a previous post). Of course this theory isn't proven by any means. It's just a hypothesis. I would be glad to hear from anyone who has any better insight than I have two days into my research. Nevertheless there is no doubt that by throwing his lot with the radical right and making Smith and his discovery of a controversial document the needed 'sacrificial lamb' his career had something of a renaissance among people who couldn't spot the difference between a Jew and an Arab at the airport.
On a unrelated note I also saw in my research today that Clement of Alexandria gives the etymology of the word 'Judas' in Greek as 'power.' More on that later ...
