Saturday, April 9, 2011
Delving into Jacob Neusner's Departure from Brown [Part Two]
I received five emails today from different people who claim to have 'knowledge' related to Neusner's deeparture from Brown, Morton Smith and a variety of other issues. Two of them have confirmed who the guy Neusner dismisses as "an unproductive and anti-Christian Josephus scholar of German origin and education, who despised the Jews and Judaism only less than he hated Christians and Christianity" in the Price of Excellence (the book Nuesner first leveled his assault against Morton Smith). According to my sources this unnamed individual was Horst R Moehring, a professor at Brown's Religious Studies program and avowed atheist (which would explain the 'anti-Christian' and 'anti-Jewish' reference).
In a pattern we already see with Morton Smith, Moehring was already dead by the time the Price of Excellence came out. So Nuesner has a habit of speaking ill of the dead. But why did Neusner treat Moehring differently than Smith? Why omit direct mention of his name in the Price of Excellence? There is so much more to investigate here. As the information comes in I will report it and hope we can all piece it together fairly and accurately.
In a pattern we already see with Morton Smith, Moehring was already dead by the time the Price of Excellence came out. So Nuesner has a habit of speaking ill of the dead. But why did Neusner treat Moehring differently than Smith? Why omit direct mention of his name in the Price of Excellence? There is so much more to investigate here. As the information comes in I will report it and hope we can all piece it together fairly and accurately.
Email stephan.h.huller@gmail.com with comments or questions.