Simcha Jacobovici

[Admin1]

Is it just me who waffles on whether to call him a good investigator or just a good producer?

Sometimes I watch Naked Archaeologist thinking how awesome he is - and an episode or two later I get angry at what seems to be just hype.

As for his Exodus special, I found much of it just baloney.

Is he respected in the Scholarly community?

[RamboPreacher]

...
Is he respected in the Scholarly community?

good question.
I have not made it a secret in posting on other forums that I believe that greed and money are the driving factors either way.

[archaeologist]

Is it just me who waffles on whether to call him a good investigator or just a good producer?

i have to agree with you about his Naked Archaeologist series.  sometimes he is really good and does a great job while other times he is just a buffooon and you feel like he is a waste.

to answer your question , he is a filmmaker not a scholar and i have never heard a good word about him or his being respected.  His 'exodus decoded' and "jesus tomb' specials did a lot of damage to his, andthose with him,  credibility.

They were just terrible.

[SMMAssociates]

Awfully superficial at times....

Interesting stuff, though, but a little too "popular"....

Beats watching some of the other "stuff" (I was thinking of a better word, but there appear to be rules here .)

Regards,

Stu.

[Admin1]

Indeed...Exodus Decoded was a joke in many ways...but of course anything he does is better than network tv 

[archaeologist]

the one good thing he did do in his 'naked archaeologist' series was he let many archaeologists talk and explain some things. 

i know of one militant atheist who wished they had kept jocobovici up on that cross in one episode. 

so there was some value and he did expose some artifacts and evidence we don't hear about too often, so he did have some good points.

then when i saw him in the interview after the Jesus Tomb special, when it looked like he was ready to kill those who disagreed with him, it was apparant he didn't like being dismissed as some intruder in a field he knows little about

[profbill]

Simcha:  is both a good producer and a good archaeologist.  His "Naked Archaeologist" is both informative and entertaining.  He rarely gives his opinions unless he has concrete proof and conjecture with another authoritive source.

I just wish he would take a moment in his busy life to answer a couple of questions of mine!

profbill

[archaeologist]

Simcha:  is both a good producer and a good archaeologist

you seem to miss the part in the Jesus Tomb where he says he isn't an archaeologist but is a filmaker.  even the real archaeologists in his t.v. series dismissed him as a crackpot.

jacobovici is not an archaeologist and i do not know what gave you that idea, as his whole series was based upon reporting not credible work.

he relies on people like James Tabor who are willing to lose their own credibility to take part in such ventures as 'exodus decoded' and'the Jesus tomb'

even charles pellegrino took a big hit with his role in the latter of those two films. His 'they match' (when they clearly didn't) declaration will go down in filming history as one of the biggest goofs of all time.

[SMMAssociates]

I've got to watch that "Jesus' Tomb" again....  Assuming my PVR didn't misplace it....  Too many things "proven" on very simple connections.

For example.  My first name's "Stu" ("Stuart").  That's the 'English" spelling - some of their Kings were "Stuarts"....  "Stew" or "Stewart" is "Scottish".  While both are a little unusual v.s. "John" or "James", for example, my being named "Stuart" doesn't necessarily mean that I'm English, or related to any of their Kings....  (I'm some mix of Lithuanian, Hungarian, and probably Italian.  I'm not sure what mom & dad were thinking....)

Jacobovici seems to be making a lot out of similar inferences....  Lights up my BS detector....  Really very close at times to "everybody who lives on 'Fifth Street' is a cousin".  Possible, but not too likely, unless the street's kinda short....

I had a teacher in Junior High who was an "Atkinson" of the "Atkinson Avenue" Atkinsons....   Such things are possible of course, but tend to lose "meaning" as the time between the "naming" and "now" increases.  (Atkinson Avenue is no place to even drive through anymore....  Unless you're into drugs.)

Some of this reminds me of Von Danniken (I hope I spelled that right).  Lots of little facts that can be tied together, but it helps if you ignore any (or a lot of) possible alternatives.  At some point, if you do drop facts because there are good alternative explanations, you run out of facts entirely....

He also seems to be making a lot of inferences based on calling some common occurrences "unique"....  Consider assuming that everybody living in North Eastern OH is a "Browns" fan, but finding a Browns T-shirt is a highly unique event....

Regards,

Stu.

[DocDiggs]

Is it just me who waffles on whether to call him a good investigator or just a good producer?

Sometimes I watch Naked Archaeologist thinking how awesome he is - and an episode or two later I get angry at what seems to be just hype.

As for his Exodus special, I found much of it just baloney.

Is he respected in the Scholarly community?

Simcha is not a scholar, he is a reporter as I understand it.  This Q was addressed a couple issues ago in BAR.  As to being respected?  He turns out some interesting stuff but I have had some talking to myself disagreements with him over time as his presentations while certainly interesting, are not always scientifically "orthodox" compared with known sources that are respected scholars.

[How do you get the little boxed quotes?  I highlighted the portion of RickJ's post that I wanted to quote, but the whole thing showed up!]

[SMMAssociates]

DocDiggs:

(I won't get into Jacobovici again - interesting, but high hype content at times.)

About the quotes.

If you click "Quote", you'll see the web pages set up a block like: "{quote=SMMAssociates}".  I can't quote the whole thing - this board's different from what I'm used to, and I'm a newbie here.  At the end of the block you'll see "{/quote}".  (I'm using curly brackets instead of square ones, otherwise the system wouldn't let me show it to you....)

If you want to cut that up, just put a "{/quote}" at the end of a chunk of text, and then put "{quote}" at the beginning of the next block you want to quote.  Make sure you finish the final block with a "{/quote}"....

Something like "{Quote="SMMAssociates"}This text will be in a quote block.{/quote}" will then look like this if you use the square brackets:

This text will be in a quote block.

The "source name" and such can be omitted - just "{quote}" is sufficient to start a block.

Regards,

Stu.

[RamboPreacher]

thanks for everyone's POV's.  I have done some more research from what I already had (very little), and my "prejudgment" of him is not necessarily as "harsh" as I initially had.  anyone else?

[serapha]

Is he respected in the Scholarly community?

HI there...


In a word..."no"

He isn't an archaeologist.  He's a treasure seeker.   In the episode concerning Bethlehem of Galilee, even though he's been told not to touch anything, he begins digging in the dirt though it is a violation to dig without a license...

In the John the Baptist cave, he has his cameraman slide through the gap in the gate to get pictures of the interior because he didn't want to wait for legal entry. 

Hello?  Does anyone see a pattern here?   He thinks he is above the standard rules of archaeology and he thinks he is above the legal system.   Who breaks into locked archaeology sites?   Who digs without a license?   

Treasure hunters. 

Sensationalism sells, and he's the #1 marketing agent. 


~serapha~

[archaeologist]

In the episode concerning Bethlehem of Galilee, even though he's been told not to touch anything, he begins digging in the dirt though it is a violation to dig without a license...

the digging he did was not worth getting a license, be alittle realistic here.  i will agree with you about the cameraman and the john the baptist cave, but to tell you the truth, i might have done the same thing and i am not a treasure hunter.

[turanclancath]

Simcha Jacobovici - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A link from Wiki  about Simcha Jacobovici.
I was interested if he was really an uneducated amateur as i got the impression reading this link.
I see in Wiki   that he holds an Canadian Ba and Ma.
And is an Orthodox believing Jew ( see Bas discussion between Shanks /Jacobovici )

So he knows scientific methods( an Ma is not notting  in my opinion )  but uses the method to fit his opinion   religion and hypothesisses.
And be sure this happens often in science that you twist the material to fit your hypothesis.
Well he twisted his material extremely.!!!! And that is not good!!!! but transparant for who knows the sources .
But from my own thesis i know that their are a lot of good scientists who
twist their material towards there hypothesisses.
Often its time, place religion, culture, gender etc  determinated wich vision a scientist has.( and not only a scientist )

See for instance academic books about the Revolt of the Netherlands ( 80 years war  1568 -1648  ),Great difference between Roman Catholic ,ProtestantSpanish or Dutch writer.Even a Dutch Roman Catholic or Protestant had/have different opinions about this.

Or The Night of St.Barthlemy ( les Noces Vermeilles ( 23/24 august 1572 France) 10 thousends Huegenots were killed by the Catholic Ligue.
Well of course it makes a big difference wich culture and religion  an academic writer belongs when he writes about that.
Was Catherina the Medici a monster or a clever but ruthless politician who was only thinking about the best for France.

Again i think the Discussion between Shanks and Jacobovici ( see the BAS archive ) is a lightening example as how academic  discussions should be   polite. not agressive   and respectful.

turanclancath