The United States Theological Survey

MEMORANDUM

From: Mid-East Regional Reports Improvement Advisor
To: Moshe Rabbenu, District Chief, Sinai-Canaan District, Monotheism Division
Subject:  REPORTS – Regional Review comments of the submitted publication, “The Pentateuch” 
 

Dear Dr. Rabbenu,

Enclosed herewith are the review copies of the subject report with the reviewers’ annotations made in the margins, together with summary comments.  In general, we feel the report cannot be published as submitted and will require major revision to resolve the review comments.  Please feel free to contact me or any member of my staff if you or the authors wish to discuss this further.

In fact, one of the first concerns was the question of the fair attribution of authorship.  This is based on longstanding Survey policy as fully outlined in USTS Director’s Memorandum 00-01.  According to your original transmittal memorandum, the report as submitted was purportedly written by an employee at your office by the name of YHVH.  That immediately raised a red flag, because according to governmentwide policy, only official agencies are to be referred to be their acronyms; employees must be referred to by their real names.  However, the real concern is that one of our staff theologists, Dr. Julius Wellhausen, has reason to believe that the submitted publication was not written by YHVH, but instead was written by a colleague, JEPD.  This misunderstanding must be cleared up before publication; both the use of authors’ acronyms and improper attribution of authorship are serious infractions of Survey policy.

There are a number of other serious deficiencies that need to be resolved as well:
 

1) The report is much to long.  Many of the “commandments” are repeated in each of the “books.”  The reviewers suggest eliminating redundant parts or publishing each so-called “book” (e.g., “Genesis”, “Exodus”, “Leviticus,” and “Deuteronomy”) separately.

2) The official language of the United States is English.  The work as submitted was written in Hebrew.  Per official government policy, an English translation was provided, but the translation by Mr. King James (We have no record of anyone by that name in our employee data base, by the way – was the translator James King, a theologist in the Salt Lake City office?) was written in a 17th century style of English as many passages were incomprehensible to the reviewers.  Before final publication of this report, please provide an accurate English translation.

3) In fact, even the colleague reviewers familiar with the Hebrew language found many passages poorly written and difficult to understand.  Please note the extensive review comments and explanatory notes written by Rashi, one of the colleague reviewers you selected.  I have made spot scans of some of the passages of the original report, and then read Rashi’s notes, and I found that it increased my comprehension immeasurably.  I am going to insist that even after the text is revised, Rashi’s notes be published along with the text.

4) There are questions as to the exact title of the report. Is it to be called “The Pentateuch,” “The Chumash,” “The Torah,” or what?  Our reviewers suggest using “Torah,”  but apparently there were rumors at the American Theophysical Union meeting in Sodom last spring that the authors had an ambitious plan to create   a whole series of works called “Torah,” including “written Torah,” (which appears to be similar to the “Tanakh” project you told us about at the last Quarterly Review), and “oral Torah.”  This whole issue of nomenclature is very confusing. Please see to it that the author clears it up, and  settles on a name for each sub-category and applies these names consistently.

5) A further problem with the titles of the “books” is the variance between the English and Hebrew names of the books.  The English names appear to be somewhat descriptive, but the Hebrew names merely consist of the first word of the text.  This violates the rules promulgated in the publication, “Suggestions to Authors of Reports of the U.S. Theological Survey.”  In addition, Suggestions to Authors recommends that report titles be descriptive of the contents and contain wording that reflects all of the major subheadings of the report.  Our reviewers recommend the following titles:

“Genesis” – Description of the Origin of the Universe, Creation of Humanity, and Origin and Fate of Abraham Ben-Terach, his Sons, Grandsons, and Great-Grandsons in Canaan and Egypt, Middle East

“Exodus” – Ancient Egyptian Human-Rights Violations, Divine Intervention on Behalf of the Victims, Divine Revelation of Policy and Procedures Manual, and Plans and Template for the Construction of a Portable Religious Sanctuary Suitable for a Sacrificial Cult

 “Levitcus” – Divine Protocols for a Standardized Sacrificial Cult, Summary of Associated Dietary Restrictions, and Ethical Rules and Rationale for their Observance

“Numbers” –  Accounts of Problems Involved in the Management of Former Slaves, and Further  Explanations of Divine Rules and Protocols.

“Deuteronomy” – Oratorical Recapitulation of History of Divine Intervention on Behalf of the Israelite People,  Exhortation to the Israelites to Follow Divine Protocols and Quality-Assurance Procedures, and Account of the Death of Moses Ben Amram, Moab, Middle East

These titles will provide the reader with much more information about the contents of each book than were provided by the original titles.

6) Parts of the report could benefit from the judicious inclusion of illustrations, which are lacking in the report as submitted.  For example, maps showing such things as the locations of the so-called “Garden of Eden,” Ur of the Chaldees,  the locations of the tent-camps of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the location of Goshen with respect the rest of Egypt, and the exact route of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.  We have been spending a lot of money on a GIS staff for your office, what the hell are they doing if they’re not providing maps for a high-impact report like this?  Also needed are diagrams showing exactly how the “Tabernacle” is to be constructed.  (A materials list and budget estimate, as well as a report of the competitive bids for the construction work would also be helpful for the reader.) Drawings and patterns for constructions of priestly vestments and other various ritual objects involved in the sacrificial cult are needed.  Given that Headquarters has provided you with funds to hire a complete staff of technical illustrators, you need to make use of the talent, and not blow it off with that stuff about “thou shalt make not graven images..”

7) The text needs a very through review by a technical editor for problems with grammar and syntax.  I know we discussed this at the last quarterly progress review.  However, after discussion by the Senior Leadership Team, it was decided that the idea of publishing ambiguous text so that future religious commentators can provide novel interpretations is not sufficient grounds to justify sloppy writing and editing.  I will provide one example here, more are written in the marginal notes:  In “Numbers” 16:1, the text reads,” And Korakh son of Izhar, son of Kohath, son of Levi with Datan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben took.  And they rose up….”  Aside from the overly complex subject of the first sentence, it also includes a transive verb without a direct object.  Please, what did Korakh and his buddies take?  Did they take the A train?  Did they take Prozac?  Cocaine?  Please you have been making substantial overhead charges on the project, in part to support the salaries of  technical editors in your report section.  We expect that you will be making use of this talent in support of this project.
 

Please resolve all of these serious technical, theological, ethical, and editorial deficiencies and resubmit the revised manuscript to our office for further review.  We cannot not allow publication of this work without approval from this office.

Thank you very much for your prompt attention to this matter.

MERRIA/jhg