Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 106 posts

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#21

Post by ctdonath »

simonklitj wrote: post #3
ctdonath wrote: post #2

The founder of Hobby Lobby has an amazing collection of historic religious texts (I've seen them). The retail chain does not.

Which ones? Primarily Christian?

Mostly Christian, yes. There are some Jewish relics, and a few other items. Much of the collection is very old/rare, seriously museum-level content & quantity.

Content includes: Gutenberg Bible, first-printing King James Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, metal-imprinted Torah, famous misprints ("thou shalt commit adultery"), jewel-encrusted Bible given by Yassar Arafat, bible illustrated by Salvador Dali, and lots of ancillary relics I don't recall at the moment. If you get a chance to view the traveling museum, do so (regardless of your inclinations).

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#22

Post by romaaeterna »

The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law).

Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby" is a fun way to denigrate the people involved here, they are actually behind the Bible Museum in D.C., probably the most important Biblical antiquities collection in the world, and were purchased for museum display.

That said, the museum acquisition team has run into export issues before, and their team was caught buying items from Saudi Arabians without a proper chain of custody (and therefore likely looted), and shipping it back to the US under false pretenses.

Not good, but a big part of it is that they have "Bible" in their museum name, and that gets all the bigots out in arms.

(I wish I could read this article, but my usual NYT tricks aren't working.)

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#23

Post by Jun8 »

romaaeterna wrote: post #22

The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law). Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby"…

+1

When random comments on HN carry more journalistic heft than NYT articles titled like Reddit posts we have a problem!

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#24

Post by [deleted] »

mannykannot wrote: post #18
rayiner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not quite the correct framing. The RFRA allows a “person” to sue the government where a law impinges on the person’s “exercise of religion.” Hobby Lobby involved two separate issues. One, does “person” for purposes of the RFRA include a corporation? The Court answered yes, that’s the usual meaning absent contrary intent. Two, is a privately held for profit corporation a “person” capable of "exercising religion…

And how does the law go with regard to participation in criminal activity by a privately held corporation?

[deleted]

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#25

Post by [deleted] »

Jun8 wrote: post #23
romaaeterna wrote: post #22

The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law). Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby"…

+1 When random comments on HN carry more journalistic heft than NYT articles titled like Reddit posts we have a problem!

[deleted]

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#27

Post by js2 »

romaaeterna wrote: post #22

The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law). Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby"…

The headline is factually correct. The contract was made in 2013 between Dr. Obbink and Hobby Lobby Stores, not between him and the museum, which didn't yet exist. The first sentence of the third paragraph reads:

"Thirteen fragments from the collection were found in the Museum of the Bible, a Washington institution founded by Hobby Lobby’s evangelical Christian owners, the Green family."

So the headline is correct and the article provides additional details. Also, I don't see what the worth of the texts has anything to do with it. Here's the statement from the EES:

https://www.ees.ac.uk/news/professor-obbink-and-missing-ees-...

"These texts were taken without authorisation from the EES" is theft regardless of the value of those texts.

Edit: if this article has any bias, I don't see it. It is short and filled with facts. I has a dozen links to sources. It implies that the Museum of the Bible could do a better job verifying its acquisitions, but it points out that other museums could too ("Museums in general have faced increased scrutiny over the origins of their prized antiquities"). Unless some facts have been left out, this seems like a good article to me and the type of reporting we should applaud.

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#28

Post by light_hue_1 »

romaaeterna wrote: post #22

The Obbink stuff has been on slow boil for a few years now. Part of the problem is that even ancient papyri texts aren't actually worth anything, unless they are really famous, but they are getting caught up by all the export regulations for gold and jewels (sometimes under new interpretations of law). Obbink has made some poor decisions, but I feel that the rules have changed on his watch. Also, while "Hobby Lobby"…

The fact that you can't read the article shows. You are totally misrepresenting what is happening now and what happened in the past to push a particular political agenda.

This has nothing to do with export laws. The documents were the property of Oxford in a collection that he oversaw. Now Oxford discovered that he sold the documents.

Also, ancient artifacts are protected regardless of their value. That is what keeps their value in check. If every patch of dirt in Italy could be excavated and whatever is found sold on the international market, there would be a crazy land rush.

So no. The rules never changed. They were not his items, they were Oxford's. And Hobby Lobby is totally accurate. They're a hate-filled group that somehow people still shop from.

You are also significantly and intentionally warping what happened with some of their prior dealings where they smuggled artifacts into the country. They had to pay a 3 million dollar fine, return 3800 stolen items, when they intentionally forged documents. They didn't "not have a proper chain of custody" they faked the import country and contents of shipments to get them past customs after being repeatedly warned about not doing this. This is just a matter of looking up on wikipedia.

When you lie to protect an evil corporation like Hobby Lobby, you don't get to say that somehow other people are bigots. Why is it that the Christian right in the US is ok with lying all the time? Isn't there a commandment in the bible about this?

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#29

Post by mey »

jandrese wrote: post #19
mey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2017/07/05/us/hobby-lobby-ancient-arti... The company itself was receiving artifacts in the past.

Was the founder just using the company as a front to collect dubiously legal artifacts perhaps? Basically as a way to insulate himself behind his company in case some irate government came looking for them.

Considering the relation between Hobby Lobby (father) and the Museum of the Bible (son), I would be shocked if there was any corporate veil left intact on the Hobby Lobby side. It is a private entity, so not sure the shareholders have much desire to complain about the running of the organization.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Green_(entrepreneur)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby_Lobby_smuggling_scanda...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_the_Bible

Re: Oxford Professor Is Accused of Selling Ancient Texts

#30

Post by rayiner »

mannykannot wrote: post #18
rayiner wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not quite the correct framing. The RFRA allows a “person” to sue the government where a law impinges on the person’s “exercise of religion.” Hobby Lobby involved two separate issues. One, does “person” for purposes of the RFRA include a corporation? The Court answered yes, that’s the usual meaning absent contrary intent. Two, is a privately held for profit corporation a “person” capable of "exercising religion…

And how does the law go with regard to participation in criminal activity by a privately held corporation?

It works similarly: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-.... Corporations can be held criminally liable. For that purpose, the mental state of the humans authorized to take action on behalf of the corporation is imputed onto the corporation.

If Hobby Lobby's owners had intent to defraud customers, and directed the corporation to defraud customers, they could be held liable and so could the corporation. The fact that Hobby Lobby as an inanimate object is incapable of forming intent would be irrelevant.

Post reply on HN