Ken Arkwright Exposed
Is the Jewish community of Perth prepared to tolerate intellectual dishonesty?
The text in this weeks “Did You Know” column would appear to the unsuspecting reader to be the scholarly research of the articles author. However it appears to have been taken straight from Wikipedia – “the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit”.
There is nothing in the Maccabean item to reference it back to Wikipedia. Similarly there is no citation on the Wikipedia item’s history page to suggest that the content is authored or contributed by Ken Arkwright.
Approximately 90% of the DID YOU KNOW? column in this weeks Maccabean appears to have been plaguarised from a single webpage, and in many cases is barely even rephrased.
The page concerned is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism
Remember as you read this that all the ideas, sources and quotes included in the Maccabean column would appear to have been cut and pasted from a single webpage, not from a multiple range of websites. Also remember that this webpage is not referenced by the article. Here are the examples:
Quote from the Maccabean article:
“The best-known and most important name of God recorded in the Torah is YHWH, also called the Tetragrammaton. Tetragrammaton is a Greek word meaning tetra (four) and gramma (letter). It appears in the Masetoric Text of the Torah 6828 times, albeit in various spellings. You may wish to look for more details in the Stuttgartensia addition of the Hebrew Masoretic Text.”
Quote from Wikipedia:
The most important and most often written name of God in Judaism is the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God, YHWH or Yahweh. “Tetragrammaton” derives from the Greek prefix tetra- (”four”) and gramma (”letter”, “grapheme”). The Tetragrammaton appears 6,828 times (see ‘Counts’ in the Yahweh article) in the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia edition of the Hebrew Masoretic text.”
Quote from the Maccabean article:
“Orthodox Jews use this Adonai only in prayer, whilst Progressive and most Conservative Jews are willing to pronounce it and write it for educational purposes, but not during casual conversation.”
Quote from Wikipedia:
“Orthodox and some Conservative Jews never pronounce it for any reason. Some religious non-Orthodox Jews are willing to pronounce it, but for educational purposes only, and never in casual conversation or in prayer.”
Quote from the Maccabean article:
“The Tetragrammaton appears for the first time in Genesis 2:4″…. “translates to Adonai Lord”
Quote from Wikipedia:
This name is first mentioned in the book of Genesis (2.4) and in English language bibles is traditionally translated as “The LORD”
Quote from the Maccabean article:
“Some Christians, who were ignorant about the fact that in many Jewish texts the vowels for Adonai were put under the consonants of YHWH for the Name of G-d, believed that they had discovered the true meaning of the name of G-d. This combination of muddling together two words adds up to the nonsense word Jehovah”
Quote from Wikipedia
“By contrast, the translation “Jehovah” was created by adding the vowel points of “Adonai.” Early Christian translators of the Torah did not know that these vowel points only served to remind the reader not to pronounce the divine name, but instead say “Adonai,” so they pronounced the consonants and vowel points together (a phonological impossibility in Hebrew). They took the letters “IHVH,” from the Latin Vulgate, and the vowels “a-o-a” were inserted into the text rendering IAHOVAH or “Iehovah” in 16th century English, which later became “Jehovah.”
Quote from Maccabean article:
“The book of Ruth 2:4 and many other biblical passages account for an unrestricted usage of the name of G-d. “And behold Boaz came from Bethlehem and said unto the reapers, YHWH be with you. And they answered him “YHWH be with you” Abbreviations of the name of God were freely used, and we do know how they were pronounced, for instance, yeho, -yo, -yahoo-yah”
Quote from Wikipedia:
Substituting Adonai for YHWH dates back at least to the 3rd century BCE.[3] Passages such as: “And, behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, YHWH [be] with you. And they answered him, YHWH bless thee” (Ruth 2:4)….strongly indicate that there was a time when the name was in common usage. Also the fact that many Hebrew names consist of verb forms contracted with the tetragrammaton indicates that the people knew the verbalization of the name in order to understand the connection. The prohibition against verbalizing the name never applied to the forms of the name within these contractions (yeho-, yo-, -yahoo, -yah) and their pronunciation remains known.”
Quote from Maccabean:
“El is yet another word in the Torah for G-d.”…. “Linguists failed to accept that Judaism was often influenced by heathen theology and they tried to assert that Elohim is a pluralis majestatis (expression of majesty) or a pluralis excellentiae (expression of excellence and dignity).
Quote from Wikipedia:
”Another popular explanation comes from the interpretation of El to mean “power”;……”Other scholars interpret the -im ending as an expression of majesty (pluralis majestatis) or excellence (pluralis excellentiae), expressing high dignity or greatness: compare with the similar use of plurals of ba’al (master) and adon (lord).”
Quote from Maccabean
Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842), the father of Semitic language studies, writes in his Hebrew Grammar “The use of the plural as a form of respectful address is quite foreign to Hebrew.”
Quote from Wikipedia
Indeed, Gesenius states in his book Hebrew Grammar ² the following: …..The use of the plural as a form of respectful address is quite foreign to Hebrew.”
Quote from Maccabean:
It was first translated into English by William Tyndale in 1530. He was not sure of the true meaning of the Tetragrammaton and therefore translated it into its Hebrew substitute Adonai (my Lord)
Quote from Wikipedia:
Many English translations of the Bible, following the tradition started by William Tyndale, render YHWH as “LORD” (all caps) or “LORD” (small caps), and Adonai as “Lord” (upper & lower case).
Quote from Maccabean:
“The word Adonai has an equally interesting history as YHWH. It is a Hebrew plural of Adoni and means ‘my lords’. The singular, Adoni, was applied by Phonecians for their God Tammuz and it entered the Greek language as Adonis”
Quote from Wikipedia:
Jews also call God Adonai, Hebrew for “Lord”. Formally, this is plural (”my Lords”), but the plural is usually construed as a respectful, and not a syntactic plural. (The singular form is Adoni, “my lord”. This was used by the Phoenicians for the God Tammuz and is the origin of the Greek name Adonis.”
Quote from Maccabean:
Another word for God is Shaddai…. Shaddai was a city at the banks of the Euphrates in northern Syria during the Bronze Age. Now it is called Tell eth-Thadyen. Thadyen” is the modern Arabic form of Shaddai. El Shaddai would therefore translate as God from the city of Thyden (Shaddai). Exodus 6:2 states Shaddai is the name by which God was known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who came from that region. Another theory is that Shaddai is derived from the verb shaded (overpower, destroy). Professor Harriet Lutzki has produced evidence that Shaddai was an attribute of a Semitic Godess. She believed that the name of the goddess is connected to the Hebrew word sad (breast), in other words he/she is the goddess of the breast.
Quote from Wikipedia:
Shaddai was a late Bronze Age Amorite city on the banks of the Euphrates river, in northern Syria. The site of its ruin-mound is called Tell eth-Thadyen: “Thadyen” being the modern Arabic rendering of the original West Semitic “Shaddai”. It has been conjectured that El Shaddai was therefore the “god of Shaddai” and associated in tradition with Abraham, and the inclusion of the Abraham stories into the Hebrew Bible may have brought the northern name with them (see Documentary hypothesis).
According to Exodus 6:2, 3, Shaddai is the name by which God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The name Shaddai is used as a name of God later in the Book of Job.
In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning “Almighty”. The root word “shadad” means “to overpower” or “to destroy”. This would give Shaddai the meaning of “destroyer” as one of the aspects of God. Thus it is essentially an epithet. Harriet Lutzky has presented evidence that Shaddai was an attribute of a Semitic goddess, linking the epithet with Hebrew sad “breast” as “the one of the Breast”, as Asherah at Ugarit is “the one of the Womb”.
Quote from Maccabean:
“God was sometimes called The Seven, because Hebrew scribes had to take particular care when writing the following seven names of G-d: Eloah, Elohim, Adonai, Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, YHWH (i.e. Yahweh), Shaddai, Zebaot
Quote from Wikipedia:
God was sometimes called The Seven.[11] Among the ancient Hebrews, the seven names for the Deity over which the scribes had to exercise particular care were: [12] Eloah, Elohim, Adonai, Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh, YHWH (i.e. Yahweh), Shaddai, Zebaot
I believe that these extracts demonstrate and evidence the fraudulant use of intellectual property. The evidence above suggests it is highly improbable that the Maccabean Did You Know column this week is the original writing and research of Mr Arkwright. This is a very serious situation for the community and its representative newspaper.
As a matter of journalistic ethics, the Maccabean must now act as it considers appropriate. This type of plagiarism where personal credit is claimed for the scholarly and academic ideas of others is a serious ethical breach. It is not tolerated in academic institutions. It is not tolerated in the business market. Most of all, it is not tolerated by the journalistic profession.
I urge the Maccabean to treat this alleged plagiarism with the disdain that it deserves. The Maccabean, regrettably, must own up to what has occurred, and find a way to move forward. By acting decisively the paper will maintain the confidence of the community. I also believe the outrage associated with this situation should be directed toward the apparent intellectual dishonesty of the author, and not the unsuspecting editorial or administrative people who no doubt accepted the item for publication in good faith.
Some years back there was an ethical outrage from the Jewish Community over an incident when the Maccabean inadvertantly published a photoshopped image. On that occasion the paper chose to admit its error and apologise, and also reiterate that its editorial stance did not sanction this breach of journalistic ethics. It maintained the support of its readers as a result.
This situation that JewglePerth regrettably feels needs to be exposed, has far reaching repurcussions that strike at the heart of journalistic integrity.
In your analysis I noticed one instance where Ken’s statement added a material phrase which was not in the Wikipedia version.
The statement, apparently an original thought of Ken’s, is “…Judaism was often influenced by heathen theology…”.
Why would Ken say such a thing, and from where did he get this idea?
June 26th, 2009 at 11:31 amThanks for in work you’ve put into this!
I’ve been concerned for some time that this man presents a lot of information as fact that is often incorrect and quite offensive.
I worry that people not linked in with the community take this all to be fact and are led away from Judaism by this man.
I also have no more energy for this man and have stopped buying the Maccabean due to his column. If they dropped his column, I would buy the paper again.
June 26th, 2009 at 12:06 pmwell it looks as if he passed internet for seniors 101 and received a distinction in the units of google search and cut and paste
June 26th, 2009 at 1:19 pmIf I was a gambling man and I am not I would bet the Maccabean response goes something like this…
June 26th, 2009 at 1:22 pm1. How dare you question our integrity we are The Maccabean – Perths only Jewish Newspaper
2. We are run by volunteers and how can we be responsible for what is printed
3. Then a long history of the author will be presented so we can use that as an excuse to publish whatever material plagarised or not every week.
4. Then Jewgle Perth will be called cowards because they dare to publish an anonymous blog and seek change.
All we seek is change……
Volunteers should be valued and respected, but that doesn’t mean they are not responsible for their actions, i.e. allowing this stuff to be printed!
June 26th, 2009 at 1:33 pmHere Here Yehudit – Finally some common sense. If you are going to do a job do it properly or do not do it at all.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:49 pmYou shall not hate your brother in your heart; you shall reprove your fellow and do not bear a sin because of him. (26)
Maimonides states this obligation the following way: One who sees that his friend has sinned or is going in a path that is not good, it is an obligation to turn him toward good and to inform him that he is hurting himself with his evil actions ?(27)
I have read the comments in relation to the Maccabean and am somewhat saddened. Not because I disagree or agree with either side, but becaus of the public rebuke against Mr Arkwright by a team of anonymous faces.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:34 pmThe Torah teaches us that in order for a rebuke against a Jew to be effective, it must be delivered gently, with respect and love. Words of rebuke spoken in anger are counterproductive;
The Talmud states that rebuke should generally take place in private — and even in private it is prohibited to embarrass someone.
Publicly embarrassing someone must be avoided at all costs; it is considered the equivalent of murder. (Shabbos34b)
The Talmud goes so far as to state: “It is better to throw oneself into a burning furnace than to embarrass someone in public.” (Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, Keser Rosh (Siddur Hagra), 143).
Please donot use this Perth jewish forum to pubicly shame people. Its not the Jewish way
Shmulik your understanding of Torah is commendable but you cannot isolate one part of it and claim the high morale ground. What is written about people that write against Hashem or make a mockery of the faith of their brothers ? I see you have left that out. Hint: Look ahead 2 weeks and see Parshat Pinchas.
June 27th, 2009 at 8:20 pmI have always doubted Ken Arkwrights ability to cite so many historic sources, and quote so many biblical text references with the degree of literacy and interpretation that would normally befit an internationally renowned scholar. I have even questioned whether he could actually read the original Hebrew of the sources he presents, as he never references any of the meforshim. I am however surprised that he would simply copy material like this. I hope that the Maccabean takes a strong stand. As you suggest, they too have been used and abused.
June 27th, 2009 at 9:39 pmShmulik Thanks for your words I fully agree with. I agree that what Ken Arkwright has done is wrong and should be stopped but this isn’t the write forum, if you are unhappy with him write a letter to the maccabean, give him a phone call, don’t hide behind Pen names on the internet.
Matisyahu you are correct in saying that Mr Arkwright goes to fare and often slanders hashems name, but that still doesn’t give us the the write to speak Lashonhar. Being a good person supersedes any godly commandment, well thats what I was taught at school anyway. “Honor neighbors like yourself and the rest is commentary.”
June 28th, 2009 at 1:54 amKEYboy please do not assume that Jewgle have just decided to make a song and dance about this incident as if it is the first time. This is not the 1st time they have found this situation occuring. Likewise don’t assume that approaches have not been made in private to the author, publisher, editor and others with influence at The Mac over the years too have the issue sorted.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:45 amWhat is shameful is that after having been found out previously they chose to ignore the situation and carry on. You are left with no other choice ?
Matisyahu, I agree that something should be done but I don’t like the idea of hiding behind Pen names. It is very deceitful, it allows the individual the opportunity to write whatever they like without any consequences.
I am going to be honest I actually quite like Ken Arkwright’s articles not because I remotely agree with him but because he creates vigorous debate thus making the Maccabean more then just a magazine full of Photos.
Even though he may write article that are plagiarized I think it would be ashame if they were removed for this very reason.
The way to counter his anti Orthodox articles is to write other articles every week not just letters to the editor. The Maccabean is willing publish anything. They love it when you write stuff.
It is commendable that Mr Arkwright has the commitment to put a piece together every week. If people from this forum are so against Ken’s action then they should create there own weekly page for the Maccabean. It will make great reading and maybe entice a few more readers to the Maccabean.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:56 pmThis is not the first occurrence of such action.
For example: http://www.jewgleperth.com/?p=139 – an incident in which the Maccabean ripped off content verbatim (pictures & text) from this website without a hint of credit.
I have likewise read many article on JPost, only to see them appear in the Mac the following week, sans citation.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:39 pmKEYboy:
You have a slight error in your last post. Where you say:
“…The way to counter his anti Orthodox articles is to write other articles every week not just letters to the editor. The Maccabean is willing publish anything. They love it when you write stuff…”
It should actually say:
June 28th, 2009 at 8:41 pm“..The way to counter his anti Orthodox articles is to write other articles every week not just letters to the editor. Unfortunately The Maccabean is not willing to publish anything. They hate it when you write stuff…”
Well Keyboy no real need to buy the Maccabean to read what Ken’s writing you can just search for it on Wikipedia. WORD for WORD – LOL
June 28th, 2009 at 9:04 pmHi KEYBoy
Thank you again for your participation in this forum.
I would like to share three items in response.
Firstly, the point you make about anonymity is one that has troubled me from the inception of this blog. Each JewglePerth blogger is responsible for their own content upload which is published as individual viewpoints. From my point of view at least, I am not shy of expressing a view, and certainly not too coward to place my name and reputation against it. The problem we have is that we sadly live in a day and age that makes the disclosure of our Jewish identity in a globally accessible forum a risk to the safety of ourselves and our families. As you know, there are some unstable people and real threats to being publicly identifiable. For example, the same anti-Semite that you encountered attempted to gain personal contact with us, and we were protected only by the non-disclosure of our identity and personal contact details. Bloggers can be targets, and if you look at the many thousands of Jewish blogs on the net, you will find that most, if not all, are run under a pseudonym. For the record, I have no objection to making my identity known to you, or any other person who I know I could trust and respect to not breach the security and protection of my identity. Please be absolutely sure, I am not hiding from the local community, but I am expressing my viewpoint whilst protecting my personal safety to the best of my ability. I’m sure you understand! Even your comments to the blog are under a pen name, as they should be. You said that our anonyminity is deceitful, that it allows the individual the opportunity to write whatever they like without any consequences. In an ironic sort of way, is the latter part of your comment not the very same free speech argument that the Maccabean keep running in defence of the Did you Know column? Anyhow, the information superhighway is full of many crazy drivers and that is the sole reason that we are protective of our identity.
Secondly, we may need to agree to disagree on the value of the vigorous debate that the Did you Know column generates. As a Jewish community our focus should be on the matters that unify us, not that divide us. My comments here are not personally focussed against Mr Arkwright. They are philosophically focussed against the progressive Jewish movement. I am not saying a person cannot believe whatever they want to believe. It is a free world. However I believe it is a misrepresentation to call some issues and interpretation legitimate expressions of Jewish belief when they are clearly not. Examples include citing the authorship of the Torah as the creation of historians (with or without divine inspiration). Suggesting that Virgin birth of the divine is compatible with Jewish faith. Creating a marital union between a Jew and a non Jew that means my children cannot marry their children within the framework of halacha. Rejecting the construct of the Oral Tradition. Sanctioning gay marriage. There are many many other examples. Like I say, believe what you like. But don’t call this Judaism or attempt to reconcile such conduct with Jewish tradition, because it is not compatible. Also, don’t denigrate my Orthodox viewpoint in the process because I do not share the same supposed liberalised views. As far as countering arguements are concerned, Mr Arkwright’s provocations have been countered many times. As you have noted, the Maccabean have been very fair in this regard and I do not agree with Yisro on this point. Notwithstanding, it remains alleged that some of the items published have blended fact and opinion in such a way as to delegitimise and offend Orthodox Jews, and for this reason I think that the Did You Know column has been a very divisive influence for the community. Why encourage this?
The third point is that the quality or interpretation of the content in Did You Know is a separate issue to that of plagiarism. The ethical issues stand in isolation. This would be the case for any correspondent, from any organisation, the Shules and Rabbis, or even the editor. I would advocate that anybody producing material under the impression of their authorship, that reproduces intellectual property without referencing it back to its source, is creating the impression that the ideas were original research and interpretation. I would suggest that it would be untenable for them to continue to retain their status as a respected correspondent.
KEYboy, I hope that this provides some context, and welcome your further comment.
I should also note that over the week ahead I am unlikely to have the time to post much to this blog, so please don’t misread any silence over the coming days.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:52 pmG’donya mate! Keep up the good work.
June 28th, 2009 at 11:23 pmMeanwhile I notice a new blog has been created on the other side of this fair land aiming to keep an eye on the Australian Jewish News and its anti-religious biases. The first few posts indicate that it’s gonna be an interesting and lively blog. Good on ‘em too.
Here’s the link: http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/
Is Ken Writing for the AJN too ?
June 30th, 2009 at 12:08 amNot AFAIK. But they have plenty of writers who are not much better.
June 30th, 2009 at 1:59 pmJust noticed a good post on that AJN blog re the death of the Melb rabbi who became a Christian!!
Maybe we could ask http://ajnwatch.blogspot.com/
July 1st, 2009 at 10:41 amto include a section dealing with the Maccabean with us Perthians contributing?
R.I.P – The Maccabean
July 2nd, 2009 at 6:31 pmIt’s only a matter of time when you are suffering from a terminal case of ethical bankruptcy.