|
揽瓜阁俱乐部 Day2 2020.05.12
【人文科学-艺术】 The Bible museum’s fake scrolls （695字 精读 必做篇）
WHEN THE Museum of the Bible opened in Washington, DC in 2017, it boasted an exhibit to make archaeologists salivate: fragments of the Dead Sea scrolls. These 2,000-year-old scraps of parchment include the oldest known transcripts of the Old Testament—and the museum had 16 of them. Except that it didn’t. In 2018 five of its fragments were revealed to be fakes. Last week, the museum announced that all 16 were forgeries, probably created in the 20th century out of ancient leather, perhaps from old shoes.
The revelation is an embarrassment for the museum, which has sought to present itself as an academically rigorous institution worthy of its location just off the National Mall, where the Smithsonian’s fine museums are located. The museum was founded by Steve Green, a prominent evangelical Christian and president of Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft shops which in 2014 persuaded the Supreme Court that it deserved a religious exemption from a federal requirement under which employers provide their workers with certain contraceptives. It has rebuffed criticisms that it is an expensive advertisement for fundamentalist Christianity. The museum has several respected biblical-scholar consultants and a breathtaking collection of biblical texts and artefacts. They include a Gilgamesh tablet from the second millennium bc and sections of the Gutenberg bible.
The museum’s Dead Sea fragments are a less impressive acquisition, apparently bought without looking too closely into their origins. The real things, most of which are in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, were discovered in caves in what is now the West Bank in the 1940s. The “scrolls” Mr Green snapped up, part of a group of 70 or so, came to market after 2000. The researchers who studied them say the clues to their forgery include indications that they were written on a bumpy surface: parchment resembles leather after 2,000 years but it would originally have been smooth. They are also coated in animal glue to mimic the waxy sheen that develops when collagen in parchment breaks down over time to form gelatine.
This is not the first time the Bible museum has been embarrassed over its acquisitions. Last year it emerged that Hobby Lobby had bought 13 fragments of ancient papyrus texts, which had been sold by an Oxford professor who has been accused of stealing them from the collection he oversaw. The museum said the acquisitions were made “in good faith” and promptly handed them back.
It appears to have been similarly upright and transparent about its Dead Sea mis-purchases. Last February, it commissioned an independent team of researchers, who spent six months studying the fragments. Their 200-page report is displayed prominently on the museum’s website. Jeff Kloha, the museum’s chief curatorial officer, says he hopes the techniques used by the researchers will be helpful to other buyers of other such scrolls. Though Mr Green has not disclosed how much he paid for his, the group from which they came are estimated to have sold for upwards of $35m.
Yet purchasing and then displaying such artefacts without first establishing their provenance is no way to run an institution that presents itself as an authority on the Bible. The error is indicative of a wider lack of academic rigour at the museum. Though its display of biblical artefacts is impressive, with fact-based descriptions of how the Old and New Testaments were gathered and translated, elsewhere, including in a walk through the stories of the Old Testament, the museum tends to elide biblical stories with historical fact in a way that makes many biblical scholars uncomfortable. Given that America’s division of church and state means few people have the opportunity to learn about the history of the Bible, this seems unfortunate.
Yet the museum may be evangelising to fewer people than it had hoped, even before the novel coronavirus led to its temporary closure this week. In its first year, when entry was free, it received a million visitors. Since late 2018, it has charged an entrance fee. Though it will not say how many visitors it has welcomed since, it seems likely that fewer tourists, visiting the free museums on the Mall, have been swinging by to see its treasures.
Source: The Economist
【人文科学-艺术】 Underground Station in Capital to Become Arts Center （400字 3分32秒 精听 必做篇）
先做精听再核对原文哦~
The Dupont Circle park in Washington DC is a busy, crowded place. Popular restaurants and businesses around the circle attract many city residents and visitors. But few people know about the old streetcar station below the street.
Braulio Agnese is the Managing Director of an organization called Dupont Underground. The group wants to change the old station into a place for the arts.
"We see everything from site-specific art work, that fills the space in different ways, light and sound or installations. Or it can be used like a traditional gallery. But also as a curved space, it offers a chance for new kinds of performance. DC has quite a few experimental theater groups that would like to work in an unusual space and do different kinds of production."
The system of tunnels was built in the late 1940s. But the streetcars only use it for a short time. They stopped running in the 1960s. Mr. Agnese says the station could become a symbol of how quickly Washington is changing.
"Changes in the last five or ten years have been tremendous. The restaurant scene is changing, new development, new opportunities. We think there is an opportunity to create something here that helps the city to move forward."
Dupont Underground is just one example of the trend toward giving a new purpose to unused industrial sites. In New York, builders want to make a forgotten street car garage into a park below the street. And New York already has the popular High Line Park. It was once an old railroad path. The question is -- can Dupont Underground be as successful?
Bill McLeod is Executive Director of Historic DuPont Circle Main Streets. The group helps small businesses in the DuPont Circle area. Mr. McLeod says the underground will fill a need in the area.
"I think there is definitely need for art space, or event space, in DuPont. And I think that will be the perfect space to activate because it's very large - it's 75 thousand square feet. (7-thousand square meters) I think it will be very cool."
Another organization tried to open a group of eating places in the space 15 years ago. That food court project failed. Mr. McLeod says the group leading the new effort has a better understanding of the project. He says the group knows it will take a lot of time and money and is successfully seeking financial support.
Braulio Agnese and his co-workers hope to open the underground station to the public in the next few months.
Source: VOA
Lyrics Handwritten by Bob Dylan On Sale for $2.2 Million
先做精听再核对原文哦~
A paper on which music star Bob Dylan wrote the words to one of his most famous songs, ‘The Times They Are A-Changin,’ has gone on sale. The asking price is $2.2 million dollars, a record amount for such an object if someone pays it.
Gary Zimet owns the business Moments in Time, an autograph dealership in Los Angeles. He said that the paper was first owned by Jeff Rosen, a top employee of Dylan’s. Now, Zimet said, it is being sold by an unidentified private collector.
“It’s not an auction. It’s a private sale. First come, first served,” Zimet told Reuters.
Similar Dylan papers have been sold for record amounts already. In 2014, a buyer paid $2 million for a paper on which the musician wrote the song Like a Rolling Stone.
Dylan wrote ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’ in 1963 and included it on an album of the same name the following year. It became a major protest song of the 1960s.
Zimet said he was also selling papers on which Dylan wrote the words to two other songs. The dealer set the price for the writing of 1965’s Subterranean Homesick Blues at $1.2 million. He wants $650,000 for the paper on which Dylan wrote Lay Lady Lay, a song released in 1969.
“They are not quite as important,” said Zimet, explaining the lower prices. “Subterranean Homesick Blues is certainly a major, major song but not in the same league as ‘The Times They Are A-Changin’,” he said.
Musicians’ hand-written words to popular songs have become some of the most sought-after objects for collectors.
Singer Don McLean’s 16-page handwritten document of the song American Pie sold for $1.2 million in 2015. Paul McCartney’s handwritten words to the Beatles’ song Hey Jude sold for $910,000 at an online auction earlier this month.
The 78-year-old Dylan is considered the voice of his generation. Last month, he released his first new music in eight years. It included a 17-minute song called Murder Most Foul about the 1963 murder of American President John F. Kennedy.
In 2016, Dylan became the only songwriter to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Source: VOA
【笔记格式要求】
精读笔记格式要求： 1.总结文章中心大意 2.总结分论点或每段段落大意 3.摘抄印象深刻或者觉得优美的句子 4.总结文章中的生词 5.记录阅读时间、总结时间、总时间
精听笔记格式要求： 1.逐句听写整篇文章 2.对照原文修改听写稿，标记出错原因 3.总结文章中心大意 4.总结精听过程中的生词 5.记录听写时间、总结时间、总时间
这里也给大家两点学习小建议哦~ 精读：如遇到读不懂的复杂句，建议找出句子主干，分析句子成分，也可以尝试翻译句子来帮助理解~ 精听：建议每句不要反复纠结听，如果听 5 遍都没听出来，那就跳过，等完成后再回听总结原因，时间宝贵，不要过于执着哦~
| 
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2020-5-11 22:37:55
收藏
收藏
来自 45#
楼主
