Proto-Hebrew script found on 13th (B.C.) century lead tablet

[Benjamin McGuire]

8 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Good point! Quality peer reviewing takes time- we are all so busy these days. 

More importantly, quality peer review takes peers - people with some expertise. People who are experts in epigraphy are not usually experts in tomography.

But there is another issue these days with the publication venue. No one keeps up with everything. Publications are rated on a variety of factors when looking for a venue to publish in - key factors are availability and quotability. Some journals are read more often than others - some have greater respect among specialists. When an article of this sort is published in an open source journal like this one, part of the issue is that it is targeting an audience other than the academics who will engage this material. And for me, that is a telling thing. By putting it into an open source journal (which isn't a quality issue - it's just a matter of paying up front a publishing fee - $1,800 in this case), they guarantee that they can get wide readership among their target audience with more than a veneer of academic legitimacy. ABR identifies themselves as "A Christian Apologetics Ministry Dedicated to Demonstrating the Historical Reliability of the Bible through Archaeological and Biblical Research." And for them to get their funding, and to further their ministerial goals (which are not academic goals), putting their article in a highly respected academic journal which sits behind a paywall for most readers, is counter-productive.

[Hamilton Porter]

Not being published in an epigraphy or archaeology journal isn't that big of a deal. The receiving journal has deemed it a fit, and they can find the reviewers who are qualified to evaluate.