Peer Review

History IX

[Ebal’s Plea, fifteen of thirty]

Despite the brouhaha Stripling pressed on.

The next step was to compile the data–archaeological, digital, photographic, and epigraphic into a paper and then submit that to a peer review journal.

Which journal should they petition?

They chose Heritage Science. Why? They wanted one esteemed especially by the scientific community. Interpretation of this archaeological find required complex computer and tomographic analysis in addition to archaeological and epigraphic expertise. A respected scientific journal they felt most appropriate.¹

Stripling’s team wrote their paper and submitted it to the journal. It in turn approached three specialist. These it perceived of appropriate backgrounds to review the paper. They assessed its credibility, identified where it needed strengthening, and determined questions that needed answering, etc.

Eventually, Stripling received the reviewers’ initial verdicts.

Two of these gave glowing approval. The other reflected considerable disdain and, in fact, vaguely suggested possible criminality.

All three, however, praised the quality of the writing and scholarship. They all had numerous questions and requests for modifications or clarifications–in total seventy-two.

Stripling and his team responded.

Afterwards, the glowing remarks from the two previously favorable reviewers continued. They highly recommended that the journal publish the edited paper.

After receiving the Stripling team’s responses, the negativity of the dissenting panel member softened markedly. Likely this resulted from legal clarifications regarding documents from relevant authorities–Palestinian and Israeli. He or she, in fact, in the end recommended the paper’s publication. All three reviewers assessed the paper as warranting further examination by the scholarly community.²

(As an aside, Heritage Science has not released, as of this writing, the names of the peer reviewers they assigned.)

The journal decided to publish the Stripling team’s article.

That publication we soon investigate thoroughly.

But first we need to put events into some perspective.

Next post: “Troubled Waters”

1. Melainie Kidman, Academic article on controversial 3,200-year old ‘curse tablet’ fails to sway experts, The Times of Israel, 14 May 2023, paragraphs 3 and 5, https://www.timesofisrael.com/academic-article-on-controversial-3200-year-old-curse-tablet-fails-to-sway-experts/, (7 October 2024). ↩︎
2. Id., paragraph 5. ↩︎