Quasimodo wrote:No accusations, Dr. Peterson. But your thoughts on the matter would be interesting. You were an associate (in some ways) of John Lund. I was just wondering how you may feel about his situation.
I feel very bad about his situation. It's bad for him personally, and it probably doesn't help the Church in Israel very much (though I haven't heard of any actual harm or distress there, and though, accurately understood, he has no real link to the Church organization there or to the BYU Jerusalem Center).
I actually don't know him well. He called me once at home, several years ago, about a totally unrelated issue, and I once met him at a hotel in Jerusalem and spoke with him for about three minutes. Other than that, I don't believe I've ever spoken with him or met him. I'm not sure that I would recognize him on the street. He was never, as I understand it, on the faculty at BYU. He has never been connected with the Maxwell Institute.
He leads tours for CruiseLady (the company for which I've recently led some tours), but only in the Americas, not in the Middle East. In the Middle East, he goes with a different company (Fun4Less, I think?).
I have to say that things look really bad from the published reports. But I've just received, through a mutual friend, an account of Dr. Lund's side of the affair. It's rather long, and I haven't read it yet, but I'm somewhat interested to hear what he says.
Incidentally, on the matter of stolen antiquities: I'm not sure exactly what is meant by that term in the press reports, but I suspect that we're talking about things that haven't been stolen in the conventional sense of the word but that have, instead, been put on the market for sale without having first been properly registered with the Israel Antiquities Authority. This happens, unfortunately, all the time. Practically every shopkeeper and local guide has a brother who is an "archaeologist," and such things are constantly being offered to tourists. It's very unfortunate, and I refuse to have anything to do with it. I don't even own any such things. I won't even accept them as gifts when they're offered to me, which they regularly are.