More Apologetic Plagiarism: Robert Clifton Robinson and the Amalekites

A couple of weeks ago, I published a post documenting the plagiarism of Robert Clifton Robinson.^[1] As I show there, Robinson had lifted an entire paragraph, nearly verbatim, from an article written by Don Stewart. Stewart was quoting an apologetic text by Robert Boyd entitled Boyd’s Bible Handbook, but it was clear that Robinson wasn’t stealing from Boyd directly but rather through Stewart. As of the writing of this post, Robinson has not made any apparent attempt to rectify this problem. Given his penchant for hurling unfounded accusations against his interlocutors, it isn’t difficult to conclude on the basis of his theft of other people’s work and passing it off as his own that Robinson is little more than a hypocrite. 

Like a crowd drawn to a train wreck, I couldn’t help but visit Robinson’s blog recently to see what new incoherent, factually dubious ramblings he had published. On February 9^th, he posted (yet another) piece attacking Assyriologist Joshua Bowen entitled “Is Yahweh A Terrorist? Dr. Joshua Bowen Says, ‘Yes.’”^[2] There is nothing of substance to what Robinson writes about Bowen and I have no intention of offering anything resembling a rebuttal to it. Instead, I want to focus on an aspect of Robinson’s piece that was unsurprising. 

One of the first things I do when reading a blog post is to find the section on sources, whether it is a section for endnotes or a works cited. When looking at the endnotes for this piece by Robinson, here is what I found: 

This endnote, labelled A, corresponds to this section here: 

While looking at the endnote, I noticed that Robinson never bothers to cite specific page numbers to the works mentioned. Where in these secondary works did he find support for the claim that they “confirm” that the Amalekites attacked the Israelites? For example, one of the sources is by the late Volkmar Fritz in the English translation of his Die Entstehung Israel sim 12. und 11. Jahrhundert v. Chr., or The Emergence of Israel in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries BCE (as it appears in English).^[3] Fritz’s comments on Amalek constitute barely a page and a half and in them he suggests that the “negative attitudes toward the Amalekites” we find in the Torah (e.g., Exodus 17:16) “were first established on the basis of historical experience in the course of the monarchy.”^[4] That is, those stories found in the Torah about the attacks on wandering Israel by the Amalekites were informed not by historical events following the Exodus but by events contemporary to the reign of Saul. The conflict between Saul and the Amalekites is justified by a story likely concocted and placed in the pre-monarchic narratives in the Torah.

At least on my reading of Fritz’s words, this does not confirm at all what Robinson claims that it does. The fact that he merely lists Fritz’s work but does not specify which pages he drew upon is a smoking gun alerting us to the likelihood that Robinson has never read Fritz’s work. Yesterday, I left this comment on Robinson’s post noting this. 

Today, undeterred, Robinson left his own in response.

And so, I began to dig. 

One of the works Robinson lists is The Oxford Bible Commentary. The form of the citation struck me as odd, especially “oprac. J. Barton, J. Muddiman.” I’ve never encountered the abbreviation “oprac” and have no idea to what it could be referring. (Based on context, my guess it has something to do with editing since both Barton and Muddiman were editors of the commentary. But I’m not sure if it is derived from an English word or some other language. Any help from either of my readers is appreciated.) [UPDATE (2.10.23) – Lex Lata commented on this post and informed me that “oprac” is Polish for “edited by.” As they note, this is just further confirmation of Robinsons’s plagiarism.] Regardless, I took that citation and plugged it into Google. It is then I discovered a Wikipedia page on the Battle of Rephidim mentioned in Exodus 17.^[5] I did a search on the page for “Fritz” and found in the page’s bibliography this:

If you compare this bibliography to the endnotes from Robinson’s piece, you can tell that they are identical. It is clear what he has done: taken material from Wikipedia and passed it off as his own. Specifically, he has taken the bibliography from that entry, posted it to his own article, and thereby given off the impression that he has consulted these specific works to find support for his claims. This is plagiarism, clear as day. 

As further evidence that Robinson got his sources from Wikipedia, toward the beginning of the piece we find this painting. 

Where else do we find this painting? Why, the aforementioned Wikipedia article, of course! This is further evidence of Robinson’s dependence upon Wikipedia and his plagiarism of it. 

The irony is palpable. Robinson sets himself up as a reliable, go-to source for information about the Bible. He acts as if he’s done his homework, put in the hours, and attained a level of knowledge his interlocutors simply do not possess. And yet he demonstrates clearly that he’s not only never read the sources he cites to prove his claim, he only got them by plagiarizing from Wikipedia! 

If I’m forced to choose between being an atheist like Joshua Bowen and a Christian like Robert Clifton Robinson, I will choose Bowen every time. Why? Because in the books I’ve read by Bowen he’s shown how he’s aware of the fact that he’s not an expert on every area in which he comments, and he carefully and meticulously cites the sources from which he draws. Moreover, he does his best to present the findings of scholars – even those with whom he disagrees – as charitably as possible. He’s a model scholar and a fine human being. But Robinson, despite having the Holy Spirit, cannot be bothered to read the material he cites and steals unashamedly from other’s work. 

And so, I will end this post on Robinson’s plagiarism as I did the previous one. Robert Clifton Robinson is, I dare say, a hypocrite.

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^[1] See “Apologetic Plagiarism: Robert Clifton Robinson on Joshua’s Long Day” (1.31.23), amateurexegete.com.

^[2] Robert Clifton Robinson, “Is Yahweh A Terrorist? Dr. Joshua Bowen Says, ‘Yes’” (2.9.23), robertcliftonrobinson.com.

^[3] Volkmar Fritz, The Emergence of Israel in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries BCE, translated by James W. Barker (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011).

^[4] Fritz, The Emergence of Israel in the Twelfth and Eleventh Centuries BCE, 208.

^[5] See “Battle of Refidim,” en.wikipedia.org.