Dutch academic freedom (of speech) and objectivity!?

SEMafoor article ~ translation and discussion

Posted by Alewyn Raubenheimer on 3 December 2011:

Herewith my translation of an article on the Oera Linda Book on the Dutch website Semafoor.net of the academic study group, SEM.

SEM is an acronym for “Studiekring Eerste Millennium” (“Study Circle First Millennium”) and has as its aim a renewed investigation into the first millennium history of the Low Countries between the Somme River in Northern France and the Elbe River in Northern Germany for the period 100 BC to 1200 AD.

http://www.semafoor.net/Oeralindaboek.htm

(It is noticeable, in my opinion, how dissenting views are ignored, denied, suppressed or ridiculed but, the reader can judge for him/herself. Please also note some additional "suspects" who could have created the OLB)

The Oera Linda Book - A game with almost no end

Thanks to the dissertation of Goffe Jensma, anno 2004, the Oera Linda Book has once again received much publicity. The thesis deserves positive appreciation. Not because it introduces new perspectives but because it is set out in a clear and understandable way to show what happened and could have happened. The spiritual testament of John Winkler that became known in 1916 already has, in fact, the story of what happened as far as it can be established. In this article we add three marginal notes; partly criticism and partly elaboration, namely: the mystification, the authors and the believers.

The mystification

The OLB is not a copy of an old manuscript, no falsification (because it has not been copied), but it is a mystification. Werner Fuld discussed the Oera Linda Book in his “Das Lexicon der Fälschungen” (The Lexicon of Hoaxes) (1999) and notes that this joke was recognized very early on. Even the Nazis recognized after a short time that the OLB did definitely not show a great Germanic past, but saw the book as a “ungermanische Fälschung” (a hoax).

When I delved into Ottema’s edition of the OLB a few decades ago, I soon realized that we had to do with a mystification here. That is no compliment to me.

“Everything in the OLB is suspect” wrote G. Molewijk in 1993. The so-called old language and the style, and especially the etymology of a number of words, were convincing enough for me. In 1874 Prof. Dr. A. Vitringa had already highlighted the historical heresy.

Some 15 years ago I received a typed text of Albert Delahaye sent by the Albert Delahaye Foundation wherein the Oera Linda Book was secretly used to support his views on the history of the Low Countries in the first millennium. It took many telephone calls to convince the then secretary H. Jochems that this edition of the work would be to the detriment of Delahaye, rather than to his advantage [sic].

Since then, the manuscript remained in suspension. I occasionally still expressed the following views: The Oera Linda Book is a mystification, but a mystification can still be an interesting document and even a historical source. He, who, however, tries to put forward a new perspective on the history of the first millennium and uses the Oera Linda Book as an authentic (13th century) source, is wrong from the outset. In the SEM it was more or less agreed some years ago not to do this in publications under the auspices of the SEM [sic]. Not everybody was satisfied with this unwritten rule. To them this was a form of self-censure. Jensma, in his dissertation, tended somewhat strongly in the direction of, amongst others, Albert Delahaye and Joël Vandemaele; I shall come back to this under the third heading.

The OLB in the translations of Ottema (1876) and Jensma (2005) can also be seen as a remarkable literary document. As a mystification of a so-called ancient document, the OLB is, however, not successful: it contains too many easily recognizable falsifications. These are too obvious. The metaphor of a struggle between two religious viewpoints, though, is a creation that fits in the literary history. Jensma, in his dissertation, primarily brings this metaphor to the fore, but it certainly is not an original discovery, because this view has been mentioned by numerous authors and has been known for many years.

The Author(s)

Joep Rozemeyer recently published an article in SEMafoor 4.1 (February 2004) about the OLB wherein he reveals that the historian Herrius Halbertsma made a statement about clergyman, linguist and antiquarian Joost Halbertsma. Eelco Verwijs would have made use of his library in creating the Oera Linda Book. Herrius Halbertsma thus pointed to Verwijs as the author. It is precisely from the remarkable relation between documents from this library and underlined passages in the books of Joost Hiddes Halbertsma that Verwijs is seen as the author. Those who want to meet (know more about) Joost Hiddes and his family can read a letter from him to his sister-in-law Baukje in the book “Het hart op de tong in negentig brieven (1571-1957)” [Heart on the tongue in ninety letters (1571-1957)] published by W.Gs. Hellinga.

According to Jensma, Francois Haverschmidt is the author intellectualis, Cornelis over de Linden is the part-time writer who actually wrote the text in “OLBees” and Eelco Verwijs the expert who initiated the mystification joke and advised on the creation of the codex.

Jensma wrote: “Paaltjens was not the only result of Haverschmidt’s enormous urge to mystification. His authorship is characterized by all kinds of techniques that result in indirectness and ambiguity and the expression of how he saw the world and himself – in his favourite metaphor – as show (pretence, false); as a historical contingency which referred to a more real, and reality behind history to a hidden entity, what he called ‘God’".

Some sort of literary proof, therefore. In the critique of the thesis in the NRC under the title “Magnificent misunderstanding”, the following is written: “The evidence against Haverschmidt is the weakest, Jensma acknowledges immediately”. Jensma, of course, means that the evidence for Haverschmidt’s authorship is poor. This honesty is to be appreciated. The discussion about this is not strange, because the Haverschmidt-solution is not conclusive.

The title of the OLB gives no direct indication about the author because this was thought out by Ottema. Initially the book was described as “The Book of Adela” or “The old Frisian Manuscript”. Cornelis over de Linden must not be underestimated as a possible author. There are undoubtedly [Sic] texts in the OLB from his hand and his spirit. Whenever Over de Linden quoted from passages in the OLB, it was always from the first part: “The Book of Adela’s Helpers”. There is no denial [Sic] that Haverschmidt could indeed be regarded as the real author.

Jensma says that the book originated from around 1860 but only surfaced in 1867 and he asks what happened in the interim. This hypothesis, that the OLB originated around 1860, firmly shuts the door on the thought that the origination history of the OLB is more complex.

It is noticeable that Jensma gave so little attention to the hypothesis that the original author (or shall I say one of the authors of the OLB texts) could have been Johannes Jans over de Linden, who was a book seller in Enkhuizen from 1790 to 1804 (therefore possibly quite literate) and a man with an artistic writing talent and the man who had the family crest made with a source and the word “Watch”.

This hypothesis came from Wigholt Vleer. He worked out his theory in 1952, published this in the Leeuwarder Courant (Newspaper) of 29 August 1959 and he came back to this in 1966 in a letter to the “RVU Educatieve Omroep” (Educational Journal?). This letter is published in this issue of SEMafoor.

Jensma does not take Vleer seriously, probably because he also published several books on “ley lines” [?], but it is known that the aforementioned Codex expert W. Hellinga came to the conclusion that the ink of the surviving OLB text dated from before 1820 and that he supported the hypothesis of Vleer.

“The case is solved: the book seller was the author” said Vleer.
"Hellinga did not see it (agree?) anymore, and stopped his research," alleged Jensma.

Hellinga was no Fries, otherwise he would have persisted. Somebody else, who supported Vleer’s hypothesis, was the ex-mayor of Graft-De Rijp and Weesp: Henk over de Linden. It is in any case in an article in the Leeuwarder Courant of 4 January 1992. In the same newspaper (22 June 1984) Kerst Huisman published an article in the Fries dialect [Sic] that Jensma must have read. The article starts with the information that the greatest humorist in the Netherlands’ historical world, Albert Delahaye is from Brabant Zundert. This view is essentially based on an unpublished and unauthorized [Sic] text of Delahaye which Huisman obtained in some or other way, undoubtedly (in) confidence. On this type of information, Jensma then embroider further.

The Believers

Jensma alleges the following (P.188): “Neither Molenaar nor Vleer dared, and it typified the Netherland situation, declare the book outright authentic”.

What a strange remark. Which Netherland situation? Is it about some none-Frisian situation? This Jensma alters even more, a kind of condescending and misinterpretation, particularly when it comes to people outside the traditional club of those involved. In my opinion, Vleer was already convinced of the mystification in 1952. He concentrated on the possible author. Vleer was no OLB-believer despite his “leylijnen”.

The most important believer was, of course, Jan Ottema who published the manuscript in 1876 and translated it. He made an international swell from a joke. You can see him at best as a believer against (his own) better judgment. His belief in the great pre-history was stronger than historical philology. He who reads Ottema’s views does not get the impression that we have to do with a fool here. In truth: educated and yet gullible. At some moment he had to realize that he was deceived and his hanging [suicide] can be connected to this [sic]. Understandably, things then became quite around the OLB. But, there are still believers. These believers are treated differently than Ottema by Jensma. Some comments about this.

I start with a quote (P.192): “The Oera Linda Book is still used here and there – but not in Friesland! – to give force to language nationalistic aspirations. Albert Delahaye contended that important episodes in Frisian history took place in Northern France. At the end of his life he applied this notion to the Oera Linda Book, and in Flanders he found supporters, for example, Joël Vandemaele, whose name was probably derived from “OLBees” MALJA = mad, foolish.”

In the meantime, a Flemish linguist has been busy for a number of years to translate the book into West Flemish to get the apostate (“stray”) Flemish to return to speaking West Flemish. Comparable to this, is the aspirations of Adriaan Snyman who translated the book into Afrikaans: “Die Oera Linda Boek: die verstommende verhaal van Atlantis waar Afrikaans 4000 jaar gelede sy ontstaan gehad het”. (“The Oera Linda Book: The amazing story of Atlantis where Afrikaans had its origins 4000 years ago”). Afrikaans is a dialect of “OLBees” [sic].

[My note: Snyman used the Oera Linda Book to advance his own political agenda. His references lack credibility (to put it mildly) and his book is so drenched in racism that no serious academic will give it a second glance]

Despite these different political flavours, we see every time how (post) modern religionism is not in contrast to the amusing (and) perplexing historical naivety which all these readers display, but how both these indeed strengthen each other. This associative raking together of historical and spiritual “nonsense” goes beyond belief. The interpretation of the Oera Linda Book fits into a much broader process of secularization of religion and, perhaps without it, is even inconceivable. "

Concerning Delahaye, Jensma had only one journalistic source in mind, namely the article of Kerst Huisman from which ex-mayor Henk over de Linden also came to view the hypothesis of Wigholt Vleer in a positive light, but wherein he also mentions that Albert Delahaye, at the end of his life, was a supporter of the OLB and even based his stories on it. It does not make sense to claim (only) at the end of your life, that your life’s work was based on the OLB. Nonsense.

The truth is that the work of Delahaye was absolutely not based on the OLB; that he indeed did see the OLB as a supporting work for a time, that he also produced a typed manuscript about it and that he decided himself not to publish it. The publishers of the posthumous editions of Delahaye’s work also did not do so (gave it up).

In 1985 the archivist, W.A. Fasel, wrote to Delahaye that Delahaye “is not only destroying his hard earned credibility, but is making himself ridiculous in perpetuity (undying)”[sic]. In this case we can assume that Delahaye reached the same conclusion.

In the case of Vandemaele, it is true that this author based two of his publications on the OLB. He clearly used the OLB as an authentic source in two of his books namely: “De Spiegel der Geschiedenis” (1996) (“The Mirror of History”) and “Controversiële Geschiedschrijving” (1999) (“Controversial History Writing”). To be more specific: Both books are drenched in the Oera Linda Book.

The question now arising here is: ‘what value can these books have if we regard the OLB as a mystification?’

Jensma gave a possible explanation for the name of Vandemaele (see quote). According to Ottema’s translation of the OLB, “Mal(l)en” in OLBees actually also means “slanderer”, and that is : to verbally do damage to someone. It is a pity that it is proven in this way. Equally cheap is the expression “apostate Flemish” as a metaphor for a language struggle. As an apostate Fries, Jensma, nevertheless, published his dissertation in Dutch.

Conclusion

In which way does the Oera Linda Book have historical significance? The OLB is, in itself, history from around 1800 to the present and there are more than 1000 fairly substantial publications dedicated to it. See Jensma’s bibliography. The OLB is, concerning the early history of the Frisians, an indirect source. It can be compared to a historical map. Historical maps are reconstructions: they relate the historical insights in a particular period. These insights, for example, may deal with the empire of Charlemagne. In anno 2000 somebody draws a map around (the year) 800. A historical map is, therefore, quite different from a geographical map.

In the same way the Oera Linda Book is a reconstruction; an indirect vision of a specific period; if one removes the ridiculousness and jokes. There is, for example, the legend of Friso, whether we agree with it or not. The OLB corresponds indeed to historical views, and they were in 1600 and 1800 different from now. In considering this, it can not be said that the OLB has nothing to do with a view on history, even if we find that this view is an imaginative premise. Plato’s view on Atlantis is the same. The OLB is not intended to write some alternative history. It is in a totally different class from the publications of Erich von Däniken, Thor Heyerdahl (and) Graham Hancock who are trying to reason that historical matters were different from what we think [sic]. Researchers like Immanuel Velikovsky and Zechariah Sitchin operated on an even better level.

On a more journalistic level, the beginning of the third millennium is a boom in new revelations and disclosures: it became a type of book genre; if we want to generalize and call it all pseudoscience, we may do so, but it is also a fact that the contentious authors and their views is a fad that will pass.

What was at first seen as pseudoscience and called as such, can nevertheless lead to changes in scientific approaches and views. Of this, however, there is no talk (possibility) of the Oera Linda Book [sic].

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Posted by Alewyn Raubenheimer on 5 December 2011:

I posted the above two days ago. Perhaps our Dutch friends did not have the time to read it yet (Too long?) or they do not consider it as relevant or important. There is also, of course, the third possibility that the article falls outside their comfort zone. Let me then respond to my own post. I will start with Delahaye:

Albert Delahaye (1915 -1987) was a Dutch Historian who wrote a number of books and who “presented a set of hypotheses that were contrary to long-held ideas about the history of Nijmegen and that of the Low Countries in general.”

http://www.albertdelahaye.nl/index.php?english

In essence he put forward the argument that the accepted history of the Low Countries, and more specifically, the Netherlands is wrong. Large portions of the Netherlands was allegedly flooded and too wet (Dunkirk Transgressions) during the period 200 AD to 1000 AD for events to have taken place as presented by Dutch Historians. There are many people who disagree with him but he also has his supporters. In fact, they even have an “Albert Delahaye Foundation” and it would seem that SEM, the academic “Study Circle First Millennium”, has its origins in, amongst others, Delahaye’s work – so, he was no lightweight.

But, and here is the point, even his own loyal and doting supporters censored him. They still cannot accept that Delahaye actually considered the Oera Linda Book to be true and they are doing their utmost to refute this. They consider his work as extremely important (although not necessarily the part about the Dunkirk Transgressions, which seems to have been proven wrong), but (sigh) he should not have used the OLB. In fact, one of SEM’s unwritten rules is that nobody is allowed to quote from, or even mention, the Oera Linda Book. The case is closed and sealed. No reference to the OLB will be tolerated.

Talk about Dutch academic freedom (of speech) and objectivity!

Herewith some extracts from the article in my previous post:

1. “He, who, however, tries to put forward a new perspective on the history of the first millennium and uses the Oera Linda Book as an authentic (13th century) source, is wrong from the outset. In the SEM it was more or less agreed (sic) some years ago not to do this in publications under the auspices of the SEM.”

2. “Some 15 years ago I received a typed text of Albert Delahaye sent by the Albert Delahaye Foundation wherein the Oera Linda Book was secretly used to support his views on the history of the Low Countries in the first millennium. It took many telephone calls to convince the then secretary H. Jochems that this edition of the work would be to the detriment of Delahaye, rather than to his advantage.”

3. “These believers are treated differently than Ottema by Jensma. Some comments about this.

I start with a quote (P.192): “The Oera Linda Book is still used here and there – but not in Friesland! – to give force to language nationalistic aspirations. Albert Delahaye contended that important episodes in Frisian history took place in Northern France. At the end of his life he applied this notion to the Oera Linda Book,”

4. “Concerning Delahaye, Jensma had only one journalistic source in mind, namely the article of Kerst Huisman from which ex-mayor Henk over de Linden also came to view the hypothesis of Wigholt Vleer in a positive light, but wherein he also mentions that Albert Delahaye, at the end of his life, was a supporter (fan) of the OLB and even based his stories on it.

“The truth is that the work of Delahaye was absolutely not based on the OLB; that he indeed did see the OLB as a supporting work for a time, that he also produced a typed manuscript about it and that he decided himself not to publish it. The publishers of the posthumous editions of Delahaye’s work also did not do so (gave it up).

“In 1985 the archivist, W.A. Fasel, wrote to Delahaye that Delahaye ‘is not only destroying his hard earned credibility, but is making himself ridiculous in perpetuity (undying)’. In this case we can assume that Delahaye reached the same conclusion.”

Although many people do not agree with Delahaye, I highlight the above to show that the Dutch are not these broadminded people they would like us believe. Johan Winkler (for, what I believe, may have been very selfish motives) placed the final “Hoax” stamp on the OLB in the 19th century, and since then his views have been regarded as gospel. They will simply not entertain any dissenting views.

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Posted by Alewyn Raubenheimer on 5 December 2011:

My first response to the above SEMafoor.net article dealt with Delahaye. Let us now look at Professor Jensma:

I think it is fairly safe to say that the first port of call for anyone who wants to know more about the Oera Linda Book, could well be Wikipedia. The Wikipedia article gives us a good summary of what is generally accepted about the OLB.
Consensus and Truth, however, are not synonyms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oera_Linda_Book

“The most likely candidates for the author of the manuscript are Cornelis over de Linden or Eelco Verwijs. A popular third choice is the Protestant preacher François Haverschmidt (1835–1894), well known for writing poetry under the pseudonym Piet Paaltjens. Haverschmidt lived in Friesland and was an acquaintance of Verwijs.

Jensma (2004) argued that Haverschmidt was the main writer of the book, with the help of Over de Linden and Verwijs.”

From the above quote it is very clear that the illusion is created that the OLB has been proven to be a hoax and that it is almost certain that Haverschmidt was one of the most likely candidates. This message is unashamedly send into the world. The SEMafoor article, however, paints a very different picture:

“The evidence against Haverschmidt is the weakest, Jensma acknowledges immediately”. Jensma, of course, means that the evidence for Haverschmidt’s authorship is poor. This honesty is to be appreciated. The discussion about this is not strange, because the Haverschmidt-solution is not conclusive.

So, even Prof. Jensma, “Mr. Oera Linda Book”, is (apparently) not sure of his facts, but Wikipedia portrays his as a very credible theory. What does that tell us about the credibility of the Wikipedia article and the author of the article and, for that matter, anyone who advances the Haverschmidt connection? (In fact, Haverschmidt left a letter for us wherein he categorically denied any knowledge of, or involvement in the OLB).

Very early on in this forum, Abramelin said that I should have consulted with the “Experts” before I published my book. Well, I did try. Herewith a copy of an e-mail I received from Tresoar on 5th July 2009 (more than 2 years ago). At the time I was not impressed but, today I am very thankful for their reply. It just made me more determined to publish my findings.

“Dear Mr. Raubenheimer,

I am very sorry we have to disappoint you, but we are not interested. The ancient book you refer to is the Oera Linda Boek, which is generally and wide and large considerd to be a mystification, or better maybe, a hoax, set up by Francois HaverSchmidt, Eelco Verwijs and Cornelis over de Linden. Dr. Goffe Jensma wrote a dissertation on the entire affair in 2004, which has been received with great acclaim.

For more information, see for example www.oeralindaboek.nl and www.semafoor.net/Oeralindaboek.htm .

We will not enter in further discussions on the subject.

With kind regards,

Teake Oppewal
secretary KFG”

(How is that for closing the door in somebody’s face?)

From the above it is obvious that even Tresoar agrees with Prof. Jensma’s self-confessed flimsy theory and again, it comes down to credibility. I must also point out that Tresoar referred me to SEMafoor.net. in the first place. They can therefore not claim that they were not aware that Prof. Jensma was not all that comfortable with his own theory.

A further comment about Prof. Jensma: My initial impressions were that he came forward with completely new discoveries and novel insights into the OLB. Not so, according to SEMafoor.net:

“Thanks to the dissertation of Goffe Jensma, anno 2004, the Oera Linda Book has once again received much publicity. The thesis deserves positive appreciation. Not because it introduces new perspectives but because it is set out in a clear and understandable way to show what happened and could have happened. The spiritual testament of John Winkler that became known in 1916 already has, in fact, the story of what happened as far as it can be established.”

“The metaphor of a struggle between two religious viewpoints, though, is a creation that fits in the literary history. Jensma, in his dissertation, primarily brings this metaphor to the fore, but it certainly is not an original discovery, because this view has been mentioned by numerous authors and has been known for many years.”

It is, therefore, just a regurgitation of the same old story under a different guise.

A last quote from the SEMafoor.net about Prof. Jensma that I just cannot let pass:

“Jensma alleges the following (P.188): “Neither Molenaar nor Vleer dared, and it typified the Netherland situation, declare the book outright authentic”.

(Ouch! Does that hurt, or what?)

Bravo, Professor! Exactly what I have been saying all along.