Gerd-R Puin visits Brubaker home
The Brubaker home was honored to host Dr. Gerd-R Puin, the well-known German scholar of Quran manuscripts and one-time cataloguer and caretaker of the so-called Sanaa Manuscripts shortly after the time of their first discovery in Yemen. Dr. Puin traveled to Virginia to present a paper on a panel I led at the annual meeting …
Remembering Keith Small, a year later
A little more than a year has passed since we lost our friend and colleague, Dr. Keith E. Small, on December 8, 2018. Keith was a friend and one of my mentors in my work with Quran manuscripts. I have published tributes to him in more than one place, so will not repeat those here; …
Israel: Archeology and history
In June of 2019, I was invited on a trip to Jerusalem by Mr. Eric Lambert. I was to be the third member of the team, alongside Mr. David McElfresh. The project is generally interested in locating and perhaps excavating the walls of the old city of Jerusalem that were rebuilt by Nehemiah upon the …
Full Circle: Trump’s promises fulfilled on Iran
In late 2015, President Obama was seeking to bind the United States to a treaty, the JCPOA, that came to be known as the “Iran nuclear deal,” or just the “Iran Deal.” The Iran Deal, its critics (I among them) argued, would set Iran upon a sure path to a nuclear weapon. Most Americans, in …