Novel’s historical authenticity disputed
Regarding the Feb 7 article about Norm Ledgin’s book, “Sally of Monticello, Founding Mother,” Ledgin said he had done great research regarding the rumored Jefferson/Hemings relationship. He makes statements like, “it has been a known fact that Jefferson and Hemings had an ongoing relationship.” What proof does Ledgin have? The historical “novel,” written from Sally’s standpoint, states that it was “a real love affair.”
Again, what is Ledgin’s source of proof? DNA proved there was no match of Jefferson and Tom Woodson DNA, thus shooting down James Callender’s assertion that Woodson was Jefferson’s son. Where does he get information that Sally had eight children fathered by Jefferson? Professor Annette Gordon-Reed lied in her latest book and claimed that Thomas Jefferson fathered seven of Sally’s children (no proof whatsoever that Tom Woodson was a child of Sally Hemings). Ledgin relies very heavily on the statements made in the Pike County, Ohio, newspaper by an abolitionist reporter and Madison Hemings. This article is riddled with untruths such as his false claim that he was named for James Madison by Dolly Madison upon the occasion of her January 19, 1805, visit to Monticello. This visit never occurred and the Madisons never visited Virginia from Washington during winter. If this was just one of several lies, why are we to trust anything else from this article which was accepted as TRUTH by Monticello?
See, “Anatomy of a Scandal, Thomas Jefferson and the Sally Story,” regarding rumor that Sally and Martha Jefferson were half-sisters, again there is NO proof. Ledgin pretends to have the answers concerning her ability to “take care of this man, her brother” (Thomas Jefferson). Again Ledgin doesn’t do his research or he would have found that Sally did not have any qualifications to even look after Maria according to Mrs. Adams and she was so ill suited that the ship captain wanted to return her back home. To learn more about the DNA Study go to www.tjheritage.org. Thirteen top scholars report their findings in the Scholars Report listed there with NO PROOF of such a false relationship. See, “Jeffersonian Legacies (page 280) for details for all of this rush by Monticello to degrade Jefferson. I assisted Dr. E.A. Foster with the Jefferson-Hemings DNA study and can state that Foster knew that Thomas Jefferson had a younger brother, Randolph, but Foster refused to mention this information to Nature Journal.
Herbert Barger
Founder, Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society
Jefferson Family Researcher
www.tjheritage.org
www.jeffersondnastudy.com
Abortion not permitted in Torah
I appreciate the compassionate spirit in Rabbi Arthur Nemitoff’s Torah drash in the Jan. 31 issue of The Chronicle, but I must disagree. He concludes that the Torah permits abortion. The clear sense of the Hebrew text says emphatically that it does not.
Rabbi Nemitoff quotes Exodus 21:22-23, and adds an explanatory comment — “When men fight and one of them pushes a pregnant woman and a miscarriage results, but no other misfortune follows, the one responsible shall be fined … the payment to be based on the judge’s reckoning. But if other misfortune follows (such as the death of the woman), the penalty shall be life for life...”
The issue I take is that the Hebrew does NOT say “miscarriage” but rather “her son depart.” That is, the clear sense of the passage is, “If her son or daughter is prematurely born, but no further injury takes place (to the child or the mother) then the one responsible shall be fined… But if further injury (such as the death of the mother or child) then there is the penalty of life for life…”
First, the Hebrew there is v’yats-oo y’la-de-ha, literally, “her son exit.” Yeled always means son, child. If the Torah meant to say that there was just an accident to tissue, this word would not have been used.
• Keil and Delitzsch: Yeled only denotes a child, [written in 1866]
• http://morfix.mako.co.il/ Yeled son, boy ; child
• BDB lexicon Yeled child, son, boy, youth
Second, the word for injury is ason, rendered “tragedy, disaster” by Morfix. This means a death.
Third, the omission of lah, to her, as in a-son lah, “injury to her,” means the injury is not just to the mother.
A literal/contextual reading would be, “If men strive, and a pregnant woman is injured, and her child exit but there is no tragedy, the culprit shall be fined as the husband and judges set. But if there is a tragedy, then you shall set life for life…”
So Torah justice is that the fatal injury, a-son to a yeled son, boy; child; be viewed as a criminal offense.
Shmuel Wolkenfeld
Overland Park, Kan.
