Plagiarism Alleged in Professor’s Book from Adventist University of Peru
28 June 2023 |
Judson Greene, PhD candidate in Divinity (New Testament) at the University of Cambridge and professor of Greek, wrote a critical review of the book published by Benjamin Rojas Yauri, PhD in New Testament and Professor at the Adventist University of Peru, alleging that his book and dissertation contained plagiarism. The title of the book in question is Hebrews’ Cosmogonic Presuppositions: Its First-Century Philosophical Context [Las Presuposiciones Cosmogónicas en el Libro de Hebreos y su Contexto Filosófico en el Siglo I], published by Wipf & Stock, 2022.
Yauri’s book is a revised version of his dissertation submitted for a PhD degree at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). It attempts to answer:”What are the relationships between the cosmogonic presuppositions of Hebrews and their first-century philosophical context?” (“Cosmogonic” meaning related to the origin of the universe (p. 1, n. 4).)
Greene, who is doing his thesis on cosmology in Hebrews at Cambridge University, is familiar with both linguistic and literary influences regarding the composition of the book. Although Greene is pursuing a slightly different line of research, he points out Yauri’s errors in the use of Greek and Hebrew, as well as the lack of consistency with the literary evidence itself.
At the end of his critical review, Greene points out Yauri’s plagiarism and citation issues, alleging that, “over 300 words were quoted without quotation marks,” that others had “sources not cited” and that “the opposite problem occurs, such as a quotation of George Guthrie that is in quotation marks but modified slightly.”
An example included “77 words from an online dictionary” that were “quoted without modification and without citation.”
In lieu of a public announcement, Wipf & Stock said it would contact purchasers of the book individually and publish a version that Rojas Yauri had corrected. While a new version with improved citations is now available, it still has citation issues, and does not state which version it is or why a new version was released.