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Re: Calendar, MMT & Enoch (Combined)
Dear Moshe,
Continuing the this:
>>By separation you should be able to imagine no personal communion,
>>no discourse in public unless forced, avoidance in the temple, exclusion
>>from everything possible. I haven't seen your grounds for separating
>>themselves from the temple service at least at the time of writing MMT or
>>even the Community Rule. You cannot seriously project ideas from perhaps
>>centuries later into this situation. On what second century bce grounds can
>>you talk of separating totally from the temple -- especially given the
>>centrality of the temple to MMT? It seems unthinkable.
>
>Ian, by saying that the actions of those priests would defile the temple, it
>makes it impossible for them to take part. For example the differences in how
>to make the red heifer would mean that this group would consider all those
>'purified' by the ashes of the red heifer impure. They could not touch them
>for fear of making other things impure.
As you don't know how the situation was being handled during the early phase
of the hellenizing crisis, I can only assume you're talking through your
hat, ie making assumptions about procedures that you cannot know. Did the
hellenizers partake in the red heifer? or was that too uncivilized? If so,
did they do it their own way and boycott the conservatives? Did the
conservatives allow them to perform such things in the temple? Did the
hellenizers toe the line for such ceremonies and just make noises or debate
the issue? We just don't know.
>>Responding to Moshe Shulman who brings the 'red heifer' laws into the fray:
>>I see no evidence that the lines "make it clear that they are in
>>disagreement with " the later Pharisaic position.
>
>Simple, MMT makes clear that they have a difference, and that the difference
>is that according to the author(s) of MMT the person must wait until `RYWBWT
>H$M$. The Rabbis required the person to go to the mikva by day, and then they
>could do the service. (In fact they required the person to being impure, and
>immerse in the Mishnah Parah 3.7). Their opponents (the Sadducees) required
>specifically that they should wait until `RBY $M$. This is the exact wording
>here. It is a clear indication that MMT takes the view of the Sadducees (of
>the Talmud) and their opponents are taking the view of the Rabbis/Pharasees.
Please correct me here: I would have thought sunset was a synonym for
Numbers' "until evening" 19:7,8,10. I see nothing more than Numbers 19,
therefore no argument from you.
--o0o--
At the turn of the first century ce -- say -- when both Sadducees and
Pharisees were at a stand-off in Jerusalem, did either sect boycott the
temple? If not, given their conflicts of halakha, you have no arguments at all.
Yours,
Ian Hutchesson