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Re: Thanksgiving Hymns
In response to my earlier post relating the Hymns to the period in which
Onias III was in Antioch, Russell writes:
>it seems to me that the context of the Thanksgiving Hymns could as
>easily be 169-164 BCE as 175-170 BCE as you suggest. There were many
>observant Jews living in exile, many in the wilderness, during 169-164 BCE
>(before the restoration of the temple).
So, are you arguing that the Hymns are non-sectarian?
>I'm not convinced that any of the
>Thanksgiving Hymns were written by the Teacher -- they could equally have
>been written by a (the?) leader of the wilderness camps (cf. CD, CR, 1QM,
>etc.) in the traumatic period after the Teacher's death.
Without any reference to the teacher??? If the role of the righteous teacher
is as important as we all seem to believe, your last statement seems rather
incredible. You are confusing me with the elasticity of your scenarios. I
think the centrality of the righteous teacher's position is accepted by all.
Your statement above says that the Hymns were written after the righteous
teacher's death. Perhaps his significance hadn't spread at that stage, ie he
was still an unknown? Your analysis might have been a little more credible
had you placed the Hymns before the teacher, if you wanted to unload them
from his pen, so as not to take on the untenable position of no mention of
the TR after his death in writings that were about analogous problems, given
the difficult situation of the hymn writer. I think it's more
straightforward to think that the hymn writer was the righteous teacher.
>We must assume the
>existence of a number of Jews in a position similar to the Teacher's, i.e.
>forced into exile from Jerusalem. And it seems to me 1QH reflects conditions
>somewhat harsher than those of Onias in Antioch, which is your suggested
>context.
Thanks for indicating what life was like in Antioch for Onias III. References?
Yours,
Ian Hutchesson