[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: orion palms; towers; myths about myths
> 2) A tower does not make a fort; towers are common; no Qumran Hasmonean
> evidence I've seen or read about shows a military garrison.
There's a lot more evidence than just the tower; however, even
assuming it's not a fort, that does not make it an Essene compound.
And rejecting the fort hypothesis does nothing to negate the fact
that there is no solid evidence of any Essene occpuation, nor is
there any direct evidence linking the site with the scrolls.
> 3) The viceral rejection, by some, of the Essene identification of some
> Qumran scrolls and Kh. Qumran, has, in my opinion, a number of sources (and
> must have, in order to resist evidence so staunchly), only one of which
> has been: a confusion between two types of resentment: a resentment on the
> (previous) withholding of texts, a frustration which is, or, rather, was,
> rational, with a resentment of an imaginary conspiratorial "foisting" of
> the "Essene hypothesis."
Totally apart from the convoluted nature of the sentence, which makes
it very hard to read and decipher, my rejection is hardly "viceral"
[sic], and I harbor none of the proposed resentments toward anybody
or anything. The evidence points away from an Essene hypothesis, and
the gymnastics that have been done in the name of preserving the
hypothesis strike me as further evidence of its weakness.
> The latter is a demonstrably-false myth. Please
> ask yourselves: How well did de Vaux, Allegro (e.g., a former Methodist
> seminary student become militant athiest, one of whose books was re-dubbed
> Phallus in Fungusland), Dupont-Sommer, Trever, Brownlee, Sowmy, Milik,
> Strugnell, Sukenik, Samuel, Starckey, Yadin, Cross, Vermes, Fitzmyer,
> Wilson, Carmignac, et al. agree on other issues (historical, political,
> religious, etc.)? Yet they all called Essenes Essenes. Some conspiracy!
Uh-huh. So consensus makes truth. I see. The ridiculous gyrations
by Yadin to connect the Masada scrolls to Qumran are enough to
destroy his credibility with me. Frankly, I'm perfectly happy to
call Essenes Essenes. Calling the authors of the scrolls Essenes is
quite another matter. Let's drop the verbal smokescreens, shall we?
Dave Washburn
dwashbur@nyx.net
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur/home.html