[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: orion Jack's "as seems to be the case"
Jack wrote:
>The [dss]... span 300 years through both the Hasmonean and Herodian periods
This is nowhere near definite. There is nothing in the texts themselves to
suggest anything aftere the time of Aemilius Scaurus, ie 63 bce. Archaeology
is quite unhelpful in this. The coins suggest that there was a long gap in
occupation from sometime after the reign of Alexander Jannaeus down to the
some time into the first century ce. Current archaeologists are working on
the assumption that Qumran II was a (Roman) villa, an unlikely environment
for the use of dss.
>From what I KNOW of the Essenes from Josephus, Pliny and Philo...
So you are convinced about them as infallible sources.
>from what I know about the Pharisees from
>Josephus and the Talmud (which records the oral tradition of that time)
The farce about oral traditions is that they are always written. Oral
traditions are basically a dead letter in the real world (not saying that
the sources don't embed oral traditions, just that they almost can't be
proven). Josephus doesn't say much at all about Pharisees. The Talmud is not
contemporary evidence at all despite the oral tradition stuff.
>and from what VERY LITTLE I know about the Sadducees...I have to lean toward an
>Essene or Essene-like group as the origin of the DSS texts.
I've already got this idea. I need the stuff that you know in order to
appreciate what you are saying, not merely the statement that you know it.
>Now if a non-Essene origin is your paradigm..that's ok and I would like
>to hear..er..read..the foundations of your own conclusions.
You might remember that the dss talk about the sons of Zadok in a very
laudatory way. This is usually ignored: "they aren't really sons of Zadok".
This is usually the approach: something says one thing so it must mean
another. Logical, isn't it? Yet we know the significance of lineages
throughout the different flavours of Judaism. Would the same people as the
writers of MMT claim something that was not so, ie that people were the sons
of Zadok, when they weren't?
>I agree that evidence is bare indeed but I dont reject it as reasonable
>speculation. I am open for alternative suggestions.
The texts deal with the sons of Zadok, the sons of Aaron, priests in the
temple performing sacrifices. Why not accept them? Yeah, yeah, I remember
the bad-guy priests in Jerusalem, but when did the good guys get forced to
flee from the temple? Remember the assembly "at Mizpah, opposite Jerusalem",
where "they brought the priestly vestments, firstfruits, and the tithes"
because "Thy holy place is trodden down and defiled"? (1Mac3:46-51) OK, it's
idealized, but it reflects a situation when the sons of Zadok and the sons
of Aaron were driven out of the temple and those in Jerusalem were polluters.
Ian