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orion Isaiah & Chinese

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  First let me correct an error. As Dr. Robert Kraft has said, it was he
who delivered the blow-ups of marginal markings to Dr. Victor Mair, not Dr.
Klein. My mistake.

   Dr. Goranson has suggested that Dr. Victor Mair may have been misquoted
by Neil Altman in references to Dr. Mair's 1990 report, saying, in part: 
>  I wonder whether these are accurate, reflect his
> current views, and if he is willing to publish them. This theory still
> appears implausible to me, but Prof. Mair is a widely-published scholar
of
> Chinese, I see from OCLC.<
 
   I don't have the two articles Dr. Goranson cited here or Altman's 1992
piece in the Washington Post Magazine in front of me, but I am familiar
with those articles and I do have Dr. Mair's report beside me now. If it
weren't filled with many Chinese characters that he reproduced or cited as
examples, I would post it here. Let me assure the members of this list that
Dr. Mair's views have not been misrepresented.

   Dr. Kraft wrote: 
  >>I'll be lunching with Victor tomorrow, to get his updated "take" on
these
issues. Apparently Neil Altman has been back in contact (via FAX)
recently, with another mysterious marginal marking, after being out of
touch for several years. So in the next few days, I'll try to get a
posting out on the current state of Victor Mair's views of the supposed
Chinese symbols. Perhaps this aspect of the discussion can be postponed
for that event?<<

   Although there has been a lot of hardball played at Penn over Neil
Altman's work and views in the last six years, Dr. Mair has never withdrawn
or modified his report on the marginal markings in Isaiah and Order of the
Community. I trust he will stand his ground and enjoy lunch. 

  Regarding the "mother of God" in Isaiah 7:11, Brad Harrison wrote: 
  >> Though Christianity developed the idea that Christ was God and that
Mary was the Mother of God, these theological concepts were popular very
much later. There is little or no evidence that Christ, or the Apostles
taught that Jesus was God in human form.<<
  Goodness, I don't even know how to respond. Maybe we're reading different
Bibles and church histories. But the divinity of Jesus Christ appears
repeatedly in the gospels, Acts and the letters of the NT. It is proclaimed
in the earliest canons of the church. I won't cite scriptures that everyone
on this list is familiar with. It's not appropriate here anyway.  
   >>Second point, there was a very popular theology that states that the 
God of the OT had a mother, Gnosticism. Gnosticism teaches that YHVH was
the Child of Sophia.<<
   If this explains the reference to the mother of God in the Isaiah scroll
to anyone here, I would be surprised. But it certainly doesn't expalin the
fact that it was overlooked for 50 years. I mentioned it to Steve
Abramowitz as one example of evidence in the test of the scroll that should
raise questions about its date or when it was last handled. 
   Steve Oren said he had two children look at 7:11 and they both read it
mem alef mem. So did we. That makes four. 
  Harrison continued: 
  >>Chinese monks could have visited Qumran. I will have to look it up,
but China did make diplomatic contact with the Romans ... They may have had
a sort of
cultural exchange in Qumran resulting Chineses characters being written
upon the scrolls. If Chinese is in the Is. Scroll, all that means is that
they was contact with an educated Chinese man. This is very possible. It
is even possible that it was a Chinese Jew.<< 
   A possible scenario. Bur Mair described the Chinese "crude," just as
Zeitlin described the Hebrew as "illiterate."  Neither hand, it seems, was
particularly educated in these written languages.

  David Crowder
  El Paso