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Re: orion dss and rabbis
Dear Stephen,
I don't know why Fred became frustrated and closed the conversation
rather than answering your question.
However, when you asked him whether the "consensual view of 4QpNah"
could be falsified, a good Popperian would answer simply that --
apart from the difficulty that such a vague view is hardly a
statement in Popper's sense of the word -- it could not be. Fred, I
am sure, would go on to tell you that one can therefore see it as the
blind guess it is rather than as a scientifically serious hypothesis
(or statement).
Sincerely,
Thomas
Thomas L. Thompson
University of Copenhagen
Stephen Goranson wrote:
> Fred Cryer raised Popper's approach of falsifiability. Cryer also rejected
> the "consensual" view of 4QpNah. So I asked if he would falsify it, rather
> than merely declare it so. I claimed 4QpNah is an Essene text which refers
> to Pharisees. (I do not claim to know "everything about...", by the way.)
> Instead, he responded, not with a falsification, but with images of
> Victorian furnishings. His way of ending a conversation, I guess.
> Sigrid Peterson, in effect, raised a question whether "pun" is the
> correct term, since two roots XLQ and HLK, are under discussion. Fair
> enough: "word play" might be more appropriate. Again, I don't use
> "halakah" for all second temple groups, so to some extent we agree. But we
> disagree on the relevance of this to 4QpNah. Again, I do not imagine that
> first century Pharisees had identical legal views as third century CE
> rabbis, but there is some continuity and development between them, as most,
> even on orion--perhaps ; - ) -- will agree. I wish we had lots of early
> Pharisee texts, but we don't, so we have to use what we have. We don't know
> everything about Pharisees, by a long shot, but we do know some.
> The word play comes in a context which Russell Gmirkin, I think,
> skirts, when calling the xlq/hlk association "circular." Unless one is
> prepared to deal with the 4QpNah's view of, e.g., the presumed misleading
> teaching of the group (edah) also called Ephraim, and how that relates to
> Manasseh and to the author's group (elsewhere: Judah), one might see the
> proposed word play as existing in a vacuum, and hence, without context, it
> might seem imposed. To be brief, I am not persuaded by the proposal for
> Demetrius I instead of III. And the view of a "systematic" use of animal
> symbology goes beyond any party line on exegesis that I have suggested.
> What's the problem if 4QpNah criticized Alexander? We know he crucified
> Pharisees circa 88 BCE and that Josephus, some Rabbinic literature, and
> Qumran mss, on that point at least, cohere. There are many unanswered
> questions, but the recognition that 4QpNah is an Essene text referring to
> Pharisees and Sadducees--an understanding not of my making but opened by
> David Flusser, Andre Dupont-Sommer and many since--it appears to me, is one
> of the most historically-useful observations available from the Qumran
> texts. If someone in the future presents a more coherent reading and
> historical setting for dorshei halaqot, Ephraim, Manasseh, this lion, etc.,
> very well. I can only report I have not read one.
> Best wishes,
> Stephen Goranson goranson@duke.edu
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