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Re: orion response to R. Gmirkin
Dear Russell Gmirkin,
You have been asked on orion by me and by Philip Davies, each more
than once, to justify your use of 1, 2 Maccabees and its Hasideans and to
answer the substantial, published critiques of this old misapprehension.
Until you do, you are presuming, against the evidence, that this world-view
matches Qumran mss. You push Essenes late, precisely contrary to the
historical record which you elsewhere claim to revere. You ignore that
4QpNah and MMT are Essene texts. You ignore anti-Hasmonean elements in the
scrolls. Apocalyptic in Qumran pesharim is more similar to the earlier
Daniel and the later Apocalypse of John than to Maccabees: Qumranites and
Essenes were not an army, unlike the Maccabees. I know little about the
history of the Roman army, so your DSD article could make valid arguments
that the later war scroll made some literary borrowings drawn from a
source from the time you propose, but I for one am not persuaded that the
Maccabees used the war scroll or even an earlier version of it. To say
priest X was the most wicked needs be qualified: from whose perspective?
There were different opinions on just such questions, certainly. You make
many assertions without basis; for example, that the (or a?) teacher of
righteousness was not associated with Qumran. Why, as has been asked, is
the anti-Hellenism of Maccabees not a focus of Qumran texts? I cold raise
other specific questions about the scenario which you say matches the
scrolls, but until you justify your use of Maccabees and Hasidim,
*importing* them into Qumran, it doesn't really matter how far off the
proposed parallel events relevant to Qumran texts such as the pesharim may
be.
Best wishes,
Stephen Goranson goranson@duke.edu