[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: orion response to RG, etc.

Stephen Goranson writes:

> I consider, generally, that you ignore the relation of Qumran archaeology,
> the texts (which don't include 1,2 Macc), and the Essenes. 

I don't ignore any of these.  I draw a different set of conclusions. 

>If my asking you to respond to John Kampen's book
>on Hasideans and i,2 Macc is inappropriate or irrelevant, my apologies. 

It's not inappropriate, but I you haven't made clear the relevance of
Kampen's book to the discussion.  My review is essentially the same as that
of Davies' article, by the way. 

> I thought you should first show
>why Maccabees is relevant, not for the history of its times, which no one I
>know doubts, but for the (Essene) Qumran texts, which have a different
>worldview.  You have preferred, so far, not to do this. It appears that you
>adopt Macc as your worldview for the time. What it considers good and bad
>you accept and then project onto the Qumranites/Essenes. 

1 and 2 Maccabees is not at all relevant, except for the history they
contain.  I don't even understand what you are saying about worldviews,
Stephen.  All that I can gather is that you would desperately like to exclude
Maccabean Era history and sources from the discussion.

>For just one example, you say your scenario matches the scrolls but,
according to 2 Macc 4
>it was not Menelaus who killed Onias, but Andronicus.

According to 2 Macc 4:34, governor Andronicus treacherously assassinated
Onias at the instigation (bribery) of Menelaus, who was present in Antioch at
the time.  That Onias found it necessary to take sanctuary on holy ground (a
synagogue, not a pagan temple, according to most analyses) to avoid his
enemies suggests that he was extremely concerned about conspiracies against
his life.  All of this accords well with the pesharim on the conflict between
the TR and Wicked Priest, including the immediate cause of Onias' murder,
namely his denouncing Menelaus for stealing sacred treasures.

I've always responded to every substantial issue you've raised.  Perhaps you
could reciprocate once.  In a recent posting to Al Baumgarten, you said that
the Enoch writings and Jubilees may have been authored by the group that was
later known as Essenes.  The sectarian calendar and other parallels between
Jubilees, Enoch, and the Qumran scrolls strongly suggests this. Yet the
Animal Apocalypse is widely viewed as presenting a history of the Hasidim,
and VanderKam's "Textual Studies in the Book of Jubilees" acknowledges the
possibility that Jubilees comes from the Hasidim.  (Its celebration of
Maccabean victories points in this direction.)   Then you seem to acknowledge
that the Essenes utilized second century BCE books which others link to the
Hasidim.  Why is it that 1QS, 1QSa, CD, 1QM and others cannot be other
examples of the same phenomenon?  To make it perfectly clear, if the Essenes
preserved, revered, and utilized (arguably) Hasidim writings such as 1 Enoch
and Jubilees, how can one deny the possibility that other texts found at
Qumran have similar second century Hasidim origins?  

Sincerely,
Russell Gmirkin