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Re: orion Spoken DSS Hebrew

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David W. Suter wrote:

> On Tue, 25 Nov 1997, Jack Kilmon wrote:
>
> > sectarian" image of the Qumran folk.  The genre of the Aramaic
> > texts are explanatory and "storytelling."  If these Aramaic texts
> > were being used to explain biblical texts to the general populace,
> > it is evidence that Aramaic was the lingua franca.  If they were
> > being used to teach initiates into the community, it again is
> evidence
> > that Aramaic was the primary tongue of initiates not yet schooled
> > in Hebrew.
>
> Take a closer look at what is in Aramaic.  Among other things, the
> book
> of Enoch is included, which is (1) a book from the third and early
> second
> century which seems to be brought into the collection, and (2) a book
> of
> esoteric lore not intended for the general public (in contrast to your
>
> understanding of the Targumin).  It makes sense to me to pay attention
> to
> what is in Aramaic and what in Hebrew, but I think that Davies is
> correct
> in seeing material from more than one community or source here, which
> may
> have something to do with the language issue.

    I will use this response to also respond to Drs. Cryer, Hays and
Furuli.

4Q246 "Son of God/Aramaic Apocalypse"  It's Daniel based allusions
of the end times, Messiah and the Messianic war has parallels in the
War Scroll (Hebrew), 1QM, 4Q491-496 and in the Qumran Wisdom
texts.  If Wise, Abegg and Cook are correct in its dating to the time
of Antiochus IV (170ish BCE), the vorlage and imagery was apparently
still strong enough in the 1st century to have been incorporated in
Christian writings (Luke 1:32-35; 21:20).  I don't see this text as
having come from an heterodox community or source from the
mainstream "sectarian" texts.

1Q21, 4Q213, 214, 4Q541 (Aramaic Levi); 4Q542 (Kohath); 4Q215
(Naphthali); 4Q543, 543-547 (Amram) I find all very interesting
since prior to the discovery of the DSS, the "Testimony of the Twelve
Patriarchs" literature was thought by many scholars to have been
of Christian composition.  I think we can now see that this literature
was preserved and interpolated in Christian circles but were
indisputably Jewish writings dating perhaps tp the same time
period as the Aramaic Apocalypse.  The vorlage of these texts
can again be found throughout the Qumran corpus and again with
imagery still strong in the 1st century to be held dear, perhaps,
by both the Jewish "Jesus People" (I refrain from using the term
"Christian" as perhaps anachronistic) and the DSS people......
whatever their actual or putative association.  I think that these
texts are the closest thing one will find of "Christian" writing
in the DSS corpus regardless the wishful thinking of 7Q5.  My
point, however, is that I do not again see "heterodoxy" to the
rest of the "sectarian" texts in these scrolls.

    Another issue is rather 11Q10,  (Job Targum);  4Q157
(Leviticus Targum) are indeed targumim.  They are translations
of the biblical texts in Aramaic.  The Leviticus fragment is
dated to the 2nd century BCE and the Job Targum to the
early 1st century.  They may be obstacles to the Hebrew
predominant argument that targumim are Mishnaic period
inventions and anachronistic to 2nd temple Judaism...and
prior.  My contention is that the targum was *continued and
refined* in the Rabbinical era but the tradition is much
earlier and I think these texts evidence that.

    Dont misunderstand me, Dave.  As an "interested amateur"
I certainly don't pretend to know more nor have better insight
than the fine scholars on the list, such as yourself, Dr. Cryer,
etc....and my primary purpose in Orion membership is to learn.

    Having said this, however, I oftimes think that modern
"written word" scholars, both Christian and Jewish, may not have
a full grasp of the dynamics of oral tradition, considering it
less accurate and (much having been committed to writing in
Rabbinical times) anachronistic to 2nd temple times.  Just what
were the methodologies of the ancients for the preservation of
the oral word?  We are all familiar with the many type of errors
of written transmission, haplography, dittography, homoioeleuton,
tendentious interpolation, but I perceive a tendency across
Christian scholarship to consider Rabbinical tradition as
anachronistic to earlier Judaism while accepting the NT
writings (clearly anachronistic) as an accurate reporting of
the HJ and his folk.

    Why should the impact of the use of Targumim in Rabbinical
climes to translate Hebrew texts to the language of the public
(Aramaic) be viewed in a different context than the Aramaic
Targumim and texts of the time of the DSS?  The practice may
not have been as common in earlier Judaism, nor as refined
as in Rabbinical times....but the DSS Targumim tell me,
among all the other historical enlightenment they give us...
that it *was* a practice earlier than the Rabbinical period,
and Jewish scholars, such as Schiffman don't seem to have
the same problem with this as do Christian scholars.

    In summary, I do not see the Aramaic scrolls as "heterodox"
to the rest of the Qumran corpus and, in fact, supportive of
my view of Aramaic as the common tongue of the larger
percentage of the population (peasant class) and that
Hebrew continued as a *living language* (resulting in the
development of dialects) among the religious and literary
classes.  Of course the majority of the texts would be in
Hebrew as the "sacred" language, but 20% in Aramaic
id a *lot* of Aramaic and begs the question why?  If the
DSS people were as separatist and sequestered as we are
led to believe and were not in the habit of translating
texts or explaining their imagery to the general populace
at large, then the purpose of these texts was for usage
by initiates into the community whose period of
"instruction" (which by my understanding took years)
included tutoring in Hebrew.

Jack

--
D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
   Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)


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