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orion Armchair Speculations
As the list seemed to welcome the "wide-eyed" speculations
of Jim West, I wondered if I might elicit the group's
critique of some of my own, engendered late at night over a
bottle of pepper vodka with friends slightly less critical
than this group.
May I start with the Damascus Document and make one
assumption. That the dates used when it was written were
the same chronological dates agreed upon in the middle of
the second century CE by Rabbi Akivah and his student Rabbi
Yossi.
I am not advocating these dates to be correct, only that
the writer of CD thought them so. One of the reasons that
Akivah thought that Bar Kosiba was the messiah is because
of that chronology as I will attempt to show.
In the Akivah/Yossi chronology the first Temple was
destroyed 421/20 BCE.
70 years later there was the return i.e. 350/51 BCE.
Then according to CD 30/31 BC would be "The Age of Wrath"
390 years after the Nebuchadnezer event. The earthquake as
described by Josephus as being
" such a one as had not happened at any other time" could
certainly be described as that.
With that chronology it can be seen that 70 CE comes 490
years (70 weeks of days) after the destruction of the first
Temple and one understands why Akivah 70 years after that
is looking for the Messiah and picks Bar Kochbar.
The question is therefore, if this is correct, what was the
"plant root" that sprang from Israel and Aaron around the
time of the destruction of Qumran around 30 BCE and what
happened 20 years later? Was "The Teacher of
Righteousness" born on that date or did he begin his work?
It is time for Jim to wreak his revenge.
Ever
Mike
Mike_Sanders@photoad.com (private e-mail)
BibleMysteries@photoad.com (web site e-mail)
http://www.BibleMysteries.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim West [SMTP:jwest@Highland.Net]
Sent: Saturday, December 13, 1997 10:59 AM
To: orion@panda.mscc.huji.ac.il
Subject: orion re: minimalism
For Ms. Leerner's benefit I will restate my earlier (now
abandoned) thesis:
1- the OT was composed originally in Greek
2- The function of the Qumran center was to translate these
documents and
make them widely available to the Hebrew and Aramaic
inhabitants of the land.
What this has to do with minimalism I fail to see.
What place a discussion of my so called "minimalist"
leanings would have on
Orion I likewise fail to see.
Thus, my statement of non-participation in a discussion of
minimalism on
Orion seemed quite proper. But if Avital wishes it, I will
gladly carry on
such a discussion. The implication that I am trying to
avoid stating my
views or defending them is kind of silly given my complete
openness on this
and other issues on this and other lists (as those who know
me know well).
Best,
Jim
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Jim West
Adjunct Professor of Bible
Quartz Hill School of Theology
jwest@highland.net