[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
RE: orion Armchair Speculations
Stephen Goranson wrote
" Though almost all agree that the 31 BCE earthquake caused
damage at Qumran, the proposal that a long abandonment
followed that has been dismissed by M. Broshi, Y. Magen, J.
Magness, Y. Meshorer, and others. If the latter are
correct, that date would appear to be a weak candidate for
the "age of wrath."
My speculation regarding the "The Age of Wrath" being dated
around 30/31 BCE had absolutely nothing to do with the
interpretation of the archaeology of Qumran.
In fact it was based in the main on Josephus and the
following quotes from him should suffice to make the
point.
" ...and then it was also that there was an earthquake in
Judea, such a one as had not happened at any other time,
and which earthquake brought a great destruction upon the
cattle of that country. About 10,000 men also perished by
the fall of houses........"
Herod then killed Hyrcanus, then his own family and then:-
" And when he was in this way, there arose a pestilential
disease and carried off the greatest part of the
multitude, and of his best and esteemed friends and made
all men suspect that this was brought upon them by the
anger of God, for the injustice that had been done to
Mariamne.
Seems like a pretty wrathful time to me!!!!!
Ever
Mike
Mike_Sanders@photoad.com (private e-mail)
BibleMysteries@photoad.com (web site e-mail)
http://www.BibleMysteries.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Goranson [SMTP:goranson@duke.edu]
Sent: Sunday, December 14, 1997 10:19 AM
To: orion@mscc.huji.ac.il
Cc: goranson@duke.edu
Subject: Re: orion Armchair Speculations
In response to the post of Mike Sanders (below):
Wasn't the "welcome" of that one post by Jim West a
rejection of
its proposals (a rejection now accepted by J. West)?
Is there reason to assume these calendars were the same?
Is there
reason to think they differed?
CD presents the appearance of the teacher of righteousness
in the
past. According to the "speculation" below, D--or certain
parts of D--would
have to have been composed at the earliest sometime after
c. 10 BCE. For a
variety of reasons, including relationships with other
texts, paleographic
descriptions, and C14 dating, most scholars consider some
of the Qumran
copies (and even moreso the composition) of D to be earlier
than that. Not
all of these datings agree precisely, but, e.g.: Ada
Yardeni dated 4Q266
to "from about the first half or the middle of the first
century BCE" [DJD
XVIII p26]; a C14 test gave a 2-sigma range of 45 BCE-120
CE. A C14
reading for 4Q267 gave a 2-sigma range of 194-45 BCE;
Yardeni called it
"early Herodian" [p.96].
Joseph Baumgarten wrote (DJD XVIII, p. 6): "The 4Q
manuscripts tend
to enhance the general reliability of the text extant in
the Genizah
versions of CD."
Though almost all agree that the 31 BCE earthquake caused
damage at
Qumran, the proposal that a long abandonment followed that
has been
dismissed by M. Broshi, Y. Magen, J. Magness, Y. Meshorer,
and others. If
the latter are correct, that date would appear to be a weak
candidate for
the "age of wrath."
sincerely,
Stephen Goranson goranson@duke.edu
>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
>
>
>