Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 6:01 pm
Like there is a sharp distinction between civil war and religious war. Ireland, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon. Give me a break.
However you want to label it, Josephus says it was a one-time act for treason and not for doctrinal disputes.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 6:16 pm
And then you have to look at the portrait in Life of Marcus Agrippa establishing ornate synagogues in Tiberias and elsewhere. This must have been supported by a Jewish party. Clearly not the Pharisees. And the reaction of Josephus's partisans - destruction of the images, robbery, the stealing of the priestly corn, forced castration/circumcision, outright murder - is clearly related to a theological/religious struggle. The fact that Josephus doesn't tell us these details (we learn of them implicitly from what is said of Justus's work and Josephus's reaction to it) is immaterial. Sadducees and Pharisees must have killed one another on and off for centuries. Like two rival mafia gangs. Josephus's closest modern examples is someone like Muktada al-Sadr https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr. Sheer nonsense that he was once a Pharisee. Made up by the synergoi to show he could be swayed by rational argument like an idealized Greek.
I'm not saying that it's outside the realm of possibility, but I can't think of any examples of it (over doctrinal disputes, at least) in Josephus. And in fact, he says outright in a passage regarding doctrinal disputes between the Pharisees and Sadducees in Ant. 13.10.6 that, "So the Pharisees made answer, that he deserved stripes and bonds, but that it did not seem right to punish reproaches with death. And indeed the Pharisees, even upon other occasions, are not apt to be severe in punishments."
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
Regarding Schiffman's theory (I like him too and have cited him on this thread regarding another matter), I could only recall that he thinks 4QMMT is Sadducaic, but after taking a fresh look at what I could find online (a long citation from his Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls here: http://cojs.org/the_sadducees-_lawrence ... hia-_1994/), I see that he adds the Temple Scroll, which I'm not very familiar with but intend to take a closer look at.
Regarding MMT though, Grabbe notes that:
...out of 17 halakic rulings so far identified in MMT, only two can be considered as having any significant possibility [of being Sadducaic], and one of these only supports the biblical text ... even proponents have been able to argue for connections between only four of the MMT halakot and those of the [Sadducees]. Far from a series of remarkable coincidences between MMT and the [Sadducee] pericopae of tannaitic literature, we find little of substance. The Sadducean identification seems to have slithered from our grasp.
But in the big picture, as I've been noting, the DSS (at least the ones I've been citing, along with Enoch and the relatively high number of copies of Daniel and Daniel-related writings found among them) believe in resurrection and champion the poor, and the only way you've dealt with that is to dismiss all of the sources we have about the Sadducees that say they did not believe in resurrection and appealed only to the rich (including Josephus, who had once been a Sadducee and belonged to the priestly aristocracy that supported them).
Given this big picture, I would suppose that any Sadducaic writings (and I'll even allow for MMT and the Temple Scroll for the time being) among the DSS could be due to the Fourth Philosophy, by its nature as a new sect, taking in Jews from the other sects, including Sadducees, who could have brought some of their writings with them when they joined the movement (which, as Josephus notes, aside from rejecting the oral Torah and instigating rebellion, "agree[d] in all other things with the Pharisaic notions," such as the resurrection of the dead, like the DSS I think could be Jewish Christian do).
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
However you want to label it, Josephus says it was a one-time act for treason and not for doctrinal disputes.
When it's done and over, Lord, a man is just a man.
you really are dense.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
1. Josephus and Justus had TWO RADICALLY DIFFERENT accounts of the Jewish War
2. While Justus's account is unknowable to us it is apparent from Photius and Josephus himself that Justus blamed Josephus for war crimes committed against his person and others like him
3. What type of Jew was Justus? Clearly he was a Sadducee. No question about this. The Sadducees had a long history of association with Hellenism and a cosmopolitan outlook.
4. פרושים as a name necessarily implies hostility to Hellenism. To this end, if there were Sadducean sects which opposed Hellenism they were anomalous, but could in theory have existed because cosmopolitanism wasn't a core value of this community per se. It is just something which emerged from contact with the Greeks. But the פרושים necessarily opposed those Sadducees which aligned themselves with the Greek rulers. Indeed when neo-Phariseeism triumphed at the time of R. Judah the פרושים (or those that pretended they were so called if indeed they did) lost their 'separatism.' R Judah was effectively a concubine of the Emperor.
5. to this end a traitorous Pharisee named Joseph likely wrote an Aramaic apology which was transformed by the synergoi into the pro-Roman Greek texts we have now. But I see them as having little in the way of direct testimony about the causes of the Jewish War
6. In my mind at bottom the tension between the פרושים and the Sadducees aligned with the Roman government (and Marcus Agrippa) was the core alignment which led to the war. Josephus's account is a systematic diversion effort. When he says he was once a Sadducee it implies necessarily that he began pro-Roman and changed owing to the more 'correctness' of the פרושים and their religious POV. This is garbage. The whole work is apologetic. No point explaining that to you if you want to read it as a 'Bible' of the events in question. There is little truth in Josephus especially where his own actions and motivations are concerned.
Josephus must be scrutinized in the manner of a defense testimony in a high profile case where the guilt of the accused is beyond doubt. It never speaks 'truth' - it merely manages truth, hides truth, rearranges truth. But truth is never fully known by the reader. Any reasonable person knows this. It is unfortunate for our ability to get at and know the truth. But history is like that. You take the easy way out and simply assume Josephus is reciting 'facts' as best he knows. You are like a Bible apologist for reasons that are unclear to me. Why should it be so important to know the details of a lost war that has no or little modern relevance? Why lie to yourself and people at the forum that we can plug in a simple formula like:
lies of Josephus + lies of Irenaeus and other Church Fathers = the truth about early Christianity.
This can't be true. If we were in a situation where calculations based on terrible data like that was necessary for our survival - we would surely die.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
"5. However, this prosperous state of affairs moved the Jews to envy Hyrcanus; but they that were the worst disposed to him were the Pharisees, who were one of the sects of the Jews, as we have informed you already. These have so great a power over the multitude, that when they say any thing against the king, or against the high priest, they are presently believed. Now Hyrcanus was a disciple of theirs, and greatly beloved by them. And when he once invited them to a feast, and entertained them very kindly, when he saw them in a good humor, he began to say to them, that they knew he was desirous to be a righteous man, and to do all things whereby he might please God, which was the profession of the Pharisees also. However, he desired, that if they observed him offending in any point, and going out of the right way, they would call him back and correct him. On which occasion they attested to his being entirely virtuous; with which commendation he was well pleased. But still there was one of his guests there, whose name was Eleazar, a man of an ill temper, and delighting in seditious practices. This man said," Since thou desirest to know the truth, if thou wilt be righteous in earnest, lay down the high priesthood, and content thyself with the civil government of the people," And when he desired to know for what cause he ought to lay down the high priesthood, the other replied, "We have heard it from old men, that thy mother had been a captive under the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. "This story was false, and Hyrcanus was provoked against him; and all the Pharisees had a very great indignation against him.
6. Now there was one Jonathan, a very great friend of Hyrcanus's, but of the sect of the Sadducees, whose notions are quite contrary to those of the Pharisees. He told Hyrcanus that Eleazar had cast such a reproach upon him, according to the common sentiments of all the Pharisees, and that this would be made manifest if he would but ask them the question, What punishment they thought this man deserved? for that he might depend upon it, that the reproach was not laid on him with their approbation, if they were for punishing him as his crime deserved. So the Pharisees made answer, that he deserved stripes and bonds, but that it did not seem right to punish reproaches with death. And indeed the Pharisees, even upon other occasions, are not apt to be severe in punishments. At this gentle sentence, Hyrcanus was very angry, and thought that this man reproached him by their approbation. It was this Jonathan who chiefly irritated him, and influenced him so far, that he made him leave the party of the Pharisees, and abolish the decrees they had imposed on the people, and to punish those that observed them. From this source arose that hatred which he and his sons met with from the multitude: but of these matters we shall speak hereafter. What I would now explain is this, that the Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the laws of Moses; and for that reason it is that the Sadducees reject them, and say that we are to esteem those observances to be obligatory which are in the written word, but are not to observe what are derived from the tradition of our forefathers. And concerning these things it is that great disputes and differences have arisen among them, while the Sadducees are able to persuade none but the rich, and have not the populace obsequious to them, but the Pharisees have the multitude on their side..."
However you want to label it, Josephus says it was a one-time act for treason and not for doctrinal disputes.
When it's done and over, Lord, a man is just a man.
you really are dense.
So your one example thus far that the Sadducees and Pharisees were "at each others throats" (literally in the sense of killing each other) is Alexander Jannaeus, who crucified people because they used foreign troops against him during a civil war? And in this case it's not even certain that they were Pharisees (or only Pharisees). As VanderKam notes:
Anthony Saldarini and others have been correct to urge caution here because, as they have pointed out, Josephus never does explicitly call the eight hundred who were crucified Pharisees; that point has perhaps not been appreciated sufficiently in the literature.
Justus of Tiberias has to be a Sadducee. What other examples do you expect from someone trying to pretend he wasn't a religious zealot sworn to "separate" Jews from Hellinism? You expect a detailed list? Dense.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias wrote: ↑Thu Nov 07, 2019 3:47 pm
Justus of Tiberias has to be a Sadducee. What other examples do you expect from someone trying to pretend he wasn't a religious zealot sworn to "separate" Jews from Hellinism? You expect a detailed list? Dense.
I'm working on that one. I just saw it. One thing at a time. I'm going to sort through the sources and what you say (again) and see how it pans out.
You know in spite of all you gained, you still have to stand out in the pouring rain.
How many signs of his membership in an organization founded on hatred of outsiders should we expect Josephus to openly confess in an apologetic work?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
you really are dense.