Eisenman and the DSS

[spin]

To MrMacSon:

1. C14 dates are ranges; only one tested text provided a range wholly after the turn of the era. All others have date ranges that either allow dates earler or are wholly earlier.

2. Eisenman's James = righteous teacher falls apart because of the inconvenience of C14 dating of such texts as Pesher Habakkuk, which dates wholly before the 1st c. He co-wrote a paper attempting to revise the C14 data. It was flawed as I long ago explained to Atwill.

[MrMacSon]

To MrMacSon:

1. C14 dates are ranges; only one tested text provided a range wholly after the turn of the era. All others have date ranges that either allow dates earler or are wholly earlier.

Cheers.

"the era"? ....

• the era the DSS were written? accumulated?
  the early Christian era?
  other?

[spin]

To MrMacSon:

1. C14 dates are ranges; only one tested text provided a range wholly after the turn of the era. All others have date ranges that either allow dates earler or are wholly earlier.

Cheers.

"the era"? ....

• the era the DSS were written? accumulated?
  the early Christian era?
  other?

Would you believe the change from BCE to CE!? From "negative" years to "positive" years.

[MrMacSon]

Cheers.

[spin]

Cheers.

[John2]

Spin,

I appreciate your response.

Regarding what you wrote about the brackets in the Nahum Pesher I cited:

"The text actually looks like this:

'[Interpreted, this concerns Deme]trius king of Javan who sought, on the counsel of those who seek smooth things, to enter Jerusalem. [But God did not permit the city to be delivered] into the hands of the kings of Greece, from the time of Antiochus until the coming of the rulers of the Kittim [...]'

The material in the brackets represents lacunae in the text and is reconstructed according to the way one understands the context of the pesher."

I understand that, and the brackets are in the link I provided.

It sounds like you have given the issue of the identity of the Kittim in the Scrolls a lot of thought, and you've given me plenty to chew on. While I give what you've said some thought, I'm wondering what you make of the reference to the Kittim in Daniel 11:30. I'm not suggesting that it is a certain reference to Romans, I'm only curious how you look at it considering your point of view on the Kittim.

[spin]

Spin,

I appreciate your response.

Regarding what you wrote about the brackets in the Nahum Pesher I cited:

"The text actually looks like this:

'[Interpreted, this concerns Deme]trius king of Javan who sought, on the counsel of those who seek smooth things, to enter Jerusalem. [But God did not permit the city to be delivered] into the hands of the kings of Greece, from the time of Antiochus until the coming of the rulers of the Kittim [...]'

The material in the brackets represents lacunae in the text and is reconstructed according to the way one understands the context of the pesher."

I understand that, and the brackets are in the link I provided.

It sounds like you have given the issue of the identity of the Kittim in the Scrolls a lot of thought, and you've given me plenty to chew on. While I give what you've said some thought, I'm wondering what you make of the reference to the Kittim in Daniel 11:30. I'm not suggesting that it is a certain reference to Romans, I'm only curious how you look at it considering your point of view on the Kittim.

It is certainly a reference to the Romans, to a specific well-known event mentioned by Polybius, when Antiochus IV had entered Egypt for the second time and the Romans sent G. Popillius Laenas to order him to leave. But the reference to the Kittim there is quite obscure.

It has been a while since I followed the trail of evidence relating to the Kittim reference in Dan 11:30, so I no longer have the range of evidence at hand. However, the starting point is the LXX which does not have Kittim, but Romans. You'll note that at the beginning of the chapter the writer has no interest in disguising the names of Persia and Greece, so the reference to Kittim in 11:30 needs explanation. Why would the LXX—and the Latin Vulgate—have the more obvious "Romans" while the Hebrew "ships of the Kittim"? The Jubilees, a text of a similar age, refers to the Kittim a few times, though it certainly does not point to the Romans.

If for a moment we work on the notion that at the time of the Hellenistic crisis, the "Kittim" were in fact ethnic Cypriots used by the Seleucids or at least Seleucid forces that included them, how would Daniel come to represent the Romans as the Kittim? Working on the notion that the LXX and the Vulgate reflect the original text of Daniel, we have little problem. There is sense for worried Jews to disguise the mention of Romans if they were frightened of the Romans. If so, the LXX and Vulgate translations are straightforward renderings of the original, which is easier to surmise than thinking that independent translations in different languages would both render "Kittim" as Romans—though the LXX may easily have been at hand when the Vulgate was translated, the translator had to make the decision not to translate the Hebrew.

But why would anyone during the Hellenistic crisis want to disguise a reference to the Romans? As indicated, the writer did not hide the Greeks and the Persians. So why "Kittim"? 1 Maccabees, a text that reflects Hasmonean propaganda of the time of John Hyrcanus, refers to Alexander the Great as coming "from the land of the Kittim" (1:1) and this text makes no attempts to be cryptic, so the land of the Kittim should be taken at face value as a straight reference. This would follow if the Kittim were at first Cypriot forces fighting for the Seleucids, then generalized to indicate any Macedonian forces and the Macedonians came from the west, hence the land of the Kittim. Conquerors from the west and Rome was soon to become one, bear the label "Kittim" and the term became available to a later editor of Daniel after the time of John Hyrcanus and probably after 63 BCE when Pompey laid siege to the temple and the Romans replaced all earlier foreign conquerors.

Dan 11:30 doesn't just say "Kittim", but "ships of the Kittim", which is a strange addition if "Romans" was replaced. Why "ships of the Kittim"? It seems to be a reference to Num 24:24, which talks of ships coming from the hand of Kittim afflicting Asshur and Eber (the land of the Hebrews). Strangely, or perhaps not, Targums Onqelos and Pseudo-Jonathan replace the Kittim with Romans! (Dating of these targums is difficult, but Pseudo-Jonathan is definitely post-Arab conquest.)

We can see the reference to the Romans in Dan 11:30 as "Kittim" to be a scribal intervention based on Num 24:24 and its ships from Kittim. Once that is said, be aware that there will probably be no published scholars who hold such a position. So, do not just be aware, but beware.

[John2]

Spin,

That was an excellent response. Thank you.

Since Maryhelena and I had agreed that the Kittim were the Romans, when I began this thread I was focused on the points that I think indicate that they were from the first century CE rather than the time of Pompey. I had felt fairly satisfied with them, and was preparing to move on to the similarities between Paul and the Liar, but instead your responses have caused me to shift gears and question whether or not the Kittim refer to the Romans at all. And ultimately this is great, because I generally like looking at things from different angles and try to keep an open mind. I also don't feel a lot of passion for Christian origins and feel okay with wherever chips may fall.

Just thought I'd explain my state of mind for you.

So, in response to you I've been looking at the Kittim issue with fresh eyes. And while I agree that this word, even in some of the DSS (like Jubilees, which you mentioned), appears to apply to Greeks/Macedonians/Seleucids, Daniel 11:30 does indicate that, for whatever reason, its meaning may have evolved over time. This is also indicated by Josephus, who says that:

"Cethimus possessed the island Cethima: it is now called Cyprus; and from that it is that all islands, and the greatest part of the sea-coasts, are named Cethim by the Hebrews" (Ant. 1.6.1).

And what really grabbed my attention is the word "islands," because the Habakkuk Pesher says that the Kittim:

"come from afar, from the islands of the sea, to consume all the peoples like an insatiable eagle" (col. 3).

Additionally, even though the word "eagle" is in the underlying Habakkuk verses being interpreted, its presence here strikes me as being another indication that these Kittim could be Romans.

This has to be coupled with the reference to the Kittim sacrificing to their standards (col. 6), which is something that is only said of Titus' soldiers in the first century CE.

[Stephan Huller]

WTF is this? is this Eisenman? It's been already established by carbon dating that this can't be Titus. So stop pathologically banging the Eisenman drum. This is getting really silly. There is nothing more to be said about this.

[John2]

Stephan,

There is a lot more I intend to discuss, and no one is forcing you to read this thread if you don't like it.