Spin and the DSS

[DCHindley]

He's like Jesus, a phantom. The myth of "spin." He was developed in a lab in Palo Alto.

Brazil?

[John2]

Just for the record, since it's become a subject of discussion, I understood Spin's car analogy. It simply inspired me to make one of my own that was intended as a compliment. The important issue, as Spin said, is what the Scrolls say, and his point of view on that has given me a lot to think about.

[Stephan Huller]

The important issue is not ignoring critical evidence like carbon dating. Like wanting to get legal married to a dead person.

[spin]

Like wanting to get legal married to a dead person.

Brings new meaning to "for better or for worse".

[Blood]

I wish I knew who "Spin" was in real life. I'd like to read his stuff, not just messages on a board.

There isn't any.

Really?

[Blood]

Google is your friend. Use it to solve all of life's mysteries.

"Spin" is not exactly a unique name to instantly find hits in a search engine.

[Blood]

Really? The car analogy had nothing to do with spin's knowledge of the Qumran texts. It was simply developed around the question of carbon dating. Nothing spin said was decisive ... save for the carbon dating.

Yup, that's correct. However, the important issue is that the texts can be explained without recourse to Essene nonsense or christian usurpation.

Why do you think the Essene hypothesis was, and still is, so dominant?

[spin]

However, the important issue is that the texts can be explained without recourse to Essene nonsense or christian usurpation.

Why do you think the Essene hypothesis was, and still is, so dominant?

It was taken on rather early by the international team that had sole possession of the bulk of the scrolls. It was also championed by Sukenik. While other theories came and went, if you wanted to talk scrolls with the big boys it was going to be Essenes. This was the only show in town until the scrolls were liberated in the 1990s. That's almost 40 years of the dominance. Many of the Israeli scholars who took up the baton were given their first access to the scrolls under long serving member of the international team John Strugnell before the liberation, so they also were primed as bearers of the torch. Then of course, the scrolls, though Jewish, had to be seen as sectarian, leaving the only known group of any substance, the Essenes. They were ready-made as the only possible authors. Opposition was either looney or idiosyncratic (argued by a lone pundit, as in the case of Golb for a long time: his position is still rather alienated from the mainstream). People prefer dysfunctional explanations to no explanations at all (as lonely theories tend to be perceived). So it is quite understandable that we have been lumbered with the Essene hypothesis and will be for decades to come. Some scholars do correct themselves, "the Essenes,... I mean, the Sect", but generally few bother. We are stuck with the Essenes now because of habit, politics and ideology.

[DCHindley]

Really? The car analogy had nothing to do with spin's knowledge of the Qumran texts. It was simply developed around the question of carbon dating. Nothing spin said was decisive ... save for the carbon dating.

Yup, that's correct. However, the important issue is that the texts can be explained without recourse to Essene nonsense or christian usurpation.

Why do you think the Essene hypothesis was, and still is, so dominant?

I cannot speak for spin (and no one should dare to do that) but I will say that I think that the "sectarian" DSS were a complete surprise when they came to light.

Until then, we had conveniently shoe-horned the Judean inter and post-testamental literature (Apocrypha, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4th -Latin apocalypse of- Ezra, even the Cairo Document aka "Fragment of a Zadokite Work," etc) into cliché categories oriented around NT verses about Pharisees and Sadducees. Thus the "good guys" (Christian approved Judaism) was what was called Pharisee Quietists (Pharisees who had accepted their fate as subjects of Rome, and awaited their Messiah quietly).

The DSS scrolls were "fanatical," nationalistic and apocalyptic, hardly "quietist" at all. There were also ideas expressed that had only before been known in a Christian context, and it was natural to think that some of these ideas may have influenced Christianity, or the other way around.

Many Christian and Jewish scholars immediately tried to put a stop to crazy hypotheses like that. Solomon Zeitlin (if I recall correctly) argued for decades that the DSS HAD TO BE, at best, MEDIEVAL works by Karaite heretics, or at worst, THE WORKS OF TALENTED FORGERS.

Christians, afraid to admit Christian doctrine could have been influenced by these wild and wooly sectarians and was not instead 100% DOCTRINES OF JESUS THE VERY SON OF GOD HIMSELF or developments by THE PURE GENIUS OF A DIVINELY INSPIRED Paul, instead pooh-poohed the sectarian DSS as the products of an obscure and unimportant sect mentioned by Philo, Josephus and Pliny the Elder, the Essenes.

As described by those authors, were very much like Christian monks and had no political or theological agenda other than to live pious lives. While admirable, they could hardly have influenced the Christians, whose doctrines were without doubt derived from JESUS' OWN DIVINE LIPS or developed by the GOD INSPIRED GENIUS of Paul (PBUH).

Jewish scholars also found value in the obscure peace-nick hippy Essenes, as the sectarian DSS could NOT POSSIBLY REPRESENT NORMATIVE JUDAISM of the era (which was becoming more and more certain to be 3rd-1st century BCE), which everyone knows was Pharisaic and proto-Rabbinic. Hah! Don't be SILLY! Norman Golb (not his crazy son Raphael) is almost alone in thinking that the DSS actually DOES represent normative Judean thought of that time.

DCH

[maryhelena]

Really? The car analogy had nothing to do with spin's knowledge of the Qumran texts. It was simply developed around the question of carbon dating. Nothing spin said was decisive ... save for the carbon dating.

Yup, that's correct. However, the important issue is that the texts can be explained without recourse to Essene nonsense or christian usurpation.

Why do you think the Essene hypothesis was, and still is, so dominant?

Maybe the Essene hypothesis is still dominant - but if Rachel Elior has anything to do with it - maybe change might be on the cards.....Elior deals with the Essenes about 50.40 mins into her talk to the University of Chicago Divinity School. I think the talk was last year.


"Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why Were They Forgotten?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLit979B60Y