Passages relating to the Teacher of Righteousness.

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Passages relating to the Teacher of Righteousness.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:34 pm
How would Ezra work with counting the 390 years (CD-A, column 1, lines 5-6) from the time of the Babylonian captivity? I know that ancient chronologies can be sloppy and inexact, but to squeeze 390 years into a century and a half or thereabouts seems pretty extreme to me.
The DSSs are not historical documents. They are religious documents. It's the same with the Book of Daniel. So such a temporal discrepancy is not an issue.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: Passages relating to the Teacher of Righteousness.

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2019 4:22 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Wed Oct 16, 2019 7:34 pm
How would Ezra work with counting the 390 years (CD-A, column 1, lines 5-6) from the time of the Babylonian captivity? I know that ancient chronologies can be sloppy and inexact, but to squeeze 390 years into a century and a half or thereabouts seems pretty extreme to me.
The DSSs are not historical documents. They are religious documents. It's the same with the Book of Daniel. So such a temporal discrepancy is not an issue.
So what do the 390 years mean, in your judgment? It is a cardinal rule of historical inquiry that it does not take historical documents to grant a peek into historical events.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Passages relating to the Teacher of Righteousness.

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2019 4:41 pm So what do the 390 years mean, in your judgment? It is a cardinal rule of historical inquiry that it does not take historical documents to grant a peek into historical events.
In this case it wouldn't mean anything. Either a miscalculation, interpolation, or the like.

Unless it's referring to the period of the Septuagint, as much of the Deuteronocanonical texts appear at that time, and Ezra is just a second Moses: a mythical figure the Teacher promoted as a model to follow. But I chose the first option above.
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Re: Passages relating to the Teacher of Righteousness.

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Joseph D. L. wrote: Fri Oct 18, 2019 4:37 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2019 4:41 pm So what do the 390 years mean, in your judgment? It is a cardinal rule of historical inquiry that it does not take historical documents to grant a peek into historical events.
In this case it wouldn't mean anything. Either a miscalculation, interpolation, or the like.
I see.
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