Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Stephan, I've been thinking about your Jessaeans line of inquiry (which I hadn't given much consideration to before) and my impression is that the similarity in spelling of Epiphanius' Jessaeans and Philo's Essenes is due to Epiphanius imagining an association between the Therapeutae and early Chris...

Stephan, I misunderstood your reference to John T's quote. I thought you were referring to Is. 61 and not John T's quote from 4Q521. So I see what you mean about the latter referring to "the Lord" doing these things. However, both Is. 61 and 4Q521 associate these things with "the Lord...

Stephan, You wrote: "Your [John T's] quote actually speaks of "the Lord" doing all that from Isa 61." Is. 61:1 actually says: "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenh...

It should also be noted that Paul cites the above Hab 2:4 (twice) to justify his gospel of faith without works: http://biblehub.com/galatians/3-11.htm http://biblehub.com/romans/1-17.htm And it's also mentioned in Heb. 10:38: http://biblehub.com/hebrews/10-38.htm So not only was this an important ve...

It's off topic, but it ought to be noted as well that the word that Vermes translates in the Habakuk Pesher above as "suffering" is "amal," which can have the sense of "labor" (or "works"): http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5998.htm So the above could be rendered as ...

Stephan, You wrote: "I think however that the Qumran material shows that Hebrew was very much a living language in the Jewish community at this time. Not sure that an ancient Jewish sect would give itself an Aramaic name. I think it would be rooted in a Hebrew terminology." I agree with yo...

The DSS Isaiah Pesher is very fragmented but it applies Is. 11 to a conquering Davidic messiah: "And there shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse and a Branch shall grow out of its roots. And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit o...

Neil, I'm not sure if those two passages are cited in the DSS (my only point in mentioning them is that if they existed in the first century CE then so did the concept of a conquering Davidic messiah), but Amos 9:11 is cited as a messianic text in 4Q174: "He is the branch of David who will aris...

Neil, You wrote: "Are we able to think that there was a single or dominant view among any class of people about such an idea in the first century?" I think we can say this about the Dead Sea Scrolls community. Even if they expected two messiahs (I know of only one reference in the DSS to m...

Neil, I've been following your discussion of this topic on your blog and now on this thread, and I understand your point of view that there was generally no single, common concept of "the Messiah" or a common expectation of one before the 66-70 CE war, based on the lack of any clear refere...