Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

So, please, Charles, don't come back to me with interpretations of gospel stories....

So, let's get started:

"For example, the observation of insects on flowers dimly suggests some congruity between the natures of insects and of flowers, and thus leads to a wealth of observation from which whole branches of science have developed. But a consistent positivist should be content with the observed facts, namely insects visiting flowers. It is a fact of charming simplicity. There is nothing further to be said upon the matter, according to the doctrine of a positivist."

- - A N Whitehead, "Nature Alive"

This observation by Whitehead can also be used as a weapon by some very sophisticated people. Any data produced carries no relation to any other data produced, so it can be dismissed. At the other end of this are the Schizoids who relate anything and everything. Meaningful dialogue occurs between these two poles. So I have to prove that my data rises to the level of "Necessarily Related and Important to the Discussion".

1. Hannah the Prophetess:

Luke 2: 36 - 38 (RSV):

[36] And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phan'u-el, of the tribe of Asher; she was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years from her virginity,
[37] and as a widow till she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day.
[38] And coming up at that very hour she gave thanks to God, and spoke of him to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Hannah is a widow. Simple subtraction: 8 + ( -84) = ( -76) => 76 BCE.
What happens in around 76 BCE? The widow Salome becomes Queen at the death of Jannaeus.
History first, interpretation later.

2. The Death of Antigonus. mentioned earlier. The "Simple Subtraction" from 8/9 CE is complicated a bit by the possibility that this subtraction may come from 4 BCE and reference Aristobulus 2 and his son, who is beheaded by Scipio. Turns out that it's still subtracted from 8/9 CE. Aristobulus and Alexander are mentioned in Revelation and the small scroll that tastes sweet and is bitter on the stomach - "Do you like honey?"

3. The Death of Hyrcanus at the hands of Herod:

John 5: (RSV):

[2] Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Hebrew called Beth-za'tha, which has five porticoes.
[3] In these lay a multitude of invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed.
[5] One man was there, who had been ill for thirty-eight years.
[6] When Jesus saw him and knew that he had been lying there a long time, he said to him, "Do you want to be healed?"
[7] The sick man answered him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is troubled, and while I am going another steps down before me."

Simple subtraction: 8 + ( -38) = ( - 30) = 30 BCE.
What happened? Herod calls Hyrcanus back from the Parthians and kills him. Oh, and Herod is on the wrong side in the Battle of Actium, backing Antony and Cleopatra against Octavian. A trivial detail here.
Let's call it a Resume Enhancer.

Antiquities..., 15, 6, 2:

"...Now as soon as Herod had received this letter, he immediately sent for Hyrcanus, and questioned him about the league he had made with Malchus; and when he denied it, he showed his letter to the Sanhedrim, and put the man to death immediately..."

Herod kills the sons of Mariamne and then Mariamne and there are no more Hasmoneans left to rule...are there?

Mark 5: 25 and 42 (RSV):
[25] And there was a woman who had had a flow of blood for twelve years,
...
[42] And immediately the girl got up and walked (she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.

This puts us right back to the Temple Slaughter of 4 BCE. These are the Key Time Markers. Herod killed the Hasmonean Rulers but he could not kill the Temple Service Groups, assembled by King David.

Leviticus 15: 25 (RSV):

[25] "If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness; as in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean.

So, a word about interpretation. "...interpretations of that gospel story are two a penny - it does not have any value for searching for early christian origins." 'N is that History or interpretation? I am not the Positivist nor the Schizoid. One swallow does not a spring make but if the sky is covered with birds then maybe it's spring or maybe you're in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

I'll say it again: About 9 years of research and I find myself looking a small settlement named "Jabnit" in "Upper Galilee". It was inhabited by members of the Mishmarot Service Group Immer. They believe that the Hasmoneans descended from THEM. They go to Jerusalem every 24 weeks for Mishmarot Service at the Temple. Not bad for "2 for a penny" interpretations, right?

Who was on Service in 4 BCE and 9 CE? Is this important for understanding the Origins of the New Testament?

Revelation 5: 5 - 6, 10 (RSV):

[5] Then one of the elders said to me, "Weep not; lo, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals."
[6] And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth;
...
[10] and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on earth."

Q E D .

CW

[30] 5. The Zealot Theory (First Century A.D.)

Cecil Roth and Sir Godfrey Driver consider the Zealots the authors of the scrolls, and Quraran a Zealot settlement (60).

[31] Roth arrives at his identification of the Qumran community with the Zealots in the following fashion: nothing in the code of the Qumran sect is at variance with what we know of the Sicarii-Zealot religious observances; on the other hand, we can say positively that it is impossible to identify the community with the Pharisees, the Sadducees or the Essenes. Unless there existed another sect of which we have no record, the Qumran sect must have been Zealot. The fact that a fragment of the Angelic Liturgy was found at Masada is Incontrovertible proof that the same people occupied Khirbet Qumran and Masada. Particularly since the Angelic Liturgy is not just any work, but the most objectionable sort of sectarian literature: it is a heterodox liturgy based on a heterodox calendar. Were we to accept Yadin's explanation of this phenomenon, we would have to assume that there were two different sects at Masada in 73 A.D.; each of which venerated a Teacher of Righteousness, who was attacked in Jerusalem on or about the Day of Atonement, and that both Teachers had a close associate named Absalom. There would have been different synagogues, with different liturgies and different calendars. The conclusion is inescapable: the two sects were one. It is clear that the Habakkuk Commentary was written at a time when the Kittim were overrunning Palestine. Both the Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest are contemporaries of the Kittim/Romans, for the Kittim are surely the Romans and not the Greeks (61). We must find, therefore, circumstances between 65 B.C. and 70 A.D. in which,

a) the Roman menace to Palestine is acute, although they are not yet in control of the whole country;

b) political authority is in the hands of the priest[s]; they could persecute or kill their opponents. The Wicked Priest cannot be a Hasmonaean because no pious Jew would refer to them as priests.

Only one period fits these conditions: the revolt that took place between 66 and 70 A.D.

Using Josephus' War as his source of information, Roth reconstructs events in the following manner: the Teacher of Righteousness was Menahem ben Juda, the leader of the Zealots (or just as possibly his nephew, Eleazar [32] ben Jair.) The Wicked Priest was Eleazar ben Hananiah, the son of the former High Priest, Hananiah, and himself the captain of the Temple. Menahem's death occurred shortly after the capitulation of the royal palace on the sixth of Gorpiaeus (August-September). In 1QpHab XI.3-8, we read of a clash between the Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest on the Day of Atonement. The 1QpHab passage is ambiguous about whether the Teacher of Righteousness was killed on this occasion, but it seems to be implied (62). Zeitlin has reckoned that the sixth of Gorpiaeus was the third of Tishri (63). The event described by Josephus and that found in 1QpHab XI.3-8 are one and the same.

Driver's version of the Zealot-identity theory (64) follows pretty much the same lines as Roth. He too sees a key to the solution of the historical problems in the identification of the Kittim, who are clearly the Romans. One of the foundations of the Kittim/Roman hypothesis is the worship of standards. This refers to the sacrifice to the standards in the Temple in 70 A.D., the first mention of any such practice. Moreover, the apocalyptic war, according to IQM lasts seven years, as did the Revolt of 66-73. For Driver the identity of the Qumran Covenanters with the Zadokites-Boethusians-Zealots-Sicarii, "can be regarded as reasonably certain." (65)

The Habakkuk Comraentary XI.3-8, reports a central fact of the sect's history, the clash between the Wicked Priest and the Teacher of Righteousnes on the Day of Atonement. The clash almost certainly ends with the death of the Teacher of Righteousness. We read also that the House of Absalom did not support the Teacher, but the House of Judah was saved. All of these events refer to the history of the Zealots in 66 A.D. The Wicked Priest is Eleazar, the captain of the Temple; the Rightful Teacher [33] is Menahem the leader of the Zealots; the House of Absalom refers to Absalom, Menahem's lieutenant, and the House of Judah refers to those who fled with Eleazar ben Jair, Menahem's nephew, and a descendant of Judah the Galilean. The Man of Lies is John of Giscala, and the Wrathful Lion is Simon bar Giora, who were leaders of rival groups opposed to Menahem's group*

This theory of Roth and Driver has been criticized by many scholars. The primary objection to it is the violence done to archaeological and palaeographical evidence by putting the events at so late a date, and the gratuitous assumption that the inhabitants of Qumran, before Herod's reign, and those who dwelt there in the first century A.D. were different groups (66).

(60) ROTH, C., The Historical Background of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1958) Oxford; Evidences (70/1958) pp 13-18; PEQ (90/1958) pp 104-121; Jewish Life (26/1958-59) pp 45-49; RQ (1/1958-59) pp 417-422; JTS (10/1959) pp 87-93; PEQ (91/1959) pp 122-129; Judaism (8/1959) pp 33- 40; JSS (4/1959) pp 332-355; RQ (2/1959-60) pp 81-84; 261-265; VT (10/1960) pp 51-68; Eretz-Israel (6/1960) pp 13-15; VT (11/1961) pp 452-455; JSS (7/1962) pp 63-80; IEJ (12/1962) pp 33-46; VT (13/ 1963) pp 91-95; HTR (57/1964) pp 60-61; RQ (5/1964-1965) pp 81-87; The Dead Sea Scrolls. A New Historical Approach (1965) New York; DRIVER, G. R., The Hebrew Scrolls from the Neighbourhood of Jericho and the Dead Sea (1951) Oxford; The Judaean Scrolls (1965) Oxford; ALUOS (6/1966-68) pp 23-48.
(61) Cf ALLEGRO, J. M., JBL (75/1956) pp 89-95,
(62) Cf 4QpPssa.
(63) ZEITLIN, S., JQR (1922) pp 97-99.
(64) DRIVER, G. R., The Judaean Scrolls (1965) Oxford.
(65) DRIVER, G. R., The Judaean Scrolls (1965) Oxford, p 266,
(66) DE VAUX, R., NTS (13/1966) pp 89-104.

And so it seems to me that the wicked ruler of these texts reflects
Antigonus Mattathias, and that the Lion of Wrath alludes to Mark
Antony who hung up alive Antigonus and perhaps other members of
Antigonus’s regime similarly unremarked in Josephus, and that key
Qumran pesharim such as Pesher Habakkuk, Pesher Psalms A, Pesher
Nahum, Pesher Hosea B and others all allude in their various ways to
the downfall of this last Hasmonean ruler, Antigonus Mattathias. And
it is surprising to me that this suggestion seems to be new. Despite
the striking correspondences between Antigonus Mattathias and the
Wicked Priest just named and no obvious counter-indication, so far as
I have been able to discover there has never previously been a scholarly
suggestion that the Wicked Priest might allude to Antigonus Mattathias.
And in asking how Antigonus Mattathias was missed I am
including myself, for I too missed this in my study of Pesher Nahum
of 2001.

ALLUSIONS TO THE END OF THE HASMONEAN DYNASTY
IN PESHER NAHUM (4Q169)
Gregory L. Doudna

http://scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads ... 59-278.pdf

DCHindley wrote:MH,

FWIW, the idea that there could have been two separate groups occupying Qumran at different times is not so far fetched nowadays.

DCH

Greg Doudna:

But why not, a reader who has been following the discussion to this point might ask, simply identify the people of the scrolls as the people operating the site when Qumran was a Hasmonean outpost? Why the necessity to suppose two distinct sets of people?

Such a question seemingly comes from a naive reader unfamiliar with Qumran text scholarship. For if there is one point upon which Qumran text scholars have been in agreement with almost complete unanimity for as long as anyone can remember, it is that the sect of the Qumran texts was opposed to the Hasmonean high priests. In prevailing Qumran scholarship it is considered simply inconceivable that the people of the texts of Qumran could have been favorable to, for example, Hyrcanus II, the high priest of the temple in Jerusalem 76-67 and 63-40 BCE.

In my essay in the same volume (“The Sect of the Qumran Texts and its Leading Role in the Temple in Jerusalem During Much of the First Century BCE: Toward a New Framework for Understanding”), I show that the naive reader’s question referred to above is actually quite astute. My essay challenges the reasons claimed for supposing that the Qumran texts were opposed to the Hasmonean high priests. I show that nothing in the Qumran Community Rule (1QS and 4QS) texts calls for reading those texts as opposed to the temple or to the priests who controlled the temple. I show that such interpretations of the Qumran S texts are unfounded and chimerical, no matter how deeply ingrained such interpretations have been in scholarly discourse.

I show that, in fact, nothing in the Qumran texts calls for supposing the sectarian texts were other than supportive of most Hasmonean high priests. Texts, which have been read as polemical against all Hasmonean rulers and their regimes, instead become polemical against one Hasmonean ruler’s regime, written from the perspective of supporters of a deposed previous high priest in exile. Condemnations in some texts of a Hasmonean regime become not a rejection of all Hasmonean high priests but rather arise out of the authors’ loyalty to, as they interpreted it, the legitimate Hasmonean high priest who had been cast into exile.

Qumran Revisited: a Reassessment of the Archaeology of the Site and its Texts
http://networkedblogs.com/SVNcw

maryhelena wrote:In fact, what really is that Josephan writer claiming with his name: Joseph ben Matityahu. Is he claiming decent from Antigonus II Mattathias (known in Hebrew as Matityahu) ?? If this is so, then are we not dealing with, in the Josephan writings, a retelling of Hasmonean history alongside later Herodian history. The result being an underlay of Hasmonean history with a top dressing of Herodian history - resulting, naturally, with at times a fused 'historical' reconstruction. Sophisticated storytelling; prophetic history - from a man able to wear not simply a historian' hat - but the hat of a prophetic historian as well. Leading to many of the problems in dealing with this writer....

DCHindley wrote:

maryhelena wrote:In fact, what really is that Josephan writer claiming with his name: Joseph ben Matityahu. Is he claiming decent from Antigonus II Mattathias (known in Hebrew as Matityahu) ?? If this is so, then are we not dealing with, in the Josephan writings, a retelling of Hasmonean history alongside later Herodian history. The result being an underlay of Hasmonean history with a top dressing of Herodian history - resulting, naturally, with at times a fused 'historical' reconstruction. Sophisticated storytelling; prophetic history - from a man able to wear not simply a historian' hat - but the hat of a prophetic historian as well. Leading to many of the problems in dealing with this writer....

I suggested that Josephus may have been rehashing an older story of events that were commented upon by the pesharim by introducing the names of one or more of those key figures into his account of the War, especially the early period involving Menahem (who held Masada and had royal aspirations), his son Eleazar, and the different Eleazar the captain of the temple who sparked the revolt by refusing to offer the sacrifices provided by and dedicated to the Roman Emperor), simply because of many uncanny parallels. I do not think that Roth's proposal for late 1st century CE events is workable, but 1st century BCE events are possible. The contest between Hurcanus II (legitimate heir supported by Romans and pro Pharisee) and Antigonus II (Nationalist and pro Sadducee) offers all sorts of contrasts.

My head still spins (no pun intended, whatever that may mean) to think of what Hutchesson proposed. He dates the deposit to 63 BCE, assuming Antigonus II (presumably Antigonus Matthias, the son of Aristobulus II) controlled the Qumran region and deposited the scrolls from the temple there when his father and brother were captured by Pompeii's forces. But if I am understanding this aright, why didn't Antigonus retrieve them when he ruled Judaea as a Parthian client from 40-37 BCE?

DCH

....the article argues that the Wicked Priest of Pesher Habakkuk was the final Hasmonean king, Antigonus Mattathias (ruled 40-37 BCE), an identification not previously proposed in Qumran scholarship. It is argued that the Teacher of Righteousness was Antigonus’s exiled adversary, Hyrcanus II (high priest 76-67 and 63-40 BCE). It is argued that the Community Rule texts (1QS and 4QS copies) do not reflect opposition to the temple or its priests. The article contains developments and corrections from my earlier 2001 study, 4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition.

http://www.scrollery.com/

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures - Volume 5 (2004-2005) - Review by Rob Kugler.
Gregory L. Doudna, 4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical Edition (Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series 35/Copenhagen International Series 8; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001). Pp. 813. Cloth, US$185.00. ISBN 1-84127-156-X.

As for the Lion of Wrath, he is not Alexander Jannaeus as is widely thought, but rather a "real or imagined Roman threat" (635) whom Doudna ultimately identifies as Pompey. On the basis of that identification and on the basis of a series of temporal indicators he identifies especially in fragments 3-4, columns i, ii, and iv, Doudna claims the Pesher must have been composed in 63 BCE before Pompey’s defeat of Aristobulus II. Thus he assigns to Aristobulus II the titles Spouter of Lies, Manasseh, and Wicked Priest, and the Seekers-After-Smooth-Things are Aristobulus’ men.

http://www.jhsonline.org/reviews/review150.htm