Eisenman and the DSS

[spin]

Spin wrote: "1QpHab is dated to the 1st century BCE (it can't get younger), so Eisenman is simply wrong in his equation of the Teacher of Righteousness with James. It is that plain. It is not a matter of the same ballpark. A miss is a miss whether it is by fifty years or five hundred."

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Yes, but the test results can get younger simply by doing another test. Seems when they retest the DSS most get younger not older. If they did another round of testing with newer more accurate methods how much younger could they get?

This is simply and totally wrong. If the samples are contaminated, as with the Allegro allotment on which castor oil was used, the dates will appear younger. If a scroll has been retested and it provides a younger date, the there is evidence of contamination. The younger oil skews the results towards younger dates. Without contaminants, as with recent carbon based materials used to clean sections of scrolls, the results are older. If a scroll has been retested the older date will be more indicative, but not necessarily of the true age, merely the direction of the result.

Once again I will provide the footnote that warns there were problems with the calculation for the results: "Many of the date ranges provided are actually two date ranges, for example the Habakkuk Commentary (#13), [1QpHab] which is given as 160-148 or 111-2 CE. The section of the calibration curve for the 14C age of the Habakkuk Commentary is complex, so that the 14C age of 2054 cuts through a few spikes on the curve, providing two date ranges."..http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dat ... ea_Scrolls

Translation: 1QpHab is a tricky one to place a reliable date on because of a gap in the curve but we want you to think we nailed it just the same.

Rubbish. It has a date range with an extremely high statistical probability. That date range excludes the Eisenman theory. You won't change that no matter how much you wish it. Either you invalidate the evidence, which is what Eisenman attempted and failed to do, or you ignore it and pretend it doesn't matter because you are happy with your conclusions. Scholarship is happy with the former.

But let's say they nailed it for sake of argument. Still, (once again) how does the context of Commentary on Habakkuk rule out James the Just being the Teacher of Righteousness? Your best argument against James would be the interpretation that follows: "and God told Habakkuk to write down that which would happen to the final generation, but He did not make known to him when time would come to an end." but you Spin have failed to make a case other than to imply that a commentary on a 600 year old prophecy by the prophet Habakkuk, automatically disproves James the Just as the Teacher of Righteousness.

Let me help your poor brain. If a text mentioning someone is definitively dated before a certain point in time, it is not historically applicable to someone living well after that point in time. This is a no-brainer. Eisenman's theory died with the C14 evidence. You keep banging away at trying to shift the goal posts. You will never score.

I can take a good guess why you are spinning but that is for another time.

Gosh, what witticism!

[spin]

I don't think I've irritated enough people today so let me add one more item.

Eisenman and Wise wrote Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered and there is a chapter covering Mishmarot Rotation. There are many fragments and texts involved with "Who Rotates in and When...".

4Q325 (p. 127, to pick a page somewhat randomly):

"Fragment 1:

(1) [on Tues]day: on the eighteenth the sabbath fa[lls to Jehoiarib...]
(2) [on Tuesday] in the evening. On the twenty-fifth the sabbath falls to Jedaiah; also during that course's duties falls
(3) [the festival of] the Barley on the twenty-sixth..."

And so on. Tremendous numbers of Solar Calendar, Luni-Solar Calendar cross refernced dates and Mishmarot Groups.
Find when these dates match and you find when they were written.

CW

MishC (4Q325) is not luni-solar. It uses the theoretical 364-day calendar, four seasons of 13 weeks each, on which the sabbaths occur on the same days. That's was the benefit of the Qumran calendar (as introduced in 1 Enoch's astronomical book).

[spin]

@neilgodfrey,

The Essenes came up with a different calender based on the sun and not the moon (4Q320-30 and IQSx, 5).

There is no reason other than convenience to think that the Essenes had anything to do with the scrolls. In fact, given the strongly priestly component in the scrolls, we must exclude the Essenes, as they rejected bloodlines, adopting any children that came their way. The priesthood existed on the notion of family connection to the temple. Plainly the scrolls were not produced by the Essenes, given the importance of the sons of Zadok, of Aaron and of Levi.

This was in order to be in tune with the 'laws of the Great Light of heaven' (IQH xII, 5). The first day of the year always fell on the same day of the week, i.e. Wednesday. Now, you have to sit back and wonder, how could the Essenes be part of the Sadducees or Pharisees with such an unusual calender?

It seems, the Essenes were a different/separate sect altogether and therefore, the Teacher of Righteousness could not be from the Hasmonaean dynasty.

[spin]

You are aware that there is evidence in Judean scripture that the original Judean calendar was in fact the 364 day calendar?

1 Enoch's astronomical book attempts to impress the necessity of the extra four days (75:1f), so it is dealing with a preceding 360-day calendar, such as the native Persian calendar. Ezekiel uses a 364-day calendar, which places it after the dispute indicated in 1 Enoch 75, as is some of the work in Genesis.

[spin]

@Stephan Huller,

You have made false allegations about what I proposed, as well as questioning my motives. When you default to straw-man arguments and ad hominem attacks instead of addressing the merits you have forfeited your integrity on the matter.

By refusing to give a fair hearing to Eisenman all you have done is prove how arrogant and closed-minded you are. I got that.

Now as a reminder, I have a lot of respect for the late Geza Vermes but even he said he did not know who the Teacher of Righteousness was and meekly suggested the Wicked Priest might have been Jonathan Maccabaeus of 153 BCE. So, it is a mystery and people like trying to solve mysteries, e.g. who was Jack the Ripper? Eisenman has spent a considerable amount of time trying to solve the mystery. I prefer to give him a fair hearing based on the strength of his arguments.

If you have a smoking gun that debunks his evidence then present the evidence and not your personal uniformed opinion. Otherwise, you should just move onto another thread and let the unbiased folks enjoy trying to solve the mystery.
Is that too much to ask?

Thanks in advance.

John the Ignorant

Why do you ignore the C14 data which falsifies Eisenman's central contextualization of the scrolls? It's like finding a watch on a desert island which is aesthetically pleasing to your sensibilities. Problem is there are no batteries on the desert island, so the watch doesn't work. It doesn't stop pleasing your sensibilities. Most people would throw it away, but you cannot help but think it is accurate twice a day. That's good enough.

[spin]

@Stephan Huller,

You have made false allegations about what I proposed, as well as questioning my motives. When you default to straw-man arguments and ad hominem attacks instead of addressing the merits you have forfeited your integrity on the matter.

By refusing to give a fair hearing to Eisenman all you have done is prove how arrogant and closed-minded you are. I got that.

Now as a reminder, I have a lot of respect for the late Geza Vermes but even he said he did not know who the Teacher of Righteousness was and meekly suggested the Wicked Priest might have been Jonathan Maccabaeus of 153 BCE. So, it is a mystery and people like trying to solve mysteries, e.g. who was Jack the Ripper? Eisenman has spent a considerable amount of time trying to solve the mystery. I prefer to give him a fair hearing based on the strength of his arguments.

To be honest Eisenman came up with christianizing theory early in his investigations. I think his first book was the publication of his thesis on James in the Habbakuk Pesher, so he has run with that theory for decades. It doesn't seem to be an evolution or a long process of discovery, more of sustainment.

If you have a smoking gun that debunks his evidence then present the evidence and not your personal uniformed opinion. Otherwise, you should just move onto another thread and let the unbiased folks enjoy trying to solve the mystery.
Is that too much to ask?

When the C14 data clearly falsifies the theory, why do you want more? Oh, that's right, you have jumped on the Eisenman bandwagon. We would love you to divorce yourself from so-&-so's theory and get yourself involved in the texts and their placement in a historical context. Leave off the secondary pundits and get involved in the actual material. If you're interested in the scrolls, there's a lot of work you can do even with a good translation such as Martinez and Tigchelaar or the Abegg, Wise & Cook HarperSanFrancisco edition. Vermes is right out, tainted by the International Team mentality that affects his translations. Read the texts. You'll see that there is nothing christianizing within them. They deal with a pre-christian Jewish mentality. They involve a non-christian messianism. They involve the ritual purity of the temple. The importance of the priesthood. The centrality of the temple. Temple liturgies. Temple rosters. Temple visions.

[John T]

Spin posted: "Vermes is right out, tainted by the International Team mentality that affects his translations. Read the texts. You'll see that there is nothing christianizing within them. They deal with a pre-christian Jewish mentality. They involve a non-christian messianism."

Spin posted: "When the C14 data clearly falsifies the theory, why do you want more? Oh, that's right, you [John T] have jumped on the Eisenman bandwagon."

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Clearly you purport yourself to be an unbiased expert of the DSS with greater knowledge than Vermes and Eisenman. So, why can't you provide the primary sources to my questions?

Now, you keep harping that the C14 falsifies Eisenman's theory. Yet, you don't provide the report of the dating methods used for Commentary of Habakkuk Commentary 1QpHab. Why is that? Why do you keep trying to spin, Spin?

Here are some unanswered questions that should be a snap for an expert like Spin to answer with verifiable sources.

1. What type of animal hide was used as vellum for 1QpHab?
2. How long does it typically take to prepare such vellum before it can be used?
3. What type of ink was used to write 1QpHab?
4. Were separate C14 tests made of the vellum and ink?
5. How does C14 prove when ink was put to vellum?
6. How does C14 know if the scroll was penned by the same scribe?
7. How does C14 know how long it took to write the scroll?
8. How does C14 know that parts of the commentary weren't added years/decades later?

Now as far as the context, you clearly haven't read it in awhile (if at all) because I had to lead you by the nose to give you your best argument. So, now that the student has told the professor exactly where to find his best answer please provide it.

Where in the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) does it prove that James the Just could not be the Teacher of Righteousness? I understand your logic but to validate your theory you must provide the proof.

Once again I'm no cheerleader for Eisenman but only an impartial jurist willing to consider the evidence. So, far his evidence is far stronger and makes much more sense than your silly notion of the scrolls being deposited willy-nilly from a personal library in Jerusalem. Now, talk about being absurd.

I await your reply and hope it has primary sourced evidence this time instead of more spin and ad hominem attacks.

Thanks in advance.

John the Ignorant

[Stephan Huller]

But we could just as easily turn around those questions to you. You obviously have no difficulty with the C 14 results. In your opinion it is 'likely' or perhaps certain (!) that the document was written about James the Just.

Now let's take the issues one at a time for your interpretation.

1. How do you re-interpret the C 14 dating? Are you acknowledging that the parchment is properly dated or do you reject C 14 as such (i.e. as being historically inaccurate) or only in this case because you want Eisenman's theory to be true?
2. If as I suspect you are just trying to find excuses to rescue Eisenman's theory you probably accept that the parchment is properly C 14 dated but want to move the goalposts to allow for the ink to have been placed on the parchment in the first century CE. But the text is obviously not an autograph (see DCH's citations above). So now we have to imagine the following scenario (a) 1 century BCE parchment (b) James who lived in the apostolic age (10 - 65 CE) who was so revered an autograph was written and now lost and (c) this text was a copy of that autograph written by a school or more than one hand. How is this a 'more likely' scenario than a first century BCE copy of a lost first or second century BCE exemplar when no explicit mention is made of any first century CE events or personalities? Oh, yes I remember, SINCE you want Eisenman's theory to win, you see the world through tainted glasses.

I've noticed that in your desperation to rescue this discredited theory you will switch tactics and cite from the CD and then shift to argue that maybe James was identified with a figure from the 1 century BCE to any number of other possibilities all of which are designed solely to rescue Eisenman's theory. Real research doesn't proceed like this.

Eisenman would be very happy to have found someone talking about his theory. Even happier to have someone persist in defending it over and over again. You've made a very old and very retired professor very happy because no one else is taking these things at all seriously. In fact even having a thread where a supposedly 'ignorant' anonymous poster named 'John' persists in racking up the number of views of this maligned theory would make a doddering old man smile. Better than languishing in obscurity or being remembered for something worse ...

[spin]

Spin posted: "Vermes is right out, tainted by the International Team mentality that affects his translations. Read the texts. You'll see that there is nothing christianizing within them. They deal with a pre-christian Jewish mentality. They involve a non-christian messianism."

Spin posted: "When the C14 data clearly falsifies the theory, why do you want more? Oh, that's right, you [John T] have jumped on the Eisenman bandwagon."

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Clearly you purport yourself to be an unbiased expert of the DSS with greater knowledge than Vermes and Eisenman. So, why can't you provide the primary sources to my questions?

If you want to look at the C14 sources the Wiki article Carbon dating the Dead Sea Scrolls has most of what's relevant. Now if you ask me questions and I try to answer them for you, you don't persist—you know, again and again—in pushing your agenda over the obvious falsification, when it is clear that your agenda doesn't fly within the clear bounds both Stephan and I have outlined. All you are doing is showing yourself to be not only unlearned, but desirous to remain that way.

Now, you keep harping that the C14 falsifies Eisenman's theory. Yet, you don't provide the report of the dating methods used for Commentary of Habakkuk Commentary 1QpHab. Why is that? Why do you keep trying to spin, Spin?

Dear John,

Oh, how I hate to write.

Dear John,

I must let you know tonight, that your dullard game playing with people's nick's will not improve your chances of getting yourself an education.

Here are some unanswered questions that should be a snap for an expert like Spin to answer with verifiable sources.

You can try this with a straight face, but all you'll get is the derision you draw upon yourself. If you don't know what you are talking about, don't show the fact if you want to make a scene.



You expect me to answer the following questions, rather than me expecting that you answer them for yourself—I mean those you can through research.

1. What type of animal hide was used as vellum for 1QpHab?
2. How long does it typically take to prepare such vellum before it can be used?
3. What type of ink was used to write 1QpHab?
4. Were separate C14 tests made of the vellum and ink?
5. How does C14 prove when ink was put to vellum?
6. How does C14 know if the scroll was penned by the same scribe?
7. How does C14 know how long it took to write the scroll?
8. How does C14 know that parts of the commentary weren't added years/decades later?

#2 won't get an answer through research. #4 is silly (think about what ink is made of). #5 buys into unfalsifiability and therefore is also silly. #6 is nonsensical. #7 is not going to get an answer through research. #8 would require you to provide datable examples from the era that show that such an option was available.

All you are doing is asking obstreperous questions in an effort to sustain a falsified theory. Good attempt. Well,... not really. Why do you want to force a falsified theory to be unfalsified. What gain do you get in the special pleading you are attempting?

Now as far as the context, you clearly haven't read it in awhile (if at all) because I had to lead you by the nose to give you your best argument. So, now that the student has told the professor exactly where to find his best answer please provide it.

You have no idea what you are talking about. I have already had to deal with Atwill trying to push the C14 quibbling on a previous incarnation of this forum. If you didn't get the information from me that you were fishing for, I'm sorry, I usually talk about what I am willing to talk about at the time. You are not in a position to know what I know other than what I tell you and you are not in a position to evaluate what I tell you for its scholarly merit. I have been providing what little expertise I have from the factual literature I've had to use. That gives me an understanding of what people can know.

Where in the Habakkuk Commentary (1QpHab) does it prove that James the Just could not be the Teacher of Righteousness? I understand your logic but to validate your theory you must provide the proof.

There's that big wave of the hand again of the evidence that has already been cited. One doesn't have to consider anything else until you deal with the fact that the C14 data as is falsifies the theory and while you are there, please explain the overburdening need to force the theory of some guy from Santa Barbara, who wants to bridge the gulf between the scrolls and christianity.

Until you can get over all this petty quibbling about the C14 and provide evidence that actually contradicts it, you've got nothing to whinge about.

Once again I'm no cheerleader for Eisenman...

The lady doth protest too much.

...but only an impartial jurist willing to consider the evidence.

I'm waiting for a little of that impartiality from you.

So, far his evidence is far stronger and makes much more sense than your silly notion of the scrolls being deposited willy-nilly from a personal library in Jerusalem. Now, talk about being absurd.

That is a sad misrepresentation, so it's not strange that you are in such a mess. Where in your addled brain did you dig up the notion of "willy-nilly" from?? And where did you get "personal" from?? And where did you get "library" singular from?? You know fuck all about my views, but then you don't know much about the scrolls or how C14 works either. If you are here to participate rather than flog some ideology, it would be nice if you showed some willingness to contemplate evidence and to read beyond your preferred pundit.

I await your reply and hope it has primary sourced evidence this time instead of more spin and ad hominem attacks.

Thanks in advance.

You say "thanks in advance", when you give the impression that those thanks are in some way heartfelt or even just polite. Your post has been anything but those.

John the Ignorant

[Charles Wilson]

Eisenman and Wise wrote Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered and there is a chapter covering Mishmarot Rotation. There are many fragments and texts involved with "Who Rotates in and When...".

4Q325 (p. 127, to pick a page somewhat randomly):

"Fragment 1:
...

And so on. Tremendous numbers of Solar Calendar, Luni-Solar Calendar cross refernced dates and Mishmarot Groups.
Find when these dates match and you find when they were written.

CW

MishC (4Q325) is not luni-solar. It uses the theoretical 364-day calendar, four seasons of 13 weeks each, on which the sabbaths occur on the same days. That's was the benefit of the Qumran calendar (as introduced in 1 Enoch's astronomical book).

Spin-

Please read what was written!
Yeah, mebbe it's not Luni-Solar? SO? I picked one of the fragments - as I said - "somewhat randomly". Eisenman and Wise note ALL OF THIS in their book. Even the equivalence of the Luni-Solar and Solar Calendars "There's even MAFF."

Please read what was written. Better yet, read the book.

CW