Eisenman and the DSS

[spin]

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

Don't blame me for your communication skills. I read what you said. Citing MishC does not help. This statement is not true: "Find when these dates match and you find when they were written." I explained why MishC is not useful. The 364-day calendar will not get you to an outside point of reference for the astronomical events. However, only MishC provides historical data. Please don't just kneejerk.

[John T]

@Spin,

By once again defaulting to name calling instead of taking my questions seriously your lack of integrity once again proved my point.

That will be all.

John the Ignorant

[spin]

@Spin,

By once again defaulting to name calling instead of taking my questions seriously your lack of integrity once again proved my point.

That will be all.

John the Ignorant

Contentless posts have no value. Weaving around what people say to you is not content. And if you want to complain about integrity, you first must show some.

[Stephan Huller]

So basically John attempted to guage what it would take for Eisenman's theories to be considered seriously again in this forum. Would people simply ignore the C 14 results? No. What about James being taken as the Teacher of Righteousness from a 1st century BCE text? His only interest is to resuscitate Eisenman. That's all.

Most posters here only do that on behalf of their own theories. That's the first time I have ever seen such dogged devotion to someone else's theories and we never bring up this old man's theories EVER HERE. Now we have two people who signed in at the same time (John and John 2) resurrecting this old theory.


I can remember when Eisenman was all the rage. Now his theories have a sudden spike of interest. Is this a long term trend? Ha ha ha. I don't think so

[John2]

Stephan,

I am not John T. His opinions and arguments are not mine. As I said before, that someone else named John joined this forum around the same time I did and likes to comment on this thread is something I have no control over. I also have no control over whether or not you want to keep thinking that I'm pretending to be someone else.

As someone who is not John T (or Eisenman, or anyone else but John2), being incessantly confronted with these allegations against my identity has made me go from thinking "sheesh" (which had been about the summation of my thoughts about them) to now wanting to try to be amused by them. I'm tired of spending my time having to deny these allegations, but if you want to spend your time continuing to actually think or suspect or allege that I'm someone else, I can't stop you.

[Stephan Huller]

Well now that this is cleared up it is clear that Eisenman's theories must be on the upswing (or at least extremely popular with people named John). Let's move on to have at least one of the Johns actually provide a demonstration of why the C 14 should be abandoned or why it is more reasonable to suppose that a 1st century BCE copy of an older document supports Eisenman's rejected hypotheses. At least try to say something intelligent to support your love and devotion to Eisenman. Maybe you guys just find him irresistibly attractive? As I said I met him some time ago. I don't get the attraction. He seemed flabby and old even then. Why not go over to the other thread and look at Jason DeBuhn. He's more of a hunk. If you want rugged academic types there is James Tabor. If you are straight there is Candida Moss. Please explain the longing for Eisenman when the rest of the world has moved on.

[John2]

Stephan,

I would still like to see an example of a similarity between the DSS and Christianity that I've brought forward that you think is vague.

[Stephan Huller]

It's all vague. You admit the anti-polytheistic arguments apply to the Pharisees also (or maybe it's your doppelganger, I can't be sure any more). But somehow that's pushed to the side. How isn't that a vague argument? The fact that things can be attributed to other groups from antiquity means they are 'vague.'

[John2]

Stephan,

I don't think that carbon dating should be abandoned. I've never said or implied that. I've said that it has too many variables (which are mentioned in a link I provided on page three of this thread) to ignore or dismiss the correspondences between the issues, people and events described in the DSS and the first century CE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiocarbo ... iderations

As Spin has mentioned, variables are also an issue for Scrolls (such as the Psalms Pesher) that have been cleaned with carbon-based oils that could have affected their being dated well into the first century CE or after.

And I've already mentioned that I think this issue might be settled by the dating results of writings from the Bar Kochba era, and that the only ones I was able to find are in an article by Atwill that I quoted from and provided a link for (and which Neil Godfrey has also commented on here recently), and that I am taking his opinion with a grain of salt because I think he is biased (and I said that I think Eisenman is biased too, for that matter). Then I said that if anyone can find any carbon dating results of writings from the Bar Kochba era, I would take them into consideration.

So I've essentially already said what I have to say about the carbon dating issue, yet I've also been willing to play by the "rule" that the dating of the Habakkuk Pesher should trump the dating of pesharim that have been dated as being younger, and the Herodians match the "internal data" and fall within that carbon dating range. And I said that such internal data and a dating range of the first century BCE to just into the first century CE warrants at least seeing the DSS as being very close to "proto-Christian."

[John2]

Stephan,

You wrote:

"You admit the anti-polytheistic arguments apply to the Pharisees also."

I said that I agree with the idea that the DSS are generally anti-Pharisaic, and that given that there are sources that indicate that the Pharisees were in cahoots with the Herodians, the prohibitions against fornication (not polytheism) in the examples I gave that are directed at kings (specifically niece marriage and taking another wife while the other one is still alive) may have been applicable to them too.