Eisenman and the DSS

[Stephan Huller]

I just think there are too many variables to be 100% certain about them, is all

As opposed to Eisenman's theory which can dismissed with ALMOST absolute certainty. I would take 'I can't be a hundred percent certain' about something over 'I can almost certainly' reject something any day. Strange that two Johns who joined within hours of each other to troll for Eisenman can't quite see the difference between something being 'almost certain true' and 'almost certainly not true.'

Hmmm, that 'fine line' is so difficult to bridge between - 'I am almost certainly NOT going to with the lottery' and 'I am almost certainly going to hear John T or John2 troll for Eisenman at this forum.' For these dolts it's the same thing! I should just go out and start spending all that money I am going to win on Powerball right now because 'almost certainly' and 'almost certainly not' are the same thing!

[John2]

I wrote (in response to Spin):

"I'm unaware if he [Pompey] killed old people, women and children (the same goes for Antiochus)"

Correction: I forgot that Spin mentioned that 2 Mac. says something to this effect about Antiochus, so I will edit that part.

[Stephan Huller]

That's great. So there is at least one less reason to continue this purposeless exercise. Although it seems that you need to exhaust every possibility to rescue Eisenman's theory before you are willing to acknowledge the C 14 results, so maybe not so great.

Since you don't want to consider the actual dating of the manuscript in order to limit the possible candidates for its 'Teacher of Righteousness' perhaps we should start with 20th century examples that might apply to the DSS and move back through the centuries until we reach their actual age = first century BCE. After compiling a list of hundreds of possible 'Teachers of Righteousness' we can THEN AND ONLY THEN acknowledge the actual date of the Pesher by means of C 14 evidence and the fact the text is a copy of something older so as to limit that list to those candidates which might fit with the first century dating for the text.

Then and only then we might dare to consider the possibility that due to our limited knowledge of the age before the Common Era we might - dare I suggest it! - never know the identity of the individual.

Eeek! We might never know who the Teacher of Righteousness was! Oh no, the sky is falling, the sky is falling!

Oh but that would get in the way of your central tenet of stupidity - namely that WE HAVE TO KNOW who this person is, and if not Eisenman's claims are better than admitting our ignorance.

[Stephan Huller]

Why isn't this approach ever taken by these fucking idiots:

There is evidence in the scrolls to suggest that at one stage the teacher of righteousness functioned as high priest in Jerusalem, and some scholars have thought that the teacher held off1ce as high priest between the death of Alcimus in 159 BC (1 Macc. 9:56) and the appointment of Jonathan in 152 (1 Macc. 10:18 - 21). Nothing is said in 1 Maccabees as to whether there was a high priest in this period, while Josephus states that 'the city continued for seven years without a high priest' (Ant. xx. 10.3(237)). But the evidence of Josephus is unreliable in this matter (he elsewhere says that Judas was high priest (Ant. xii.10.6 (414)), and it is historically unlikely that there was no high priest - if only because without one the ritual of the day of atonement could not be celebrated. The view that the teacher of righteousness was the high priest, and that he was ousted from office by Jonathan in 152 is attractive and has a good deal to be said for it. It would fit in with the view of the origins of the Qumran community outlined above and would explain the hostility between the teacher of righteousness and the wicked priest. The actual name of the teacher is unknown and is likely to remain so. [Michael Knibb, The Qumran Community p. 12]

Why not just agree that we don't know, won't know who the Teacher of Righteousness is? Why should it be deemed preferable by these people to pick a name out of a hat or an individual who can't possibly be the Teacher of Righteousness (= James) rather than just admitting we will likely never know his identity? Why is a name so important? The world got along with out knowing any of these things for thousands of years. Why does it matter so much now?

[John2]

For the record, I'm okay if the Teacher of Righteousness is unknown. I don't think the sky will fall.

I think he could be James for the reasons I've been putting forward (and more that I haven't had time to mention yet).

The Teacher is called a priest, and I take into consideration the esoteric meaning of this word (and of the expression "sons of Zaddok") in CD (col. 3 and 4):

"God ordained for them by the hand of the Prophet Ezekiel, saying, 'The Priests, the Levites, and the sons of Zadok who kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel strayed from me, they shall offer me fat and blood [Ezk 44:15].'

The Priests are the converts of Israel who departed from the land of Judah, and (the Levites are) those who joined them. The sons of Zadok are the elect of Israel, the men called by name who shall stand at the end of days."

I'm at work right now so I have to use an online Vermes and he does not translate this accurately. The scribe has added a vav ("and") to the underlying Ezk. 44:15 (in addition to the one between "the Levites, the sons of Zadok" that Vermes does translate). Also, Vermes adds "(the Levites are)" in parenthesis in the second paragraph to try to explain what is actually a word play in the Hebrew on the first reference to the Levites, "nilvim," and this is a word used in the OT to refer to foreigners:

http://biblehub.com/hebrew/hannilvim_3867.htm

So the scribe has added vavs to the underlying biblical verse to accomodate their esoteric understanding that it means three things ("the priests and the Levites and the sons of Zadok") instead of the original one thing ("the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok").

And "the priests" are "the converts of Israel who departed from the land of Judah," not literal priests, and "the sons of Zadok" are
"the Elect of Israel, men called by name," not literal sons of Zadok, and "the Levites" are nilvim, or foreigners who joined them.

[Stephan Huller]

No he can't be James. That's already been established. So stop trying so hard to solve this mystery. Why not spend your efforts trying to solve why it is that we only love people who don't love us back or why it is that Americans can't pronounce the names of countries that begin with the letter 'I' (Eye-raq, Eye-ran, Eye-talian etc.).

[spin]

Spin,

Thanks for the response.

You wrote (in response to my reference to "kings of the peoples"):

"Couldn't find this (it's always good to cite the exact sources for such things), but when you find "peoples" in translations from the scrolls, it is almost certainly goyim, ie not Jews, so while Herod might not have been accorded highly, his kingdom was of the Jews, not the peoples."

It's in CD col. 8. I've already given the exact citation a few times previously so I didn't bother to for that summary.

If there has been no discussion about the text, please don't expect people to remember the fact that somewhere else in these several pages you mentioned "kings of the peoples".

Finally found it. 10-11 ...Serpents...kings of the peoples...kings of Yawan... Definite article "the peoples" also excludes the peoples meaning the Jews. In fact the kings of Yawan are a subset of the kings of the peoples.

"The peoples" here is "ha-amim." (There is also something else near it that I expect you will notice, but I'll leave that for a future discussion).

As for the Qumran coin data, I'm only assuming it has something to do with the DSS given their proximity to the caves and the revolutionary ethos of the Scrolls. Also, the large number of coins from the time of Alexander Janneaus seems in sync with the arguably pro-Alexander Janneaus attitude of the DSS, so there seems to be some kind of correlation between the two.

No strong link has been made between the settlement at Qumran and the caves. There is a stronger link between Jerusalem and the caves, as well as the caves near Jericho mentioned from memory by Origen and the caves where Timotheus records scrolls were found in early medieval times. The scrolls were not produced at Qumran. There are absolutely no traces of a small scribal community in the production of the scrolls, for you'd expect the same scribal hands appearing time and again. But this is not true. There is a vast number of scribal hands pointing directly to a big city context to support so many scribes. The Copper Scroll indicates deposits of scrolls in different locations along with hidings of priestly raiments, so there is very little connection between the caves and Qumran other than the settlement being used as a viaduct for the scrolls from Jerusalem.

The coins from the site tell us about occupation at the site, nothing more, nothing less.

I'm keeping an open mind about Kittim pertaining to Antiochus, given the merits of the Menelaus-WP theory, but I have my doubts about Pompey because, although he conquered Jerusalem and entered the Temple, I'm unaware if he killed old people, women and children, and Josephus says:

"Yet did not he touch that money nor any thing else that was there reposited [in the Temple]; but he commanded the ministers about the temple, the very next day after he had taken it, to cleanse it, and to perform their accustomed sacrifices. Moreover, he made Hyrcanus high priest ... by which means he acted the part of a good general, and reconciled the people to him more by benevolence than by terror" (War 1.7.6).

Regarding the possibility of the Psalms Pesher being a copy, that's an interesting observation to think about.

As for carbon dating, I do take it into consideration. I just think there are too many variables to be 100% certain about them, is all.

[John T]

@John2,

For the record, I'm okay if the Teacher of Righteousness is unknown. I don't think the sky will fall.

But on the other hand, if James the Just was the Teacher of Righteousness, the sky would fall for many. The sky being the theory that Jesus was not a real person but only a myth.

If, James the Just was the Teacher of Righteousness and the leader of the early Christian church, then that establishes a nexus between the Qumran community and Christianity. However, connecting the Essenes/DSS to Christianity is forbidden in the arrogant, elite circles of academia. Hence the reason the DSS was off limits to the public for a very long time. We owe a special thanks to Eisenman for his efforts to free the DSS.

Either way, I have no worries if more scrolls are found and the mystery of the Teacher of Righteousness is solved once and for all.

Until then, his identity will remain a mystery but (to me) the hard evidence, including C14 carbon-dating of the scrolls and artifacts have not ruled out James the Just and in fact, point to him as the prime suspect. That is, for those who are willing to open their eyes to the possibility and look at the hard evidence without a jaundice eye.

Best of luck in fending off the ankle-biters.
I am done with this thread.

Respectfully,

John the Ignorant

[ficino]

... but (to me) the hard evidence, including C14 carbon-dating of the scrolls and artifacts have not ruled out James the Just and in fact, point to him as the prime suspect. That is, for those who are willing to open their eyes to the possibility and look at the hard evidence without a jaundice eye.

Best of luck in fending off the ankle-biters.
I am done with this thread.

Respectfully,

John the Ignorant

On this thread I've seen a lot of instructive examples of ways of trying to apply evidence, and ways of weighting kinds of evidence, to arrive at plausible conclusions about history.

[Peter Kirby]

@Peter,

Are you saying that you don't believe C14 dating on the linen which was found with the scrolls is relevant and/or evidence?

Read the words and interpret them to the best of your ability in the strongest possible sense.

1. 1QS Community Rule was dated 203 BCE-122 CE
2. 1QH Thanksgiving Scroll was dated 47 BCE-118 CE
3. 1QApGen Genesis Apocryphon was dated 89 BCE-118 CE
4. Qumran 1Q linen was dated 167 BCE-233 CE

Those dates do not rule out

All of the above is as irrelevant as saying the sky is blue. Something fully consistent with either hypothesis is not relevant evidence.

Hint: pay close attention to the beginning and end of each range of dates. Think logically. And I mean that literally - think about logic and consistency.