Comments on BiblePlaces Blog: Those Pottery Makers at Qumran

Call me callous, but I don't see what hurt feeling...

2007-11-19T03:42:00.000-06:00

Call me callous, but I don't see what hurt feelings have to do with it. The monopolists are fighting for their careers, which they see as threatened by current research developments. They've dug themselves into a rut--they know exactly what's going on, but they can no longer admit they were wrong without having to explain why they denied it for so long in the face of the evidence. Their behaviour has been outrageously unethical--this must be exposed over and over again, until decent people like Peter, who are really the victims of this, begin to understand what has happened. Maybe Peter will read Magen and Peleg more carefully when he has time, and mull it over. Maybe we'll have a different kind of conversation one day in the future--I certainly hope so.

Back from a sabbatical-related stretch blissfully ...

2007-11-19T01:15:00.000-06:00

Back from a sabbatical-related stretch blissfully free of the net, I've just peeked in again on this discussion. Dear Peter Kirkup--I hope it will not make things worse to point out, with all good will, that referring to "purity and simplicity" of clay as somehow pointing to an Essene presence at Qumran simply doesn't amount to any kind of historical argument. It's basically a faith-
argument ("for those of us who KNOW they were present there, the Essenes can be read into that pure, simple clay"). The four (or five) inkwell thing as suggesting an Essene writing-factory out there in the desert is unfortunately along the same lines. It's clear that for you and many other biblical-studies people, the "treasure" of the Dead Sea Scrolls is wedded to the "Essene" idea--to the point where common sense goes out the window. (The conceptual sources of this attachment would itself be a fascinating subject to explore historically.) Then when the deep problems with the argument are raised, feelings get hurt and normally I'm sure very nice and decent people end up defending all kinds of disgraceful academic behavior by their colleagues and so forth. (After all, their feelings have been hurt too, so in the end you can understand why they would blackball, defame, etc. those who have pointed out the grave weaknesses in the theory they're attached to, and suggested compelling alternate explanations.) Well, as I've already said, this is unfortunately what usually seems to happen when paradigms collapse--the old ideas get all shredded and don't really work any more, so that sort of thing steps in to replace them. I suppose saying this aligns me again, for you, with the rude and arrogant ones--I'm really very sorry, but how else can one explain such arguments (not to speak of the reference to "Jewish friends")on the part of someone who surely has some common sense? Sometimes, in resolving conflicts instead of feeling hurt the best thing to do is simply say something along these lines: "well, you may in fact be right; and we all have to own up, like adults, to the possibility that a scholarly blunder may indeed have been made. And it is the case that some of the things we have done to try to avoid eventually owning up to this possibility may simply have been very wrong."

This is starting to sound like some kind of a tria...

2007-11-19T00:52:00.000-06:00

This is starting to sound like some kind of a trial in which the judge says "answer the question yes or no"--this is the second or the third time you've said I haven't "answered your questions." Frankly I don't know what "questions" I haven't answered--I've pointed out that your LXX-Essene reasonings are speculative and unsupported by any serious historical evidence whatsoever--so I'm sure you'll understand that I can't accept the premises behind your "questions," for all the reasons I've amply explained.

As for my use of the words "snide indifference," I stand by them for reasons that should be evident to you, an authority on "conflict resolution," if you re-read your responses shrugging off my points about an ongoing scandal, combined with your casually false reference to an article about a "conference brochure," your preposterous attempt to claim that Magen and Peleg "agree" with you, and your little insinuations about the "Golb camp" being "weak at textual analysis." Just study your own comments and you'll see how "conflicts" are generated. I wish you good luck "monitoring" the continuing controversy.

I will be glad for the controversy to continue and...

2007-11-18T22:31:00.000-06:00

I will be glad for the controversy to continue and will continue to monitor it, but not with you. You persistently fail to answer my questions, and I have never called you anything like "snide". So stop it, it is beneath you, and if not, you answer your own question, unfavorably. Goodbye.

First of all, I have "admitted" only that the Esse...

2007-11-18T20:48:00.000-06:00

First of all, I have "admitted" only that the Essenes may have had a role in a small portion of the 900 scrolls. I have no problem at all with Origen, Mckenzie and the Encyclopedia Britannica, but none of these sources demonstrate a connection between Essenes and LXX. That connection, as I asserted earlier, is speculation resulting from the assumption, now rejected by major researchers, that Essenes lived at Qumran and wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls there. They are always trying to come up with another Qumran inkwell in the hope of establishing this connection. Some of the inkwells found at Qumran appear to have dated from the Roman period; others are claimed by dealers to have been found there without any proof; the place was constructed as a fortress and would hardly have been handed over to a group of Essenes; and inkwells have been found in archaeological digs all over Israel and Jordan (five of them "together on a floor" at Shu'afat, just a few kilometers from Jerusalem), without anyone suggesting that they indicate the presence of "scriptoriums" in those sites.

Second, throughout this discussion I have been trying to deal with a visible incapacity on your part to face up to the published findings of a team of major archaeologists and other scholars who represent the current state of research in this field of studies. It's not a question of "entertaining arguments," it's a matter of doing your homework--you hadn't even read the Magen and Peleg report, and when you did read it (or at any rate a few pages from it), you selectively quoted from it in an entirely misleading manner.

Finally, your suggestion that Golb is "not welcome" at conferences because of an "attack style," is another offensively ignorant remark on your part. As everyone knowns, not only Golb, but all the proponents of the Jerusalem theory have been excluded from conferences organized by the Qumran-Essene clique. And the famously "open" New York Academy of Sciences conference organized by Golb (you can google it to see the contents of the published proceedings) was attended by proponents of all the different theories including traditional scrolls scholars and their opponents--i.e., the very people who systematically exclude Golb, took advantage of his invitation. This was not an "attack," it was a fascinating civil debate, widely reported on in newspapers at the time. But of course you know nothing of that and have absolutely no interest in it--the only thing that concerns you is getting in another cheap shot to try and justify an obviously abhorrent policy (to say nothing of the patently false claims) being pursued by the former monopolists and their students in an attempt to manufacture a "consensus" on the "sectarian" nature of Qumran.

My parting shot to you (if this discussion ends here) is this: I fully respect your interest in popular speculations about the Essenes, but I must say that the snide indifference you have repeatedly displayed towards the ethical problems I have signaled is quite astonishing for someone who claims to work in the field of "conflict resolution." Unless the community of biblical scholars seriously confronts those problems and the role they have played in generating the Dead Sea Scrolls controversy, the conflict will simply go on, and you more than anyone else should be troubled and concerned by that.

Sorry I don't know your name, but whoever you are,...

2007-11-18T16:40:00.000-06:00

Sorry I don't know your name, but whoever you are, I am going to offer some unasked for advice.

I came to this discussion with an open mind. I have been willing to explore various possibilities. My main interest in the Dead Sea Scrolls is the treasure they have provided to biblical studies. I am not a fundamentalist and literally my three best friends are Jewish. I have published articles in the field of conflict resolution and forgiveness.

Although I have neither agreed nor been convinced by the Jerusalem theory, I think it presents some questions and perspectives worthy of consideration. In order to do so I was willing to entertain the ideas that Qumran was not linked to the scrolls or the Essenes. Although I have made some mistakes, I think I have made and expect to continue to make a good faith effort in that regard. I considered the materials you referred my to and tried to discuss them openly.

You have not afforded me the same consideration. Although you admit that the Essenes may have had a role in the scrolls, you won't entertain the argument because there may have been other unnamed sects. I refer you to McKenzie, Origen, Encyclopaedia Britannica and you come back with Wikopaedia. Not to diss Wiko, but its not the same.

So I entertain your arguments but you won't entertain mine. End of debate. But might I suggest that this attack style that so often gets the better of you might be the reason that Golb is not very welcome at conferences?

P.S., then you get the parting shot. While searching for your reference, a came across a report of another inkwell find at Qumran. And as for that pottery, it is well suited for the purposes of the Essenes (e.g. simplicity, purity of clay). Anyway, better luck elsewhere.

Debate is rendered pointless simply by your insist...

2007-11-18T12:37:00.000-06:00

Debate is rendered pointless simply by your insistence on deriving a speculative conclusion (that "Essenes" were using the LXX scrolls) from ordinary facts. Even a basic source like the wikipedia article on LXX provides no evidence whatsoever for your conclusion. Here's what they say:

"By the 3rd century BCE, Jewry was situated primarily within the Hellenistic world. Outside of Judea, many Jews may have needed synagogue readings or texts for religious study to be interpreted into Greek, producing a need for the LXX. Alexandria held the greatest diaspora Jewish community of the age and was also a great center of Greek letters. Alexandria is thus likely the site of LXX authorship, a notion supported by the legend of Ptolemy and the 72 scholars. The Septuagint enjoyed widespread use in the Hellenistic Jewish diaspora and even in Jerusalem, which had become a rather cosmopolitan (and therefore Greek-speaking) town. Both Philo and Josephus show a reliance on the Septuagint in their citations of Jewish scripture."

Was Josephus too an Essene? Should this question be "submitted to a qualified body"?

Similarly, the portion of that article on the "Relationship between the Septuagint and the Masoretic text" states simply that "the discovery of many fragments in the Dead Sea scrolls that agree with the Septuagint rather than the Masoretic Text proved that many of the variants in Greek were also present in early Semitic manuscripts." How astonishing that they managed to come up with such a guarded assertion, using the term "Semitic" without introducing any preconception about the "Essenes"!

Thus, your assertion that the "Golb camp," by which I assume you mean all those scholars who have rejected the Qumran-sectarian theory, "asks good questions" without answering them is just another cheap shot. You too ask good questions, but your answers seem to be entirely speculative.

One final point: yesterday I referred to "contradictions" among defenders of the Qumran-sectarian theory, without giving examples. Just for the record, consider that this "camp" can be divided into people who think the "community" was an Essene group or some other sect; that the imagined sect lived "in" Qumran or "around" Qumran; and that they wrote "some" of the scrolls or "all" of them. I could give you little snippets from books and articles speculating on these different scenarios, conclude that there are "some contradictions" here, and suggest that somehow this is an embarrassment for the Qumran-sectarian "camp." But unlike you, I don't resort to that kind of argument, and I don't pepper my comments with snide little remarks about how, according to you, an eminent Hebraist is "weak on textual analysis" or about "submitting suggestions to a qualified body." I simply try and face up to the current state of research in an interesting field, without relying on preconceptions about the "Essenes."

Have a good day.

Wow…(said without the exclamation point of surpris...

2007-11-18T11:14:00.000-06:00

Wow…(said without the exclamation point of surprise but with the dot dot dot of a sad, growing realization).
Study of the differences between LXX and MT did not begin with the Dead Sea scrolls, but goes back at least to Alexandrian born Origen (185-254). The Septuagint was the one attested translation in the great Library of Alexandria which burned down in the third century (cf Enc. Brit.) This is a major scholarly tradition that predates the Qumranologists, just as LXX predated the Essenes who relied on it. So I am not asking that Magen and Peleg’s conclusions be reviewed by their Qumranologist opponents, but by scholars proficient in the areas of linguistic and textual analysis.
The character and provenance of DSS are not minor matters to those who think that these issues speak to the meaning of these texts.
I had hoped that we could proceed to other matters which are also of interest to me, but we are stuck here. I will end with a contention that I began with: the Golb camp asks some good questions (which I have endeavored to answer) but fails to answer good questions in return (which is what you have done).
Under these conditions, why would anyone want to try to debate you? Debate is rendered pointless.

(1) These "contradictions" that seem so important ...

2007-11-18T03:39:00.000-06:00

(1) These "contradictions" that seem so important to you, to me seem quite minor. If one reads the entire argument, one cannot help but see that Magen and Peleg have concluded the scrolls came from the Jerusalem region ("towns outside Jerusalem"), and were hidden by refugees fleeing the siege. They also believe the texts reflect the views of all the sects and currents of Palestinian Judaism of that period. Golb and Elior might not agree with this exact scenario to the extent it is physically limited to "towns outside Jerusalem," but the general direction in which all of these researchers are going is quite clear: towards Jerusalem, towards diversity, away from the Qumran-sectarian theory. It's perfectly normal for scholars to disagree on the details within such broader scenarios--just as there are all kinds of variations of the Qumran-sectarian theory.

(2) No one's "dictating conclusions." See my earlier comments on the outrageous refusal of tradional scrolls scholars to debate their opponents. You blithely ignored those comments, and now you talk about "submitting suggestions to a qualified body." A body that has lost all credibility by refusing to debate its opponents is quite the opposite of "qualified." Furthermore, as far as linguistics and textual analysis of Hebrew manuscripts go, there is no more prominent living scholar than Golb, as is well known; if you are not aware of this you are simply ignorant in the field. I won't waste my time pointing you to the many sources on this (such as his bibliography which is readily available on-line) that you can easily find yourself.

(3) None of this shows that Magen and Peleg "agree" with you, as you asserted they did. I'd really like to understand--how could you have made such a ridiculous claim? Instead of acknowledging that you were selectively quoting them to push your agenda, you calmly ignore the point and get in a few cheap shots by pointing to "contradictions." Be serious, anyone can see through that kind of nonsense.

So let’s compare these quotes from pg. 65 of Magen...

2007-11-18T01:11:00.000-06:00

So let’s compare these quotes from pg. 65 of Magen/Peleg:

“Clearly these texts did not originate in the official libraries in Jerusalem and in the Temple, which were under priestly control. Rather, they originated in sectarian libraries, as well as in libraries in Jewish towns outside Jerusalem.”

“The Biblical scrolls from Qumran are non-sectarian; they reflect the state and tradition of the biblical text in all of the Land of Israel.”

So it seems as though you have some contradictions in your own sources. I would forward the suggestion that neither Golb nor Magen/Peleg are qualified to dictate conclusions on linguistic/textual matters. Let them submit their suggestions to a qualified body and I would spend the time to pay attention. In the meantime, please do your homework, because that is what I do.

Well, you have identified an apparent difference o...

2007-11-17T20:01:00.000-06:00

Well, you have identified an apparent difference of opinion between Magen and Peleg on the one hand, and Rachel Elior on the other hand, regarding one portion of the scrolls (the portion she believes were written by Temple priests). But you are being quite selective in your quotations, because on the very same page 65 Magen and Peleg say: "The Biblical scrolls from Qumran are non-sectarian; they reflect the state and tradition of the biblical text in all of the Land of Israel. Can we state the same of sectarian scrolls fround at Qumran? These were sectarian texts, but not all were necessarily composed by the Essenes--and certainly not by Essenes inhabiting Qumran, but, as noted by Josephus, in every city and village in Judea. We will go one step further and ask whether the Qumran sectarian texts may in fact represent not only the Essenes, but all sects and streams of opinion present in Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period."

Let me cite the first sentence again: "The Biblical scrolls from Qumran are non-sectarian; they reflect the state and tradition of the biblical text in all of the Land of Israel." How does this "agree" with what you are arguing?

As for the rest of the paragraph I've quoted, compare the statement by Golb on page 11 of his 1980 article: "Determination of the nature of the concepts and practices described in the scrolls may be best achieved not by pressing them into the single sectarian bed of Essenism, but by separating them out from one another, through internal analysis, into various spiritual currents which appear to have characterized Palestinian Judaism of the intertestamental period."

Clearly, 27 years later, Magen and Peleg are saying exactly the same thing ("all sects and streams of opinion present in Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period"), and I don't see how you can legitimately assert, as you did above, that they "largely agree with your position."

So who is "mixing up terms and making this debate untenable"? I was simply responding to your own use of the word "legend," but you answer by selectively quoting a passage in what frankly seems to me to be a misleading manner.

So I will accept Magen and Peleg's statement that "the Qumran scrolls are textually multifaceted: they differ in writing, spelling, language and content. Some are similar to the Samaritan version of the Torah, others to the Septuagint translation, and still others--especially the later texts--to the Massorah version." As you can plainly see, in the very next sentence they explicitly state that the biblical scrolls are "non-sectarian." Therefore, they obviously don't buy into this theory of Essene authorship of texts that are similar to the Septuagint or the Massorah, and neither do I.

In fact, even if one were to regard those texts as sectarian (which I for one certainly do not), Magen and Peleg would still be saying that they were written by "all sects and streams of opinion present in Judaism at the end of the Second Temple period." So hopefully you will now reconsider whether they "agree" with your Essene interpretation, so the two of us can at least agree on what we're talking about--that in itself would perhaps be a major accomplishment in the field of Scrolls studies.

p.s. Magen and Peleg, pg. 65: "Clearly these te...

2007-11-17T18:36:00.000-06:00

p.s. Magen and Peleg, pg.
65: "Clearly these texts did not originate in the official libraries in Jerusalem and in the Temple, which were under priestly control. Rather, they originated in sectarian libraries, as well as in libraries in Jewish towns outside Jerusalem."

Magen and Peleg, pg. 65: "The Qumran scrolls are ...

2007-11-17T18:12:00.000-06:00

Magen and Peleg, pg. 65: "The Qumran scrolls are textually multi-faceted: they differ in writing, spelling, language and content. Some are similar to the Samaritan version of the Torah, others to the Septuagint translation, and still others -- especially the later texts -- to the Massorah version."
You are really mixing up terms and this is making the debate untenable. I am not relying on "legends" and "traditions" -- I know of no dispute among scholars that LXX originates from the Alexandria. I also know of no dispute that many of the scrolls, such as Isaiah, are LXX versions.
This is considered "internal evidence" and it has as much standing as physical evidence. If you banish the internal evidence, you are no longer talking about scrolls, but pieces of leather. It will not do to exclude vast areas of research such as linguistic and textual analysis and expect to be taken seriously on historical matters.
A good basic reference for LXX and DSS is John L. McKenzie's Dictionary of the Bible.

P.p.s. Our comments crossed. I don't believe Mage...

2007-11-17T13:36:00.000-06:00

P.p.s. Our comments crossed. I don't believe Magen and Peleg agree with your position at all. Please point me towards where they discuss LXX, MT, etc. I recall their remarks on Essenes ("or for that matter other groups") as being specifically made with respect to the "sectarian" scrolls, not LXX. Therefore I cannot agree with you, because numerically speaking the "sectarian" texts are only a small portion of the 900 scrolls. But we certainly can agree that Essenes may have been involved in authorship of the sectarian texts. Our difference on that point is that I emphasize the word "may," and remain convinced that the sectarian texts are probably the writings of various "brethren groups" living in or around Jerusalem, and who may or may not have been Essenes.

P.s. I just reread your comment of yesterday regar...

2007-11-17T13:27:00.000-06:00

P.s. I just reread your comment of yesterday regarding MT and LXX, and I think I can explain my difference with you on this as follows: traditions or "legends" (the term you yourself employ) about how certain things came to be, are in my view the weakest form of historical evidence. For example, there is a "tradition" that God gave the "law" to Moses on Mount Sinai, and to this day deeply religious Jews believe that the entire "oral tradition" contained in the Talmud was merely written down by the rabbis, who inherited it from the oral chain beginning with Moses. But no serious historian would take this as an even remotely credible explanation of how the laws discussed in the Talmud actually came to be formulated--even religiously devout historians recognize this, and strive to separate their beliefs from actual historical reasoning. (In an earlier comment you mentioned Homer, whose epics were written in a formulaic style that fits what is known about oral poetry, but even on that point there is great disagreement among literary historians--many believe that he took an oral tradition and utterly remodeled it, so that only little nuggets here and there were actually identical to the orally recited poem.) At any rate, such traditions or "legends" have a very weak value as historical evidence when compared with concrete physical data (500 scribes, etc.) and actual historical documents such as the Copper Scroll. Am I to believe they really used a wooden horse to get into Troy because of the oral legend set down in writing by Homer? Of course not. In our case, complex phenomona coalesce and transform themselves over time, and legends arise to explain them--none of this amounts to anything I can accept as a convincing argument--and I say this on methodological principle, not simply because it doesn't fit the view I find to be stronger.

Sorry,exhibit catalog. I did read it but found it...

2007-11-17T12:55:00.000-06:00

Sorry,exhibit catalog. I did read it but found it woefully inadequate on the LXX/MT issue. Magen and Peleg are much better on this and largely agree with my position. Cool photos too, so thanks.
So at this juncture is it fair to say that there is a great deal of evidence to link a large portion of the scrolls to the Essenes? If you will agree to this then we can get on to the issues of the diversity of the scrolls, the number of scribal hands, etc.
And if we keep this in good humor, maybe we can have fun identifying who has clay feet, whether or not it is good to get fired, what are the elements of a sound vessel versus a discard, and who is simply a crackpot. Just kidding.

The link to Magen and Peleg is: http://www.antiqui...

2007-11-17T00:52:00.000-06:00

The link to Magen and Peleg is:
http://www.antiquities.org.il/images/shop/jsp/JSP6_Qumran_color.pdf

See especially their conclusions on the scrolls at the end.

As for your argument about the Essenes, I simply don't find any of it to amount to a convincing historical or archaeological argument. You relate an interesting legend, and one can no doubt speculate that Essenes or a related group did have something to do with some of the LXX scrolls, but I don't see a strong argument being offered for that (see the points made about Essenes and others by Magen and Peleg). I'm trying to look at the totality of the evidence pertaining to the Scrolls as a whole, including the corpus of around 100 texts attributed to Temple priests by Elior, the 500 scribal hands, the Copper Scroll, the archaeological evidence discussed by Magen and Peleg, and the reasonable explanation of all of it offered by Golb and others--explanations that take account of possible Essene involvement in authorship of some of the scrolls.

The piece by Golb that I linked in an earlier comment was his review of the San Diego scrolls exhibit catalog, not of a "conference brochure." Statements like this can make one think that you didn't actually read the article. Incidentally, he now has another review out which is also worth reading, on the "virtual reality" Qumran film being shown at the same exhibit. The link is:

http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/san_diego_virtual_reality_2007.pdf

Thanks for the apology, it helps to proceed.I woul...

2007-11-16T23:39:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the apology, it helps to proceed.

I would be glad to look at the Magen material and I have not found a ready link to it, so it would help for you to provide it.

Previously you insisted that I look at the Golb review of a conference brochure. Although I had already responded to your depiction of it, and later stated that I had found nothing substantive in the original that you had not already conveyed, you have not responded to my points on the matter. You give a small indication in you last response that you have started to look into the matter of LXX, but you have failed to respond to my points on the difference between LXX and MT. This does not give me confidence that you know the topic, so let me start from scratch.
Language was first oral then written. Homer is the most attested of an oral tradition (memorization through the generations)to become written (in the phonetic script of Greek). I have a friend who is a Yemenite Jew who memorized the Hebrew Bible from an early age.
Written languages known are either pictoral (Egyptian, Chinese) or phonetic (Greek, Hebrew, Latin).
When you ask "who wrote such and such", this can be a complex question.
First is who came up with the story and spoke it, and in what language. Then who first wrote it down, and in what language. Homer was first spoken for many generations before it was written, in this case in the same general language.
The legend is that the Septuagint was written by the "seventy" in Greek Alexandrian Egypt. Greek was the written but a secondary spoken language of the Jews who were literate. LXX emphasized the prophets.
When the Hasmoneans failed to stem the corruption of the temple system and suffered from brutal infighting, the Essenes presented a viable reform that relied on the LXX tradition of the prophets. They believed that the prophets were speaking to them to resist the corruption.
In the meantime, the Pharisees relied on the MT tradition that emphasized the Torah while they collaborated with the Romans. While both the Essenes and the Pharisees perished with the destruction of the temple, MT continued with the Rabbinic Synagogue and LXX continued with the primitive gospel tradition, particularly John (Peter and Paul were more MT influenced).
So the Essenes did not write LXX, nor were DSS our first evidence of LXX, but DSS did add substantaily to our knowledge of LXX.
I would like you to respond to my basic points on LXX and MT before I respond to the Magen material. I am tempted to pre-respond to the Magen thing because I suspect there are things about the Essenes you are not considering, but I want to keep this exchange fair. You insist on something and I respond, now I insist and it is time for you to respond.

P.s. When writing the final paragraph of my preced...

2007-11-16T14:57:00.000-06:00

P.s. When writing the final paragraph of my preceding comment, I suspected that there was something wrong with it--and I have now verified that in fact it was not Pliny who stated the Essenes number several thousand people throughout Palestine, but Josephus himself. I'm sorry for this mistake which resulted from erroneous information that came up on a google search I did to refresh my memory. At any rate, this further strengthens my point about the 500 scribal hands, since you yourself agree that Josephus is our "best source" on the Essenes.

I should also point out that I spoke rather glibly on the question of Essene authorship of apocalyptic texts. Before the Scrolls were discovered, scholars discussed the authorship of those texts, and some scholars did argue that Essenes wrote some of them. But this was a debated question, and certainly no one ever argued that Essenes wrote all of them, and that was my point.

Incidentally, is the article by Magen and Peleg (not the BAR trash by Shanks, but the scholarly article in the Brill volume) available to you for reading? If not, I would be happy to have a copy of it sent to you. I am quite sure that if you read it, our disagreements will largely vanish.

Yes, sorry for my rush.I don't believe one can pro...

2007-11-16T10:07:00.000-06:00

Yes, sorry for my rush.

I don't believe one can properly assert that Golb's view is weak in the area of textual analysis. After all, he was the one who pointed out that all sorts of specific ideational, doctrinal differences among the texts make it difficult to conclude they were written by a single sect; he was the one who pointed out how silly it is to read "Damascus" as a metaphor for Qumran; he was the one who pointed out that no doctrine of celibacy has been identified in any one of the Scrolls, despite claims to the contrary of various scholars; and so on and so forth--I fail to see how any of this amounts to weakness at textual analysis.

Now, to address your point about the "apocalyptic tradition expressed in the majority of the 'sectarian' texts and the Septuagint versions of many other texts." My understanding is that the Septuagint, Pseudepigrapha, etc., were known and studied long before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, and no one suggested that they were authored by Essenes. The idea that the authors of those texts were Essenes results from the prior identification of the Scrolls as Essene writings (this is what I mean by "assumptions" and "putting the cart before the horse"). If one identifies the Scrolls as the remains of Jerusalem libraries, all one can legitimately conclude is that the apocalyptic genre was popular among literate Palestinian Jews of the Second Temple period.

You say most people lived in villages. My understanding is that "most" people lived in Jerusalem, a major urban center (estimates of its population range from 55,000 to 3,000,000, the figure stated by Josephus who, as you say, is our best source). Clearly, if we are looking for a literate, "educated" population of the kind capable of maintaining various "organized traditions" and reading/producing Scrolls such as the ones hidden along with the Copper Scroll in the caves near Qumran, that--Jerusalem--is where we should look: the social and economic infrastructure required for such training and organization tends to exist in cities, not villages.

Allow me to insist again on the point I raised before I left, concerning the corpus of around 100 Scrolls specifically identified by Elior as being written by Temple priests (who, of course, were educated members of the urban population). You don't seem to have responded to this--am I missing something here, or is Rachel Elior weak on textual analysis? At any rate, if you would be willing to grant that those texts were the writings of Temple priests, I would be willing to grant that non-celibate Essenes wrote all of the "sectarian" Scrolls despite the various contradictions among them. I still wouldn't really believe it, but I would be willing to grant it because, given the steadfast nature of our respective beliefs, it would be a fair exchange.

This being said, I would again suggest that the picture of the "three sects" provided by Josephus is probably not accurate. This does not mean that he was not indeed our best source--apart from the Scrolls themselves, which force us to question his description. At any rate, I see no reason in anything he says to discount Pliny's estimate of several thousand Essenes living in all of Palestine; compare that with the 500 scribal hands found among the Scrolls (a fact concealed from the public until the horrifying, immoral Dead Sea Scrolls monopoly was broken fifteen years ago), and the problems confronting the Essene theory become quite evident.

Please don't misrepresent what I say about Josephu...

2007-11-15T22:36:00.000-06:00

Please don't misrepresent what I say about Josephus with your "assumption" methodology. I never said that everything Josephus wrote is accurate, but that he appears more knowledgable than Pliny on the Essenes. He wasn't an Essene so shouldn't be expected to have intimate knowledge, only better familiarity than others.
Now let's not confuse things with a hypothetical proliferation of "sects". Most people at the time in that area lived in villages and other rural locations, were illiterate, and practiced folk religion with a fluid array of oral traditions. These aren't "sects" but just plain "folk" doing what they can manage to celebrate and worship. The organized traditions we are talking about have educated leaders. The Essenes, while valuing and in part practicing asceticism, had an educated tradition involved in their religious observance. By the way, I know of no evidence that either Jesus or John the Baptist were literate, although they were obviously proficient in oral traditions.
But in your rush, you explained nothing about your rejection of the association between the apacolyptic tradition expressed in the majority of the "sectarian" texts and the Septuagint versions of many other texts. This is where Golb's view seems weak, in the area of textual analysis.

Very busy right now as I'm going to Seattle tomorr...

2007-11-13T16:46:00.000-06:00

Very busy right now as I'm going to Seattle tomorrow, will hazard a brief reply only to the final paragraph and will get back to you in few days. I would agree on some of the sectarian scrolls (although there are differences even among those); I would not agree on the LXX texts; but I think the real problem is that the portrait of Judaism given to us by Josephus (the "three sects," etc.) probably simplifies matters enormously to make it intelligible for his audience (and the accuracy of the picture given by Josephus is of course the ultimate "assumption"); the scrolls seem to give a much more complex picture, so that we could come out in the end concluding that there were many more groups or "sects"--once we parse all the texts. But it should be emphasized again that Golb never denies that Essenes may have authored some of the scrolls. Even under that assumption, however, the question of the broader historical significance of the scrolls as a whole would remain. Did sectarians hide these manuscripts and everything described in the Copper Scroll, or were sectarians participating, among others, in a broader phenomenon connected with a major historical event--the sacking of Jerusalem? To turn the question around, what about the corpus of around 100 texts identified by Elior as being written by Temple priests? She believes that it's "obvious" that priests wrote these texts. I know this is probably not a very clear reply but again, I'm in a rush.

To “no assumptions”,This was helpful, and I am gla...

2007-11-11T17:51:00.000-06:00

To “no assumptions”,

This was helpful, and I am glad to be engaged in a more orderly discussion. The cards are now more spread out on the table. The way I prefer to operate is to respond to your points and make some of my own. If you then respond to my points and make your own, I will consider this a fair conversation.
If by “no assumptions” you claim to have none, I beg to disagree. The claim to not have assumptions is itself an assumption. I prefer to claim that I will endeavor to explicate as many of my assumptions to the greatest extent possible.
As for “conference tactics”, I don’t have a dog in that fight. I have enough dogs in other fights and don’t have the time to worry about this one. What I am interested in is the subject matter and the research findings.
Although the link to the Golb article did not initially work, I have since found the article and don’t think that it provides much more relevant than what you have provided. One of the things I found unclear in Golb’s article is his view of languages: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic. He doesn’t distinguish spoken versus written. Spoken language changes more quickly than written. In the ancient world it was not uncommon to write a different language than one spoke.
Let me address your comments by laying out five cards and then playing them together: 1) Septuagint (LXX), 2) Masoretic Text (MT), 3) Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), 4) Qumran, 5) Essenes.
The Septuagint is not just a collection of texts, it is a textual tradition associated with Alexandria, Egypt, the solar calendar, etc. Golb is probably right about the development of the Septuagint over time because it may be the tradition that produced 3 and 4 Maccabees.
The Masoretic Text is not just a collection of texts, it is a textual tradition associated with Babylon, Mesopotamia, the lunar calendar, etc. The rigor of copying in this tradition prevents it from alterations that could result in confusing MT texts with LXX texts.

The fact that what we have extant of the originally Greek Septuagint are first century(ish) BCE Hebrew scrolls and the earliest extant versions of the Masoretic tradition are tenth century CE codices does not alter the traditions these texts represent. The LXX texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls, being Hebrew translations of the original Alexandrian Greek, shows that written language was catching up with spoken language – the daily language in Roman Palestine probably including Hebrew and Aramaic.
So many of the DSS texts are clearly LXX versions (not just texts that are not in MT, but also versions of Isaiah, Kings, Samuel, etc) that I don’t see how one can get a good understanding of those documents without addressing this fact.

Now to start sorting the cards between the Qumranologists (Qs) and the Jerusalem theory (Js). The Qs link Qumran, DSS and the Essenes. The Js de-link Qumran, DSS and the Essenes. For argument sake (and I don’t yet give up the argument), let us accept a de-link between Qumran and DSS, as well as the Essenes and Qumran. But can you credibly say that there is no major link between the Essenes and DSS? Not just the “sectarian” texts, but the LXX ones as well? If not the Essenes, then who would be associated with the character of these texts? To date, the descriptions of the Essenes best fit this character and no competitive alternatives exist. The idea that the Sadducees were also Zadokites ignores the apparent antipathy that the “sectarian” documents seem to have for the brutal Hasmonean rulers.
At the same time they opposed the Pharisaic association with the Temple system and collaboration with the Romans. The Essenes would have to have been careful to distinguish their spiritual opposition to the Romans from the militant opposition of the Zealots. The Romans were probably suspicious of them, as they were of Jesus and John the Baptist, and the Essenes may have been reluctant to openly alienate the Hasmonean powers for that reason.
The association between the Essenes and a large part of DSS therefore likely exists even if the Essenes never set foot at Qumran and there is indeed no relation between the cave deposits and a settlement at Qumran.
Your move.

To begin with, one of my main interests is the soc...

2007-11-08T01:36:00.000-06:00

To begin with, one of my main interests is the sociology of research, whence my remarks on the international conferences--these facts are well known, they've been reported on in all kinds of newspapers and one doesn't need to have been the victim of such tactics oneself to see what is going on and to realize that it's wrong.

I already explained that the Scrolls are a necessarily incomplete, but already richly variegated, collection; some of the libraries represented among them were mainstream and others were not. So again, we need to be clear on what the theory is and what it isn't, otherwise we are talking in circles.

Apparently, you did not read Golb's article linked in one of the comments above, where he explains the proper meaning of the term "masoretic." From what he says, I see that the term is not even used in connection with scrolls, but only with codices, of which none were found at Qumran. Perhaps you are right that the book of Jubilees would not have been part of a "mainstream" library, although I think that here too you are putting the cart before the horse. But a portion of the scrolls clearly came from libraries that were not "mainstream," so I don't see what effect that point has on the argument.

This, of course, leads me to conclude that there were not only "mainstream" libraries in Jerusalem (and also, that the scrolls oblige us to challenge our preconceptions about what was and was not mainstream at that point in time). But I do not "assume" that the scrolls came from Jerusalem; rather, I have kept up with the latest research to the best of my ability, and I see highly respectable scholars concluding that this explanation fits the material evidence better.

As for Josephus, he does not describe any group of Essenes living by the Dead Sea. The Qumran-Essene theory was based on Pliny's specific description of those Essenes, not on Josephus. If all you had was Josephus, the theory would be even more remotely speculative.

I'm perfectly happy to agree with you that the inhabitants of Qumran were not isolated and had protection from the powers that be, I simply don't see any kind of evidence that those inhabitants were Essenes, nor do I see any evidence whatseover that scribal copying of literary texts took place at Qumran. The celibate refugees described by Pliny certainly weren't being protected by the powers that be, so there's a gap in reasoning here that has to be bridged.

Ultimately, I believe that once you start modifying the old theory the way you are doing, the question is bound to arise whether there is any reason to hold on to it at all. So we disagree about the preponderance of the evidence. It seems to me that it's a respectable disagreement and should be spoken about more often, and more openly, among people who are currently teaching in the field as well as among interested kibbitzers like you, me, and others like Peter Kirby and Stephen Goranson. The passion everyone puts into their opinions tends to lead to tension and expressions of anger, but at least we're proving that a discussion is possible.

OK, let us insist on methodology. But first, a fe...

2007-11-07T22:17:00.000-06:00

OK, let us insist on methodology. But first, a few comments.

Assuming you are an academic, I want to thank you for the HUGE compliment of saying that my conjectures are "not entirely implausible". Knowing that in an academic debate of this sort, a significant error on my part would invite a major attack, I am pleased that what I am getting for the most part is quibbling.

I myself am not an academic and have never attended any of the conferences you speak of. I am sorry if you have been ill-treated but at the same time this issue does not involve me. I am a clinical social worker with an interest in the history of religions.

Now for methodology. You write that I "assume that Essenes lived at Qumran, and then attempt to explain the anamolies by inventing scenarios." My counter is that you assume that the scrolls are not related to the Essenes and come from mainstream Jerusalem libraries without even attempting to explain the anamolies. For instance (and this is one of many), why would the scrolls include multiple copies of Jubilees when Jubilees is not in the Masoretic corpus? This is a major anamoly involving a great deal of evidence that you have repeatedly avoided addressing.

I didn't bring Pliny into the debate, but rather Josephus. Nobody has responded to my points about Josephus, but somehow Pliny keeps coming up. I mentioned Pliny only to suggest that Josephus is the richer and more credible source on the subject, but instead of addressing this, I get quibbling about Pliny.

Now about theories. One theory that explains everything may be preferable, but what do you do when it doesn't? In the social sciences, you can try to explain behavior by nature, nurture, or free will. According to the evidence to date, if you try to explain all behavior with any one of these theories you get laughed out of the room. Life is too complex for that. With the scenarios I present I am suggesting that history is too complex for that as well.

Along these lines, don't take my arguments for more than they intend to convey. For instance, my reason for pointing out that any significant settlement at Qumran would require outside support is not an argument for why Qumran had an Essene settlement (at least for a period to account for the proximity of the scrolls). It is to challenge the simplistic idea that the Essenes were isolated and self-sufficient.

Along these lines, I just received an email from a friend who just returned from Sabbatical: "Interesting questions you are asking in your comments on Qumran. I would add to your comment on the need of the Qumran group that they almost certainly needed some protection from the powers that be. I have always been impressed that they are not far from Hasmonean fortresses inherited later by the Herods and I wonder about the relationship."

So these are some of my thoughts on methodology. Now would you be willing to address the "scenarios" I present, because I am contending that they are supported by the "preponderance of evidence". Or will you continue to avoid them, creating "the impression that one has something to hide, that one is afraid of having to confront certain objections"?