DCHindley

Years ago, I bought a tiny pocket book by A. Powell Davies entitled The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Mentor: 1956, ... No, I didn't BUY it in 1956, it was around 1984, although '56 was the year I was born). Davies, for what it is worth, was a highly regarded Unitarian minister, and was originally ordained as a Methodist minister. For his bio, see:
http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/artic...elldavies.html

He was complaining that many Biblical critics of his time were ignoring the significance of the find. He noted that an article in the magazine Commonweal (Dec 9, 1955) suggested that many New Testament scholars "did not have an adequate training in Hebrew and the Semitic background necessary to handle the texts." This was in spite of the fact that they could have turned to the "Semitic specialists among their colleagues," and that "many of the questions at issue could have been evaluated by consulting standard reference sources such as the Biblical encyclopedias." This was also in spite of an "ever increasing number of informative articles in the archeological and Biblical journals which New Testament scholars are supposed to read."

He credits a long May 14, 1955 article by Edmund Wilson in the New Yorker magazine with awakening general public interest in the USA. In response, some Biblical scholars expressed not very favorable opinions about Wilson, noting that he was not a scholar, just some reporter, even though the article demonstrated that he had an excellent grasp of the issues presented by the discovery. Davies concluded that "the real difficulty that New Testament scholars have been experiencing with Mr. Wilson lies in his unexpected competency," and reasons that perhaps this was because "Mr. Wilson has no creedal preconceptions to guard, no dogmatic pattern that must somehow or other be found to fit the shape of history."

Also, for a number of years after their discovery, he complained that some scholars were determined to denigrate other scholars who attempted to date the scrolls to pre-christian times, or offer a context for their collection and deposit into those caves (usually relating them to the Qumran settlement). These acrimonious recriminations have extended to the present day (just do a Google search on the etymology of the name "Essenes" or whether Qumran was a monastery, fort or villa, or the carbon dating of individual scrolls, and you will get some extremely harsh criticisms of accredited competent scholars, as if they were complete nincompoops for suggesting these obvious heresies).

In a way I can understand the resistance expressed in those days. Until the mid 20th century, it was still possible to me a more or less "well rounded" scholar, knowing just enough about the various sub-disciplines to draw relatively secure conclusions about matters Biblical. Even with the contribution of the historical-critical method to narrow the fields of focus, folks could legitimately disagree about the implications of the results of investigation for modern faiths. Suddenly there was this find the implications of which, for Judaism as well as Christianity, pretty much shook up the status quo. To be perfectly honest, modern scholars have come a long way since the 1940's. Most critics today are not nearly as dependent upon creedal and doctrinal limitations as they used to be. These controversies have caused the discipline of Biblical criticism to advance tremendously.

Even so, I think we all have yet to fully comprehend just how much of our Judeo-Christian heritage we have internalized into unstated and untested assumptions that still flavor the criticism of even the most strident atheists. The modern Biblical critic has yet to reach the pinnacle of knowledge in their (sub)disciplines, and the modern atheist is still far from recognizing their unconscious indebtedness to that heritage.

In the same manner that post-modernism shone a spotlight on the untested assumptions of investigators of science as well as literature, we still have an obligation to question the deeply internalized assumptions of our professional scholars. Those of us also who, from the outside, have a strong interest in matters Biblical, whether from a faith perspective or not, must also question our own assumptions as we question and investigate the research of others. How many of us have creedal preconceptions to guard, or dogmatic patterns that "must somehow or other be found to fit the shape of history"? It isn't just Bible Baptists and Ultra Orthodox Jews who are affected, but atheists and moderates of all stripes.

So, if the inhabitants of this discussion board really expect to straighten-out or otherwise influence modern Biblical scholarship, it won't come from angry sniping, not-very-witty witticisms, and knee-jerk reactionary name calling, etc. It will come from close examination of their works, and questions about unconscious biases and/or assumptions. Their works are not as inaccessible as some might think. Inter-library loans work wonders. As little as $25 can secure access to university libraries for a year. And you'd be amazed what you can find at used bookstores, both near your town and online like ABE. Learn from the specialists. Consult the Biblical encyclopedias. Spark engagement from them by demonstrating unexpected competency.

Go on … you too can make a difference!

DCH

hatsoff

I think it's very easy to get caught up in one's preconceptions, even if they are not religiously dogmatic. For me, I wrestle with what degree of skepticism I should have towards early Christian texts. Was Mark a conflation of Matthew and Luke? Could Luke have drawn from eyewitness sources? Did James write his own Epistle? Is some or all of the Johannine corpus authentic? As an atheist, palling around with skeptics and anti-religion buffs, it's easy to forget that these really are open questions. It may be unlikely that the answer to any of them is yes, but that's a far cry from impossible. We should be ready to adjust our views as the evidence directs, without regard for any discomfort we might feel in doing so.

davidbach

Very interesting thoughts here. Thanks, DCHindley.

We recently had an exhibition concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls in town. What struck me overall was the Judeo-Christian interpretational bias. In some ways, this is justified, a high proportion of the scrolls are biblical texts anyway. But I would have liked to see more of the analytic approach - how the historical circumstances might affect or own views, not how received wisdom interprets the scrolls. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of historical connection between the scrolls and the community that caused their creation. Why, for example, so many copies of some texts? That implies a lot of readers or a wide geographic circulation.

David.

Jeffrey Gibson

How many precisely is "so many"?

Jeffrey

DCHindley

I took this to refer to the relative proportion of different texts, which could be determined from a reference book such as The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, List of the Manuscripts from Qumran, pages 467-519.

The biblical mss would be easy enough to catalogue, but the non-biblical works would be much harder to categorize, what with peshers, rules of the community, damascus document, mmt, purification rules, ordinances, war scroll, new jerusalem, florilegiums, jubilees, enoch books, noah books, various testaments, visions, apocryphons, calendars and calendrical books, songs of sabbath sacrifices, variants on and targums of biblical books, etc, etc, etc. Then there is the distribution of these books among the various caves.

DCH

Jeffrey Gibson

My question was to David B, not to you!

Jeffrey

DCHindley

Well!

Jeffrey Gibson

Sorry. Should have put a smiley next to my remark. I did not mean to sound huffy.

Jeffrey

mountainman

Dear DCHindley,

Some excellent points about the foundational assumptions/postulates/hypotheses at the basis of new testament history. Do you happen to have made a point form list of these? There was a thread about this a few years ago. You make a good point in claiming that many of these biases are unconscious (or sub-conscious), and that the task of separating out these hypotheses is trickier than what one might ordinarily expect, because we begin to argue from "conditioned responses".

Thank you for the post. I look forward to identifying such postulates. PS: From this this thread:

Best wishes,


Pete

DCHindley

Over at the now dormant N T Wrong blog, he recommended that if anyone wants to find out about early Jewish and Christian religion, they "Read what they wrote. Read them deeply and often."
http://ntwrong.wordpress.com/early-j...ristian-texts/

He proposes the following list of sourcebooks for translations, a list that happens to be identical to the ones I would also have suggested:

- The New Revised Standard Verson of the Bible with Apocrypha & Deuterocanonical books [get a study edition, but the text of the Bible is also freely available in many translations, as books or online, although beware of the commentaries that might accompany these]

- F. García Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, tr. W. G. E. Watson (2nd edn.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). [There are some online translations of specific biblical and non-biblical texts from the DSS, but not the whole bundle, sorry]

- James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (2 Vols; New York: Doubleday, 1983). [There are online versions of many of these "intertestimental" books, such as Jubilees, 1 & 2 Enoch, 2 Baruch, 4 Ezra, Testaments of the 12 Patriarches, etc, from the massive 2nd volume of R H Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (aka APOT), Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1910, which is out of copyright in the USA and very occasionally reprinted for $60 or more]

- Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha. Translated by R. McL. Wilson (2 Vols; Cambridge: James Clark; Louisville: Westminster / John Knox Press, 1991). [There are online scans of some of these same works available from M R James' Apocryphal New Testament Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924, although I am not exactly sure if these are technically out of print in the USA]

- James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library (New York: HarperCollins, 1988). [There are online English translations of specific books available, but not the whole kit & kaboodle]

- Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987 [1885]) [10 volumes, published originally between 1885-1896 in the US, but based on a 24 volume edition published in Scotland between 1867-1872] ([generally available as reprints, but] out of copyright and available free online)

I would add to this list:

- Philip Schaff, ed, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church First Series, 14 volumes (New York : Scribner, c1886-c1889, and covers writers through roughly the 3rd century CE, and is out of copyright everywhere and thus freely available as reprints and as generally terrible quality scans online)

- Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church Second Series, 14 volumes (New York: Christian Literature Co, c1890-c1900, which includes translations of Eusebius' Church History and other Church histories, and is out of copyright everywhere and thus freely available as reprints and generally terrible quality scans online)

- William Whiston, [Flavius] Josephus: Complete Works [an aristocratic Jewish priest born around 30 CE, died around 100 CE, and who wrote Wars of the Jews, Antiquities of the Jews, an autobiography Life, and a polemical tract Against Apion] First translated 1737 (out of copyright and available as reprints or online)

- C. D. Yonge, The Works Of Philo Judeus [a highly educated but observant Alexandrian Jew who was related to a man who later was appointed Roman governor of Egypt and then Judea, and wrote circa 20-50 CE] Originally translated and published as 4 volumes 1854-55 (out of copyright and available as single volume 1993 & 2006 Hendricks reprints or online)

Have fun ...

DCH