spin

Poppycock. Did he listen when I went through his assertions and pointed out that he couldn't string an argument together? :huh: This is another example of Adam reshaping reality to suit his desires. As the butterfly flits so is the reason of Adam.

spin

This is like saying chivalry must be understood in the context of the knights of the round table.

The earliest Jewish religious documents that reflect the Tanakh in any significant way were found at Qumran. Retrojecting the contents of the stories contained therein into some artificial past is simple vain.

No Robots

What Tasmanian deviltry is this? Are you suggesting that we can date the existence of Judaism only as far back as the time of the Qumran community? Careful, you're sounding more like Barbara Thiering all the time.

rlogan

This is the singlemost important advance that can be made in understanding early Christianity.

I'm surprised to see a conference at a Christian College on this.

spin

Please be more attentive. You are confusing Judaism with its literary remains. People had Yahwistic names in the late Assyrian times according to the epigraphy, well, at least, Hezekiah and Ahaziah. Yahweh was worshiped as early as the 8th c. BCE according to inscriptions such as those from Kuntillet Ajrud (thus probably earlier).

The literature and the stories it contains is a different issue. We cannot date them back before the earliest literary records and we do know that those documents are unaware of reality prior to the fall of Israel. They contain erroneous ideas such as the exodus and conquest. They are unaware of the arrival of the Philistines. One of the cities of the exodus didn't exist before the time of Necho II (the guy who ended Josiah's reign). We don't know when the texts were written or how many times they were rewritten. The literature is of no use for saying anything meaningful about history.

I could be wrong, but you're sounding like you don't know anything about what you are trying to talk about. That puts you more in league with Barbie Thiering.

sotto voce

The literature may say something significant about life after death.

No Robots

So, are you saying that there is no evidence that the Old Testament existed prior to the existence of the Qumran community?

Perhaps so. Nevertheless, it is of use in saying something about the literature that follows it, ie. the Talmud and the New Testament.

spin

But you have no way of knowing, so the possibility you suggest is functionally meaningless.

sotto voce

And you do?

spin

You're using "Qumran community" as though it has some material significance rather than as a construct in the minds of theorists trying to make sense of the DSS.

The earliest scroll fragments were carbondated to before 300 BCE. That's before the inception of the theorized community. There is no reason to believe any of the scrolls were autographs, so there were earlier versions, but we have no way of knowing how much earlier. That means we are stuck with the DSS datings and untestable theories about their origins.

In the sense that you can comment on the trajectories of related ideas and their later usage.

My original comment was aimed at another's historicizing of the content of the text.