rlogan

Over in C&E a little spat over the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament occurred with a suggestion to bring it here. I thought that would be interesting.

I think the basis for the claim that New Testament scripture was found at Qumran is the 7Q5 fragment that was interpreted by J. O'Callaghan and printed in Biblica 53/ (1972), pp 91-109

My understanding is that this was pretty well dismissed as a torturous stretch, and that nothing has been found since then to buttress the argument any further than the initial speculation.

Would this Essene sect have had any reason to have held gospel accounts if they had existed anyway?

Rick Sumner

Your understanding is correct. The icing on the cake is the recent identification of other cave 7 papyrii (though, unfortunately, not 7Q5, which O'Callaghan considers his strongest evidence) as belonging to 1Enoch, which are now known as Pap7QEn.

The rabid isolationism of the Essenes can only be described as phenomenal. In the entirety of their corpus, not a single biblical text written after 200 BCE can be found. There isn't even a citation of such a text. Not even an allusion to one. In the variegated mosaic of second temple Judaism, this is astonishing--these people were influenced by absolutely no one.

They had no reason to have any texts that weren't either their own, or recognized as canon c.200 BCE.

Regards,
Rick

rlogan

Ahhh... I wondered. Thanks for both tidbits there, Rick.

Man, when is someone going to come and rescue Jesus and the New Testament?

Rick Sumner

"Essenes" here should read "Qumranites," a distinction not made often enough. As Davila observed "We can identify Qumran by the Essenes, we cannot identify the Essenes by Qumran."

Regards,
Rick

Doctor X

This "NT found in Qumran" is a myth that just propagates like an Ark on Mt. Ararat, the Shroud of Turin, and the talent of Justin Timberlake.

I predicted that ten years from now, people will bring up the Ossary as if it was never debunked.

Thanks for the leg-work.

--J.D.

Apikorus

Fragments of every chapter of Daniel were found at Qumran. Daniel 8-12 is of Hasmonean provenance, which is to say after 200 BCE.

Rick Sumner

That's right too. I'm mixing the cut-off date up, and now I can't for life of me remember what it is.:banghead:

Regards,
Rick

Apikorus

It is generally accepted that the last historical figure referred to in the Qumran corpus is the Roman general Aemilius Scaurus, who served under Pompey, who conquered Jerusalem in 63 BCE. The relevant text is 4Q324a, which twice contains the words "Aemilius killed". Scaurus is of course mentioned in Josephus (Ant. 14 and War 1) but there the only killing he does is around Pella, in Arabia.

Rick Sumner

It's earlier than that, though, that the oldest biblical manuscript referenced at Qumran was penned--I just can't, for the life of me, remember when it was. Davila discusses it, as an argument in favor a reworked Groningen Hypothesis, in his essay in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity, which, if I recall, bore the same title. The date was early enough that it was persuasive for this hypothesis, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was--heh, all the notes I took of it, and I didn't bother recording that.

Regards,
Rick

PTET

Hi all

It's been a while!

I have a couple of pages on this, although they aren't bang-up-to-date...

7Q5: Is it 'Mark' and does it matter?
Collected responses to Peter Carston Thiede

PTET