Pilate

It takes humbleness to learn from others.
One has to give credit to those who have sacrificed their lives to accummulate the knowledge that we have before us today.
Take for instance the car. It is an accumulation of inventions. It took thousands of inventors (and experts of various fields) to make the car we have today. And if you disregard the competency of those inventors and you want to invent your own wheel, that is your prerogative. But remember: no man can accomplish this task by himslef. He has to rely on others.
Just because someone found a surgeon's scalpel that does not mean he is qualified to perform surgery. Likewise, buying a dictionary does not make one an expert of ancient languages.
Arrogance is a stumblig block in learning from others.

Toto

Pilate - if NT studies had the same reliability as engineering, you might be justified in relying on authority. But sadly, many of the apparent authorities in this field turn out to have flat tires, if they don't have their cars up on blocks. It is very disheartening to trace things back to the original source, and find out that the "authorities" have relied on misunderstandings or urban legends.

For example, you will find many references to the Essenes at Qumran. We now know that this is all wrong (try this article).

spin

I don't need your attempts at moralising about scholarship.

I pay my dues and do my work. I also know the history of scholarship in my field. When I give an opinion, I am guilty of it, not someone else. I don't sew together other people's opinions. I attempt to get as close to raw data as I can and work from that. You cannot accuse me of not supplying evidence, but I can accuse you of ignoring it.


spin

Pilate

I AGREE with you that NT studies do not compare in realiablity with engineering. (That was an example to demonstrate a contrast.)
History is definitely not precise (it is all relative to who wrote it) and experts have to work with what they have on hand. Yes part of the work is speculation. But to dismiss most of it as hogwash, is not wise.
One has to separate the pastors from the biblical scholars. And then see through the bias of the biblical scholars, because some of them are "wolves dressed as lambs."
There is always the problem of bias.
One way to deal with this problem: get a Jewish or an Atheist biblical scholar to tell you about Christian history. Then you compare what they wrote to what 'liberal Christian' scholars wrote.
I found Christian bias in the Anchor Bible Dictionary. I have found rare/occasional errors, too. But that does not mean I should throw it away and rely on my own skills and knowledge.
Toto,
I have found the "the enemies of the authorites" have taken extreme positions to counter balance the authorites. Their claims are radical because they are the "underdogs." But, in doing so, they throw away the baby with the bathwater.

Pilate

To get "close to raw data" one has to go to Israel, Greece, Syria, Egypt and dig some holes or, examine physically the existing archaological finds and manuscripts. The are raw data in Lenningrad, Athos, Rome etc. One cannot sit on a soft couch in America making judgements about "raw data" he never saw and overriding the judgments of those who hadled the "raw data." Also, one cannot be a judge of all the experts. Even experts in one field do not judge experts of another field. They stick to challenging experts in their own field.
Everything in moderation.
I do not know what you claim I ignored. But there a simple solution: whatever it is, put it on the table so that I, and everyone else can see it.

spin

With the exception of Mt Athos, I've been to all of these places, walked the streets of Palmyra and seen Aurelianus's camp, been through the ruins at Qumran, suffered the heat at the Ramesseum to photograph the battle of Qadesh, entered Petra on foot, etc. Yes, I've even been to Leningrad, but long ago, not to mention Persepolis and Mohenjo Daro.

However, you're approach is evasive. The raw data that we are dealing with is the text, the epigraphy. You don't have to go anywhere for that except a library. We are dealing with historical data through text and epigraphy. Archaeology won't shed much light on the Aramaic claim.

But then I'm not even in America. You need to make fewer assumptions and accept fewer as well.

Forget about experts. It is the data that's important. They can only be of help in pointing you to the data. You have to understand it, otherwise you are susceptible to their opinions and little else. Their good presentation of the data will of course help you, but how does one decide what is good presentation without being able to interact with the data oneself?

Try rereading posts #50, #57 and #76 of this thread.

Methodology, historically sound methodology, is of utmost imortance. You need to know your data. You cannot afford to hang on the whims of other people. Everyone has their own agenda. If you don't know the material very much you cannot tell when you are being led by the nose. I wouldn't expect you to believe me. I would expect you to interact with my data. It is through doing that that I can see you doing your job.


spin

andrewcriddle

I am totally dependent here on what scholars say, but I get the impression that most scholars relate (at least some) of the Bar-Kochba leters to Mishnaic type Hebrew.

Eg Stemberger 'Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash' p 102 'The Bar Kochba letters have now demonstrated that this language [Mishnaic type Hebrew] was actually spoken in Judaea'

Andrew Criddle

Chris Weimer

Andrew - the scrolls offer the same evidence of a spoken Hebrew. However, was spoken Hebrew really all that common in Galilee? I thought it was bilingual Greek-Aramaic area.

spin

To swap books, Elisha Qimron, in The Hebrew of the DSS, writes, "DSS Hebrew and the MH of the Bar Kokhba letters temporally and geographically coterminous, share (at least) four isoglosses which distinguish both from standard MH" (and he lists the four).


spin

Pilate

Spin wrote:
This could mean that, unlike Jerusalemites of the time, Galileans spoke Aramaic.
Pilate answered:
Evidence in the New Testament shows that the Judeans spoke the same language as the Galileans: Jesus (he existed) and his disciples were Galileans. They conversed with to Judeans. They all understood each other.
Spin wrote:
Neither the DSS which were 85% written in Hebrew -- three different dialects of Hebrew --, nor Josephus agree with this erroneous claim. Josephus tells us he spoke to the people of Jerusalem in the Hebrew language (BJ 6.2.1/6.96).
Pilate answered:
The DSS are primarily in Hebrew because the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. The Old Testament was written before the Hellenistic era.
Spin wrote:
There is nothing in Mk that would indicate that its writer knew a Semitic language, despite the few magic words such as "little girl, come". All he would have needed was the initial input from someone who did.
Pilate answered:
Yes. But, Mark is likely to have been like Paul. Paul knew Aramaic. Why like Paul? Because the first Hellenist Christians were Hellenist Jews. This is only a speculation based on other historical facts. And truly, it does not worth the difference to make it a subject.
Spin wrote:
If the writer of Mk understood Aramaic, why would he give the mixed form eloi eloi lama sabaxQani, where lama is from Hebrew and should be lemono in Aramaic? Perhaps it was a different dialect? But the logic in Aramaic is the same as that in Hebrew, each are formed from two parts l- "for/to" and Hebr. mh, Aram. mn (see Ezr 5:4) meaning "what/who/(etc)".
Pilate answered:
There are different possibilities: perhaps a copyist added or changed something. Perhaps Mark did not know, or did not know well enough the Aramaic. One piece of evidence by itself does not prove something. But many pieces together may make a case. I don’t see the importance of this word: does this lead to the claim that Jesus did not speak Aramaic? Or that the Judeans did not peak Aramaic?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate
There is no Galileean Aramaic and Judean Aramaic. The difference was just a matter of pronunciation.
Spin wrote:
But then how would we know from the gospel information?
Pilate answered:
We know because they conversed. They did not have a problem understanding each other. Let me correct myself: Very likely the Galileans had colloquial words that the Judeans did not understand, and vice versa. (It is like an American conversing with a British or an Australian. I did not know what a “crocodile dundee� is when I first heard it.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate
Here is an explanation:
From 586 BCE to 331 BCE the Jews were occupied by the Babylonians and the Persians. During that time, most Jews of Palestine and Mesopotamia adopted the Aramaic language (the official language of Babylon) because of their dealings with their captors. Aramaic gradually displaced Hebrew.
Spin wrote:
You can believe what you want. You aren't explaining anything. You are opining.
Pilate answered:
“Opining� is when you make a judgment. The Statements above are not judgment calls. They are summarized historical accounts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate
Hebrew remained the sacred language of the Scriptures and it was used only by scribes, priests, or the highly educated Jews. During the Hellenistic era (beginning ca. 331 BCE), Hebrew was the language of the common and uneducated Jews of Palestine. Therefore, it became necessary to translate in the synagogues and at the Temple the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic for the common people who could not understand it. This is how the Aramaic Tragums came into existence.
Spin wrote:
This is the pre-DSS-discovery party line. The DSS have scuttled the lot of it.
Pilate answered:
Let me restate what I wrote above
Hebrew remained the sacred language of the Scriptures and it was used only by scribes, priests, or the highly educated Jews. During the Hellenistic era (beginning ca. 331 BCE), Aramaic was the language of the common and uneducated Jews of Palestine. (The educated Jews learned Greek.) Therefore, it became necessary to translate in the synagogues and at the Temple the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic for the common people who could not understand it. In the beginning the translations were oral. In the synagogues, one person would read aloud the Hebrew Old Testament and then a meturgeman (a professional interpreter) would translate it, orally, into Aramaic. Each meturgeman tried to reproduce the original text. But he did not translate literally because he usually explained the obscure words and obscure verses to prevent misunderstandings.
In the beginning, the Aramaic oral translations were sporadic and undirected. They were left up to individual meturgemen of each community. Consequently, they differed. One factor that contributed to the differences between them was that the original Hebrew text was consonantal (written without vowels). Each reader had to assume the vowels that were missing from the text. The reader’s assumption of the vowels depended upon his understanding of the context. Since each reader understood the context of obscure passages differently, the translations of the meturgemen differed much. During the Talmudic period (the period before the written Targums, during the early Christian Era), the Jews considered the oral translations of the meturgemen as authoritative. (See (Encyclopedia Britannica. article: Targums )

Those translations gained more status after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, when synagogues replaced the Temple as houses of worship. Out of those translations came the written Aramaic Targums (the Aramaic Old Testament versions), which lack standardization and often assume the form of paraphrase or commentary. (See Cross, Frank Moore, and Shemariahu Talmon, eds., Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text, p. 9.

Spin wrote:
The writers of Hebrew in the DSS were practicioners of a spoken language. They were concerned with how the spoken language should be written and devised methods for better representation of the vowels in Hebrew.
It was plainly not a "Sacred language". It was living, in two dialects, with concerns about pronunciation. It was influenced by Aramaic and there were varying degrees of Aramaic intrusion. All indicate that these dialects were used by speech communities.
Pilate answered:
If Frank Moore, and Shemariahu Talmon don’t know what they are talking about, then I don’t either. Produce the evidence, please.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate
“Elyon� means “Most High,� and it is an auxiliary title, which designates El as the highest god of the Canaanite pantheon.

Spin wrote:
Stop guessing. Elyon is happily used by itself, so it's not an auxiliary anything.
Pilate answered:
Stop nit-picking on the choice of my words. If you don’t like ‘auxiliary’ call it second.
One may say, “God,� “God Almighty,� or “Almighty� and refer to the same person.
Spin wrote:
However the important evidence from the scrolls is that El Elyon is a popular reference for god from the second century BCE until the downfall of the Hasmoneans, "the priests of the most high" (according to the Assumption of Moses and Hyrcanus II is referred to as the high priest of the most high in Josephus).
Pilate answered:
The Jews borrowed the name El Elyon from the Canaanites (specifically, the Phoenicians) hundreds of years, or a millennium, before Hyrcanus.
The Greek word Ypsistos Theos {Septuagint} is just a translation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate
Why are you making this point (no equivalent exists in Jubilees)?
Spin wrote:
That trite arguments don't deal with the data. If Jubilees were based on Genesis, what happened to the Melkizedek story? Cause it certainly ain't in Jubilees.
Pilate answered:
The writer of Jubilees had his own agenda and Melchizedek was not part of it. He rewrote the stories of Genesis to fit it to the current dogma: to fit Satan (into the Judaic theological system. Satan does not appear in Genesis. It also expounded on the verse of Genesis, about the ‘sons of God,� and turned it into a story about the fallen angels. Angels in Genesis had no names and distinction. After the Jews were exposed to Zoroastrianism, they developed an elaborate system of angelology. The book of Jubilees filled that need.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilate
The Essene apocryphal book
Spin wrote:
Stop spouting rubbish. The "Essene" what?? Essenes were poor people, children of poor, discarded, unwanted and brought up by others. The people of the DSS believed in heredity. Their community leaders were priests, sons of Aaron, sons of Levi. They simply were not Essenes. (I know that every dog and his fleas is blurting Essenes when they come to the DSS, but that's because of the history of mismanagement of the scrolls.)
Pilate answered:
Some Essenes lived in cities of Judea and others lived in the ‘monastery’ of Qumran, and others in Damascus. The ones who live in the cities married. The one in Qumran were single men. One of their activities was copying the Scrolls. (Blame all the scholars if this is wrong.)
Spin wrote:
You've got all the space you need, if you have something to say.
Pilate answered:
Are you sure? The moderator will allow me to post a humongous document? And will you and others have the patience to read it?
Spin wrote:
There is no evidence that anything was written before the exile.
Pilate answered:
I leave this issue to the language experts and archaeologists.
Spin wrote:
When was the time of Jesus, if there was no Jesus? The term "son of man" doesn't occur in patristic literature until the mid 2nd c. CE.
Pilate answered:
The claim that Jesus did not exist is very extreme. In reality this claim is AN ARGUMENT BASED ON FAITH: FAITH IN THE ONE WHO IS MAKING THE ARGUMENT. You need more faith to believe that Jesus did not exist than the faith that he existed.
Remember: everything in moderation.
Originally Posted by Pilate
Jesus was born of human beings. Jesus was the prototype of God (the Logos).
Jesus called himself "the son of man." The righteousness of God dwelled in Jesus.

Spin wrote:
When you read literature, do you assume that it central figures are historical? When you can demonstrate that the gospel literature is more than literature I might listen to you.
Pilate answered:
Spin here is a clue on how to read mythology, the Bible, or even ancient historical writings (like Josephus’): it is not all or none.
You have to decipher the history out of those documents. It takes a lot of comparative analysis. It is not like engineering. Unfortunately it is not precise.