Amaleq13

If you feel you have been insulted, please report the post or start a complaint thread.

John Deere

I wasn't kidding. Check your PM's.

spin

When you do your homework, I will consider your questions. I said when we started that the discourse would be quid pro quo. You have responded to nothing after making statements which I don't think you will ever be able to justify. You sought clarification and got a little. I need a little in return from you. I have asked you the same few questions seven times and you have stalwartly refused to answer them. This does not seem to be quid pro quo, John Deere.

I have not commented on your book here. I have commented on statements you made that start with post #24 of this thread. If you go back and follow the thread you'll find that my comments lead back to that post. I don't know why you mention your book to me. This recourse to your book seems to me to be obfuscation. If you make a statement in public and won't justify it, I would consider that statement as having no value.

You have not been insulted by me in this thread. I have merely attempted to solicit a justification of some of your earlier statements. You have continually refused to respond substantially.

This is simply veiled insult. You claimed in this thread that Josephus could have had access to the Dead Sea Scrolls because he was an Essene. This claim contains a complex of assumptions. You have been asked now eight times to clarify:

1. that Josephus was actually involved with the Essenes and not just trying to impress his Roman audience with his wide knowledge (which is undercut by the dating problem I have already indicated);
2. that, if he was involved in the Essenes, he had access to any Essene literature, given that the Essenes had a system of initiation which excluded people from inner notions (which would be in any Essene texts); and
3. that the texts of the Essenes were reflective of the content of the DSS.

I look forward to some clarification.

John Deere

Spin:

Please show where in this thread I stated that: "Josephus could have had access to the Dead Sea Scrolls because he was an Essene."

Joe

spin

Just so I understand, are you asking for a clarification specifically on the difference between "was" and "claimed to be"?

John Deere

Spin:

No.

spin

In the question from your post #34:
there is some assumed information, "Josephus claimed membership in the Essenes". This is accompanied by the implication that this would have given access to texts, which leads to your question, "do you believe that he have a translator during his tenure?", a translator for Essene works written in Hebrew. The documents you were interested in generically were the DSS, basically the only documents you have mentioned in the thread. The specific documents were 4Q171 and 1QpHab which as you know contain references to a figure called the "righteous teacher".

Bringing the implications out into the open, your statement and question add up to be that Josephus, through his claimed membership of the Essenes, had access to the pesherim. When I wrote, "You claimed in this thread that Josephus could have had access to the Dead Sea Scrolls because he was an Essene", I was summing up the claim in my terms from what you said.

John Deere

Spin:

Your statement above: - "Josephus claimed membership in the Essenes". This is accompanied by the implication that this would have given access to texts, which leads to your question, "do you believe that he have a translator during his tenure?" - is incorrect. This question was in direct response to your claim “Many scholars argue that he didn't know Hebrew himself� (see post 26 above). The claim you have retracted.

Please show where in this thread I stated that: "Josephus could have had access to the Dead Sea Scrolls because he was an Essene." (second request)

Joe

spin

You made the affirmative statement that "Josephus claimed membership in the Essenes". What caused you to make it is irrelevant.

Your question, "do you believe that he have a translator during his tenure?" contains implications as I have stated. Why you asked the question which contained those implications is again irrelevant.

Already done.

If you have problems with what you say, don't say it, rather than attempt to disclaim your comments. Do you now deny that you advocated the possibility that Josephus had access to the DSS when he was (as he claimed) a member of the Essenes?

John Deere

Spin:

Please bear with me, but we will need to work through some of the logic and grammar of your above post. To start please clarify the following:

When you say "Josephus claimed membership in the Essenes. This is accompanied by the implication that this would have given access to texts� are you saying that I am implying this, or are you saying that you are making the implication? It is not clear in the sentence.

If you are claiming that I am implying this, why? My question was simply trying to clarify your (since retracted) suggestion that many scholars argue that Josephus did not know Hebrew. Given your assumption, wouldn’t Josephus have needed a translator for virtually everything? Therefore please explain how does my question leads to such an implication?

If you are making the implication, however, what is the basis for your position that he would have been given access to the texts?

I will have more questions regarding the logic and grammar in the above post later but I suspect that this is all you would currently wish for.

Joe