judge

Maybe.
As I mentioned in a subsequent post to the one you replied to there was Chaldiac aramaic known as Imperial Mesopotamian Aramaic, and there was Assyrian Aramaic.

Those jews who spent time in babylon would have spoken the former whilst those of assyrian descent and influence (galileans) would have spoken the latter.

judge

A question.

Where is it thought that three different dialects of hebrew were spoken? Surely not all in Jerusalem?

spin

It is possible. You find modern examples in which local varieties of a language, plus the more generic "regional" variety, are spoken. But this is probably not the case. I didn't mention that the dialects were spoken, one of them being biblical Hebrew, but the two others show signs of pronunciation concerns, so they were obviously spoken. The question then must be asked whether they were spoken in the same place, but I don't know how to answer that. I can conceive of two separate enclaves in the one city, but that doesn't help. We just have two speech communities.


spin

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. 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.
Notice, that most of the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Bible were written in the "Sacred language": Hebrew. But anything that was not considered (at that time) sacred ("the word of God") was written in Aramaic.
Here is what the ANCHOR BIBLE DICTIONARY says:
(2) Jewish Literary Aramaic. (a) Qumran. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, much (if not most) of the nonsectarian, parabiblical material is in Aramaic. This includes the Genesis Apocryphon, the Targum of Job, the books of Enoch, and the Testament of Levi.
(b) Targum Onkelos/Jonathan. Although the only reliable mss stem ultimately from the Babylonian academies, the consonantal texts of Targum Onkelos to the Torah and Jonathan to the Prophets apparently originated in Palestine in this period.
Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). The Anchor Bible Dictionary. New York: Doubleday
The fact that he translated the words (right after he menioned them) implies that he might have known Aramaic. Also, the fact that the first Hellenist Christians were Hellenist Jews (and Mark was the first gospel writer) suggests that he might have been one. But, I agree with you that these facts do not establish Mark as a Hellenist Jew. All we know is, whoever wrote the Gospel of Mark knew Greek and knew the meaning of a few Aramaic words. We also can say with some confidence that he was not from Palestine.
“Elyon� means “Most High,� and it is an auxiliary title, which designates El as the highest god of the Canaanite pantheon.
Why are you making this point (no equivalent exists in Jubilees)?
Genensis is a complex document. When? I don't have a specific date, but sometime in the pre-exilic era, before 586 BCE.
The Essene apocryphal book of Genesis (1QapGen) (the Genesis Apocryphon ) was written before the gospels and the book of Acts. It dates from either the 1st century BCE to 1st century CE, at the latest 68 CE.
This is a big subject in itself. There is much documentation which space here does not permit. But it was during the exile when anelology flourished in Judaism (they elaborated on angels). It was then when the "sons of god" (secondary gods: polytheism) were re-interpreted as angels (divine beings that merely carried messages).
IRead that page I recommended in my previous posting (space does not allow to explain the history of this term). "Son of God" had different meanings at different times. According to the Phoenicians "son of God" was a secondary god (who could perform miracles on his own-without the help of "EL Elyon").
IDon't confuse "son of God" with "son of man." By the way, "son of man" up to the Hellenistic era, when Daniel was written, meant (as you said) a 'human being":
"So he {the angel Gabriel} came near where I {Daniel} stood: and when he came, I was afraid, and fell upon my face: but he said unto me, Understand, O son of man: for at the time of the end will be the vision.� (Daniel 8:15-17 KJV) Daniel was a mere human being. The angels aclled him 'son of man."
However, this term acquired another meaning, and during the times of Jesus it was synonymous with Messiah.
The writer of the Parables (par of 1 Enoch) calls the Messiah the “son of man,� “the righteous one.� “And I {Enoch} asked the one (from the angels) … who revealed to me all the secrets regarding the One {the Son of Man} who was born of human beings … Who is this {Son of Man} ... who is going as the prototype of the Before-Time {the prototype of God}? And he {the angel} answered me ... This is the Son of Man, to whom belongs righteousness, and in whom righteousness dwells. � (1 Enoch 46:2-4)
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.
God revealed the Son of Man in the last times:
“The Son of Man was concealed from the beginning, and the Most High One kept him in the presence of his power. Then he revealed him to the righteous and chosen ones.� (1 Enoch 62:7
God revealed Jesus in the last times:
“He was chosen before the creation of the world, but he was revealed in these last times for your sake.� (1 Peter 1:20 NIV)
(There are more examples available, but space does not permit.)
“... and, behold, one like the Son of man {the Messiah of Israel} came with the clouds of heaven ...� (Daniel 7:13 KJV) The Jews interpreted the “Son of man� in the above verse as “Messiah�, because a crowd of Jews (in the following passage) used the terms “Messiah� and “Son of Man� interchangeably: “The crowd answered him, ‘We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up?’ � (John 12:32-34 NRSV) When Jesus called himself “the Son of Man,� he actually called himself “the Messiah of Israel.�

Loomis

Fine.

And Deuteronomy 32:8-9 says El Elyon was the most high god who divided the nations among the sons of El, and gave the nation of Jacob to Yahweh.

In some circles that would make El Elyon the highest god of the Israelite pantheon too. (But that is not to say that that view was necessarily widespread.) This supports what benja burns’ said in his opening post: that El was originally the main god and Yahweh a god subordinate to him.

The confusion that usually follows comes about when one assumes that all these stories in the bible have to agree with each other, and form a unified theology.

Loomis

John 12:41 explicitly identifies Jesus and Yahweh. Again, that is not to say that that view was necessarily widespread.

spin

You can believe what you want. You aren't explaining anything. You are opining.

This is the pre-DSS-discovery party line. The DSS have scuttled the lot of it.

This is just plain lacking. You are not looking at the DSS when you talk about them. You don't notice that there are three dialects of Hebrew -- one of which is biblical, then, Mishnaic-type Hebrew and finally the language that much of the Hebrew scrolls were written in. They were being written fresh in Hebrew, not just one dialect, but two, and not in biblical Hebrew. The whole sacred language logic is a dismal failure. Nothing new was written in the biblical Hebrew dialect. Where did the two dialects evinced in the DSS come from and how did they get into the DSS if they were not productive and from communities which used them???

You wouldn't know.

Forget the ABD. It assumes that Qumran literature is sectarian then excludes it. This is terrible manipulation of the data. If it's written in Hebrew it's sectarian, so let's consider only the Aramaic.

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.

Uh-huh. Look at what gets in. A few miserable expressions of no value whatsoever. From the gospels you'd think that he knew more Latin than he did Aramaic!

Yup. Not writing in Palestine, but no evidence that he knew anything of Aramaic. In fact the poor choice of Aramaic in the texet suggests that the writer didn't have a clue about Aramaic, otherwise there might have been something a little more convincing that "little girl, come".

Stop guessing. Elyon is happily used by itself, so it's not an auxiliary anything. 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).

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.

You wouldn't know, couldn't know and show no indication of how you could start to know.

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.)

[QUOTE=Pilate]...of Genesis (1QapGen) (the Genesis Apocryphon ) was written before the gospels and the book of Acts. It dates from either the 1st century BCE to 1st century CE, at the latest 68 CE.

That's why I mentioned it.

You've got all the space you need, if you have something to say.

There is no evidence that anything was written before the exile.

It sure had a different meaning after the christians got at it. All because they were in no position to understand Daniel.

Whose doing that, old son?

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.

Yeah, and when was that written. It didn't exist at Qumran and Milik places it in the 2nd c. CE. Qumran apparently had another work in its place in the Enochic pentateuch.

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.


spin

Pilate

You are right! Everyone, read the verses again: “When the Most High {Heb. El Elyon} apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the Lord’s {Heb. Yahweh’s} own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.� (Deuteronomy 32:8-9 NRSV)
El Elyon divided and Yahweh received his portion. Here is someone else who agrees with this understanding:
Eusebius in his commentary on Deuteronomy 32:8-9 wrote, “In these words surely he {Moses} names first the Most High God, the Supreme God of the Universe, and then as Lord His Word, Whom we call Lord in the second degree after the God of the Universe. … Christ Himself..."
Eusebius interpreted the word "Lord" (he read the Septuagint, which reads "Kyriou") mentioned above as the "second god" (whose portion was alotted by the Most High). But Eusebius was confused. Jesus was not alloted Israel! The Israelites are not Jesus' "favorite people." Jesus is the Savior of the world.
Nevertheless, Eusebius saw in this verse, as you did, the hierachy: the Lord is subservient to El Elyon.
Was this verse a contraption of source "P"? He was the one who tried to harmonize the god of Abraham (El Elyon) with the god of Moses (Yahweh). Does anyone reading this know if scholars attribute the above verses to source "P"? Please mention the book and author.

Loomis, you are right on this.

judge

Pauls letters in Aramaic also make it clear Jesus is maryah

Pilate

Lomis,
"Isaiah said this because he saw his glory and spoke about him." (John 12:41 NRSV) :huh: The verse you mentioned does not say anything. Did you mean to quote another verse? In the future, if you post the actual verse it will improve our communication and everyone will see it.