spin

Quid pro quo. (Relentless refusal to respond I consider highly impolite.)

You can't build cases on assumptions. You mention the pesharim for some reason (ie not just for window dressing), which is connected to this: "[t]he Romans, evidentially, were amused by such superstition and decided to create a ‘Righteous Teacher’". The "Righteous Teacher" is to the best of our current knowledge only known from DSS and related sources (the Zadokite fragments from the Fustat geniza), yet you assume that the Romans knew of such an idea ie the "Righteous Teacher" (as distinct from the Jewish messiah, a distinction indicated in the DSS), but you don't show that it is a reasonable possibility. How do you get past the assumpion?


spin

John Deere

First Juliana:

You wrote:

Sir, if you happen to be referring to me as one of those "individuals" who charge you for having written 'the book simply to make a "quick buck"', please note that I didn't say that.

But you also wrote:


"But I repeat and intensify my comments about my first overall impression of the book.
As to the "quick buck" that was mentioned earlier in this thread, it certainly is one if not the main motive of the author or how should one interpret this?


Quote:
Best Buy Books tracks internet sales by category. Of the 422 books of CHristain history published in 2005 - gee do we really need so many? - Caesar's Messiah is the number one seller for the second week in a row.

http://www.bestwebbuys.com/books/se...rc=b-dim-refine



I want to thank everyone for their support.

Joe Atwill

To which I wrote:

As the father of three teenagers, if I want crazy I can just go into the kitchen, I don't need to seek it out on the Web.

Like I said, I will not respond to crazy.

Goodbye Juliana

Juliana

Well, maybe it's my lack of understanding English, but you forgot to look at the continuation of that post:

Never mind.

Goodbye Mr. Atwill

John Deere

Now Spin:

Spin: Your assumptions:

“though we have no idea of how widespread the sort of thought was within the limits of Judean culture.�

And

“texts such as Jubilees and Enoch reached us, suggest that the genre itself had an extremely limited circulation.�

are obviously contradictory. But they also beg a question. If they were so rare why were they so numerous in the DSS? Please explain.

As far as your assumption that:

“Therre is nothing to suggest that Josephus for example knew anything about it.�

I would suggest you read Caesar’s Messiah.

I would also suggest the same towards your assumption concerning the history of the pesharim:

“there is no evidence to suggest that any pesharim ever got out of Hebrew.�

As far as your assumption regarding ‘scholars’:

“Many scholars argue that he (Josephus) didn't know Hebrew himself�

I would you to provide your sources and would ask that since Josephus claimed membership in the Essenes, do you believe that he have a translator during his tenure? Please explain.

In spite of our prior communications, you still seemed to assume the infallibility of C14. OK, but then if you accept the first century BCE C14 date for 1QpHab, then you must also accept the first century CE C14 date for 4Q171, a Pesher mentioning the Righteous Teacher. You can’t have it both ways.

As far as your assumption:

“You therefore need to show the relationship of the content of pesharim to the context you are creating, rather than assume it. That "[t]he Romans, evidentially, were amused by such superstition and decided to create a ‘Righteous Teacher’", has no historical justification, has no Roman tradition to back it up, and shows an approach to Romans and their religious understandings which doesn't find any accord in the remains of Roman culture left to us.�

I can only say that you should read Caesar’s Messiah.

Finally, I would note that the dates of writing of the DSS are not integral to my thesis.


Joe

spin

You don't make sense. You call statements of descriptive fact "assumptions". There is nothing obvious about what you say.

There is only one copy of pHab. There is only one copy of pPsa37. There is only one copy of PNah. In fact despite the fact that there are several pesher fragments of Isaiah none of them actually overlap. We have a collection of unique documents not known elsewhere.

I'd suggest if you had an argument you'd use it.

I'd suggest here you have no argument, otherwise you'd use it.

Before I do any such thing, I'd like you to show me what the Essenes have to do with the DSS. And I'm not asking for other people's opinions on the matter, I am asking for a demonstration that the DSS are Essene.

After you've done that you may like to explain how Josephus at the age of 16 could first get to know each of the three sects well enough before spending three years with Bannus then at nineteen he chose to follow the Pharisees.

4Q171 is an obvious outlier. The only text which is further outside the statistical norm is the retested 4Q258. The reason why 4Q171, which starts wholly after 1 CE, wasn't retested was because it fit into the working framework of the scrolls scholars. Stick with pHab as it sits within the bounds of the bulk of the scrolls.

I'm sorry, John Deere, but you've shown no working knowledge of the scrolls, their content or their context.

I'm pleased to hear that. You've talked about them and the figure of the righteous teacher as though the knowledge is useful to your thesis, without making any connection between them and the people you are concerned with. I hope this statement of yours means that we don't hear about the scrolls again in this affair.

However, if you think the notion of the righteous teacher made it out of the strict context of the scrolls community and the ToR only occurs in those texts considered inner community texts, none of which have come down to us outside the confines of the caves of Qumran (and the Fustat geniza), I'd like an incontrovertable demonstration of the fact.


spin

Juliana

Reading this shoddy effort is no pleasure, I want to put it down all the time because it literally makes me sick in my stomach, so be patient.

I wonder why you keep calling me 'Joseph'. Maybe I'm Joseph, maybe I'm a friend of his, maybe I'm one of the other translators--anyway, my username is 'Juliana', would you respect that?
Why don't you tell us who you, 'spin', are (that user name does not inspire too much confidence, btw.), and where you are located (is 'nowhere' perhaps Australia)?

GODISNOWHERE

Juliana

John Deere

Spin:
When I asked you to provide your sources for your claim that a number of scholars maintain that Josephus could not speak Hebrew you stated:

�Before I do any such thing, I'd like you to show me what the Essenes have to do with the DSS. And I'm not asking for other people's opinions on the matter, I am asking for a demonstration that the DSS are Essene.�

I am sorry but you will need to produce your sources first. You also need to answer the following questions:
First, Josephus claims in Wars 6,2,97 that he addressed the rebels “in the Hebrew language�. Are you claiming that Josephus was making the passage up? If so why?
You also need to answer several questions concerning the logic of your assumption that Josephus inability to write Hebrew suggests he did not engage in typological linkage with the Gospels.
Are you suggesting that Josephus could not have been told about the technique from someone who was aware of it who knew Hebrew? Or, are you suggesting that because he wrote in only Greek he could not have engaged in typological linkage with the Gospels which were written in Greek?

I also need the mathematics supporting your claim that 4Q171 is an “obvious’ outlier.

I need satisfactory answers to these questions before we can move on.

Joe

John Deere

Juliana:

You have brought up your identity, and I am curious about something.

You follow me from thread to thread always threating to expose my 'botched fabulations' at some point in the near future. You never provide any actual analysis, of course. You are obviously obsessed with Carotta's book, even to the point of taken "Juliana" as your nom de plume. In a prior post when I asked you if you were one of Carotta's translators you slyly stated: "No, I am a friend of one of his translators." Your style of humor suggests that you are a male, and your command of English demonstrates that you are European.

You know, I once had a correspondence with another author who also used the term "fabulation", which is not in English language.

Do you want me to make a public guess at your identity 'Juliana'?

Joe

spin

John Deere, you have missed the caffuffle over whether Josephus could or could not speak Hebrew on this list. (And you'll find that I have defended the position.) But if you are not aware of the range of scholarship on the subject, I don't think I have to unburden you.

You intimated that Josephus read Essene documents, which you equated with the DSS. I asked you to justify the connection of the Essenes with the DSS. You have simply stalled on the issue. Now whether Josephus could or could not read Hebrew is in itself irrelevant to the issue of whether the DSS were Essene, for if they are not Essene then you have no case in the matter.

My job is not to hypothesize on whether Josephus could or could not have been told about the "technique" (I gather, employed in the writing of pesharim). It is your job to show that he had such knowledge. You need to show a trajectory for the arrival of the notion of a ToR in the thought which went into your Roman construction.

As the initial dating for 4Q171 is over 40 years later than the initial dating of any other C14 dated scroll and that it is after the final dates of about half of the scrolls, the outlier status of 4Q171 is fairly clear.


spin

spin

kaas has already identified Juliana here. See also Juliana's response in post #39 of the same thread, which doesn't protest the identification, but merely reveals the identification of kaas, this knowledge of kaas indicating kaas's knowledge of Juliana and supporting kaas's original identification of Juliana as Joseph Horvath.