John Deere

Spin:

I am well aware of the range of positions scholars have on the subject. Please do not insult. Simply provide your sources (third request).

Your position:

“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.

is incorrect. I asked you a simple question: If Josephus was an Essene, as he claimed, did he have a translator?

Your position:


�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.�

is incorrect and evasive . You have made the claim that Josephus’s lack of fluency in Hebrew made it impossible for him to have engaged in typological linkage with the Gospels. To clarify the logic of your assertion, I have asked you two simple questions. Please answer them.

Joe

John Deere

Spin:

Thanks for the heads up. I thought so.

Joe

John Deere

Spin:

Just to clarify:

I asked for the mathematics supporting your claim that 4Q171 is an "obvious outlier". But instead of providing them you responded:

"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."

Again, I ask you to please provide the math supporting your claim, and I would need for you to explain what a "fairly clear" "obvious outlier" is from the statistical perspective, so I may understand your position more clearly.

Joe

Juliana

Oh my, how clever you are, spin.

Juliana

spin

Therefore you don't need what you are asking for.

I also note your continued attempt to sidestep the issue of what Josephus might have had access to if he were in fact long enough in the Essene context to be inducted into having access at any written teachings they may have had. If the Essenes did not have the DSS as their documents then you cannot say anything about Josephus's hypothetical knowledge of such notions as the ToR.

So you need to show:

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.

You have not done so and you have avoided doing so.


spin

Juliana

The problem with people of your ilk is that they can't (or don't want to) even quote correctly. This is what I have repeatedly posted here: "I am a friend of one of the translators." And this is true.

This is what you make of it:
"No, I am a friend of one of his translators."

And it shows in your "discovery" as well. Don't worry, the analysis is coming.

Juliana

spin

I believe I have supplied you with a sufficient response.


spin

John Deere

Spin:

Spin:

Your response was not only insufficent, it was not an answer. As an outlier, particulary an obvious one (your claim), is something with a precise mathematical basis, it is therefore your job to provide the basis for the claim, so one may judge its accuracy. There is no other way to determine this, and your efforts to change your claim to "fairly clear" from 'obvious' were not helpful. Simply explain, mathematically, why a range that is within "the final dates of about half of the scrolls" is an "obvious outlier".

Further, you statement:

"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."

is, as I said, evasive.

It was you who introduced Josephus's lack of Hebrew as a supporting plank for your general assertion that he did not create a typolgical linkage to the Gospels. I asked you to answer two simple questions to clarify your position regarding his lack of Hebrew but you responded by stating that "It is your job to show that he had such knowledge."

Notice how completly tranparent the evasivness is.

Please answer the two questions. Please cite your sources (fourth request). Please provide the math.

Joe

spin

John Deere,

You continue to demonstrate an unwillingness to defend your statements except through obfuscation. Having already seen you run around in circles for so long over our previous "discussion" on the data for C14 (not believing what I had cited to you from the Doudna article, an article which was an unaccountable omission in your bibliography), I will not participate in another of your "(red queen) running fast just to stay where you were" tricks.

As you could see by the description I gave of my meaning of 4Q171 being an outlier, my usage of the term was clearly not mathematical. It indicated 4Q171's position on the periphery of the data range, such that it "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".

As to Josephus speaking Hebrew, Eugene Ulrich has shown that Josephus did not use the Hebrew bible when he cited from the books of Samuel ("The DSS & the Origins of the Bible", Eerdmans/Brill, 1999, p.200), "Josephus continually and predominantly used a Greek Bible as the source for his narrative in The Jewish Antiquities". In his AJ he cites Aramaic as Hebrew, as in the word for shabuot in AJ 3.10.6. In AJ 3.12.2 Josephus supplies as a word from Hebrew word znh, which means "prostitute", the term "keeper of an inn", ie Josephus certainly didn't work from the Hebrew source in Lev 21 to make this error. The simple claim that Josephus says he spoke Hebrew, when the term Hebrew, ebraisti, in the context simply meant the language of the Hebrews, whatever they spoke at the time. These things require evidence for what makes one think that Josephus spoke Hebrew.

The only thing evasive of my statement

is your response: "[it] is, as I said, evasive." How ironic, John Deere.

When you feel like dealing with the following (which got mangled by my formatting last post) I will take note.

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.

Your talk of evasion is quite ironic.


spin

John Deere

Spin,

Your statement was:
“Many scholars argue that he didn't know Hebrew himself�

Therefore your citation of Ulrich’s position that “Josephus did not use the Hebrew bible when he cited from the books of Samuel� is irrelevant. Please provide the citation where Ulrich states Josephus did not know Hebrew. Please provide citations of the “many scholars’ who argue that Josephus did not know Hebrew. (fifth request)

Your position on the relative status of 1QpHab has had the following evolution: “obvious outlier� to “fairly clear outlier� to “periphery of the data range� which, ignoring the mathematical definitions, is a completely new concept even from the semantical perspective and begs the question: Why would an element within a group – on its periphery – have no meaning relative to the group? Please explain.

You have not answered my two simple questions needed to clarify your claim that Josephus could not have engaged in typological linkage with the Gospels.

Let me repeat them.

Are you claiming that Josephus could not have been told about the technique from someone else?

Or,

Are you claiming he could not have engaged in the technique because he wrote in Greek – the language the Gospels were written in? (third request)


Joe