Vorkosigan

Hi Haran! Thanks and stick around here. Your opinions will be welcome.

I personally rather liked JtBoJ, as you can tell, but I am aware of some of the problems with his work through some of the more critical reviews I've been reading.

I'll respond to you more substantively in a moment -- the pizza has arrived.

Michael

Vorkosigan

You're not the "Haran" whose names crops up often in DSS studies, are you?

Michael

John the Atheist

Harlan,

Most scholars date the DSS and especially the Teacher of Righteousness well before the time of Jesus.

Allegro thought that "Teacher of Righteousness" mentioned in DSS was an earlier figure as well. You mention this date:

197 B.C. plus the 20 years (mentioned in text) "groping for the way" and we arrive at ~177 B.C. for arrival of the Teacher of Righteousness.

When he speaks of the arrival of ToR is this thereabouts around his birth or is it a date given for his early career? Would you know if VanderKam gives a date of death or say how the ToR died? Allegro believed the ToR was crucified by Jannaeus in 88 B.C.E.. Just curious if they are somewhat on the same page here.

I don’t know how reliable book reviews are at Amazon but one reader states “most experts agree that the scrolls were written by various Jewish groups between 150 B.C. and A.D. 66.” and if this is the case this would have James VanderKam's ignoring the dating of the majority of the DSS too, if he places a date of 177 B.C. for the arrival of ToR.

John

[ January 17, 2002: Message edited by: John the Atheist ]</p>

Vorkosigan

That was Eisenman's point. The carbon datings are all over the map, he says, and claims that in many cases the firms doing the tests retested documents until they arrived at dates that fell within the Establishment claims. Even then, there are many dates that fall much later. Coin data seems to indicate that the site was occupied into the second century. If the DSS are date from 1st cent BC or earlier, then that would mean that the community there produced nothing for a stretch of a couple of centuries, after being wildly and creatively productive for a couple of hundred years. That's a little hard to swallow.

A second problem here with the ToR is that the Qumran scrolls, and later Paul and the Gospelers, appropriate the symbologies of earlier writers and apply them to the then-current political situation. It's an evolving symbol-system, not dead history. Eisenman says that the identification of the ToR is not crucial to his thesis. That appears to me to be true. Note that he is using Christianity to unlock the DSS, not the DSS to unlock Christianity. If you mentally remove the DSS from the equation, his theories about James and early Christianity still hold. The "unlocking" of the DSS is a nice bonus, but not crucial to his case.

Michael

Vorkosigan

Some other points:
Eisenman considers Vermes translation the best available in English, but says it fails on key points. What aspects of Eisenman's claims do you feel are imperiled by translation issues in Josephus?

"at the respected Orion Center, to "

I took your advice, and went to visit the Center, read some of the articles. I was struck by this passage in the intro to the scrolls.

• In 1967, the Rockefeller Museum came under Israeli rule. However, during the 1960s and 70s, much had remained unpublished. As the original members of the international team neared retirement age, the practice of passing manuscripts on to students and colleagues for publication began. In 1991, as the result of various developments, the international team was reconstituted with about 40 members, with Professor Emanuel Tov of the Hebrew University at its editor-in-chief. Nevertheless, the influence of the original publication team continued to affect future scholars, since their unpublished comments and analyses on the Scrolls fragments were considered by those future scholars who would later take over the process of publication. During the early part of this decade, all photographs of the Scrolls, both published and unpublished, were made available to scholars and the general public.

Now reading this, especially that wonderful fragment "as a result of various developments," can you tell me that this is a sober and balanced summary of the DSS controveries? I realize that the Orion site is respected, but I could probably think of half a dozen times the Establishment has attempted to suppress outsiders who were later vindicated. It doesn't happen often, and the odds are not on Eisenman's side, but he could well be right. A passage like the one above casts doubt on the Center's objectivity.

I'm busy sorting through the archives trying to find messages about Eisenman.

Also, Eisenman states that his ID of James as the ToR is not really crucial to his case. Removing that, what are some of the problems you see? Is there are good critique on the web somewhere? Also, if you know of a book-length response to Eisenman, or a good article attacking his views, I'd be happy to have the cite. I can get anything throught the interlibrary loan here.

Michael

Haran

[quote]Michael
<strong>Hi Haran! Thanks and stick around here. Your opinions will be welcome.</strong>

Thanks. I enjoy debating. It find it helps to "knock off" the rough edges from my views.

Menahem? Now that would make things much more interesting, wouldn't it? Alas, no, I'm not he. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night!

I found your responses interesting and hope to address them perhaps this weekend. Apologies beforehand, but I have very little free time (unless I lose sleep like tonight).

One thing I'll leave you with... In my opinion, Eisenman's views of his peers seem overly paranoid (e.g. the non-existent DSS conspiracy). I find his complaints rather ironic in light of his own seeming underhandedness in respect to the publishing of the DSS photographs he mysteriously obtained. I believe the word "bootleg" was used by at least one reputable scholar. Several others speak of his questionable tactics in "uncovering" the DSS. His actions are what I assume you are pointing to in the section of text from the Orion website.

Haran

Vorkosigan

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Haran:


Menahem? Now that would make things much more interesting, wouldn't it? Alas, no, I'm not he. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night!

ROTFL.

Take your time. I'm not going anywhere!

Michael

Haran

Michael,

As I told you, I'm currently working my way through JtBoJ. The farther in I get, the more frustrated I am becoming by the tedious rhetoric and polemical wording. Regardless, I will attempt to finish it.

Today I have been re-reading my DSS books looking for references to Eisenman and poking around various websites. Unfortunately, between Eisenman's own book, its poor peer reviews, and his apparently lacking scholarly work, I am finding it hard to get up the desire address his lengthy book in any detail.

I will however provide some quotes from his peers and at least one who worked with him in publishing his pictures of the DSS. I will also do a little nit-picking in the Introduction and 1st Chapter of the book. I apologize in advance for the length of the post (and spelling errors as I type fast), but hopefully it will contain some information you have not seen before.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802846505/qid=1011477100/sr=1-17/ref=sr_1_11_17/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">J.A. Fitzmyer, S.J., The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins, 2000</a>
The footnote to this highlighted sentence mentions several works by both Barbara Thiering and Robert Eisenman.

Fitzmyer is an excellent DSS scholar who has been around much longer than Eisenman. His opinion of Eisenman's academic skills seems to be low. As a matter of fact, in March of 1989, Eisenman was denied access to photos of the Cave 4 scrolls of the Damascus Covenent by Strugnell because he "lacked training to interpret paleographic documents" (see <a href="http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/dss.html#Eisenman" target="_blank">Mahlon Smith's website</a>). Also, according to this site, Eisenman did not do his own transcription of the unauthorized photos he mysteriously obtained. Instead, he took them to U of Chicago scroll specialist Michael O. Wise. It beats me as to why Eisenman goes on at such length in his book about the problems of the translations by <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802844936/qid=1011479675/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_6_1/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">Martinez</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140278079/qid=1011479739/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">Vermes</a> who at least seem to have done their own work.

But lets look at some other excerpts...

Hershel Shanks, now editor of <a href="http://www.bib-arch.org/BSWB/bswb_BAR/indexBAR.html" target="_blank">Biblical Archaeological Review</a>, worked with Eisenman to get his unauthorized photos published and out into the hands of the public because he believed everyone should have access. Here are some quotes from his books:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679744452/qid=1011481317/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_11_3/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">Hershel Shanks, Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1993</a>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679780890/qid=1011481412/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">Hershel Shanks, The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1998</a>
Another scholar who's opinions might be of interest is Hartmut Stegemann.

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802861679/qid=1011481905/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_8_1/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus, 1998</a>
[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Haran ]</p>

Haran

I could go on and perhaps I will at some point if desired by anyone, for I have more quotes from Stegeman, some from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140278079/qid=1011483745/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">Vermes' The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English</a>, and from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802807364/qid=1011483790/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_11_1/102-2056326-2064923" target="_blank">VanderKam's The Dead Sea Scrolls Today</a>, and others, but for now I'll leave you to digest that and at least a couple of my own points below.

I think it is rather obvious that Eisenman writes polemically, but he also seems to misleadingly bend the facts and make questionable statements to bolster his case.

One such thing I found in the Introduction:
p. XXIII of the introduction reads "(1 Tim. 6:13, which is not considered authentic...".

This statement would lead a layperson (to whom the book is "particularly" written according to Eisenman on p.XXXIII) to believe that many? / most? consider this verse inauthentic.

The statement seems very misleading to me in that I cannot find a single source mentioning this as any sort of interpolation, from the actual critical editions of the NT with variations listed, to textual critics who are the tops in their field,and commentaries both conservative and liberal. Perhaps I have simply overlooked something, but it seems that Eisenman is simply trying to make his reader dismiss an important piece of text by exploiting their ignorance.

There is also the matter of Cephas and Cleophas, which Eisenman likes to say are the same. They are really not very close in Greek or Hebrew, so it would have taken a lot to slip that one by their readers. The whole business of similarly named people actually being one person gets carried to such an extreme in his book that you begin to wonder if he's really serious. If he's right about the name changes, then I am very surprised not to see anything about it in the ancient works such as Origen's defence and others. Surely someone would have known something was up and used it against the Christians of their time as they used other common arguments...

In the end, my own personal opinion is that Eisenman's work is an artful linking of facts that should not be linked.

Well, I've tired myself out at the moment, but I do hope that these posts have at least been somewhat interesting to you whether you continue to uphold his views or not.

Thanks,
Haran

[ January 19, 2002: Message edited by: Haran ]</p>

Vorkosigan

On 1 Tim 6:13: I'm not sure what Eisenman is referring to. Perhaps he means Timothy is not an authentic Pauline letter implying the passage is not authentic.

I really don't see an issue Eisenman's ethics vis-a-vis his conclusions; demonstrating that he is an unethical shit would not invalidate his conclusions. We can both play the smear game with Strugnell's denial of access to Eisenman; Strugnell was, as you know, an alcoholic, and suffered bouts of depression, and had to resign over his publicly anti-semitic remarks, and would up in a mental hospital. De Vaux, his predecessor, was an avowed racist who also made anti-semitic remarks in public, at least according to what I've read. How trustworthy is their work? Is Eisenman a bold scholar who helped break a monopoly on the DSS? Or a horrible maverick who is unethical?

The C-14 datings are rather widely cited as conclusively ending Eisenman's case. I find it interesting that this claim is made even in the face of numerous dates that fall in the first century, and in face of the fact that they are uncalibrated dates. Let's look at the numbers:

From <a href="http://www.physics.arizona.edu/physics/public/dead-sea.html" target="_blank">http://www.physics.arizona.edu/physics/public/dead-sea.html</a>
The UA team radiocarbon dated the famous Book of Isaiah scroll at between 335 BCE and 122 BCE. Paleogra- phers had dated this scroll at between 150 - 125 BCE. The team also analyzed the commentary on the Psalms (UA radiocarbon dated at between 22 CE and 78 CE); the Messi- anic Apocalypse that paleographers date at 100 BCE to 80 BCE (UA radiocarbon dated at between 35 BCE and 59 CE); the Exodus scroll of the Bible written in ancient Hebrew script that paleographers date at between 100 BCE and 25 BCE (UA radiocarbon tests date it between 159 BCE and 16 CE); and an inscribed round leather patch with holes that was attached to the Exodus scroll. Paleographers date the patch between 50 BCE and 50 CE (UA radiocarbon dated the patch at from 98 BCE to 13 CE). Inscribed patches of this sort have been described in ancient Jewish writings, Tov said.

Well, the actual carbon dates listed here for at least some documents fall in the first century either in their entirety, or at the end of their range. How does this invalidate Eisenman? What I see is a claim made that the dates invalidate Eisenman, but in fact they show that some of the documents -- and that's all he says, "some" -- are young enough to fit his scheme.

A page here lists some of the other results for the U of Arizona, a number of which were late. <a href="http://www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/5210/c-14.htm" target="_blank">See here</a>. The author was so disturbed by the U of A dates he says we should disregard them.

It seems that the actual C-14 datings do not invalidate Eisenman.

However, internal evidence of the scrolls themselves might. More on that in a moment.

Michael