Duvduv

Why is it that none of the motifs and themes found in the scrolls on behalf of the Sons of Light and Darkness, and the Kittim et al have any expression in anything known about the relatively small groups of the Zealots who actually did fight the Romans??
Were the writers of the Scrolls, including the War Scroll etc. merely hypothesizing something that only had to do with fighting the Romans as an abstraction, and did the groups known as the Zealots etc. even know anything about the authors of such scrolls??

J-D

Nope.

aa5874

I am not arguing that the text wrote itself.

I am arguing against what you wrote.

I am arguing that the text was anonymous and that the anonymity was a significant factor in believing the text was fulfilled prophecy and composed before the Fall of the Temple.

The same thing happens even today. People believe Bible stories of Jesus were composed Before c 70 CE because no one has admitted they invented stories of Jesus in the 2nd century.

Essentially, if the 2nd century author of the anonymous text was known then it would have been rejected as fiction.

J-D

None of the statements you are posting are arguments against any statement I wrote.

Davka

OK, I admit it: it was me. I started Christianity.

Sorry about that.

gurugeorge

What started Christianity was a short period of Jewish optimism following the death of Caligula after his threatened erection of his image in the Temple. This led some Messianists to review their concept of the Messiah - maybe he'd already been and won a spiritual victory, but in secret, and this Caligula business was the first signs of the Romans getting a bloody nose as the fruits of that victory.

This resulted in a revision of the very concept of the Messiah - instead of one to come, one's who's been, but in obscurity, so we didn't know, but neither did the Romans, who were waiting for some putative military leader. The victory was therefore in some sense spiritual, a sort of alignment or clicking into place in the heavens, presaging an eventual physical victory of the Jews in a second coming.

In a sense, the founding document of Christianity is the Apocalypse of John - or rather the Jewish original it's based on, which referred to the Caligula events ("the abomination of desolation" being Caligula's image).

Duvduv

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher_of_Righteousness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wicked_Priest

There are traditional interpretations of who these individuals refer to - mainly in the 1st century BCE - but of course there is no evidence at all even from ancient Jewish sources that there was this kind of dichotomy between these two individuals - even in reference to Alexander Jannaeus versus Shimon ben Shetach, the leader of the Sanhedrin.

The question can arise whether the identification of those two individuals can even be taken literally at all, not unlike expressions such as Dorshei Chalakot as a pun on Dorshei Halachot, the Kittim, and so on. The question is whether they can be taken metaphorically or represent something to do with the ultimate future.

aa5874

Where are your supporting sources? What you describe is pure speculation. There is no evidence at all that Jews worshiped a crucified man as a God and claimed that his death and resurrection was for the Remission of sins for all mankind.

The Gospels are fundamentally non-historical accounts and the teaching of the Jesus cult is blasphemy.

The writings of Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the younger, the Dead Sea Scrolls show nothing of any character called Jesus who was worshiped as a God by Jews.

It was in the late 2nd century that we see non-apologetic acknowledgements and arguments against the Jesus story and also Apologetic sources arguing about the NATURE of Jesus around the mid 2nd century.

The writings of Aristides, Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, Theophilus of Antioch, Athenagoras of Athens, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Lucian, and Celsus show that the Jesus story and teaching was in its early development in the mid-late 2nd century.

Up to the 3rd century the Jews did not even claim the Messiah had already come because they believed that Elijah must also appear before the advent of the Christ.

gurugeorge

My supporting sources are mainly Paul, Hebrews and the Apocalypse, plus the history of that time; and we're not going to get anywhere on Paul, you know my position and I know yours.

Those are all later developments.

J-D

You think that's good enough? You think you can just say 'Sorry' and that fixes everything?