Archaeologica.org

Ish - You are misreading me. I agree that the biblical author used older stories. He/they used what people already believed for political purposes. What I'm saying though is that the connections you are finding between the various cults in the region are because they were seeded by the Persians duri...

It reads to me as pure Zoroastrian eschatology, not Sadducees versus Pharisees but good versus evil or in more clear terms, spiritual versus material, truth versus the lie. This is why I've begun to see this as possibly a set rough drafts for the OT itself. Its the right era, this is around the time...

Wouldn't it be funny if the found the silver scroll, dug up all the locations where the treasure is supposed to be and found ancient IOU's.

True, I'm sure they would have grabbed anything really valuable

The other factor is at least three of the scrolls are not the sort you'd expect to find in the Jewish temple. The Temple Scroll is about the construction of a temple, but not the first one of Solomon, or the Second. Scholars say it reads like the temple that should have been built, not the one that...

Why bury when you can burn.

On top of that, there was the mass suicide at Masada, where hundreds of Zealots killed themselves. This from a Psychoanalytic History of the Jews by Avner Falk. http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a91/gillharley/Zealotrevolt.jpg National suicide is a very strong term, if it's referring to something th...

Ishtar wrote:Is his the only eye witness account to that, Seeker?

That I know of other than the bible.

Min, you say that I am ignoring the political reality of open warfare in Judaea at the time. But I'm not. You and Seeker have been referring to what Seeker calls Roman smackdowns. I've been thinking more about the internecine warfare that was going on among the Jews before Titus walked in. Josephus...

Misogyny was a general thing back then. They had a notion (I'll find a reference) that men were imperfect copies of spirits and that women were imperfect copies of men. That's why a lot of the mystery women excluded men. If I can find it I actually have a quote of one of the early Christians promisi...

while the Pharisees tended to rely on a deeper understanding they called the 'Oral Torah' which prevented blinding stupidity (sorry, couldn't resist). Who are you calling 'stupid! :evil: Oh no... sorry. I thought I was talking to Min. :lol: Hey, I don't care if you want to take shots at Min but don...

It took some doing but a search for Gaster and "Justin Martyr" and Dead Sea Scrolls turned up this link to Acharya S and The Christ Conspiracy....BTW, this link is to an online version of the book which, unfortunately cannot be cut and pasted but still may be of some value for research. h...

I buy the Zedek=Sadducee tie, it makes sense. I just think Lockhart is buying into the NT painting of the Sadducees as pious when the reality is quite different. Maybe that stems from the Zadokite purity laws, which were much more rigorous than the Pharisees had? It's not quite the same as piety, b...

This is why you have to be careful of older sources who over relied on the biblical narrative. The Sadducees only emerged during Maccabean times and were never all that concerned with tradition. They were more of a political party. Where the Nazerenes were more concerned with piety and the rejectio...

If Justin Martyr knew about Qumran then they couldn't have been hidden. I'll have to look up the Justin Martyr reference, if true then your argument looks pretty good. Sorry that's a misunderstanding ... maybe I wasn't clear enough. Writings of Justin Martyr who lived in the first half of the first...