Philo's guide to decoding the Hebrew Bible

[Minimalist]

Please don't call me 'dense', Min. There is no need to be insulting just because we disagree. I'm not Arch.

If you're going to dish it out, Ish, you have to be ready to take it, too.

[Ishtar]

Who said anything about a military attack?

Titus gathered 4 legions, and equal number of auxiliaries and some allied troops after his father was made emperor, Ish. They were not there for the Annual Legionary Picnic. The Nag Hamadi texts were buried by a group, or perhaps a single member of a group, who did have a reasonable expectation of an attack by the religious powers-that-be (there were plenty of examples of book-burning and persecution of non-literalist christians for them to note) it seems that someone sitting in Ein Gedi and thinking that Titus was coming for them is a bit nutty, to say the least.

Still insulting me, Min? And now over something I haven't said? What's up?

I made it crystal clear that I didn't think the documents were necessarily hidden as a result of any military intervention. That they could have been hidden because they were considered to be heretical writings by members of their own race, - which they would be if they were Zadokite, which we know that some were. This is the same reason that the Nag Hammadi documents were hidden. The Temple Scroll is critical of the Pharisees regime in Jerusalem, so hardly something a conscientious temple librarian would be worried about conserving.

So to answer your question, I raised the issue of a military attack and one suspects it was the main topic of conversation on the streets of Jerusalem in 70 AD. This was not going to be Pearl Harbor. The Romans weren't hiding their intentions, in fact, they were advertising them. The general consensus is that someone hid the scrolls in those caves. One hides something to protect it from danger. In 70 AD it wasn't hard to see where that danger was coming from.

Yes in 70AD - but we don't know when these documents were buried.

As Robert Eisenman points out: "Most scholars agree that the scrolls were deposited in the cave in or around 68 CE, but often mistake this date...for the terminus ad quem for the deposit of the scrolls in the caves/cessation of Jewish habitation at the site, when it cannot be considered anything but the terminus a quo for both of these, i.e., not the latest but the earliest possible date for such a deposit and/or Jewish abandonment of the site. The actual terminus ad quem for both of these events, however difficult it may be to accept at first, is 136 CE." (my bolding).

As I mentioned earlier, Justin Martyr's writings were found among them.

[Ishtar]

Please don't call me 'dense', Min. There is no need to be insulting just because we disagree. I'm not Arch.

If you're going to dish it out, Ish, you have to be ready to take it, too.

But I'm not dishing anything out ... we've been having a nice discussion here for a while.

So you're the only one with a problem.

What's going on?

[seeker]

Well, yes, but remember the scrolls containing these stories and themes that were very Christian-like were actually hidden - and so that's maybe why. They were heretic writings that were anathema to the Pharisees, and thus the hiding of them would have had nothing to do with any Roman smackdowns!

In fact, the Temple Scroll is very critical of the status quo in Jerusalem.

I have made this next point before, but will do so again in this context, just to remind ourselves.

Theodore Gaster again:

“No less interesting ... are the many parallels which these texts afford with the organisation of the primitive Christian church. The community calls itself by the same name (‘edah) as was used by the early Christians of Palestine to designate its legislative assembly as was used by that community to denote the council of the Church. There are twelve ‘men of holiness’ who act as general guides of the community – a remarkable correspondence with the Twelve Apostles. These men have three superiors, answering to the designation of John, Peter and James as the three pillars of the church.”

Gaster continues that the Damascus Document says, of the council:

“When these exist in Israel, these are the provisions whereby they are to be kept apart from any consort with forward men, to the end that they may indeed ‘go into the wilderness to prepare the way”, i.e. do what the Scripture enjoins when it says, “Prepare in the wilderness the way .... make straight in the desert a highway for our God [Isaiah 40:3]

As Gaster says, the same quotation is used by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:3; John 1:23).

Gaster also points out that the Manual of Discipline and Damascus Document are similar to the Christian texts called the Didache, the Didascalia Apostolorum and the Apostolic Constitutions of the early Church organisation.

One telling point – among the Dead Sea Scrolls were found the Christian Epistle of Barnabas and writings from Justin Martyr. Justin Martyr is dated to 100 – 165 CE. So they must have continued to use the Qumran caves as a hiding place for 'heretic' scrolls up to at least the mid-first century, or even later.

Being as Christianity was loosely based on Judaism you'd expect them to adopt Jewish conventions.

The Sadducees didn't fear the Pharisees, remember the Pharisees had no real power. The Sadducees probably owned the fort and simply could have denied access to any group, including the Pharisees. if these documents were produced by the Sadduceees they were only hidden because of a third party (like the Roman army) powerful enough to take on the hasmoneans and who had an interest in taking out the Sadducees (the Romans).

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.

[Minimalist]

Hmmm, "we have reason to believe..". Sounds like it's not definite then. Whereas we know the Essenes definitely had many sacred books because Josephus tells us so.

Perhaps you should read Davies "In Search of Ancient Israel?" He gives a lengthy explanation of the uses of literacy within a temple setting. It was repeated elsewhere in the M/E including Babylon where, coincidentally, the "Jews" were hanging out before Cyrus sent them "back."

Since Herod's Temple was destroyed a lot of assumptions about it are conjecture. It wasn't only burned to the ground it was later flattened, paved over, and buried in Hadrian's urban renewal project called Aelia Capitolina. But Davies makes a case for scribal activity centered on the temple elsewhere in the M/E and there is no reason to assume that Jerusalem would have been any different.

Again, the Essenes "could" have planted them in the Qumran caves but the results of Magen and Peleg's study seems to suggest that the pottery factory post-dates the fort and it is questionable if there ever was a community of "monks" living on the site. From there speculation has been entered that the Essenes from Ein Gedi may have planted the trove in the caves and again, it gets a "could have" but it seems like a major undertaking when there had to be closer places.

Given that books were expensive and valuable at the time the idea that anyone would have looked to hide them is reasonable. But if a small group was going to flee why not just take their books with them? They would have loaded up their other belongings on the carts, why not the scrolls? It just seems to me that the idea of stashing them in the caves was to get them out of harm's way for later retrieval. And the retrievers did not survive the attack.

[Ishtar]

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 century CE were found in the caves at Qumran - no scrolls were found in the fort.

So this means the caves were still being used as a hiding place in the mid first century, at least.

Here's where my thinking is coming from with the Sadducees in this respect. It is taking up the story when the kingdom split in two.

Douglas Lockhart in Jesus the Heretic

...the early “Penitents of Israel”, composed of the purist Sadduccees from the Temple in Jerusalem, left Judea and made their headquarters in the land of Damascus. Many sectaries founded settlements in the northern districts, and Elect of Israel, of the latter days, interacted with like-minded spirits among the groups devoted to the old Nazarite way of life....

The Israelite religion of northern Palestine. so dear to the Nazerenes. seems to have absorbed much of the worship of the Syrians and Phoenicians. This older faith carried folklore and ideas and usages foreign to its southern neighbour, and the pre-Christian Nazerenes of the north are shown by Epiphanius to have had an affinity with the gnostically-minded Samaritans, and the Samaritans with the Essenes.

Forget the bit about the Essenes .. it's too confusing and not worth getting hung up over. But he seems fairly certain about this exodus of Sadducees into northern Israel at that time.

[Minimalist]

Please don't call me 'dense', Min. There is no need to be insulting just because we disagree. I'm not Arch.

If you're going to dish it out, Ish, you have to be ready to take it, too.

But I'm not dishing anything out ... we've been having a nice discussion here for a while.

So you're the only one with a problem.

What's going on?

Check your e-mail.

[seeker]

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 century CE were found in the caves at Qumran - no scrolls were found in the fort.

So this means the caves were still being used as a hiding place in the mid first century, at least.

Yeah, I caught my error and was editing my post when you posted. I've been looking for anything that suggests that Justin Martyrs writings were found at Qumran and can't find one reference. Are you sure of this?

Here's where my thinking is coming from with the Sadducees in this respect. It is taking up the story when the kingdom split in two.

Douglas Lockhart in Jesus the Heretic

...the early “Penitents of Israel”, composed of the purist Sadduccees from the Temple in Jerusalem, left Judea and made their headquarters in the land of Damascus. Many sectaries founded settlements in the northern districts, and Elect of Israel, of the latter days, interacted with like-minded spirits among the groups devoted to the old Nazarite way of life....

The Israelite religion of northern Palestine. so dear to the Nazerenes. seems to have absorbed much of the worship of the Syrians and Phoenicians. This older faith carried folklore and ideas and usages foreign to its southern neighbour, and the pre-Christian Nazerenes of the north are shown by Epiphanius to have had an affinity with the gnostically-minded Samaritans, and the Samaritans with the Essenes.

Forget the bit about the Essenes .. it's too confusing and not worth getting hung up over. But he seems fairly certain about this exodus of Sadducees into northern Israel at that time.

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 rejection of material wealth the Sadducees were all about wealth and political power. the Sadducees could not be described as purists.

[Minimalist]

Still insulting me, Min? And now over something I haven't said? What's up?

I made it crystal clear that I didn't think the documents were necessarily hidden as a result of any military intervention.

I'm at a loss to see where you can find an "insult" in that reply.


I realize you are opposing the idea of the war having anything to do with this but, that is like ignoring an 800lb gorilla in the room. The whole area was being ground up by the Great Revolt.

[Minimalist]

Writings of Justin Martyr who lived in the first half of the first century CE were found in the caves at Qumran - no scrolls were found in the fort.

I've done a quick search and can find no reference to Justin Martyr pre 136 AD being found at Qumran. Do you have a link?

Justin was born c 100 and according to his own story only converted to xtianity around the age of 30. His First Apology is directed to the emperor, Antoninus Pius who ruled after Hadrian from 138 to 161.

[Ishtar]

Yeah, I caught my error and was editing my post when you posted. I've been looking for anything that suggests that Justin Martyrs writings were found at Qumran and can't find one reference. Are you sure of this?

It's Theodore Gaster again, in his book The Dead Sea Scriptures. I'll see if I can find more on it.

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 rejection of material wealth the Sadducees were all about wealth and political power. the Sadducees could not be described as purists.

I'm just wondering why Douglas Lockhart would have got that so wrong, and what would have changed since he wrote it to make it wrong.

I do also think the similarity in the names must mean something - that Zedek was also known as Tzedek and the Hebrew name for Sadducees was Tzedukim?

But in any case, even if we decouple the Sadducees from the Zadokites, which I'm quite prepared to do, we still have an interesting story in the Damascus Document in terms of Proto-Christianity, or at least what looks like one source of what became Christian ideas, and this is what is interesting me the most.

[seeker]

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 rejection of material wealth the Sadducees were all about wealth and political power. the Sadducees could not be described as purists.

I'm just wondering why Douglas Lockhart would have got that so wrong, and what would have changed since he wrote it to make it wrong.

I do also think the similarity in the names must mean something - that Zedek was also known as Tzedek and the Hebrew name for Sadducees was Tzedukim?

But in any case, even if we decouple the Sadducees from the Zadokites, which I'm quite prepared to do, we still have an interesting story in the Damascus Document in terms of Proto-Christianity, or at least what looks like one source of what became Christian ideas, and this is what is interesting me the most.

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.

[Ishtar]

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, but it could be compared?

[seeker]

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, but it could be compared?

The Sadducees were defined by their notion that they didn't have to do anything that wasn't in the Torah. Lockhart is probably confusing the Sadducee tendency to literalism for piety. The Sadducees were known for literal readings of things like an 'eye for an eye' while the Pharisees tended to rely on a deeper understanding they called the 'Oral Torah' which prevented blinding stupidity (sorry, couldn't resist).

[Minimalist]

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.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3261220/Achar ... Conspiracy


Anyway, on Page 315 of my print edition it states:

"The Book of Enoch was found at the Dead Sea, as were scrolls containing quotations identical to one in the Epistle of Barnabas and one in the works of Justin Martyr, thus proving the connection between the Christians and the Zadokites." The footnote accompanying this citation is to Baigent and Leigh and a 1991 book called "The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception."

I suppose one could look at that quickly and read it as saying that Justin's works were found at Qumran?