Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jack Kilmon <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

Ian Hutchesson wrote:

> At 08.58 21/05/99 -0500, Jack wrote:
> >I'm not helping my own argument for an Aramaic common language for
> >1st century Palestine with this question...but bolstering the opposite view
> >is sometimes the best way to come to terms.  I think it was Father
> >Murphy-O'Connor (sorry, I'm not at home in the comfort of my library)
> >who proposed that the Essenes essentially packed up their toothbrushes
> >and moved back to Judea from Syria following the victorious Maccabaean
> >Revolt.  If this is true, it could explain the Aramaic texts, including 
> >Job.
>
> There seems of course as much evidence for the Murphy-O'Connor theory as
> there is for the Essene Hypothesis: none!

Although I share some of your concerns and cautions over a blanket
acceptance of the Qumran/Essenes origins of the DSS, I do not reject
is as emphatically as you since  we do not have any evidence for an
alternate hypothesis.  The Damascus Document speaks of those who
retreated from Judea to the Land of Damascus.  It's not really
unreasonable for them to have "unretreated" when the time was right.

I would examine more closely the assumption that ALL of the texts
in the caves were from one group.  It's not unreasonable to think
that the Essenes were not the only people aware of these caves nor
that others would also want to hide their precious scrolls or that
these caves had been known by all groups to have been used
for that purpose in the past.

It is more likely, IMO, that these scrolls were an accumulation over
time by several groups *including* our white robed yahad...and
if not, it is also not reasonable, IMO, to think that a library of
any ONE group would only contain texts pertinent to that group.
Hell, I have books by Thiering and Von Daniken on the lower
shelves of my library.

To further complicate the opinion that a "profile" of a single
group can be determined by this collection is that the texts
would be expected to show changes in attitudes and "doctrine"
over time.

That is why I did not want to filter this proposition through the
"anti-Essene hypothesis hypothesis" and am interested in whether
the Aramaic of the DSS texts contains indicators of being
non-Palestinian and could have come from Syria.

Jack

--
______________________________________________

taybutheh d'maran yeshua masheecha am kulkon

Jack Kilmon
jkilmon AT historian.net

http://www.historian.net