Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

> Dear Dave,
> 
> Would you be so kind as to tell me which psalms scroll has ps110? I have
> looked through all the various scrolls whose contents are listed in
> Fitzmyer's DSS Publications and Tools and have not found mention of it.

Once again you misrepresent me.  I never said that any of the 
currently-published Psalms scrolls had 110.  

[snip]
> >Let me expand on that: there's a gap in the material 
> >between chapters 8 and 12 (which is to say nothing survives of 
> >chapters 9, 10 and 11); the Genesis Apocryphon stops at 15:4 and 
> 
> The Genesis Apocryphon is not Genesis, Dave. So it's nice that they are
> related, but they are also different beasts. Read my lips, Dave: you cannot
> assume anything about Genesis from GenAp.

I can see you haven't read it in Aramaic.  It has many portions of 
Genesis in a fairly accurate translation of the Hebrew text as we 
have come to know it.  I didn't say the Genesis Apocryphon was 
Genesis; but it does include many quotes from Genesis, including 
chapter 14.

[snip]
> That's called text criticism, Dave. As you said:

Since when is hanging one's hat on a single phrase anything 
resembling textual criticism?  TC has to do with comparing 
manuscripts and determining readings.  This is hilarious.

> >[..] "It's there and it's staring me in the face, but I don't want to deal 
> >with it."
> 
> You have this bad habit of not dealing with the text as it is, but trying
> to make it something else to fit your presuppositions. The cave 11 psalms
> scroll is anomalous because it doesn't fit your predefined ideas of how a
> psalms scroll should be structured. GenAp must be based on Genesis.
> Convenient, very convenient.

*yawn*  Yeah, I'm the one not dealing with the text as it is, as 
opposed to you,  who want to rewrite the biblical text based on one 
manuscript that departs in numerous particulars from every other.  
This is getting tiresome.

>Let me ask:
> 1) is the earliest form of the Melchizedek episode that of the
>    Genesis Apocryphon?

No.

) is the use of the means to refer to God in GenAp as "God Most
>    High" a normal means?
) is it a normal means in Genesis?
> 4) is it true that in a space of only five verses in Genesis the
>    term is used four times and found nowhere else in the book?

Yes.  So what?  It focuses on a particular character.  The rest of 
the book doesn't.

) is the term found in other books commonly thought of as older?

What Peter said.

) is Melchizedek speculation evidenced anywhere prior to the era
>    of the Qumran documents (ie late or post biblical)?

And what exactly do we have in the order of speculation of any kind 
prior to the era of the Qumran documents?  Now who's offering red 
herrings?

) is it true that the Hasmonean rulers who flourished around that
>    time were known as the "priests of the Most High God", the
>    epithet found in Genesis only in the Melchizedek episode?

Couldn't tell you and don't care.  Again, what Peter said.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.
                                   Psalm 86:11