What's the age of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

[Cognoscenti324]

In what ways do the Jews deceive with erroneous translations? I would say that even with a English translation you can see half of the supposed proof texts from the "Old Testament" proving Jesus a Messiah will fall apart once you see the correct context.

I suspect there is a lot of covering up and bad translating of Genesis 1 for instance, whether by Jews of Christians, to cover up the erroneous cosmology.

The very first verse of Gen has a coverup - falsely translating 'the gods' into 'god'. Jews have their own apologetics, and it was 'explained' to me that the word 'Elohim' conveniently isn't JUST a plural that means 'the gods' - it is also used as 'the Majestic plural' to describe god as singular.

Unfortunately, I have never found a single example anywhere for confirmation of this 'majestic plural' concept - except as a relatively modern day excuse, which seems especially bizarre as the use of elohim to describe a pantheon is more than parsimonious with the ancient hebrews being a polytheistic people - something that the same jewish scholars that rely on this apologetic readily admit.

 

[Sheshbazzar]

Evidently unfamiliar with the actual Hebrew language texts. Would you prefer to further study the Hebrew language and various Scriptural usages of this term elohim on your own,
...or have someone else (elohim) to teach you?

 

[Minimalist]

Of course we have no evidence that "Hebrew" was the original language. That honor falls to Greek.

 

[Sheshbazzar]

Seriously? You think that "Greek" was the original language that the text of -Genesis 1:1- was first composed in?

errr ...I expect that's gonna be a hard sale to most scholars.

 

[Kharakov]

Well, it is the language of the original Greek translation.

 

[Cognoscenti324]

Evidently unfamiliar with the actual Hebrew language texts. Would you prefer to further study the Hebrew language and various Scriptural usages of this term elohim on your own,
...or have someone else (elohim) to teach you?

I very much appreciate your snark. It is ever so much better than a cogent response.

 

[Minimalist]

Seriously? You think that "Greek" was the original language that the text of -Genesis 1:1- was first composed in?

errr ...I expect that's gonna be a hard sale to most scholars.

When you can produce evidence...and by evidence I don't mean trotting out the bible to testify about itself....that there was an earlier written version than the Greek than you are most certainly free to present it. I can hardly wait. Discounting all the heavenly horseshit that bible thumpers trot out about their book the most likely progression of this stuff seems to be that it was an oral tale(s) in Semitic languages until the literate Greeks came along and wrote it down.

 

[Bronzeage]

Seriously? You think that "Greek" was the original language that the text of -Genesis 1:1- was first composed in?

errr ...I expect that's gonna be a hard sale to most scholars.

When you can produce evidence...and by evidence I don't mean trotting out the bible to testify about itself....that there was an earlier written version than the Greek than you are most certainly free to present it. I can hardly wait. Discounting all the heavenly horseshit that bible thumpers trot out about their book the most likely progression of this stuff seems to be that it was an oral tale(s) in Semitic languages until the literate Greeks came along and wrote it down.

This conjures an image of an itinerant, but literate Greek, who wandered into ancient Israel and was so fascinated by the local culture, he learned the language and recorded all their oral tales, all the way down to the bit about not eating fish which do not have scales, or animals with cloven hooves. Then, when the Israelites devised a language of their own, they sat down and translated it all back into Hebrew and Aramaic.

If you have scholarly evidence of this happening, I'd like to see it.

 

[Minimalist]

Ptolemy I built the library of Alexandria. The earliest written fragments of the septuagint appear shortly after. Do your own math on that one.

Meanwhile, all that is necessary is to produce one scroll which pre-dates the septuagint and the argument vanishes.

I'll wait.

But not too long. I'm getting old.

 

[Bronzeage]

Ptolemy I built the library of Alexandria. The earliest written fragments of the septuagint appear shortly after. Do your own math on that one.

Meanwhile, all that is necessary is to produce one scroll which pre-dates the septuagint and the argument vanishes.

I'll wait.

But not too long. I'm getting old.

Cicero's dilemma. Demand what you know can't be produced and ignore other evidence. If we had Deuteronomy translated and written down by Ptolemy, himself, it still would not prove your contention, or make it more plausible.

 

[Minimalist]

WHERE IS THIS OTHER EVIDENCE?


Oh wait....you're going to use the fucking bible to prove itself, aren't you?

 

[gurugeorge]

Isn't there some guy who thinks that the Dead Sea Scrolls weren't the library of a particular sect (as has been the received popular opinion for some time), but rather a repository where books were left for safekeeping by a variety of different types of people fleeing some sort of imminent sacking of a nearby city?

I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone recognizes this description and could give me the name of the guy - or even bloviate freely about the theory

 

[Sheshbazzar]

WHERE IS THIS OTHER EVIDENCE?


Oh wait....you're going to use the fucking bible to prove itself, aren't you?

No. There is plenty of archaeological evidence for the existence of the ancient and pre-Hellenic Hebrew text of the Torah.

And no, I don't use the Bible to prove the Bible. As an Atheist, I don't believe the Bible.

But that does not extend to believing that the Hebrews and Hebrew religion, _along with a certain amount of their written Torah (in HEBREW) did not exist from a very early date.

Where is this other evidence?

Have you looked into the field of Archaeology?

Do you reject all of the ancient Semitic and Hebrew inscriptions that appear on ostraca, stone, and incised upon ancient silver and gold amulets, _some containing exacting, virtually to the letter quotations of well known Hebrew Torah texts_ and dated by professional archaeologists to have been inscribed as far back as 1000 BCE?
You may Google 'Ancient Biblical inscriptions' for some examples.

You are certainly at liberty to raise objections and denials, but in return we would be remiss not to request to be informed of your outstanding personal scholastic qualifications, professional credentials, and field experience as a practicing and peer accepted professional Archaeologist, upon which you are qualified to judge the ages and to authoritatively pronounce upon the age or authenticity of any of these Archaeological finds which are displayed in major museums and Universities in many parts of the world.

 

[Bronzeage]

WHERE IS THIS OTHER EVIDENCE?


Oh wait....you're going to use the fucking bible to prove itself, aren't you?

The fucking bible is called the Kama Sutra and I've read it(English translation by Sir Richard Burton). I don't recall any reference to either Hebrew or Greek writings.

 

[Minimalist]

Isn't there some guy who thinks that the Dead Sea Scrolls weren't the library of a particular sect (as has been the received popular opinion for some time), but rather a repository where books were left for safekeeping by a variety of different types of people fleeing some sort of imminent sacking of a nearby city?

I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone recognizes this description and could give me the name of the guy - or even bloviate freely about the theory

I think you are referring to Norman Golb.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385500.Who_Wrote_The_Dead_Sea_Scrolls_

Golb has recently been joined by Israeli scholar Rachel Elior, and American Robert Cargill among others in suggesting that these documents - remember books were incredibly valuable at this time as each had to be hand-written - were stored there in the period between 67-68 AD when the Roman armies were gathering for the assault on the city. After the ease with which Vespasian crushed the northern rebel army there could have been little doubt how the rest of the campaign was going to go.

Israeli archaeologists Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg did extensive work at Qumran and concluded that it was not any sort of monastery but a pottery factory in its last incarnation. It was overrun by the 10th legion under command of Marcus Ulpius Traianus (father of the later emperor) in 68. Yuval Peleg was recently killed in during a cave-in at at excavation. A great loss.

 

[Minimalist]

Do you reject all of the ancient Semitic and Hebrew inscriptions that appear on ostraca, stone, and incised upon ancient silver and gold amulets, _some containing exacting, virtually to the letter quotations of well known Hebrew Torah texts_ and dated by professional archaeologists to have been inscribed as far back as 1000 BCE?

I would much rather that YOU provide such citations. I'd look myself but I've already done so and the closest thing to what you are saying is the Silver Scroll which contains two versions of a somewhat generic prayer which later shows up in the Book of Numbers in a 3d variant.

 

[Sheshbazzar]

Do you reject all of the ancient Semitic and Hebrew inscriptions that appear on ostraca, stone, and incised upon ancient silver and gold amulets, _some containing exacting, virtually to the letter quotations of well known Hebrew Torah texts_ and dated by professional archaeologists to have been inscribed as far back as 1000 BCE?

I would much rather that YOU provide such citations. I'd look myself but I've already done so and the closest thing to what you are saying is the Silver Scroll which contains two versions of a somewhat generic prayer which later shows up in the Book of Numbers in a 3d variant.

You will only find what you are willing to find.

Again.

You are certainly at liberty to raise objections and denials, but in return we would be remiss not to request to be informed of your outstanding personal scholastic qualifications, professional credentials, and field experience as a practicing and peer accepted professional Archaeologist, upon which you are qualified to judge the ages and to authoritatively pronounce upon the age or authenticity of any of these Archaeological finds.

 

[gurugeorge]

Isn't there some guy who thinks that the Dead Sea Scrolls weren't the library of a particular sect (as has been the received popular opinion for some time), but rather a repository where books were left for safekeeping by a variety of different types of people fleeing some sort of imminent sacking of a nearby city?

I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone recognizes this description and could give me the name of the guy - or even bloviate freely about the theory

I think you are referring to Norman Golb.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385500.Who_Wrote_The_Dead_Sea_Scrolls_

Golb has recently been joined by Israeli scholar Rachel Elior, and American Robert Cargill among others in suggesting that these documents - remember books were incredibly valuable at this time as each had to be hand-written - were stored there in the period between 67-68 AD when the Roman armies were gathering for the assault on the city. After the ease with which Vespasian crushed the northern rebel army there could have been little doubt how the rest of the campaign was going to go.

Israeli archaeologists Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg did extensive work at Qumran and concluded that it was not any sort of monastery but a pottery factory in its last incarnation. It was overrun by the 10th legion under command of Marcus Ulpius Traianus (father of the later emperor) in 68. Yuval Peleg was recently killed in during a cave-in at at excavation. A great loss.

Thanks minimalist, that's the one I was thinking of. So essentially this means that it would be a mistake to try and find any kind of unified doctrine shared by all the religious texts, that it's more likely they're a grab-bag of Jewish texts that were thought important enough to preserve, from various periods prior to then?

 

[Minimalist]

"You will only find what you are willing to find."


If by that you mean that I am not going to listen to every asshole who thinks he found a rock that moses pissed on, you are right.

People with a predisposition to believe this biblical nonsense are always finding Noah's Ark or something. Seems to happen every two years or so.

 

[Underseer]

I would much rather that YOU provide such citations. I'd look myself but I've already done so and the closest thing to what you are saying is the Silver Scroll which contains two versions of a somewhat generic prayer which later shows up in the Book of Numbers in a 3d variant.

You will only find what you are willing to find.
[...]

That is simply not true.

If you understand the evidence for a round Earth, then no matter how badly you want to believe the world is flat you won't be able to.

If you understand the evidence for heliocentrism, then no matter how much you want to believe that the Sun orbits the Earth, you won't be able to.

If you understand the evidence for the Germ Theory of Disease, then no matter how much you want to believe that diseases are communicated by magical invisible spirits, you won't be able to.

Once you understand how diffraction in substances of different optical densities (such as prisms) diffract light into different colors, then you won't be able to believe that rainbows are magically created by the Abrahamic god as part of his promise not to commit mass murder again. No matter how badly you want to believe in a magical explanation over naturalistic explanations for rainbows, you won't be able to once you understand optics and the relevant evidence.

If you understand the evidence for modern genetics, then you won't be able to believe the Bible when it tells you that if you show stripes to animals while they mate, they will produce offspring with stripes. No matter how badly you want to believe that passage in the Bible, you won't be able to once you understand genetics and the evidence for genetics.

And on and on it goes. The only time you can choose what to believe in is when you do not actually care if the things you believe are true.